INTRODUCTION
The Appendix contains the following:
- A collection of materials concerning the Yezidi belief and practice.
- A poem in praise of Šeiḫ ‘Adî.
- The principal prayer of the Yezidis, in the Kurdish language.
- A description of the Yezidi sacerdotal system.
- A petition to the Ottoman government to exempt the sect from military service, presented in the year 1872 A. D.
An analysis of the texts shows that the material is taken from different sources: part of it is clearly derived from the religious books of the sect; another part from a description of the beliefs and customs of the sect given by a member of it to an outsider; a third, partly from observations by an outsider, partly from stories about Yezidis current among their Christian neighbors. Unfortunately the compiler does not specify whence each particular part of his information is obtained. On closer examination it is evident that part, at least, of the Arabic in hand is a translation from Syriac.
The Yezidis, frequently called “Devil-Worshippers,” are a small and obscure religious sect, numbering about 200,000.[1] They are scattered over a belt of territory three hundred miles wide, extending in length from the neighborhood of Aleppo in northern Syria to the Caucasus in southern Russia. The mass of
- ↑ The exact number of the Yezidis is unknown See also Société de Géographie de l’Est, Bulletin, 1903, p. 284; Al Maŝriḳ, II, 834.
