INTRODUCTION
them, however, are to be found in the mountains of northern and central Kurdistan and among the Sinjar Hills of Northern Mesopotamia.
By reason of their mysterious religion, the Devil-Worshipers have been an object of interest and investigation for several generations. Our chief first-hand sources of information in regard to the manners, customs, and practices of these people are: Sir Henry Layard, Nineveh and its Remains (1849), Nineveh and Babylon (1853); G. P. Badger, The Nestorians and their Rituals (1852); my honored teacher, Rev. A. N. Andrus, veteran missionary of the A. B. C. F. M., resident in Mardin, Mesopotamia, “The Yezidis,” in the Encyclopaedia of Missions; P. Anastase, “The Yezidis,” in the Arabic periodical, Al-Mašrik, Vol. II (1899); Professor A. V. Williams Jackson, of Columbia University, Persia Past and Present (1906); “The Yezidis,” in the International Encyclopaedia, s. v.; also in JAOS, XXV, 178; M. N. Siouffi, in the Journal Asiatique, 1882 (viie série, T. 20), p. 252, and 1885 (viiie série, T. 5), p. 78. Siouffi was the first to discover and establish the historical character of Šeiḫ ‘Adî, about whom the scholars had been puzzled. He published an extract relating to ‘Adî from Ibn Ḫallikân's Wafaiyât ‘al-Ayân (bibliographical work). Of the second-hand sources of information may be mentioned Les Yezidis, by J. Menant (Paris, 1892), and the article by Victor Dingelstedt, “The Yezidis,” in the Scottish Geographical Magazine, Vol. XIV, pp. 259 ff.[1]
- ↑ For a fuller account of the literature on the Yezidis, consult J. Menant, Les Yézidis, and Paul Perdrizet, Société de Géographie de l’Est, Bulletin, 1903, pp. 281 ff.
