Originally published in GPN, Genocide Prevention Now, Special Issue 5, Winter 2011

Editorial Note: It would be wrong not to note explicitly that the above material is taken from a bitterly anti-American and British article – – thus it also carries a pre-headline, “Targeting Iran: The US Preparing World War III.”  Actually, the critique in this article is of the US-British invasion of Iraq while Sadaam Hussein’s rule is described glowingly.  While GPN does not accept the thrust of the critique, the information on the Yazidis, however romanticized, is clearly derived from close contact and lovingly presents an intimate picture of this ethnic group and its meritorious religious pluralism.

On August 14 2008 at least five hundred Yazidis in the north west Sinjar region were killed.  Four truck bombs left three settlements “looking as if a nuclear explosion” had occurred.  At least fifteen hundred are estimated to have been injured, according to Dr. Said Hakki of the Iraqi Red Crescent.

Previous attacks against the Yazidis were under the Ottomans, when they were subjected to twenty major massacres, between 1640 and 1910.  The gentle, pastoral Yazidis, an ancient sect, whose beliefs are drawn from Islam, Christianity, Judiasm, Zoroastrianism and Mandeanism, of whom there are believed to be only 750,000 worldwide, have their largest population in the Sinjar highlands in Iraq’s northern Nineveh Province, a little west of Mosul and the remains of the equally ancient town Tel Afar, that is decimated.

This previously religiously and ethnically mixed region is a microcosm of pre-invasion Iraq, known for its welcome and peaceful co-existence. The prophet Jonah is believed buried in the great Mosque which overlooks Mosul, whilst Saint Matthew is believed buried in the Christian Monastery, on the top of Mount Maqloub, nearby.

Both were places of pilgrimage and wonder, for Muslim and Christian alike. The place of pilgrimage for Yazidis worldwide, in late August, is the shrine at Lalish, nearby, of Sheikh Adi (died 1162) believed to be the reincarnation of their deity Malak Ta’us: The Peacock Angel. “The Yazidis have throughout history been often wrongly interpreted as “Devil worshippers.” Their belief in fact should be a lesson to all: no soul is beyond hope. Malak Ta’us WAS the Devil, who REPENTED. After he fell from grace, he filled seven urns of tears, over seven thousand years, tears that were used to extinguish the fires of hell; thus, this great grief in repentance, the Yazidis believe, erased the concept of hell, and embraced belief that all humanity is redeemable. Malak Ta’us became the Peacock Angel.

God is revered by Yazidis as the Creator of all and having achieved this wondrous task, is no longer an active force. He entrusted the world to seven angels, of whom the archangel was the redeemed Malak Ta’us.

Yazidis believe that good and evil both exist in the mind and spirit of human beings. It depends on the humans, themselves, as to which they choose. Thus, their devotion to Malek Ta’us is integral, since it was he who was given the same choice between good and evil by God, and ultimately, searingly, repented and chose the good.

Malek Ta’us has been described as: “a sort of fire wall between an imperfect world and the perfection of the Supreme Being” (Isya Joseph, Sacred Books and Traditions of the Yazidis, 1919.) Yazidis believe that periodically their seven holy beings are reincarnated in human form, as Sheikh Adi, so love your neighbour; you never know who he may be.

Mohammed is regarded as a Prophet, but Jesus Christ too was an angel in human form. Yazidis are born into and marry within their sect and there is no converting, in or out. Other beliefs are that the first Yazidi was born of Adam alone and that there was a great flood, long before Noah and his ark. Yazidis, as Samaritans and/or Druze are “a little island of diversity in a world increasingly homogenised by globalisation.”

An abiding memory of the Yazidis is standing on the flat roof of one of their temples, its great obelisk in the centre, reaching heavenward. “Look behind you, Madam,” said the priest. I turned and just across the narrow sun dappled street, in the small hamlet, was a Catholic church, next to a mosque – and just visible round the corner, a synagogue. Could peaceful co-existence ever be more evocatively illustrated?

Source: Excerpted with permission from Arbuthnot, Felicity (August 19, 2010).  US sponsored war crimes in Iraq: Yazidis, the People of the Peacock Angel. www.globalresearch.ca

Felicity Arbuthnot is described in the above as a journalist and activist who has visited the Arab and Muslim world on numerous occasions.  She has written and broadcast on Iraq, her coverage of which was nominated for several awards.  She was also a senior researcher for John Pilger’s award-winning documentary, “Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq.”  Felicity Arbuthnot is a frequent contributor to Global Research.