[29] Professor Jackson, of Columbia University, seems to trace it to the “old devil-worship in Mazandaran” (J A O S, XXV, 178). But it is not certain that the Yezidis believe in Melek Ṭâ´ûs as an evil spirit. In the history of religion the god of one people is the devil of another. Asura is a deity in the Rig Veda and an evil spirit only in later Brahman theology. In Islam the gods of heathenism are degraded into jinns, just as the gods of North Semitic heathenism are called še‘îrîm (hairy demons) in Lev. 17:7; or as the gods of Greece and Rome became devils to early Christians. See W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 120; Fihrist, pp. 322, 326.
Professor M. Lidzbarski (Z D M G, LI, 592), on the other hand, argues that Ṭâ´ûs is the god Tammuz. His contention is based on the assumption that the word Ṭâ´ûs must embody the ancient god; that in Fihrist, 322, the god Tâuz has a feast on the 15th of Tammuz (July); that in Kurdish, the language of the Yezidis, m is frequently changed to w. This theory also is untenable, for one might guess at any ancient god. The exact form of the name “Tauz” is uncertain (see Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier, II, 202); the statement that in Kurdish m is frequently changed to w is not true, if one would set it up as a grammatical rule to explain such phenomena; the Kurdish-speaking people never pronounce Tammuz, “Tauz;” and, finally, in the Yezidi conception of Melek Ṭâ´ûs there are no traces of the notion held respecting Tammuz.
[30] Such a state of affairs finds a historical parallel in other religions. Take, for example, Christianity. In it we find that the distinctive characteristics of the founder have been wrapped up in many foreign elements brought in by those who came from other religions.
PART I
THE TRANSLATION OF THE ARABIC TEXT
PREFACE
In the Name of the Most Compassionate God!
With the help of the Most High God, and under his direction, we write the history of the Yezidis, their doctrines, and the mysteries of their religion, as contained in their books, which reached our hand with their own knowledge and consent.
In the time of Al-Muḳtadir Billah, A. H. 295,[31] there lived Manṣûr-al-Ḥallâj,[32] the wool-carder, and Šeiḫ ‘Abd-al-ḳâdir of Jîlân.[33] At that time, too, there appeared a man by the name of Šeiḫ ‘Adî, from the mountain of Hakkari,[34] originally from the region of Aleppo or Baalbek. He came and dwelt in Mount Lališ,[35] near the city of Moṣul, about nine hours distant from it. Some say he was of the people of Ḥarrân, and related to Marwân ibn-al-Ḥakam. His full name is Šaraf ad-Dîn Abû-l-Fadâîl, ‘Adî bn Musâfir bn Ismael bn Mousa bn Marwân bn Al-Ḥasan bn Marwân. He died A. H. 558 (A. D. 1162-63). His tomb is still visited; it is near Ba‘adrei, one of the villages of Moṣul, distant eleven hours. The Yezidis are the progeny of those who were the murids (disciples) of Šeiḫ ‘Adî. Some trace their origin to Yezid,[36] others to Ḥasan-Al-Baṣrî.[37]