Another thing worthy of notice is that the Christians should have such a sacred regard for his tradition as to hand it down to posterity at the risk of their own reputation. Certainly the Christians are not cherishing this theory with any expectation of receiving honor by assuming relation with the Yezidis. The devil-worshippers are utterly despised by all their neighbors. Nor do they do it out of love, that they may arouse the sympathy of the dominating race for this degraded people. Oriental Christians themselves despise the Yezidi sect. They would not, and could not, help them. There must then be some truth in a legend that leads the church to regard a despised people as having been at one time co-religionists.
Were the antiquity of the tradition, and the unfavorable result which its entertainment causes, the only two reasons for its consideration, we might just as well dismiss it. But there are other things which go to point out some historic facts underlying the current theory. One such fact is that the family name of the Yezidis around Mosul is Daseni, plur Dawasen. The Christians and the Mohammedans know them by this name, and they themselves also use it, and say it is the ancient name of their race, existing from time immemorial.[87] Now Daseni, or Dasaniyat, was the name of a Nestorian Diocese, the disappearance of which is simultaneous with the appearance of the Yezidis in these places.[88]
It is stated, moreover, that all the people of Sinjar were formerly Christians, belonging to the ancient Syriac Church and having a very prominent diocese, which was called the diocese of Šaki, i. e., Sinjar; and that the diocese continued to exist till the middle of the eighteenth century: What goes to verify this tradition is that, at present, there is a library at Jabal Sinjar, under the control of the Yezidis, that consists of ancient Syriac books. They are kept in a small room guarded by a Yezidi. On Sunday and Friday of every week they burn incense and light lamps in honor of the manuscripts; and once a month they take them out in the sun to dust and to preserve them from destruction by dampness. After the door is locked, the key is kept by the Šeiḫ, besides whom and his son no one else is allowed to touch the books. What is more interesting, the people of Sinjar say they have inherited the library from their forefathers, who were Christians.[89] It is pointed out, furthermore, that the names of the principal towns of the Yezidis are Syriac. Ba‘šika comes from “the house of the falsely accused, or oppressed”; Ba‘adrie from “the place of help or refuge”; Baḥzanie from “the house of visions or inspiration”; Talḥas from “the hill of suffering,” where many Christians were martyred by Persians. These are a few of many Yezidi villages having Syriac names.
The Yezidis have religious practices which are to be found only in the Christian Church. I mean the rites of baptism and the Eucharist. It is true that the use of water as a rite is practised by other non-Christian sects, such as the Mandeans; but it is argued that this ordinance as observed by the Yezidis is so similar to that of the Christians that its origin is to be traced back to Christianity, rather than to any other system. Like their neighbors, the Dawaseni must if possible baptize their children at the earliest age. In performing the rite, the Šeiḫ, like the Christian priest, puts his hand upon the child’s head. In regard to the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, it is strictly Christian in character. The Yezidis call the cup the cup of Isa (Jesus); and when a couple marry, they go to a Christian town to partake of Al-ḳiddas (the Eucharist) from the hand of a priest, a custom which prevails among eastern Christians. What requires special note is that this practice is observed where the Yezidi influence is not very strong, a fact which seems to indicate that the Apostate Nasara, who lived remote from strongly Yezidising influences, were able to retain some of their originally much favored practices, and vice versa.[90]
Finally, the Dawaseni entertain great reverence for Christianity and the Christian saints. They respect the churches and tombs of the Christians, and kiss the doors and walls when they enter them; but they never visit a Mohammedan mosque. In the Black Book a statement is made that on her way to the house of her bridegroom, a bride should visit the temple of every idol she passes by, even if it be a Christian Church.[91] They have also professed reverence for ‘Isa (Jesus). They affect more attachment to An-Naṣara than to Mohammedans. Such a religious affinity cannot be fully accounted for on any other ground than that of their sincere respect for Christianity, a feeling which clearly indicates that these people must at one time have had a very close connection with Christianity. This intimate relation cannot be explained by their ignorance, or by kindred experiences, as some scholars seem to think.[92] It is true the Christians have been co-sufferers with them; both have lived for generations under the same yoke of bondage and oppression and under similar circumstances. But this alone could not create sympathy between them. Such an assumption cannot be verified by the facts collected through our observation of the Yezidis’ character as a religious body. They are sincere in their beliefs, and never compromise in religious matters. History has shown again and again that they have suffered martyrdom for their faith, in which they have been as sincere and unshaken as have been the heroes of any religion. No matter how uneducated they may be, they are not hypocrites in their faith. The theory is also refuted by our understanding of the nature of the affinity in question between the Yezidis and the Christians. It is not a matter of sympathy but of religion. They believe in some forms of Christianity; and when they visit a church, they want to exercise their faith and not to express their sympathy. What is more, the eastern Christians have no sympathy for the devil worshippers, at least, not more than they have for any other religious body. Such an affinity is wanting between the Jews and the Christians or the Yezidis, yet they all live under the same conditions.
I am not here advocating the theory, or implying, that the Yezidi sect is a corrupt form of Christianity, but am simply aiming to show that if the similarity of a certain religion with another in some phases be taken as a ground for the explanation of its origin, the Christian tradition can be regarded as a more probable theory to account for the rise of Yezidism than any other view: And, hence, to point out, what seems to me to be the best position, that the explanation must be found ultimately in some historical document which will give us a reasonable clew in the tracing of the sect in question to its founder.
III
The Speculative Theories of Western Orientalists
Thus far we have been dealing with the different theories regarding the origin of the Yezidis held in the East: the myth of the devil-worshippers themselves, the Christian tradition. Now we turn our attention to the West, which also has expressed itself on this subject. The degree of interest shown in this particular case, however, differs with different nationalities. The English-speaking scholars come first; next come the French; then the Russians; and finally the Italians. The German scholars seem to be interested mainly in certain words and festive events. And, in the discussion of these, they go so far in their unbounded speculation that one cannot tell whether the people they deal with are the Yezidis in question, Assyrians, Babylonians, Canaanites, Greeks, Romans or Jews. The German writers do not seem to be interested so much in the problem of the origin of this people as a sect, unless they regard the question as settled on the ground of the Yezidis’ own statement that they are the descendants of Yezid bn Mu‘awiya.
To tell the truth, the rise of the interest in the inquiry about the founder of this sect on a scientific basis, is due, without question, to the scholarship of the West. And any solution of the problem (and it does not matter who does the work), in the last analysis, must be accredited to the influences emanating from these scholars and these scholars only. Nevertheless modern orientalists have been far from approaching the solution of the question. This may be due in part to the extreme interest which they have taken in the matter, an interest which led them to accept the phenomena without critical examination. But the inductive study of their respective writings tends to show that this is due to their method of procedure rather than to anything else. They have employed the philosophical and not the historical method.[93] I do not mean to deny the value of such a course of investigation in questions pertaining to religion, but what I do mean to say is that the method of the scholars in question is almost purely speculative, and they do not seem to appeal to historical facts in support of their assumptions. The inevitable consequence has been, therefore, that in their theories there exists an uncertainty and indefiniteness that puzzles the student of history.
Another fact which the inductive study of the views of the western scholars reveals is that their theories are nothing more nor less than the expression of the Yezidis’ tradition in terms of modern scholarship, without, however, the showing of reasons for so doing. This fact will be proved presently when we shall examine their respective writings.