### JAVEDI
Name of a people of Kurdish race and language, professing their own religion. Their total number, which is steadily declining, has recently been estimated (A. H. Hourani, *V. BIBLICA.*, pp. 76, 91) at just over 30,000. They are distributed in groups across the following regions: 1) *Sayhān*, north of Mosul, seat of the largest community and the principal sanctuary; 2) *Ġebel Sinġār*, west of the same city; 3) *Ġebel Sim'ān*, near Aleppo. Smaller groups are found near Diyarbakir, in Soviet Armenia, and in Persia.
#### I. NAME AND ORIGINS
Research by Aḥmad Tajmūr, ʿAbbās ʿAzzāwī, and M. Guidi traces the name *j.* back to Yazīd, the second Umayyad caliph (680–683), notorious for the massacre of Ḥusayn, son of ʿAlī, at Karbalāʾ, and thus particularly hated by the Shīʿites (*V. ISLAM, Lesette*). It was M. Guidi who, in particular, identified traces of extremist heterodoxy (*guluww*) favorable to Yazīd in the earliest Arabic literature, showing it to be a parallel phenomenon—albeit antithetical—to Shīʿite extremism, and thus analogous in many constitutive elements.
Although traces of the Yazīdī movement in the earliest period remain scarce, M. Guidi’s thesis is currently preferred over the alternative, last defended by G. Furlani and T. Menzel, according to which the name *j.* derives from the Persian *ized* (“angel”) and the origins of the movement have nothing to do with Caliph Yazīd.
#### II. HISTORY
Almost nothing is known about the history and beliefs of the Yazīdīs in Kurdistan during the first centuries of the Hijrah. More precise information emerges in the 12th century CE, when the mystic ʿAdī b. Musāfir, a descendant of the Umayyad family, settled in Lāṭif, in the *Sayhān* region, founding a confraternity that took his name (*ʿAdawiyyah*).
Within this confraternity, an extremist current soon developed that, contrary to the wishes of the mystic and his successors, directed its worship toward them, combining it with the nearly forgotten cult of Yazīd. Between the 13th and 14th centuries, the Muslim polemicist Ibn Taymiyyah, in his *Risālat al-ʿAdawiyyah*, clearly indicates the heterodoxy of the movement and the evolved formation of its creed.
It is not possible to trace its further developments up to the present formulation; more information is available on the political history of the Yazīdī groups, well documented by R. Lescot. The confraternity reached its peak in the 14th and 15th centuries, spreading also to Syria and Egypt; thereafter, decline set in. While the communities in Syria and Egypt largely reverted to orthodoxy, the Yazīdīs of the Kurdish mountains were subjected to periodic raids and massacres by Ottoman governors. After the British mandate period, persecution resumed under the new Iraqi state, which seeks to assimilate both religiously and culturally the Yazīdīs to the Arab majority.
#### III. DOCTRINES
The doctrines of the Yazīdīs consist of a strange and disjointed conglomeration of elements: Islamic elements, a Kurdish pagan substratum, some Christian rites (due to contact with the Mesopotamian Christian Churches), Iranian beliefs, and through them, Gnosticism.
The Yazīdīs believe in a supreme God who exercises His power through seven angels. The first and principal is Melek Ṭāʾūs, the peacock angel, who corresponds to Satan but, having repented after his fall, is not the principle of evil but of good. The frequent designation of the Yazīdīs as “devil-worshippers” is therefore inaccurate. The name “peacock,” also known to the Mandaeans and Druze for Satan, derives from the legend according to which he first sought to enter the Earthly Paradise in the form of a peacock. Melek Ṭāʾūs is the regent of the world; Yazīd and Shaykh ʿAdī (i.e., ʿAdī b. Musāfir) are considered his incarnations. The other six angels, whose names vary in different accounts (notably including Jesus among them), also have incarnations in the descendants of ʿAdī and in certain great Muslim ascetics and mystics, such as the famous Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and al-Ḥallāj. The Yazīdīs believe in reincarnation according to merits or demerits, in Paradise and Hell. To these beliefs are added strange legends about the origins of the world. There are two main sacred books: the *Book of Revelation* and the *Black Book*.
#### IV. RELIGIOUS PRACTICES
The Yazīdīs perform their prayers facing the sun, which, together with the existence of a sun festival, has led to speculation about remnants of astral paganism. They observe two fasts each year, each lasting three days, following the Muslim system from dawn to dusk. They also observe numerous taboos regarding clothing and food. Every year, from September 15 to 20, a pilgrimage is made to the tomb of Shaykh ʿAdī. Other minor shrines are locally venerated. Baptism, of evident Christian origin (the Yazīdīs were in frequent contact with Nestorian groups), and circumcision are practiced.
Among the festivals, the principal one is that of the New Year. Wednesday is considered a festive day.
The most characteristic aspect of Yazīdī worship is the periodic processions of the *sangāq*, peacock effigies representing the seven angels, which are carried through the villages once or twice a year.
#### V. ORGANIZATION OF THE COMMUNITIES
The Yazīdīs are divided into laypeople (*murīd*) and clergy (*rūḥān*). The clergy include: 1) *Shaykh*, the five highest-ranking priests, descendants of Shaykh ʿAdī; 2) *pīr*, a lower category of priests; 3) *qawwāl*, cantors who carry the *sangāq* in procession; 4) *kōçek*, dancers who assist the above. There are also lower categories. There exists a kind of confraternity, that of the *faqīr*.
At the head of the entire community stands a supreme prince, claiming descent from Yazīd, residing in *Sayhān*, and the head of the *Shaykh*; the former holds temporal authority, the latter spiritual authority.
Every layperson is dependent from birth on a *Shaykh* and a *pīr*. He must also choose a “brother of the other world.”
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