Dr Mahdi Kakei
Since the creation, the human beings have created the devil with different names. They were afraid of the natural phenomena that threatened their lives, such as darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, lightning, thunder, winter cruelty, predatory wild animals, sickness, hunger, death, etc. Therefore they made gods for these phenomena-;- giving them offers in order the gods would be kind with them, to keep them away from their evils and dangers. As well as human beings created for themselves good gods representing positive phenomena, such as light, fertility, spring, agriculture, water and harvest the crop and other things that would benefit them. They regarded these gods, made holidays for the good gods, set up festivals for them and welcomed them and their arrival.
In the course of time, human beings continued to adhere to the God of Good and the God of Evil. Zoroaster made (Ahuramazda) as the creator, the sole God and the good god, and (Ahriman) as the destructive spirit. The Jews continued in this manner, which was quoted by Christians and Muslims. The believers of the religion of Yazdanism have disobeyed this rule and believed in a single Creator, who is the absolute good, light and love. The God is loved by human being and in turn he loves the human beings. In Yazdanism, there is no threat from the Creator to burn and torture the human beings. How does the Creator submit to the torture and burning of his daughters and sons ?! The human beings, in turn do not disobey the Creator, not because of fearing of him, but it is due to their love for him. Therefore, the believers of Yazdanism are happy in their lives, where they do not live with the horror of torture and burning after death, but there is no death in the Yazdanism religion. After the death, the human being’s spirit will move to another new body of a person and continues his/her life. This phenomenon is called “change of shirt” in the Yezidism-;- it is like a change of clothes. This phenomenon is called “Donawdon” in Yarsanism, which means “the move of the human being’s soul from one stage to another one”. The Yarsani believers say that the death of the human being is like the floating of the duck, diving in the water here and coming up there.
The Yezidism is a branch of the Yazdani religion, and therefore the Yezidis not only do not worship the devil, but the devil does not exist in their religion. Reason and logic reject the creation of the devil and his disobedience to the Creator because “Satan“ is the creature of God, incapable of disobeying His Creator. The Creator does not create Evil to hurt the human beings and to urge them to disobey the Creator and commit criminal and evil acts because the Creator loves his creatures, does not want evil for them and he gives them the mind to be free in their choices during their lives, whether good´-or-bad.
Some religions invented “Satan” to create paradise and hell and to intimidate those who disobey the Creator s orders. At that time, powerful governments did not exist, enacting laws to deter man from doing bad deeds. In the Yezidi religion, the Creator is the absolute good and human beings have given reason to choose the nature and style of their lives. Therefore, in the Yezidi religion, Satan is that human being who chooses the path of evil and commits crimes.
In the era of Zoroastrianism and in the Sassanid era, when the religion of Zoroastrianism was adopted as an official religion of the Sasanian state, the people of the Yazdani religion were exterminated and continued to be accused of worshiping (Ahriman “Satan”). Yezidism, Alavism and Yarsanism are the three main religions that belong to Yazdanism. The lie of worshiping (Ahriman “Satan”) by Yezidis was transferred from the Sassanians, and spread among the peoples of the region and therefore this accusation of the Yazidis continued by Christians and Muslims as well.
In modern history, in the mid-1940s, Father Anastas Karamli played a major role in accusing Yezidis for worshiping Satan, followed by the Iraqi historian Abdul Razzaq al-Hasani. Since then, their accusation has been widely spread among the people of the area.
(Tawos “peacock”) who is the head of the angel in the Yezidi faith, his name is derived from the name of the ancient Sumerian wheat god Dumuzi, where the letter (D) in this name has been -convert-ed to the letter (T) and the letter (M) has been -convert-ed to the letter (W) according to the rule of the Kurdish language. From here we see that the name has nothing to do with peacock, but it is coming from the name of the Sumerian god.
If we compare the story of the creation of the universe in the religions of Yazidism, Alavism and Yarsanism, with that of the Sumerians, we find that they are very similar. Thus, the beliefs of the branches of the Yazdanism religion are an extension of the Sumerian and Mithraism beliefs that prevailed more than five thousand years ago.[1]