wikipedia | The Yazidi (also Yezidi, Êzidî, Yazdani, ایزدیان, Եզդիներ, Езиды) are a Kurdish- and Arabic-speaking ethno-religious community who practice an ancient syncretic religion linked to Zoroastrianism and early Mesopotamian religions.[12][13][14] They live primarily in the Nineveh Province of northern Iraq, a region once part of ancient Assyria. Additional communities in Armenia, Georgia and Syria have been in decline since the 1990s, their members having migrated to Europe, especially to Germany.[15] The Yazidi believe in God as creator of the world, which he has placed under the care of seven "holy beings" or angels, the "chief" (archangel) of whom is Melek Taus, the "Peacock Angel." In Zoroastrian-like tradition, the Peacock Angel
embodied humanity's potential for both good (light) and bad (dark)
acts, and due to pride temporarily fell from God's favor, before his
remorseful tears extinguished the fires of his hellish prison and he
reconciled with God. Some followers of other monotheistic religion
jokingly or mistakenly re-cast the Peacock Angel as the unredeemed evil deity Satan[16][17],
which has incited centuries of persecution of the Yazidi as "devil
worshippers" by some followers of these religions. Persecution of
Yazidis has continued in their home communities within the borders of
modern Iraq, under both Saddam Hussein and fundamentalist Sunni Muslim revolutionaries.[18]
