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Abstract
The article is an attempt to answer the question why Wednesday has the status of a holy day in Yezidism. Wednesday can be seen as a commemoration of the fourth day of creation, when the life on earth began and the Peacock Angel became its ruler. The article points to the Yezidi worship of the Moon and the Sun and related angels (Melek Fakhradin and Melek Sheikh Shams) and connects it with the Pythagorean concept concerning the movement of the planets and the Music of the Spheres. Two sacred Yezidi instruments, def and shibab, appear as allegories of celestial bodies in the Yezidi sacred hymns in the cosmogonic context of the creation of the macrocosm and microcosm (Adam). The article also points out the meaning of Wednesday in Judaism as the day when God created the sun, moon and stars and briefly discusses relationships with planet worship in Harran, Zoroastrianism and Mandaeism, especially in the context of the Yezidi Çarşemiya Sor festival which takes place on the first Wednesday of the month of Nisan.
Notes
1 Timaeus 38c3–6, author’s own translation. Unless otherwise stated, all translations are mine. Kurmanji words I quote in this article use “Bedirxan script”; in the case of Arabic and Persian, I use simplified transliteration.
2 Rodziewicz, “The Nation of the Sur: The Yezidi Identity between Modern and Ancient Myth.”
3 Furlani, “The Yezidi Villages in Northern Iraq.”
4 The Hymn of the Laughter of Snakes (Qewlê Keniya Mara), in Kreyenbroek and Rashow, God and Sheikh Adi Are Perfect, 398.
5 See the list compiled by Frayha, “New Yezīdī Texts from Beled Sinjār,” 20–1.
6 Nau and Tfinkdji, “Recueil de textes et de documents sur les Yézidis”; Açıkyıldız, “The Sanctuary of Shaykh ʿAdī at Lalish.”
7 When speaking, as well as in the religious hymns, the Yezidis prefer to use this form rather than “Malak Tawus,” which is frequently used by the academics. As is stated by Pir Dima in the same interview: “The term ‘Malak Tawus’ was used especially by non-Yezidis. The Yezidis in the qewls call him ‘Tawusi Malak,’ not ‘Malak Tawus’” (Rodziewicz, “Odrodzenie religii jezydzkiej w Gruzji?,” 41).
8 Rodziewicz, “Odrodzenie religii jezydzkiej w Gruzji?,” 38–40.
9 Qewlê Pişt Perde, stanza 1: “Esl û dîn e Melik Şerfeddîn,” in Omarkhali, The Yezidi Religious Textual Tradition, 316.
10 Ebied and Young, “An Account of the History and Rituals,” 492.
11 Izady, The Kurds: A Concise Handbook, 137.
12 Frayha, “New Yezīdī Texts from Beled Sinjār,” 21–3; Joseph, “Yezidi Texts,” 116–17; Guest, Survival Among the Kurds, 32.
13 Rodziewicz, “The Nation of the Sur: The Yezidi Identity between Modern and Ancient Myth,” 292–300.
14 Ibid., 276.
15 Nicolaus, “The Lost Sanjaq.”
16 However, the Yezidi sanjaks look identical with traditional Hindu oil lamps with the Hamsa bird on the top.
17 al-Amawi, “Al-Tavus sanjaq al-Yazid,” 172.
18 Kurmanji text in Omarkhali, The Yezidi Religious Textual Tradition, 299–300.
19 Qewlê Şêşimsê Tewrêzî, stanza 6–7 in Kreyenbroek, Yezidism: Its Background, Observances and Textual Tradition, 258.
20 Pirbari, Ivasko, and Grigoriev, Lalişa Nûranî, 51.
21 Khalaf Salih, “The Yazidian Religion,” 17.
22 Ibid., 18.
23 Amoev, Yezidy i ih religiya, 164.
24 Kurmanji text in Reşo, Pern ji Edebê Dînê Êzdiyan, 283.
25 Salih, “The Yazidian Religion,” 19.
26 Kurmanji text in Kreyenbroek and Rashow, God and Sheikh Adi Are Perfect, 99. Cf. [Isaac of Bartella], Monte Singar, 15.
27 See Segal, “Planet Cult of Ancient Harran.”
28 A fragment of MS cited and translated by Rice, “A Muslim Shrine at Ḥarrān,” 447.
29 Shahrastani, Livre des religions et des sectes, 167–8.
30 Trans. by Drijvers, Bardaiṣan of Edessa, 106; cf. 132–3.
31 See the Mandaean book Haran Gawaita.
32 Ginza Rba (Lidzbarski) I 163–4. See Gündüz, The Knowledge of Life , 221–2.
33 Boyce, Middle Persian Literature, 40–1.
34 Bundahishn I: 2, trans. Anklesaria.
35 Bundahishn I: 25, trans. West.
36 Bailey, Zoroastrian Problems in the Ninth-Century Books, 120–48; Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism, 74.
37 Bundahishn I: 53, trans. Anklesaria.
38 Cf. Dinkard IX: 36, 2–4.
39 Bundahishn I: 44, trans. Anklesaria.
40 Zad Sparam I: 22–4.
41 As Plutarch noted: “For the Greeks, Kronos is an allegory of Time [Chronos]” (De Iside et Osiride, 363d6–7). Already Pindar (c. 522–438 BC) in one of his famous odes wrote that „Time/Chronos is a father of all things” (Olympia II: 17). In the oldest preserved Greek cosmogony by Hesiod (eighth to seventh century BC) Kronos was called “the first king of gods” (Theogonia 486). The idea was also attributed to the Orphics, as is attested by the Derveni Papyrus, the oldest surviving Greek manuscript, containing a commentary to the Orphic cosmogony. We read here that Orpheus “named the Mind ‘Kronos’” and “the King of all things” (col. XIV and XVI). Perhaps its genesis should be sought in Iran; see Brisson, “La figure de Chronos dans la théogonie orphique et ses antécédents iraniens.” On the identification of Kronos with Saturn, see Cicero, De Natura deorum II: 64, 8–9 and III: 62, 7; Macrobius, Saturnalia I: 8, 6–7.
42 Dina-i Mainog-i Khirad VIII: 8.
43 Dina-i Mainog-i Khirad VIII: 17–21.
44 Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride 369f4–370b2.
45 Bundahishn XLII: 2, 142.
46 Rodziewicz, “Odrodzenie religii jezydzkiej w Gruzji?,” 34.
47 They use the Kurmanji names of the months: Nîsan, Gulan, Hezîran, Tîrmeh, Tebax, Îlon, Çirya pêşîn, Çirya paşîn, Kanûna pêşîn, Kanûna pêşîn, Sibat, Adar.
48 Rodziewicz, “And the Pearl Became an Egg.”
49 Because of ambiguity of the word “sor”; see Kasheff and Saʿīdī Sīrjānī, “ČAHĀRŠANBA-SŪRĪ”; Dehxodā, Loghatnāmeh, s.v. “sūr.”
50 Mokri, “La naissance du monde chez les Kurdes Ahl-e Haqq”; Mokri, “Le symbole de la perle”; Edmonds, “The Beliefs and Practices of the Ahl-i Ḥaqq of Iraq”; Hamzeh’ee, The Yaresan, 70–3; Kreyenbroek, “Mithra and Ahreman, Binyāmīn and Malak Ṭāwūs.”
51 Rodziewicz, “Yezidi Eros.”
52 I quote here the version I published together with the translation: Rodziewicz, “Jezydzkie hymny kosmogoniczne,” 215; see also Omarkhali, The Yezidi Religious Textual Tradition, 313.
53 Which means from Saturday to Friday, as stated in the other version of the same hymn:
Kurmanji text in Omarkhali and Rezania, “Some Reflections on Concepts of Time in Yezidism,” 341.54 “They”—we can assume—were God and angels.
55 Celîl and Celîl, Zargotina K’urda, Kurdskiy folklor, 45. Cf. Aloian, Religious and Philosophical Ideas, 100–1.
56 Omarkhali and Rezania, “Some Reflections on Concepts of Time,” 341–2.
57 In other versions: Azrail.
58 In other versions: Jibrail.
59 So it is in the publication of the text in Arabic and Kurdish by Bittner, Die heiligen Bücher, 26.
60 Joseph, “Yezidi Texts (Continued),” 221.
61 Mingana, “Devil-Worshippers.”
62 Al-Tabari, The History of al-Ṭabarī, 209.
63 Kurmanji text in Kreyenbroek and Rashow, God and Sheikh Adi Are Perfect, 69.
64 E.g. in stanza 19, the creation of “six angels” is mentioned and not seven.
65 Omarkhali, The Yezidi Religious Textual Tradition, 103, 117.
66 Guest, Survival Among the Kurds, 223.
67 Biruni, The Chronology of Ancient Nations, 5; cf. Quran XXXVI 37–40; Al-Tabari, The History of al-Ṭabarī, 211–12, 228–49.
68 Biruni, The Chronology of Ancient Nations, 5–6.
69 Ibid., 6.
70 Hebrew-English Interlinear ESV Old Testament.
71 Pênc k’itêbêd Mûsa (T’awret).
72 De opificio mundi, in Yonge, The Works of Philo, 45–61.
73 Ibid., 55.
74 Ibid., 49.
75 Ibid., 52.
76 Cf. The Tale of Ibrahim the Friend and the Hymn of Ibrahim the Friend and Nemrud in Kreyenbroek and Rashow, God and Sheikh Adi Are Perfect, 225–56; regarding the Muslim tradition see: Quran II: 126; Witztum, “The Foundations of the House (Q 2:127)”; Firestone, “Journey to Mecca in Islamic Exegesis”; Ben-Ari, “The Stories about Abraham in Islam.”
77 Rodziewicz, “Jezydzkie hymny kosmogoniczne,” 217.
78 Hebrew-English Interlinear ESV Old Testament. Cf. remarks of Biruni (The Chronology of Ancient Nations, 278) on one of the Jewish sects celebrating New Year on Wednesday and counting days, months and cycles of the world starting from that day, and justifying that by the sun and the moon being created on that day.
79 Al-Tabari, The History of al-Ṭabarī, 253.
80 Ibid., 190.
81 Ibid., 191.
82 Joseph, “Yezidi Texts (Continued),” 222.
83 According to the interpretation of Aloian, “the semantic meaning of the expression is not very clear: seemingly before Wednesday the world was inactive, ‘chaste’” (Religious and Philosophical Ideas of Shaikh ‘Adi b. Musafir, 101).
84 Rodziewicz, “And the Pearl Became an Egg.”
85 Grant, The Nestorians; or the Lost Tribes, 319–20.
86 Boiy, Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon, 277. See the Temple Program for the New Year’s Festivals at Babylon in Pritchard, The Ancient Near Eastern Text, 331–4; Ahmed, The Yazidis: Their Life and Beliefs, 357.
87 Boiy, Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon, 278.
88 Al-Nadim, The Fihrist, 755–6; Hjärpe, “The Holy Year of the Harranians”; Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs at Edessa, 58–60.
89 Dodge translates his name as “North” and suggests that it was probably a local variant of “Semitic deity Ṣaphōn, Zephon and perhaps Typhon” (Al-Nadim, The Fihrist, 918). Gündüz in turn sees connection with Samael of the Jewish tradition. He supposes moreover that the deity is identical with the “prince of Satans”—Salūghā—mentioned by al-Biruni as one of the Harranian’s gods (Gündüz, The Knowledge of Life, 151–2). In this context it is worthy of note that in the folklore of Kermanshah as well as in the Yaresan tradition, the northern wind, called Shamâl is still associated with Satan (as well with the Dâwûd considered to be an incarnation of “Malak Tawus” (van Bruinessen, “Veneration of Satan,” 31)).
90 Al-Nadim, The Fihrist, 757.
91 Ibid., 755. The perception of Wednesday as a day associated with Mercury is still present in Romance languages (e.g. French, Italian, Romanian: mercredi, mercoledì, miercuri), which borrow it from the Latin ‘day of Mercury’ (dies Mercurii), which was in turn a calque of a Greek “day of Hermes” (ἡμέρα Ἕρμου). The same connection is present in India, where the seven-day division was introduced in the Hellenistic era and where Wednesday is called Budhavāra, “the day of Budha (= Mercury)”; see Walker, The Hindu World, 195–6.
92 Drower, “The Mandaean New Year Festival,” 186. Originally it was most probably celebrated in April, but currently it is celebrated in August, and many of its elements have been inherited by the spring festival of Panja. See Drower, The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, 84–98; Krasnowolska, Some Key Figures, 67.
93 Mokri, “Les rites magiques,” 289.
94 Boyce, A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism, 212–13.
95 Biruni, The Chronology of Ancient Nations, 201.
96 Al-Jabiri, “Stability and Social Change in Yezidi Society,” 59.
97 Darwesh, “The Ezidis New Year Feast.”
98 Cf. the remark of Isaac of Antioch about such a procession in Nisibis, in Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs at Edessa, 181.
99 In the meaning of the term given by Eliade, Le mythe de l’éternel retour; Eliade, Le sacré et le profane, 63–100.
100 See Aristotle, Ce caelo 290b–291a; Stobaeus, Anthologium I: 21, 7d, 5–14.
101 Philo, De opificio mundi, 54.
102 Ibid., 70.
103 In the religion closest to Yezidism, Yarsanism, apart from many similarities in beliefs and social structure, a special role is also attributed to the musical instrument, a kind of plucked string instrument—sacred tanbur. Its music is used as an accompaniment when performing the religious hymns (kalams); see Hooshmandrad, “Performing the Belief”; Fozi, “The Hallowed Summoning of Tradition.”
104 Rodziewicz, “Jezydzkie hymny kosmogoniczne,” 215–16.
105 Cf. the legend published by Khanna Omarkhali in her The Yezidi Religious Textual Tradition, 133–4. It is stated therein that among other things Seven Angels entered the body before the spirit (“Heft Melayêka berê ruhê xo berdane ber qalbî min”).
106 Kreyenbroek and Rashow, God and Sheikh Adi Are Perfect, 187.