Source: The Washintgon Times
http://washingtontimes.com/article/20070822/FOREIGN/108220034/1003
Travel anywhere in northern Iraq, and you will see them: small, white, conical shrines that sit alone in the fields, along with the sheep. Inside, the floors are greasy, covered with drippings from oil lamps. There are low-lying altars for the occasional animal sacrifice. The doorways are low, making one bow toward the altar upon entering.
These are the khalwas — temples for the Yazidi, an ethnic-Kurdish group that practices a religion that is a mixture of Islam, Zoroastrianism, gnosticism, Judaism, Sufism and shamanism.
Their highly syncretistic beliefs — including a veneration of Lucifer as a redeemed archangel — have earned them the reputation as devil worshippers, a concept loathed by the Muslim populace.
The Muslim suicide bombers who killed at least 400 Yazidis Aug. 14 were acting on a centuries-old mutual loathing.