Yezidis of Northern Iraq May Be Oldest Monotheistic Religion

December 4, 2005

Source: Assyrian International News Agency

http://www.aina.org/news/20051204135125.htm

On December 4, 2005 the Assyrian International News Agency reported, "This small ethnic community, numbering perhaps 500,000 people in Iraq, 750,000 at most, is all that remains of what is perhaps the oldest monotheistic religion in the world, the Yezidi religion, a faith documented (at least sparsely) as far back as 2000 BC and according to oral tradition is vastly older still. Today, the Yezidi regard Muhammad as a prophet and Jesus Christ as an angel in human form. Some scholars believe elements of the Yezidi religion date to ancient Assyrian and Zoroastrian religions... Yezidism is an ethnicity and a religious identity rolled into one. [One] cannot marry into or convert to the faith, due in large part to a unique (in this region) aspect of their beliefs, reincarnation, which they call the 'soul changing its clothes'... Yezidis are divided into castes. The higher caste, called Sheikhs, is further divided into community and religious leaders called Pir. The lower caste is the rest of the Yezidi population, called the Marid. Intermarriage between the castes is discouraged. 'You cannot do this, you are born as God wants,' Sabah declares. 'To keep our culture intact, we must keep the levels within it intact.'"