I read the link below: Who are the Yazidis? With all of the trouble everywhere, its hard to pick and choose any longer who one might give priority for aid, but that situation actually thrust me into wishing I could physically go there to participate in doing something. Perhaps it is because it is work I know something about - rather like how our work has been here during peak migrations a few years back and dealing with dehydration, starvation, etc. I really dont know so much about them and am not all that impressed with the BBC story. I am curious about the validity of their belief that one must be born into the sect to actually be one. I went back to The Sufis to see what Shah had written about them and have included it here below the link. Id wondered if my intense, inner response had to do with carrying around the passage about them. bbc/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-28686607 Peacock Angel Cult The Yesidis, reputed devil worshipers, of Iraq, are a secret cult whose symbolism, the peacock and the back snake, have baffled students for centuries. There is, however, no need for this difficulty, give the knowledge that the group was founded by a famous Sufi, and given that we know how Sufic poetic analogy works. Like the Sufi Builders, travelers or Coalmen, the Yezidis were originally a community of Sufis, and their rituals are centered around the use of standard and familiar Sufi symbolism. Malak tauus, which stands for Peacock Angel, merely means: MaLaK, homonym of MaLiK (King, the traditional word for Sufi); and TAUUS (Peacock) which stands here for its homophone TAUUS (Verdant Land). When it is noted that MaLaK (Angel) is used in Ghazalis sense of angels are the higher faculties in man, it can be seen that the supposed idol of the Yezidis is merely an allegory of two Sufi watchwords - the expansion of the land, the mind, through higher faculties. Both of these words are in Sufic usage outside of the Yezidi cult. The Yezidis are divided into grades which use Sufi initiatory titles such as pir (elder); Fakir (poor one); Baba (chief). Lady Drower, who studied the Peacock people of Iraq at close range, says of the founder of the group, Sheikh Adi Ibn Musafir (Son of the Traveler, a Sufi cognomen): Nothing that is known about him speaks of anything but orthodoxy, but he was a Sufi and the secret doctrines of Sufism have always been suspected of pantheism, and the Sufi sects of cherishing ancient faiths. (Peacock Angel, 1941, p. 152) In addition to the peacock emblem, the Yezidis use the figure of a snake, which they blacken with soot. This blackening is symbolic of the word FEHM (charcoal, carbon). The snake itself, far from being a symbol of evil or ancient skin-sloughing-regeneration lore, as some would believe. is chosen for the same reasons as the peacock. In Arabic, snake is HaYYat. This is a near rhyme for another word, HaYYAt, life, which use the same Arabic letters. The meaning of the black snake is therefore: Wisdom of Life. As in the case of other Sufic organizations, the Yezidi system has traveled far beyond its cultural context, and become in places a mere mime. A thriving branch of the cult, which does in fact appear to revere an angelic peacock, is reported as existing in London in 1962. (A. Daraul, Secret Societies, London, 1962) It is this deterioration of symbolology which is reflected in many strange associations in the West. The real developmental intention has become subservient to the form which, in turn, is used to produce communal emotion, replacing inner experience. - Idries Shah; The Sufis; pp, 386-387 __________________________________________________ Ive added some notes from a teaching on Malik/MLK over at Chishtiyya: > Al-Malik is translated as King. (or Koenig or Roi or their > cognates). In European languages, the stress of meaning is on rule, command, > dominion, authority. > > Al-Malik is from the Arabic root M-L-K. The basic meaning is to hold a > thing closely between the palms of the two hands, bi yadi. The stress of > the meaning in Arabic is holding something close for protection. Among > other things, malik or its close cognates mean to carefully pick up a > seedling plant between the hands, to transplant it. It means ownership, but > with responsibility to take care of a thing. It has an implied intimacy - > between the two hands, held close. It implies protecting, nourishing, > cultivation, closely attentive care. > > King is a translation, but not a very complete one. > > To translate is to betray. _____________________________________________________ Passage from continued teaching: Weve seen how shaykh ibn al-Arabi comments on the name al-Malik from 3 points of view. The third point of view (takhalloq) explains how or in what sense, you – as a creature (khalq) – can be clothed in the characteristics of the name in question. Adoption or characterization (takhalloq) When the will of the servant is the will of the divine Reality (eraadat al-Haqq), then the thing which he wants (moraad) will necessarily take place. The name King thus really suits him, because He has said: ‘The servant does not stop approaching Me by means of voluntarily performed works (nawaafel) until I am his hearing, his sight, his hand and his support’. He who needs Allah is himself necessary for everything, because of the reality of his being the deputy (haqiqat al-estekhlaaf), this according to His word (Qur’an 38:75): ‘... before what I created with My own hands’ and what the Prophet - may Allah bless him and give peace to him – has said: ‘Allah created Adam in His image’. The name Malik may at times have the meaning of Shadid, that is Strong, Implacable, Intense and becomes as such a special qualifier (wasf khaass) of the King by means of His domain (molk), the kingdom of creation. Ibn al-Khatim thus uses a verbal form of the same lexical root (m-l-k) when describing a thrust with a lance, he says in a verse: ‘I intensified the force (malaktu) of my hand and took the breach’.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 19:16:23 +0000