Iraqi MP defends Lucifer

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1752074,00.html

Baghdad - The devil looked in on Iraq's parliament on Wednesday when a member of parliament upbraided Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari for speaking ill of Lucifer.

Kameran Khairi Said, a Kurdish MP and a member of the minority Yezidi community that worshipped the peacock angel, also known as Lucifer, angrily interrupted the prime minister during a parliamentary debate.

"Mr Prime Minister and ministers, my speaking out might seem strange to you, but we feel insulted when you repeatedly use the expression in your speeches and statements 'God protects us from the devil'.

"Each time the word is pronounced, my colleagues turn towards me as if I were a representative of the devil."

Yezidis followed a pre-Islamic religion, which some believed was founded in the 12th century by Sheikh Uday bin Masafel al-Amawi, although many scholars traced its origins to the Zoroastrian religion of ancient Persia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yezidi

The Yezidi or Yazidi (Kurdish; Êzidî) are adherents of a small Middle Eastern religion with ancient origins. They are primarily ethnic Kurds, and most Yazidis live near Mosul, Iraq with smaller communities in Syria, Turkey, Iran, Georgia and Armenia, and are estimated to number ca. 500,000 individuals in total. There are also Yazidi refugees in Europe.

In the region that is now Iraq, the Yazidi have been oppressed and considered devil worshippers for centuries. During the reign of Saddam Hussein, however, they were considered to be Arabs and maneuvered to oppose the Kurds, in order to tilt the ethnic balance in northern Iraq. Since the 2003 occupation of Iraq, the Kurds want the Yazidi to be recognized as ethnic Kurds.

Historically, the Yazidis are a religious minority of the Kurds. Purportedly, they have existed since 2000 BC. Estimates of the number of Yazidis vary between 100,000 and 800,000. The latter is the claim of their website. According to the same site, refugees in Germany number 30,000.

The Yazidi worship Malak Ta’us, apparently a pre-Islamic peacock angel who has fallen into disgrace. Malak Ta’us has links to Mithraism and, through it, to Zoroastrianism. The Yazidi maintain a well-preserved culture, rich in traditions and customs.

[xchrom]

1. i was familiar with them -- and had been wondering

how they had fared.
it's good to see that they seem to be ok.

[iconoclastic cat]

2. Pleased to meet you...hope you guess my name!

[whistle]

3. Iraq is almost as insane about its religious sects as the U.S.....

....tell them we have a devil worshiper in the oval office of the White House.

[tocqueville]

4. you mean an incarnation ?

[wli]

6. if the Bohemian Grove stuff is true, we literally do

Not that I buy into Alex Jones' story about that.

[NNN0LHI]

5. Send this to any Christian fundies you know and watch their heads explode

:rofl:

[wli]

7. the devil is not necessary a maleficient counter-deity in all religions

For instance, the Old Testament primarily portrays Lucifer/Satan as something of an angelic prosecuting attorney as opposed to the source of evil or evil incarnate or whatever. Other views could easily hold him as something like a Hindu deva, which is more like a natural force as opposed to something consciously maleficent or to be despised.

I don't know anything about that religion, though.