Isn’t this false? They don’t worship satan.
Qeelbax, I have met one in real life. The person told me Shaytan was a miskeen good entity that was wronged by God. In that manner of wording. A childhood friend who was their neighbor informed me they worship satan, and I did not believe it until the Kurdish individual came out and confirmed when I asked if she believed in satan. The strange thing about it was that I remember she was physically very beautiful.
This is a true story.
One thing is true, that person was a Kurd but never said
Yazidi. I do not know of any other group that surrounds such belief but them within the Kurdish macro-ethnicity. So unless somebody can cook up a better-fitting sub-ethnic Kurdish identity collective, I will resort to the law of parsimony and opt for the rational choice.
Now, although this Melek Tawus thing is a complete strawman to my story since I never knew of such an entity, the individual I talked to used "satan," which points out there was no room for misunderstanding or interpretation on my part. But looking at the evidence, Melek Tawus is undoubtedly Shaytan. Only they believe him to be good as they flipped the story (Yazidis do not even believe in evil) -- how many stories are there of beings that refused to bow down to Adam (AS)? And these people corrupted the narrative to the point where Shaytan not bowing down, an order from God, was a good thing.
Next point. Yazidis believe in seven divine beings they pray to, so they can further talk to their god for them. Those beings they claim to be divine are emanations from the "divine," meaning the use of the term "angel" is fallacious because angels in Islam are nothing but creation, no emanation of God nor divine themselves, nor do we pray to them for them to talk to God. So now we have established, Melek Tawus is Shaytan only seen as positive and they do indeed pray to him as he is the most prominent of those seven "divine" beings, which are in their belief, pieces of god. Why do I say this? According to the dictionary "emanation" means: 1)
something which originates or issues from a source, "source" here strictly means god, and 2) (
in various mystical traditions) a being or force which is a manifestation of God. This is a set of terminology used by Oxford, people I am to remind you, also peddle this lie about it not being Shaytan, despite the evidence, and erroneously make it synonymous with angels when the fundamentals couldn't be more different.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion:
“For Yazidis, God is a relatively remote figure, and contact with the divine takes
place through seven Holy Beings (also known as “Angels”).
These are emanations of the Divine, and because God has many names (a thousand, according to some), the Holy Beings also may have a number of names.
Chief among them is Melek Tawûs, the Peacock Angel, also identified by the name “Sultan Êzî,” among others. It is this figure whom outsiders have identified with Satan, though Yazidism has no conceptualization of an Evil Principle and does not see Melek Ṭawûs as anything but divine”
The peacock thing, or the bird characteristics is totally beside the point. For example, Idol worshippers were big-time syncretists too, they mixed different idols from different places and prayed to them. In fact, one of the main traits of idolatry is when people change and modify the attributes of the thing, so as to change the relationship with that thing. So this "Melek Tawus was a bird" argument "thus not Shaytan" lacks fundamental critical thinking since we know Melek Tawus was a derivative of the story of Shaytan flipped on his head and given divine attributes who they pray to, no matter how many feathers and wings they claim he has, or how many composites of characteristics of Zoroastrianism, or whatever else, they have added. The guy you are quoting lacks critical thinking or is dishonest, I think both.
It is meaningless to search for Google opinions. Westerners downplay it for the reason that they were minorities for centuries (who, by the way, practiced a self-imposed isolationist tradition) and targeted by d*esh. It will be loaded with a bias toward soft and less controversial language (strong semantical and typological deception like seen above) for the representation of acceptance, even the Oxford source I posted has silly aspects in that regard. You also have Yazidis in this day and age that try to push for better PR because saying you pray to a shaytanic entity will not be received well. This is basic common sense.
I do not want to write another paragraph on these people, so take it or leave it. Evidence is in clear view once one parses out the nonsense that is used to obscure.