Iranian clampdown on "devil worshippers" - religious persecution disguised?

international | history and heritage | other press

Monday May 25, 2009 20:22

by erudite type

Reuters and other newswires are carrying an Iranian story in the last hour that the revolutionary guard have arrested 114 "devil worshippers" and seized drugs and alcohol during a party in a southern city.
"Cutting (their own) skin and sucking up the blood was among the indecent behavior of the group," Mehr News Agency quoted Colonel Abbas Hamedi of Iran's Revolutionary Guards in the city of Shiraz as saying. He said a Guards intelligence unit launched an investigation into the all-male group about one year ago, leading to their arrest Sunday evening. "The group's aim was to promote irreligious behavior," Hamedi, adding they had posted footage of their parties on the Internet. The Islamic Republic, which bans alcohol and narcotics, last year said it would launch a crackdown on "indecent Western-inspired movements" such as rappers and satanists.

Which all sounds dandy to the general public who probably don't know about the Melak Taus

It seems highly improbably that alcohol-drinking-blood-fetishist-all-male hedonistic drugged-up party goers would agree to meet up in Iran and much less publicise their gig on Facebook or some other internet site afterwards.

& so sniffing the odour of an odd story I remembered the followers of the white peacock & their rituals & pilgrimages & wondered if indeed Iranian religious plod is right - who might have hooked up with them to what ends..,

let me explain :-

Melak Taus or in Kurdish "Tawuse Melek" which translates to English as "The Peacock Angel" is the central figure of a faith system of the Yazidi. Though predominantly found in northern Iraq there are significant communities in western and southern Iran. Their angel is one of the "fallen" of the Abrahamic folkore of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. But after that particular fisticuffs he (& it is a "he") recanted and then became the creator of the cosmos.

To many others, Christian and Muslim alike their Angel is none other than Satan (and / or) Lucifer. They have suffered a lot of persecution, pogroms and not all in the dark days before telly and internet when in the west they mostly got sideline oblique mentions in the fiction of Sax Rohmer & HP Lovecraft & then much more specific plotlines from Idries Shah & Anton La Vey. The most savage series of suicide bombings was aimed at their community on August 14, 2007 Yazidis were targeted, a series of bombings that became the deadliest suicide attack since the Iraq War. began. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Qahtaniya_bombings

The news story :-

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE54O3RK2...90525
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090525/wl_nm/us_iran_arres...devil
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/05/25/world/interna....html

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Comments (3 of 3)

Christian and Muslim alike their Angel is none other than Satan

by john 3:16

Tue May 26, 2009 08:02

erudite type says: "To many others, Christian and Muslim alike their Angel is none other than Satan (and / or) Lucifer."

what kind of mumbo-jumbo is this irrelevant (provocative?) phrase when discussing the Yazidis.

get your theology sorted out. your statement is pure fiction. there is nothing in the Bible or the Koran to back up this.

dictionary definition of "erudite" = educated, knowledgeable; wise.

stick to your theme about the situation of the Yazidis without making uneducated, theologically-illiterate misrepresentations about Muslims & Christians.

The Yazidi have been known to both Christians and Muslims as devil-worshippers. & Iranian Facebook

by erudite

Wed May 27, 2009 14:29

This newstory accompanied the suspension of the internet social network service "Facebook" in Iran. It has now been restored.

Both Muslims and Christians have considered and described the Yazidi as devil worshippers throughout history attested by references to them in western literature as I outlined above which could only have been traced to contemporary encyclopedia descriptions & if you understand Jewish, Christian or Muslim folkloristic creation myths (Which few believers argue are literary) then you easily understand why the Yazadi got the label.

You could go to the website "Christians in Iraq" http://www.christiansofiraq.com/yazidifindpeace.html

Most recently in the autobiography of Kayla Williams of the US Army intelligence unit of the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq during 2003 and 2004. published in 2005 The Yezidis were Kurdish-speaking, but did not consider themselves Kurds, and expressed to Williams a fondness for America and Israel. She was able to learn only a little about the nature of their religion: she thought it very ancient, and concerned with angels. She describes a mountain-top Yezidi shrine as "a small rock building with objects dangling from the ceiling", and alcoves for the placement of offerings. She reports that local Muslims considered the Yezidis to be devil worshippers.

As for theological schatology & my erudite references to Abrahamin folklore of "Satan &/or Lucifer" :-

The Yazidi believe God first created Tawuse Melek (the peacock angel) from his own illumination (Ronahi ) and the other six archangels were created later. God ordered Tawuse Melek not to bow to other beings. Then God created the other archangels and ordered them to bring him dust (Ax) from the Earth (Erd) and build the body of Adam. Then God gave life to Adam from his own breath and instructed all archangels to bow to Adam. The archangels obeyed except for Tawuse Melek. In answer to God, Tawuse Melek replied, "How can I submit to another being! I am from your illumination while Adam is made of dust." Then God praised him and made him the leader of all angels and his deputy on the Earth..

The Islamic Shaytan (for their theology holds no Lucifer but does include the Masih ad-Dajjal) refused to bow to Adam at God's command, though in this case it is seen as being a sign of Shaytan's sinful pride that atttribute given throughout human artistic representation to the peacock.

I doubt either an atheist fighting Irish blasphemy laws or a fundamentalist christian would really be up to scratch on the common and divergent ground of Satan, Shaytan, Lucifer, Masih ad-Dajjal and the Yazidi nor even understand that Nestorian christianity so far removed (By schism) from any western bible basher's belief system which is the dominant christian belief system of Assyria (Kurdistan, Iraq & Iran) etc.

but there is always wikipedia

on Islamic folklore :-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dajjal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaitan

on Christian & Abrahamic folklore :-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan#Yazidism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer

on the poor maligned people themselves :-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazidi

BBC on the suspension and return of Facebook :-

Tell me Something New.

by Atheist.

Wed May 27, 2009 14:53

Nothing new about that.

The Iranians call the USA “The Great Satan”.

Ian Paisley called the Pope the “Antichrist” (=the Devil Incarnate.) in the European Parliament.

Religions in general seem to require that those who do not believe what they believe are acting on the Devil’s orders.

That is why the Penal Laws were enacted in Ireland...to keep Catholics, the Devil's Agents, down.

“Religion is The Opium of the People” –Karl Marx.

Wise words.

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Iranian clampdown on "devil worshippers" - religious persecution disguised?

Comments (3 of 3)