Yezidi Reformer: Sheikh Adi (I)

Sheikh Adî is a divine being who resides in the same heaven as TM. After he took physical form so did all the seven angels except TM.  Shaeikh Adî  ibn Mustafa who is said to be of Umayyad descent from the Beka’a Valley of Lebanon.  He settled in the valley of Lalişh (some thirty-six miles north-east of Mosul) in the early 12th century AD. Shaeikh Adî himself, a figure of undoubted orthodoxy, enjoyed widespread influence. He died in 1162, and his tomb at Lalish is a focal point of Yazidi pilgrimage. During the fourteenth century, important Kurdish tribes whose sphere of influence stretched well into what is now Turkey (including, for a period, the rulers of the principality of Jazira) are cited in historical sources as Yazidi.

Sheike Adi believed that the spirit of Melek Ta’us is the same as his own, perhaps as a reincarnation.  He is believed to have said: ”I was present when Adam was living in Paradise, and also when Nemrud threw Abraham in fire.  I was present when God dais to me: (You are the ruler and Lord of the Earth).  God, the compassionate, gace me seven earths and the throne of heaven.”

Sheike Adi determined that Yezidi can not convert to another religion and a person from another religion can not become Yezidi.  There were those who wanted to become Yezidi and cause trouble within the religion.

Sheikh Adi created the priest class. He created the Faquir class within the priest class.

There is some desultory information of Shaikh ‘Adi and his teaching in the religious canticles. Thus, in the Prayer and Confession in the Yezidi Religion, the Yezidi name of the Shaikh is mentioned four times: ‘Bread is from Shaikh ‘Adi’s storehouse’; ‘Shaikh ‘Adi sits on the throne’; ‘My religion is [from] Sharf ad-Din’ (one of the components of his complete name); and ‘ Shaikh ‘Adi is the One God’.

The Madihat shaikh ‘Adi begins with the author’s self-proclamation as the bearer of the Truth (haqq) and the creator of everything by the will of God. The culmination of the poem comes with the words of the Shaikh’s self-identification as God; later this idea became an integral part of the Yezidi tradition:

“I am ‘Adi, ash-Shami, [son of] Musafir …
In the depth of my knowledge there is no God but me.
These things are subservient to my power.”