Today, the Yazidis will begin fasting days "Rojie Khidr Nabie Khidr Ailas"

2021/02/98000-1613464881.jpg
Read: 2351     12:30     16 Февраль 2021    

From Tuesday, Yazidis will begin fasting days "Rojie Khidr Nabi and Khidr Ailasa", which last three days. On Friday, believers celebrate the holiday of Aida Khidr Nabi. The beginning of the fast was announced by the spiritual leader of the Yazidis, Bawe sheh.

Restrictions and violation of the post:

• The deliberate taking food and drink to the setting sun

* Sleep during daylight hours

• Smoking

Pasiv (Paşîv,eating)

Food and water are forbidden before sunrise and after sunset. before the meal, believers wash their faces and say a prayer.

They are exempt from fasting:

* Minor children

• The elderly and the sick

* Pregnant and breast-feeding women

In Yazidi representation, Khidr and Ailas (Khidr Nabi and Khidr Ailas, sometimes a distorted form of Hrdaylaz, Hrdnabi) are two saints, riders on a white horse. They are so called: Khidr Nabi and Khidr Ailas riders on a white horse (Xidir Nebî û Xidir Eylas siyarê hespêd boz). The first is the performer of desires and the patron of lovers, and the second is the patron of those who travel by sea. Sometimes they appear as two brothers, and sometimes as father and son. Some identify them and consider them to be one person. They are mentioned in the Yezidi kawlah. In the legends " about Alexander the Great (Iskander)", "about Ashik Harib and Shah Sanam" and in kavla "about Darvesh Adam", as well as other sources.

According to Yazidi legend, Khidr and Ailas lived in the time of Alexander the great (Iskandar the two-horned), who was predicted to die soon. They tell him that you can avoid death if you drink "living water", and only Khidr and Ailas can get it. Khidr Nabi on the instructions of Aylas goes for "living water" having met many tests on the way. He collects water in a jug and on the way home decides to rest under an olive tree, and hangs the jug of water on a tree branch. While he sleeps, a crow arrives, sits on a tree and pokes the jug with its beak, drinking a drop of water. The jug is broken, and the remaining drops of water at the bottom will be drunk by Khidr and Ailas, and Iskandar will be told that the jug has broken. This legend is very long and tells about the adventures of Iskandar. We will give it in our separate work.

About the holiday

The date of the holiday is calculated according to the Eastern calendar ("old style") and falls on the first Thursday of the month sbat (sibat), i.e. February. Yazidis of Turkey, Syria and Iraq adhere to this calculation. It is noteworthy that in the calculation and celebration of the holiday of interest to us, there are some differences between the Yazidis of the former USSR (who came from the Sarhad region in Turkey) and the other Yazidis, which may be caused by the territorial remoteness from the other Yazidis. They calculated the date of the holiday using their own methods.

They focused on the Christian day of Baptism, i.e. January 19, after which they counted either 3 weeks, or 5 or 7 weeks. So in a few years, this holiday could be in March. In addition, there must have been a full moon during the holiday (gerekî hîveron be, hîv tas be), which did not always coincide with their calculations and led to confusion. Often it turned out that not everyone celebrated together and each village listened to the opinion of its elder, who was considered a hasabdar (hesabdar), i.e., versed in the calculation of Holy days. Some people focused on the Armenian holiday of Surb Sarkis and believed that the Yazidi holiday should be the next week after the Armenian one.

It is possible that this was all due to the close and friendly ties of the Sarhad Yazidis with the Armenians of this region. This is confirmed by the fact that the other Yazidis do not count down, focusing on Christian holidays. As we have already noted, the Supreme Spiritual Assembly of Yazidis in Lalysh (Iraq) counts the holidays according to the established calculation of Yazidi holidays, as well as the Yazidis of Turkey and Syria. In recent years, after establishing ties with the spiritual center of Lalysh, Yazidis of the former USSR celebrate the holiday together with other Yazidis.

Another difference between the celebration of the Yazidis of the USSR and the rest of the Yazidis is that the latter have a fast on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and the Ayd i.e. the holiday lasts two days-Thursday and Friday. On Thursday, Ayd Khidr Ailasa is celebrated, and on Friday, Khidr Nabi is celebrated. Yazidis of the former USSR fast on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and the holiday in honor of both saints on the same day, i.e. on Friday. Although, there were Yazidis who fasted for 4 days, starting from Monday, and called it bardachuin (bervaçûn), which meant fasting the day before and meeting the saints in advance.

The holiday of Khidr Nabi and Khidr Ailas is preceded by a three-day fast (rojî), which is observed as well as other Yazidi fasts. They get up early in the morning before dawn and after prayer they start eating-which is called pasiv(paşîv). They don't eat or drink anything all day after sunrise, and so on until evening. Before the sun sets, the believer washes his hands and face, prays, and then begins to eat – which is called ftar (fitar), i.e., singing. These days, dishes are prepared from vegetable products, i.e. wheat, flour, and dairy products. It is believed that Khidr Nabi and Khidr Ailas do not accept sacrifices, and during these days, Yazidis are forbidden to hunt and travel, since Khidr Nabi and Khidr Ailas themselves hunt and they should not be disturbed.

The Yazidis of Sarhad lost the custom of banning meat, and many even offered a sacrificial lamb in honor of these saints.

At this time, special dishes should be prepared: kiftê Dan (kiftê den – meatballs made from wheat), grar (girar – soup made from curdled milk and millet), sarbdau (serbidew), kalados (keledoş), hirçik (hirçik), kaisi (qeysî) and the most obligatory is pehun (pêxûn, poxîn, qatt). It is believed that the word pehun comes from be hung (bê xûn), i.e. without blood, since these days you can not cook food from meat. Pechon is made from fried flour with sugar. Yazidis of Iraq make pehun necessarily from 7 types of ingredients: beans, lentils, peas, sesame, barley, wheat, salt (nok, nîsk, baqilk, genim, kuncî, ceh, xwê). All this grind, it pechon which is put in the corner near the stereo (stêr – a Holy place in the house), and if in the morning it will be the imprint of a horseshoe of the horse of the saints, then came to give their blessing Khidr Nabi and Khidr Aylas. Among the Yazidis of the former Soviet Union, it was a common belief that you can not comb your hair during fasting, since it is believed that it turns into prickly bushes in the path of the Saint's horse, and soapy water turns into ice, and the horse can slip.

Yazidis of Iraq bake sawik (bread and butter), çerxşş-ground millet and other dishes. They also give people calatik (qelatîk-toasted wheat) and congratulate each other on the holiday. Iraqi Yazidis call the last day of the festival "zipk and kirpk" (zîpik û qirpik – grad) and then they cut off the ends of their hair so that their hair will be better next year. (About this also see Xelîl Cindî Raşo, Xanna Omerxalî, Eyda Xidir û Xidir Eylas)

Khidr Nabi and Khidr Aylas considered the patron of lovers and fulfill their wishes, so they are called Mesbah (mirazbexş). Young people on the last day of fasting do not drink water and after fasting (ftar) eat a salted tortilla – totka Shor (totka şor), which is baked by a girl who has not reached puberty. This cake is divided in half, part is eaten, and the other part is put under the pillow. It is believed that the one who gives water in a dream, and there is a betrothed. The remaining half of the cake is put in the yard and watch which way the birds will take it, and believe that the groom (bride) will be on that side. An interesting rite existed among the Yazidis of the former USSR. Villagers used flour to draw various symbols on the soot-blackened walls of the barn. In the evening, on the eve of the holiday (i.e. from Thursday to Friday), after ftar, people gathered in the house of the Sheikh or feast and listened to religious texts and sermons. Then, everyone went to visit the families who had recently lost a relative and once again condoled with them, asked for permission to hold a holiday and congratulated them on the holiday. After that, folk festivals began, young people gathered, and the dolidang rite was performed to music. Young people dress in rags, one of them sticks a beard, and go around the houses of neighbors, asking them to throw something in a sock tied to a stick. They go up to the roofs of houses and from the top of the kolak (kulek – a special hole for light) lower the sock and sing a poem: "Dolîdangê, dolîdangê, Xwedê xweyîke xortê malê. Pîra malê bike qurbangê: Tiştekî bavêje dolîdangê". (Dolidar, dolidar, God bless your son, and the woman (old) sacrifice something. Throw something in dolidar!) The one who dresses up in rags is called Kosa gialdi (Kose geldî - from the Turkic bald came). A similar rite exists among the Georgian mountaineers and is called berikaoba. It should be noted that the braid of galdi is among Azerbaijanis, but they have this ceremony performed in March, the Nowruz.

It is noteworthy that this holiday exists not only among Yazidis, but also among some tribes of Kurdish Muslims of Sarhad. Obviously, not all Kurdish tribes professing Islam recognize this holiday, as they consider it a relic of pre-Islamic cults. Mela Mahmud Bayazidi in his book describes this holiday among the Kurds of the Sarhad region as follows: "15 days before the long Armenian fast, the Kurds call it the holiday of Khidr Nabi. Unmarried youth, young men and girls fast for three days, fall in love on the 4th, but do not drink water, then go to bed, and if a young man dreams that he gives water to a girl, then it is considered that this girl will get him as a wife. If a girl in a dream gives water to someone, then it means that he is her betrothed. This is considered a true sign among the Kurds. On the night of the Khidr Nabi festival, they bake pohin (a kind of sweet soft cookie made from fried flour with a large amount of oil), put it in a wooden trough and put it in the middle of the room. It is believed that the horse of the prophet Khidr Nabi leaves its mark on pohina, and then the owner of the house rejoices, saying: "the blessing and mercy of the prophet Khidr have descended to my house this night. After the fast ends, this pohina is made into halva and distributed to neighbors and relatives, and part of the pohina is hidden, considering it the embodiment of the prophet's mercy."

Summing up the article, we can assume that the image of Cedar and Alas (Khidr Nabi and Khidr Ailas), Surb Sarkis, Vastarji, George, incorporated the features of different mythological characters of the ancient pre-Christian and pre-Islamic Middle East. The legends of Hydra and Silas go back to the ancient myth of the search for "living water", which is found in the Sumero-Akkadian epic of Gilgamesh. Khidr Ailas is also mentioned in M. Y. Lermontov's Ashik-Kerib, which the poet recorded from the lips of a native of Turkey. It is based on the legend of Ashik Kerib (lit. "A lover who has endured hardships in a foreign land"), common among Yazidis in the form of a poem.

Dmitry Pirbari





Tags: #yazidisinfo   #aboutyazidi   #yazidi  



Today, the Yazidis will begin fasting days "Rojie Khidr Nabie Khidr Ailas"

2021/02/98000-1613464881.jpg
Read: 2352     12:30     16 Февраль 2021    

From Tuesday, Yazidis will begin fasting days "Rojie Khidr Nabi and Khidr Ailasa", which last three days. On Friday, believers celebrate the holiday of Aida Khidr Nabi. The beginning of the fast was announced by the spiritual leader of the Yazidis, Bawe sheh.

Restrictions and violation of the post:

• The deliberate taking food and drink to the setting sun

* Sleep during daylight hours

• Smoking

Pasiv (Paşîv,eating)

Food and water are forbidden before sunrise and after sunset. before the meal, believers wash their faces and say a prayer.

They are exempt from fasting:

* Minor children

• The elderly and the sick

* Pregnant and breast-feeding women

In Yazidi representation, Khidr and Ailas (Khidr Nabi and Khidr Ailas, sometimes a distorted form of Hrdaylaz, Hrdnabi) are two saints, riders on a white horse. They are so called: Khidr Nabi and Khidr Ailas riders on a white horse (Xidir Nebî û Xidir Eylas siyarê hespêd boz). The first is the performer of desires and the patron of lovers, and the second is the patron of those who travel by sea. Sometimes they appear as two brothers, and sometimes as father and son. Some identify them and consider them to be one person. They are mentioned in the Yezidi kawlah. In the legends " about Alexander the Great (Iskander)", "about Ashik Harib and Shah Sanam" and in kavla "about Darvesh Adam", as well as other sources.

According to Yazidi legend, Khidr and Ailas lived in the time of Alexander the great (Iskandar the two-horned), who was predicted to die soon. They tell him that you can avoid death if you drink "living water", and only Khidr and Ailas can get it. Khidr Nabi on the instructions of Aylas goes for "living water" having met many tests on the way. He collects water in a jug and on the way home decides to rest under an olive tree, and hangs the jug of water on a tree branch. While he sleeps, a crow arrives, sits on a tree and pokes the jug with its beak, drinking a drop of water. The jug is broken, and the remaining drops of water at the bottom will be drunk by Khidr and Ailas, and Iskandar will be told that the jug has broken. This legend is very long and tells about the adventures of Iskandar. We will give it in our separate work.

About the holiday

The date of the holiday is calculated according to the Eastern calendar ("old style") and falls on the first Thursday of the month sbat (sibat), i.e. February. Yazidis of Turkey, Syria and Iraq adhere to this calculation. It is noteworthy that in the calculation and celebration of the holiday of interest to us, there are some differences between the Yazidis of the former USSR (who came from the Sarhad region in Turkey) and the other Yazidis, which may be caused by the territorial remoteness from the other Yazidis. They calculated the date of the holiday using their own methods.

They focused on the Christian day of Baptism, i.e. January 19, after which they counted either 3 weeks, or 5 or 7 weeks. So in a few years, this holiday could be in March. In addition, there must have been a full moon during the holiday (gerekî hîveron be, hîv tas be), which did not always coincide with their calculations and led to confusion. Often it turned out that not everyone celebrated together and each village listened to the opinion of its elder, who was considered a hasabdar (hesabdar), i.e., versed in the calculation of Holy days. Some people focused on the Armenian holiday of Surb Sarkis and believed that the Yazidi holiday should be the next week after the Armenian one.

It is possible that this was all due to the close and friendly ties of the Sarhad Yazidis with the Armenians of this region. This is confirmed by the fact that the other Yazidis do not count down, focusing on Christian holidays. As we have already noted, the Supreme Spiritual Assembly of Yazidis in Lalysh (Iraq) counts the holidays according to the established calculation of Yazidi holidays, as well as the Yazidis of Turkey and Syria. In recent years, after establishing ties with the spiritual center of Lalysh, Yazidis of the former USSR celebrate the holiday together with other Yazidis.

Another difference between the celebration of the Yazidis of the USSR and the rest of the Yazidis is that the latter have a fast on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and the Ayd i.e. the holiday lasts two days-Thursday and Friday. On Thursday, Ayd Khidr Ailasa is celebrated, and on Friday, Khidr Nabi is celebrated. Yazidis of the former USSR fast on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and the holiday in honor of both saints on the same day, i.e. on Friday. Although, there were Yazidis who fasted for 4 days, starting from Monday, and called it bardachuin (bervaçûn), which meant fasting the day before and meeting the saints in advance.

The holiday of Khidr Nabi and Khidr Ailas is preceded by a three-day fast (rojî), which is observed as well as other Yazidi fasts. They get up early in the morning before dawn and after prayer they start eating-which is called pasiv(paşîv). They don't eat or drink anything all day after sunrise, and so on until evening. Before the sun sets, the believer washes his hands and face, prays, and then begins to eat – which is called ftar (fitar), i.e., singing. These days, dishes are prepared from vegetable products, i.e. wheat, flour, and dairy products. It is believed that Khidr Nabi and Khidr Ailas do not accept sacrifices, and during these days, Yazidis are forbidden to hunt and travel, since Khidr Nabi and Khidr Ailas themselves hunt and they should not be disturbed.

The Yazidis of Sarhad lost the custom of banning meat, and many even offered a sacrificial lamb in honor of these saints.

At this time, special dishes should be prepared: kiftê Dan (kiftê den – meatballs made from wheat), grar (girar – soup made from curdled milk and millet), sarbdau (serbidew), kalados (keledoş), hirçik (hirçik), kaisi (qeysî) and the most obligatory is pehun (pêxûn, poxîn, qatt). It is believed that the word pehun comes from be hung (bê xûn), i.e. without blood, since these days you can not cook food from meat. Pechon is made from fried flour with sugar. Yazidis of Iraq make pehun necessarily from 7 types of ingredients: beans, lentils, peas, sesame, barley, wheat, salt (nok, nîsk, baqilk, genim, kuncî, ceh, xwê). All this grind, it pechon which is put in the corner near the stereo (stêr – a Holy place in the house), and if in the morning it will be the imprint of a horseshoe of the horse of the saints, then came to give their blessing Khidr Nabi and Khidr Aylas. Among the Yazidis of the former Soviet Union, it was a common belief that you can not comb your hair during fasting, since it is believed that it turns into prickly bushes in the path of the Saint's horse, and soapy water turns into ice, and the horse can slip.

Yazidis of Iraq bake sawik (bread and butter), çerxşş-ground millet and other dishes. They also give people calatik (qelatîk-toasted wheat) and congratulate each other on the holiday. Iraqi Yazidis call the last day of the festival "zipk and kirpk" (zîpik û qirpik – grad) and then they cut off the ends of their hair so that their hair will be better next year. (About this also see Xelîl Cindî Raşo, Xanna Omerxalî, Eyda Xidir û Xidir Eylas)

Khidr Nabi and Khidr Aylas considered the patron of lovers and fulfill their wishes, so they are called Mesbah (mirazbexş). Young people on the last day of fasting do not drink water and after fasting (ftar) eat a salted tortilla – totka Shor (totka şor), which is baked by a girl who has not reached puberty. This cake is divided in half, part is eaten, and the other part is put under the pillow. It is believed that the one who gives water in a dream, and there is a betrothed. The remaining half of the cake is put in the yard and watch which way the birds will take it, and believe that the groom (bride) will be on that side. An interesting rite existed among the Yazidis of the former USSR. Villagers used flour to draw various symbols on the soot-blackened walls of the barn. In the evening, on the eve of the holiday (i.e. from Thursday to Friday), after ftar, people gathered in the house of the Sheikh or feast and listened to religious texts and sermons. Then, everyone went to visit the families who had recently lost a relative and once again condoled with them, asked for permission to hold a holiday and congratulated them on the holiday. After that, folk festivals began, young people gathered, and the dolidang rite was performed to music. Young people dress in rags, one of them sticks a beard, and go around the houses of neighbors, asking them to throw something in a sock tied to a stick. They go up to the roofs of houses and from the top of the kolak (kulek – a special hole for light) lower the sock and sing a poem: "Dolîdangê, dolîdangê, Xwedê xweyîke xortê malê. Pîra malê bike qurbangê: Tiştekî bavêje dolîdangê". (Dolidar, dolidar, God bless your son, and the woman (old) sacrifice something. Throw something in dolidar!) The one who dresses up in rags is called Kosa gialdi (Kose geldî - from the Turkic bald came). A similar rite exists among the Georgian mountaineers and is called berikaoba. It should be noted that the braid of galdi is among Azerbaijanis, but they have this ceremony performed in March, the Nowruz.

It is noteworthy that this holiday exists not only among Yazidis, but also among some tribes of Kurdish Muslims of Sarhad. Obviously, not all Kurdish tribes professing Islam recognize this holiday, as they consider it a relic of pre-Islamic cults. Mela Mahmud Bayazidi in his book describes this holiday among the Kurds of the Sarhad region as follows: "15 days before the long Armenian fast, the Kurds call it the holiday of Khidr Nabi. Unmarried youth, young men and girls fast for three days, fall in love on the 4th, but do not drink water, then go to bed, and if a young man dreams that he gives water to a girl, then it is considered that this girl will get him as a wife. If a girl in a dream gives water to someone, then it means that he is her betrothed. This is considered a true sign among the Kurds. On the night of the Khidr Nabi festival, they bake pohin (a kind of sweet soft cookie made from fried flour with a large amount of oil), put it in a wooden trough and put it in the middle of the room. It is believed that the horse of the prophet Khidr Nabi leaves its mark on pohina, and then the owner of the house rejoices, saying: "the blessing and mercy of the prophet Khidr have descended to my house this night. After the fast ends, this pohina is made into halva and distributed to neighbors and relatives, and part of the pohina is hidden, considering it the embodiment of the prophet's mercy."

Summing up the article, we can assume that the image of Cedar and Alas (Khidr Nabi and Khidr Ailas), Surb Sarkis, Vastarji, George, incorporated the features of different mythological characters of the ancient pre-Christian and pre-Islamic Middle East. The legends of Hydra and Silas go back to the ancient myth of the search for "living water", which is found in the Sumero-Akkadian epic of Gilgamesh. Khidr Ailas is also mentioned in M. Y. Lermontov's Ashik-Kerib, which the poet recorded from the lips of a native of Turkey. It is based on the legend of Ashik Kerib (lit. "A lover who has endured hardships in a foreign land"), common among Yazidis in the form of a poem.

Dmitry Pirbari





Tags: #yazidisinfo   #aboutyazidi   #yazidi