Jump to content

Adawiyya

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Adawiyya (Arabic: العدوية; Kurdish: Edewîtî) or the Adawi order (Arabic: الطريقة العدوية; Kurdish: Terîqetê Edewî) was a Sunni Sufi order founded by Adi ibn Musafir in Kurdistan. Adawiyya was known for having influences from Ancient Iranian religion. The religion of Yazidism has its roots in Adawiyya.

History

[edit]

Adi ibn Musafir was from the Umayyad dynasty, born around 1075, near Baalbek in the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon. From his remote village, he travelled to Baghdad to study Sufism. Later, in the 11th century, he went to Kurdistan as a missionary. Kurdistan was very dangerous at the time and had not been fully converted to Islam. Adi ibn Musafir founded the Adawiyyah order.[1] Adi ibn Musafir was based in Lalish.[2] Abdulqadir Gilani had studied with Sheikh Adi in Baghdad, and helped Sheikh Adi settle in Kurdistan.[3]

Sheikh Adi settled among a group of Kurds who practiced an Ancient Iranian religion, which although similar to Zoroastrianism, was a separate religion.[4][5] Elements of Islam were mixed with the local beliefs, and Sheikh Adi referred to their new practices as offering a way of attaining "direct fusion" with God, which was a known Sufi doctrine. The majority of those who followed Sheikh Adi were Kurmanji Kurds.[6] The unorthodox views of Sheikh Adi were made apparent in his poetry, which was similar to the poetry of Shah Ismail, while the Adawis acted similarly to followers of Babak Khorramdin.[7]

Adi ibn Musafir died in January 1162, and his tomb in Lalish became a shrine for his followers. As he was unmarried and had no children, his nephew, Sakhr Abu al-Barakat, succeeded him as the leader of the Adawi order. Sakhr Abu al-Barakat had rapidly grown the Adawi order. He also died at an old age and was buried near Adi ibn Musafir. He was succeeded by his son, Sheikh Adi. To distinguish from Adi ibn Musafir, he was nicknamed "Adi the Kurd", as he was the first Adawi leader to have been born in Kurdistan, despite not actually being a Kurd.[8]

Adi the Kurd died and was succeeded by his son, Sheikh Hasan ibn Adi II, as leader of the Adawis. Under Sheikh Hasan, the Adawi order began to deviate from Islam and shift closer to the Pre-Islamic beliefs. Other Muslims began to pejoratively refer to Adawis as Yezidis, due to their reverence of Yazid ibn Muawiyah, as well as the Umayyad lineage of the Adawi leaders. In his early writings, Adi ibn Musafir praised Yazid ibn Muawiyah, while also denying that Yazid killed Hussein. Ibn Taymiyya had accused Sheikh Hasan of turning the respect for Yazid into a deification.[9][10]

Other than Kurdistan, the Adawis were also present in Syria and Egypt. The Adawis also had good relations with Salahuddin and had a significant presence in his army.[11]

In clear contrast to his predecessors, Sheikh Hasan actively engaged in religious debates. It was during the reign of Sheikh Hassan that the Adawi order began to deviate from Islam, and the Pre-Islamic beliefs began to dominate. The Adawis of Kurdistan increasingly shifting towards the pre-Islamic beliefs had also moved them further away from the Adawis of Syria and Egypt.[12]

Badr al-Din Lu'lu', the Zengid ruler of Mosul, had worried of a possible Adawi uprising and arrested Sheikh Hasan in 1246. In 1254, Badr al-Din Lu'lu' began a campaign against the Adawi order, and killed Sheikh Hasan. A contemporary noted that "after a bitter struggle, the Adawi Kurds were routed, some killed, others taken prisoner. Lulu crucified a hundred and executed a hundred more. He ordered their emir's arms and legs to be chopped off and displayed above the gates of Mosul. He also sent men to dig up Sheikh Adi's bones and burn them."[13]

Sheikh Hasan was succeeded by his son, Sharaf ad-Din ibn al-Hasan, who died in 1258 when Adawis were massacred by the Mongols. Sharfadin later became very important in Yazidism. The mausoleum of Sharfadin, built in 1274, later became a shrine for Yazidi pilgrimage.[14] Zeyneddin, the son of Sharfadin, refused to lead the Adawis due to Mongol hostility, and instead settled in Damascus before moving to his ancestral Beqaa Valley and later Egypt, where he died. Fexredin became the leader of the Adawites, as he married a Mongol woman and had good ties with the Mongols.[15][11]

Adawiyya was gradually replaced by Yazidism in the 13th century. Sheikh Fexredin, and his brothers Nasirdin, Sheikh Shems, and Sicadîn, were later venerated in Yazidism as the four sons of Ezdina Mir, and as avatars of angels as well as the respective ancestors of the four Shamsani lineages of Yazidi sheikhs.[16][17][18] Yazidi tradition also claimed that Ezdina Mir had met Sheikh Adi when he first went to Lalish.[19][20] Sheikh Mand, the son of Fexredin, also emerged as the ruler of Emirate of Kilis, and a commander in the Ayyubid Army. His sister, Khatuna Fekhra, was also revered as an important Yazidi female saint.[21][22][23] In 1324, Abu Firas Ubaydullah ibn Shibl, claimed that the Yazidis had adopted the beliefs of the "ignorant Adawite Yezidis", and wrote that the "Adawite Yezidis" were "misled by Satan who whispered to them that they must love Yazid, to such an extent that they say we are justified in killing and taking the property of whoever does not love Yazid. They ceased to join Friday prayer, but the most deviant one of them was Hasan bin Adi."[9][10] Because of its roots in Adawiyyah, Yazidism retained some elements Sufi Islam, while retaining the pre-Islamic elements on a larger level.[24][25][26][27] Yazidis denied that their name came from Yazid ibn Muawiyah and claimed that it came from Sultan Ezid.[28] Sultan Ezid in Yazidism was part of a triad of divine emanations of God, as the successor of Sheikh Adi, who they considered the successor of Melek Tawus, Sheikh Adi.[29] The conflict between Yazid and Hussein was not mentioned in Yazidi books, and Yazidis were unwilling to mention Yazid, especially around Shias in Iraq. However, Ismail Beg Chol, a Yezidi Mir, stated that after the conflict between Banu Umayyah and Banu Hashem, Muhammad was unwell and asked Muawiyah, a barber, to shave his head. Muawiyah had accidentally cut his head, with Muhammad, according to Chol, telling Muawiyah "you have thus committed a fault whose consequences will be eternal: you will have as your descendants the people who will fight against mine and will win over them", with Muawiyah replying "if it be so, I will forsake the world and will not marry under any pretext". Later, Muawiyah was bitten by a scorpion, and Muhammad assembled doctors to look after Muawiyah, in which the doctors claimed that he would die if he did not marry. They brought him Mahusa, an 80-year-old sister of Omar. On the second day, her body had allegedly been that of a 25-year-old woman, and she conceived Yazid. Chol stated that "God had promised Tawuse Melek to send our Yazid."[30]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys Into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East, Gerard Russell, 2015 , pp. 58
  2. ^ Survival Among the Kurds: A History of the Yezidis, John S. Guest, 1993, pp. 16
  3. ^ The Yezidis: The History of a Community, Culture and Religion, Birgül Açikyildiz, 2014, pp. 83
  4. ^ Bozarslan, Hamit; Gunes, Cengiz; Yadirgi, Veli, eds. (2021). The Cambridge History of the Kurds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108623711. ISBN 978-1-108-47335-4. S2CID 243594800.
  5. ^ Foltz, Richard (2017-06-01). "The "Original" Kurdish Religion? Kurdish Nationalism and the False Conflation of the Yezidi and Zoroastrian Traditions". Journal of Persianate Studies. 10 (1): 87–106. doi:10.1163/18747167-12341309. ISSN 1874-7167.
  6. ^ Kurds and Yezidis in the Middle East: Shifting Identities, Borders, and the Experience of Minority Communities, Güneş Murat Tezcür, 2021, pp. 46
  7. ^ The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran: Rural Revolt and Local Zoroastrianism, Patricia Crone, 2012, pp. 479
  8. ^ Survival Among the Kurds: A History of the Yezidis, John S. Guest, 1993, pp. 18-19
  9. ^ a b Rediscovering Kurdistan’s Cultures and Identities: The Call of the Cricket, 2018, pp. 294
  10. ^ a b Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (2002). "Yazīdī". In Bearman, P. J.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E. & Heinrichs, W. P. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume XI:W–Z. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 313–316. ISBN 978-90-04-12756-2.
  11. ^ a b The Yezidis: The History of a Community, Culture and Religion, Birgül Açikyildiz, 2014, pp. 43
  12. ^ The Yezidis: The History of a Community, Culture and Religion, Birgül Açikyildiz, 2014, pp. 42-43
  13. ^ Survival Among the Kurds: A History of the Yezidis, John S. Guest, 1993, pp. 19-21
  14. ^ The Yezidis: The History of a Community, Culture and Religion, Birgül Açikyildiz, 2014, pp. 43
  15. ^ Lescot, Roger (1975). Enquête sur les Yézidis de Syrie et du Djebel Sindjâr. Beirut: Librairie du Liban. p. 104.
  16. ^ Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (1995). Yezidism--its Background, Observances, and Textual Tradition. E. Mellen Press. ISBN 978-0-7734-9004-8.
  17. ^ Kreyenbroek, Philip (2005). God and Sheikh Adi are perfect: sacred poems and religious narratives from the Yezidi tradition. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 978-3-447-05300-6. OCLC 63127403.
  18. ^ Pirbari, Dimtri (2008). Lalisha Nurani. p. 14. ISBN 978-5-91356-048-3.
  19. ^ Kreyenbroek, Philip (1995). Yezidism: its background, observances, and textual tradition. Lewiston NY: E. Mellen Press. ISBN 0-7734-9004-3. OCLC 31377794.
  20. ^ Kreyenbroek, Philip (2005). God and Sheikh Adi are perfect: sacred poems and religious narratives from the Yezidi tradition. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 978-3-447-05300-6. OCLC 63127403.
  21. ^ Açikyildiz, Birgül (2014). The Yezidis: The History of a Community, Culture and Religion. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-85772-061-0.
  22. ^ Kreyenbroek, Philip (1995). Yezidism: its background, observances, and textual tradition. Lewiston NY: E. Mellen Press. ISBN 0-7734-9004-3. OCLC 31377794.
  23. ^ Kreyenbroek, Philip (2005). God and Sheikh Adi are perfect: sacred poems and religious narratives from the Yezidi tradition. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 978-3-447-05300-6. OCLC 63127403.
  24. ^ Kreyenbroek, Philip G. "Yezidism—Its Background Observances and Textual Tradition" – via Academia.
  25. ^ Omarkhali, Khanna (2011). "The status and role of the Yezidi legends and myths: to the question of comparative analysis of Yezidism, Yārisān (Ahl-e Haqq) and Zoroastrianism: a common substratum?". Folia Orientalia. 45: 197–219. ISSN 0015-5675. OCLC 999248462.
  26. ^ Turgut, Lokman. Ancient rites and old religions in Kurdistan. OCLC 879288867.
  27. ^ Foltz, Richard C. (2013). Religions of Iran: from prehistory to the present. London: Oneworld Publications. ISBN 978-1-78074-307-3. OCLC 839388544.
  28. ^ Asatrian, Garnik; Arakelova, Victoria (2016). "On the Shi'a Constituent in the Yezidi Religious Lore". Iran and the Caucasus. 20 (3–4): 385–395. doi:10.1163/1573384X-20160308. JSTOR 44631094.
  29. ^ Asatrian, Garnik; Arakelova, Victoria (2016). "On the Shi'a Constituent in the Yezidi Religious Lore". Iran and the Caucasus. 20 (3–4): 385–395. pp. 45
  30. ^ Rediscovering Kurdistan’s Cultures and Identities: The Call of the Cricket, 2018, pp. 295-296
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adawiyya&oldid=1268666902"