Yazidi Red Wednesday ... life creation and rebirth Day

Wednesday which is a virtuous day, created by the king, Fakhruddin of the love and heart. did not experience rest and inattention then.

Wednesday is not a payday. It is the angels' answer,

It I the day when the goodness doors  are opened from the dawn to the dusk.

Which mean in the Kurdish:

 Çarşem rojeka fadile Melik Fexredîn afrandibû ji eşiq û dile Nasnedikir rihetî û xefiletê

Çarşem rojeke bi hesabe Ji ba wan meleka hatî ev cewabe

Derîyêt xêra divekirîn ji rojhelat heta Rojava

This is what is said about the Red Wednesday in the religious chants of the Yazidis religion and is complemented by the prayer to God and thanking the King Tawuse.

The creation story

 Each religion has its own  distinguished beliefs and rituals, traditions and customs from others, but all share the same content that calls for the worship and unity of God and universe creation. The Yazid religion believes that God created life on Wednesday, which is the day of the resurrection of creation among the adherents of the Ezîdî religion.

Since the Yazidis have lost most of their religious heritage as a result of constant invasions, they derive their information from faith-based sayings. According to the "Aferîna dinyayê. Which mean the " Universe Creation ".

Xwedawendê me înê kir esase

Şemî boyê berê kirase

Çarşem boyê kir xilase

 Which mean in English:

Our God created universe on Friday. On Saturday, He put everything in a  system", and finished his work on Wednesday.

The first Wednesday of April in the eastern calendar "Kurmanci" is a holiday for the Yazidi Kurds, called "Red Wednesday", or the Ezîdî New Year. The feast falls in the spring when the flowers and roses in all colors and shapes are widespread according to Yazidi scholars, and the elderly. From this the Red Wednesday took its significance.

Others say that the Kurdish-Yazidi people have undergone a lot of bloodshed on their land during the successive empires.

Ezîdî teacher, Naseem Shamou says that Yazidi mythology indicates that the universe was just  darkness and fog, covered with ice. The God sent the  "Tawûsê Melek" the Kurdish word for "Peacock Angel"  on Wednesday to the Earth to build it and live there at the behest of God in the form of a peacock, and descended for the first time in the Yazidi -pilgrimage- Lalash" in Sheikhan region in Başûr of Kurdistan. Since the earth was covered in ice, It landed on Harar tree, the tree of God's pride. With the Creator hand of help, He melted the ice by sun heat, covering the Earth face with flowers and roses in various colors, red, yellow and green. So this day was the early spring that is called the Yazidi Day.

According to religious scholars, until 612 B.C., the Kurds were celebrating this day as a religious holiday, but Kurdistan was watered by the blood of the Kurdish people who achieved freedom on the most powerful empires of that era , There was an attack on the Kurdish Media Empire – the Red Wednesday became a national and religious holiday at the same time, even the Sheikh, Adi ibn Musafirr al-Hakkari, the religious reference for the Yazidi, his Tomb is in Lalash. Before that, one of the religious authorities says:

Çarşema serî Nîsanê

ŞêxAdî , şêx Şims xweste dîwanê

Xwedê berê xwe dide Êzdîxanê

Ewe cejna Kurdistanê

Which mean:

On Wednesday of early April, Sheikh Adi asked Sheikh Shams to appear in his hands, because God had a merciful look on the Yazidi.

It is a feast for Kurdistan."

With the advent of feast, which falls on the first Wednesday of April, Eastern time, the Yazidi Kurds on "Garshamba Sor" or the New Year's Day are preparing for the day of resurrection of creation of the Universe and its living beings, which is one of the blessed and virtuous feasts for the Yazidi religion.

On this day, a special ritual takes place, where the Yazidi get up early, get well-dressed, serve a sacrifice, each according to their income that sacrifice may be a "sheep, calf and the like", and decorate their homes doors with flowers and anemones.

While women are busy preparing food, young men and women color twelve boiled eggs, each three eggs in the color of a season, and place them in a dish in the middle of the house. The egg symbolizes the spherical shape of the Earth, which the Yazidi knew first about thousands of years before the famous Italian scientist, Galileo saw the light. The egg was boiled as a sign of the Earth solidness and the shell of the egg symbolized the melting of the ice layer from the face of the Earth. As for the egg colors, it is a reference to the colors of roses and flowers that have bloomed with the arrival of the Peacock Angel which means the spring that is the early life.

People visit the graves of their dead while women take eggs, sweets and fruits to distribute  among themselves and give to the poor, on Tuesdays.

There are ancient traditions of this holiday such as refraining from digging and cultivating the soil in this month, because crops, flowers, roses and most plants blossom in this month. The marriage contract is also postponed until the late month since it is believed that the marriage contract and a bride carries with them woes to the house owners as beliefs say that April is a wedding day in itself which they call it the bride of the year :

 nîsan bûka sale; di ser xwere bûk nine

which mean:

 April is the bride of the year, no bride is more beautiful than it.

Rojava Yazidi and Red Wednesday

The Yazidi mostly live in Al Jazeera region, Afrin and Sheikh Maqsoud districts of Aleppo city, where the Ezîdî , the Kurdish and the Syriac people held folkloric concerts during which songs and dances from Kurdish folklore, cultural programs and plays about the Yazidis religion are performed.

The Rojava Yazidi practice all the feast rituals except those that take place in the spiritual center of the Yazidi Lalash, being far from their whereabouts.

With the onset of the July 19, Rojava revolution and northeast of Syria, which brought with it the deprived rights of the minorities under the Baathist regime. Rojava cantons decided to consider Red Wednesday as an official holiday at all official circles, preserving the right to hold celebrations and revive the culture of the feast in society.

With the Turkish occupation army attacks on Afrin, the Yazidi villages were directly targeted, claiming a number of deaths and many injuries. Out of massacre fear of re-history massacres against them in Afrin once again, they left their villages and headed to Al Shahba canton. The mercenaries of the Turkish occupation army destroyed their religious shrines, the oldest of which was "Parsa Khatoun" in Qastal Jindo village; a wishes destination for the people. The videos were posted on social media sites showed the extent of the brutality of the mercenaries.

They were forced to convert to Islam and attend mosques against their will. Not to mention the looting of all Yazidi property on the pretext that they are halal, secreting Islamic law, which rejects it in its teachings.

The Turkish occupation army mercenaries also destroyed Zaradasht Statue  at the Ezîdî Cultural Society center, the sole representative of the Yazidi community in Afrin, and also burned down the association center.

In the occupied Serêkaniyê, they were also subjected to crimes by the occupying mercenaries, who looted more than 8 villages and displaced their residents, the city that contained a branch of the Yazidi House in Al Jazeera region.

Shingal and Red Wednesday

 After the wars and genocides against the Ezîdî people in Shingal at the hands of ISIS mercenaries and some people from the region, where the most heinous crimes were committed against them to kill, displace, rape and kidnap, but the Yazidi people chose to resist the terrorism with the help of the Guerrilla forces in the Qandil mountains until they managed to restore Shingal, break the thorn of terrorism. Now they are practicing all the religious rituals in Shingal.

This year's Red Wednesday performs only religious rituals given the outbreak of the Corona pandemic in many countries around the world.

A.J

ANHA