Lalish the holiest shrine in the Yazidi faith,
November 14, 2014, Lalish, Iraq: The holiest shrine in the Yazidi faith, the tomb of Sheikh Adi in the town of Lalish in Iraq's northern Kurdish mountains, is to the Yazidis what Mecca is to Muslims, or what Jerusalem is to followers of the three great monotheistic faiths, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. The Yazidis are a Kurdish ethno-religious community whose syncretic but ancient religion Yazidism is linked to Zoroastrianism and ancient Mesopotamian religions.They live primarily in the Nineveh Province of Iraq. The Yazidis are monotheists, believing in God as creator of the world, which he has placed under the care of seven holy beings or angels, the chief of whom is Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel. The Peacock Angel, as world-ruler, causes both good and bad to befall individuals, some followers of other monotheistic religions of the region equate the Peacock Angel with their own unredeemed evil spirit Satan, which has incited centuries of persecution of the Yazidis as "devil worshippers." Persecution of Yazidis has continued in their home communities within the borders of modern Iraq, under fundamentalist Sunni Muslim revolutionaries. In August 2014 the Yazidis were targeted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in its campaign to "purify" Iraq and neighboring countries of non-Islamic influences. (Alfred Yaghobzadeh/Polaris)