The Yazidi Black Book or Meshaf Resh (Kurdish: مسحهفا ڕهش, Mishefa Reş) is one of the two holy books of the Yazidi religion, the other being the Book of Revelation (Kitêba Cilwe).
Yezidis believe the Black Book originated when the Lord descended Black Mountain. The Yazidi holy books are written in the Kurmanji dialect of the Kurdish language. The Black Book is not divided into chapters and is longer than the Book of Revelation. The first half of it contains a creation myth, beginning with the creation of a white pearl and Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel. There follows an account of the Fall (in which the forbidden comestible is wheat), and the creation of Eve after Adam has been driven from Paradise.
This is followed by the names of ancient kings who belonged to the Yazidi community. Next comes a statement of food taboos of the Yazidis, prohibitions connected with personal hygiene and verbal taboos.
The discussion then reverts to the subject of ancient Yazidi kings, and the Book concludes with another account of the Creation, which diverges quite considerably from the first.
The original text of the Yazidi Black Book is kept in the village of Qasr 'tzz at-Din. Nevertheless, scholars generally agree that the manuscripts of both books published in 1911 and 1913 were forgeries written by non-Yazidis in response to Western travelers’ and scholars’ interest in the Yazidi religion; they do reflect authentic Yezidi traditions, however. The real core texts of the religion that exist today are the hymns known as qawls.
Famous quotes containing the words black and/or book:
“It is dangerous to leave written that which is badly written. A chance word, upon paper, may destroy the world. Watch carefully and erase, while the power is still yours, I say to myself, for all that is put down, once it escapes, may rot its way into a thousand minds, the corn become a black smut, and all libraries, of necessity, be burned to the ground as a consequence. Only one answer: write carelessly so that nothing that is not green will survive.”
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)
“Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not. A book is not an isolated entity: it is a narration, an axis of innumerable narrations. One literature differs from another, either before or after it, not so much because of the text as for the manner in which it is read.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)