Iraq's Devil Worshippers

The Yezidi never wear the colour blue. They are not allowed to eat lettuce. They do not believe in heaven or hell -- instead they believe in reincarnation, which they call the soul "changing its clothes". They have two holy books, but they believe the only copy of one of them, the Black Book, was stolen years ago and taken to Britain, where, they say, it is kept in a museum.

The Yezidi believe that after man's creation, God ordered the angels to pray for Adam, but that one angel refused - there is a similar belief in Islam. But the Yezidi believe that instead of becoming the fallen Satan, the recalcitrant angel was forgiven by God. They do not call this angel Satan - they will not say the word, and are deeply offended by it -- but Malek Tawwus, or the Peacock King, and they pray to him. As a result, the followers of other religions have condemned them as Devil-worshippers.

They have kept their religion alive through oral tradition. Yezidis known as Talkers can recite the entire lost book from memory. They are taught it as children by their fathers, and teach it to their own sons in their turn.

The overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime has opened the Yezidi to the outside world in a way they have not known for years.

The Yezidi sound like the stuff of legend, or 19th-century novels - a people who live in the remote mountains at the borders of Turkey and Iraq, and pray to the fallen angel Christians and Muslims call Satan, because they believe he was forgiven by God and reinstated in heaven.