Yezidi Reformer: Sheikh Adi (II)

This fact confirms the opinion that after the death of the Shaikh, his followers divided into two groups. The first group settled in Egypt and Syria and continued the Islamic history of the tariqa. The others, chiefly the members of ‘Adi’s family and the accomplice Shaikhs, joined the Kurdish religious community in holding the position of its spiritual leaders [49:226].

The Kitab Manaqib ash-shaikh ‘Adi b. Musafir (The Book of Merits of Shaikh ‘Adi b. Musafir) on twenty-six pages from the same manuscript, this work speaks of the Shaikh’s miracles (karamat) and contains a list of his forty disciples. The date of its composition is unknown.

Nowadays, the scholars maintain that ‘Adi b. Musafir came to the Kurdish mountains of Hakkari from ash-Sham (historical Syria). The Yezidi tradition says:

“Shaike ‘Adi came from [ash-] Sham.  In the East [of his homeland he] started to work, Virtue is upon the houses of [our] fathers, Shaike ‘Adi himself is a gift of the Light, [He is] Light from the house of the Shaikhs.”

[5:11, 18; See also 26:100, 104]

‘Adi b. Musafir was born between 1073 and 1078 in Beit-Far in Baalbek that is situated in the Beqaa valley of the present-day Lebanon. Baalbek was surrounded by marvellous ruins. In his childhood, ‘Adi must have been visiting the grand Sun-God temple in Tadmur, not totally destroyed. At the main gates of the Bacchus temple, he could have seen the gracious portrayals of poppy and wheat symbolising alternation of life and death. One cannot exclude that all this contributed to ‘Adi’s mystical way of thinking when he would settle in the peaceful haven in the Kurdish mountains, with severe winters and long springs [36:151-152].

Afterwards, ‘Adi’s birth would be described through picturesque legends. One legend said that before his birth he had been foreseen as a pre-eminent person. Another legend speaks of ‘Adi’s wise speeches in his early childhood. According to the third one, ‘Adi’s future as a Sufi was pre-determined by events with his father [16:15-16].

“Musafir b. Isma’il, the father of ‘Adi, went to a forest and remained there for forty years. Once he had a dream that someone told him: “O Musafir! Come out and copulate with your wife, and a Friend of God [i.e. Sufi] will come to you, whose fame will spread in the East and the West”.