Fasting in civilizations and religions.. Yazidis fast in summer and winter
The blessed month of Ramadan has arrived in various Arab and Islamic countries, as Muslims around the world perform the obligation of fasting, one of the five pillars of Islam, but the ritual of fasting is considered very ancient and of course dates back to a time that preceded the emergence of Islam. Many ancient civilizations and different religions practiced many rituals of fasting with the aim of getting closer. From the gods and obtaining their satisfaction and thanks, including the followers of the Yazidi religion.
The Yazidi religion is a monotheistic ethnic religion among the Western Iranian religions. The language of the Yazidis is Kurmanji, and the followers of the Yazidi religion believe in the oneness of the One and Only God, the Creator of everything. Likewise, the followers of the Yazidi religion sanctify angels. According to their beliefs, the leader of the angels is King Peacock, which is one of the main symbols in the Yazidi religion, and the Yazidi religion is spread directly in Iraq and Syria.
There is the Izi fast, which is obligatory for all Yazidis of all classes, and it extends for three days in the middle of the 12th month of each year, and begins on Tuesday and ends on Friday morning, and that day is a holiday, according to their calendar, and the Yazidi calendar precedes the solar calendar by 11 days, and The latter precedes the Western calendar by 13 days.
As for the second fast, “it is a fast limited only to clerics who are required to fast forty days in the summer and forty days in the winter,” according to the chief priest.
The summer forty-day fast is followed by a holiday called the Great Eid or the Feast of Gil Haven, in which clerics of all ranks head to Lalish to perform prayers and rituals, at the beginning of August every year. In the same vein, the winter forty-day fast is also followed by a holiday celebrating the end of the harsh winter, in the last days of the month. January every year.
The Yazidi fasting rituals are similar to the Muslim fasting rituals of the month of Ramadan, as they follow the movement of the sunrise and sunset, as the forty-day fasting Sufi rises from sleep at the time of suhoor, and it falls between three-thirty and four o’clock in the summer dawn in Iraq, and he washes his face, prays dawn, eats suhoor, and remains in seclusion or privacy. An isolated place designated for worship throughout the forty days, where prayers, supplications, hymns, and special religious rituals are performed. He continues this until sunset, when he washes his face at sunset and eats breakfast.”
Source: websites