Out of Kurdistan: Eunuch keeps the mysteries intact

IRAQI KURDISTAN - How can one politely ask: 'Are you a eunuch?' Or then: 'Did you really do the castration yourself?' Trickier still, the words had to be said out loud in Arabic or Kurdish before a dozen people quietly enjoying a hot afternoon's glass of tea.

Baba Chawush, 73, guardian of the chief shrine of the Yezidi sect, saw my hesitation. His eyes twinkled out of a leathery face, framed by a white cloth wound around his head, a twin-pointed beard and four neat plaits of hair that came down to his chest. At every pause he would prompt: 'Are there really no other questions you want to ask me?'

'Did you never want to marry?' 'No, I only wanted to serve Sheikh Adi.' 'Did you never want children?' 'No, all the Yezidi people are my children.' My nerve failed. I later quietly took a member of shrine's ruling family aside to hear confirmation that Baba Chawush is indeed one of the Orient's last eunuchs.

Even though the acolytes of this most obscure of Middle East sects seemed keener than is generally supposed to talk about its mysteries, it is hard to understand what they stand for and, anyway, conversions are not allowed. Fortunately, a British- born, New York banker, John Guest, has recently written one of the clearest accounts yet to explain the medieval cult of the Yezidis, which has 150,000 adherents, two-thirds of them in Iraq and nearly all of them Kurds.

Neither Christian nor Muslim, they are often wrongly accused of being devil-worshippers. In fact they believe that the fallen angel Lucifer was later forgiven by God and can intercede on behalf of faithful Yezidis. Their symbol for him is a peacock, ceremonially paraded around Yezidi communities to collect alms. Yezidis do not believe in hell. They may drink alcohol and should attend the great festivals at the shrine here of Sheikh Adi, a 12th-century Sufi mystic who has been transformed into the prophet of the Yezidis. Conical, fluted spires adorn Sheikh Adi's tomb. Those of other great men of the faith still point skywards from the hollow of a valley about 20 miles (32km) east of the town of Dohuk.

Tradition and tranquillity can still be found, but not exactly security. The Iraqi army's front line is only a few hundred yards away. Kurdish guerrillas guard the valley's entrance from a legion-style fort of the kind that dot Iraqi Kurdistan. Pockmarks show the result of a recent Iraqi rocket attack, although their more regular enemy is a peculiarly horrible kind of gnat.

Like most places in northern Iraq, the shrine has seen better days. Grass grows between the flagstones of the outer courtyard and a carpet of red mulberries from the ancient tree shading the entrance has not been swept away. There is an overgrown look to the many buildings spreading up through the olive trees on the surrounding hillside, each cluster used by a Yezidi tribe during the festival get-togethers. Each is decorated with pictures of those killed in the Iran-Iraq war, in which the Yezidi community lost more than 5,000 men.

The shrine itself has survived the latest Kurdish and Iraqi fighting better than other invasions of its history. The carved stone snake winding up the door-post of the inner sanctum still gleams with its daily layer of black shoe polish, the baptismal spring flows crystal clear, and votive layers of coloured silk swathe the prophet's tomb itself.

'A contribution is usually made at this point,' the chief fakir whispered to my Kurdish bodyguard. I slipped a banknote on to the top of the sarcophagus. The fakir searched for it, checked it and tucked it into his pocket. The flow of income has been disturbed in recent years as Yezidis from other parts of the country have been unable to cross the army lines. Times are hard in northern Iraq, even for guardians of great shrines.