A Thousand Sighs, A Thousand Revolts Part 8

Climbing up a few wide steps, we reached a paved courtyard where cross-legged vendors were sitting before neat piles of seeds and nuts. A barefoot woman in a plain white sheath and head scarf appeared, lugging buckets br.i.m.m.i.n.g with water. Seeing my camera, she stared fixedly down at her feet and hurried by, water slopping around her.

Outside Shaikh Adi's shrine "She is faqriyat-like a nun," Dr. Khairy said.

To the right of the courtyard stood a gateway with heavy wooden doors that marked the entrance to the sanctuary. Don't step on the threshold! Dr. Khairy and Mr. Fadhil warned me repeatedly as we approached; as soon as we crossed over, they ordered me to remove my shoes.

We were at the top of a flight of stairs leading down into a second paved courtyard, shaded with mulberry trees. To the right was a maze of living quarters and reception areas where we would later eat lunch, while straight ahead was another doorway, this one marked with ancient inscriptions, geometric designs, and a six-foot-tall vertical figure of a snake. Blackened with soot or shoe polish, the dark reptile seemed to jump out of its dull stone background with an immediacy that made me shiver.

"Yezidis respect all black snakes," Dr. Khairy said. "Because during the great flood, when Noah's Ark hit a mountain and made a hole in the ark, the black snake put himself in the hole and saved humanity. For this, we never kill black snakes."

Crossing the second threshold, made smooth by pilgrims' kisses, we pa.s.sed into a dark, cavernous room-the shrine's main hall. The floor was black and wet, and my socks immediately became soaked and icy. I could hear water plashing somewhere to my right, while straight ahead were five pillars draped with red and green cloths. Dirty chandeliers hung from the ceilings and crooked prayer rugs from the walls.

We headed to the sound of the water-a deep cistern whose source was the holy White Spring. All Yezidi temples must be built over a spring, Dr. Khairy said, as a portly faqir, or pious man, with a wandering eye arrived. Dressed in elegant black pajama-like garments edged with red and a black-and-red head cloth, he took care of the temple, living out back. He pointed out several sticky charred spots. On every Tuesday night, 366 fires were lit all over Lalish, he said. The fires marked the eve of the Yezidis' holy day, Wednesday, and were fueled by olive oil and wool wicks spun by the faqriyat. As he spoke, I longed to return to see these lights-flicking, licking up all over, like fireflies, like tongues.

Pa.s.sing from the main room, we entered a large chamber containing the chest-high tomb of Shaikh Adi, draped with more red and green cloths. A marble facade covered the lower part of the room, while higher up were broken pieces of mirrored mosaic and a conical dome-the interior of a fluted cone I'd seen outside.

Near Shaikh Adi's chamber began the "caves," a series of natural underground rooms with rounded stone walls and flagstone floors. Some contained dozens of waist-high clay urns once filled with olive oil, others contained more tombs. We had to duck our heads lower and lower as we pa.s.sed between the rooms until, finally, we dropped almost to our knees to crawl through the last doorway and descend a short stairway into a cavern housing the Yezidis' sacred Zamzam Spring.

"This is our holiest area, we don't let Muslims visit," Dr. Khairy said as I looked around the small enclosed s.p.a.ce, water gushing out of the wall and into a stone channel. The water is said to cure all ailments.

"You are Christian, and so you are our friend," the faqir said.

"You are only here because you are our guest," Mr. Fadhil added pointedly.

Historically, the Yezidis have maintained the utmost secrecy regarding their faith, believing that secrets protected them. Only in the last few years have some come to the realization that exposure can help rather than harm them, by providing outsiders with a better understanding of their religion and culture.

As we left the main shrine to tour various smaller ones nearby, Dr. Khairy and Mr. Fadhil told me more about the customs and beliefs of the Yezidis. We pray three times a day, and when we pray we face the sun, they said. Mecca has no significance for us, but we respect it because it is Abraham's house, and Abraham came before every religion. We do not get married in April-it is the month of the angels. Traditional Yezidis do not eat lettuce-they say it is the hiding place of evil-or wear the color blue. It is the color of Islam. We prefer to wear white.

"What about the mustache?" I said. "Why do Yezidi men have such big mustaches?"

"It makes us better listeners," Dr. Khairy said.

"It keeps secrets in," Mr. Fadhil said with a grin.

WHEN I ARRIVED in Baadri, the historic home of the Yezidi princes, about two weeks later, I was surprised to find myself in what looked like any other northern Iraqi town, swollen with refugees and squat concrete buildings. The Baadri that I'd read about had been small, dominated by an elite cla.s.s of Yezidis, some living in castles. I'd also expected Baadri to be in the mountains, like Lalish, but it sat exposed in a shallow valley, surrounded by rolling brown fields.

Kamerin Khairy Beg and a clutch of armed guards waited for me outside his home, near a front gate adorned with peac.o.c.ks. The Yezidi leader was again dressed all in white, but today his robes were of simple muslin. From atop his sprawling, single-story house fluttered the yellow flag of the KDP.

Solicitously ushering me into his home, my host seated me in a long reception room and promptly disappeared. I breathed in deeply, luxuriating. The room was unremarkably furnished with heavy armchairs, couches, and coffee tables, with a pastel mural of Lalish covering the entire far wall. Nonetheless, the place had a magical, out-of-time feel. I could easily imagine Yezidi tribal chiefs meeting here.

Kamerin Beg reappeared, now dressed in a tawny, finely woven shal u shapik with very thin, widely s.p.a.ced, red and green stripes.

"I am very, very happy you have come," he said. "Thank you for visiting me."

I returned the compliment, honored that he had changed on my behalf, as a servant glided in with steaming gla.s.ses of tea.

Kamerin Beg's English was basic, but we could communicate. Despite his bushy white beard, with its wide streak of dark gray, he was also younger than I'd previously thought-early fifties rather than mid-sixties.

Kamerin Beg's father had been the leading Yezidi prince in Iraqi Kurdistan and a member of the Kurdish Parliament until his death in 1997, my host said. He himself was the oldest son and had studied law in Egypt, graduating in 1979, before working as a lawyer in Mosul for seventeen years. After his father's death, he'd returned to Baadri to take his father's place and help his people.

I listened with surprise. My initial impression of Kamerin Beg as an unsophisticated tribal leader with little experience of the outside world had been way off the mark.

Despite the stature of Kamerin Beg's father, he had not been mir, or the supreme Yezidi prince; that honor belonged to Kamerin Beg's uncle, Tahsin Beg, who lived in Shaikhan, in Baathist-controlled Iraq. Later, others told me that there'd been a rift in the princely family, with Tahsin Beg coerced into cooperating with the Baath regime. But Kamerin Beg told me only that he himself couldn't travel to the Iraqi side because of his close connections with the Kurdistan government.

"We have had much trouble in our history," he said. "We say there have been seventy-two genocide attacks against the Yezidis. These were all Muslim attacks, most by Turks."

"What about Muslim Kurds?" I asked.

He shrugged. "In the past, sometimes. But we have no trouble now."

A servant entered with a tray of colored eggs, and offered it to me. It was the day before the Yezidi New Year, held on the first Wednesday in April of the Yezidi calendar, which begins thirteen days later than the Christian one. During the festival, the Yezidis paste nosegays of red flowers over doorways and give and receive colored eggs.

"Why colored eggs?" I asked. Raised in a Protestant family, I'd colored Easter eggs as a child, but it had never occurred to me that the ritual might have ancient roots, shared with other religions.

"Eggs because G.o.d had a jewel, which, when it exploded, became gases and the earth," he said. "And the same thing happens when an egg is opened. Colors because with the spring comes the colors of plants, and eggs and plants are the beginning of life."

Kamerin Beg's wife entered. Dressed in multiple long layers, she was small and round-"like a Hindi," Kamerin Beg said. It was time to go to the graves, he added-I had requested going to the graves, hadn't I?

We climbed into a waiting Land Cruiser, Kamerin Beg's oldest son behind the wheel, his father beside him, and his mother, younger siblings, and I in back. I had asked to see the graves of Ali Beg and his wife Mayan Khatoun, renowned figures in Yezidi history. Ali Beg had ruled as mir from 1899 until 1913, endured torture rather than change his religion, and been found murdered in his bed one morning.

But it was Mayan Khatoun who really interested me. Born in 1874, and also of the princely family, she had been beautiful, intelligent, bold, sly, deceitful, and ruthless. Some had even accused her of masterminding her husband's murder. Whatever the facts, Mayan Khatoun claimed to have solved the crime, and had a family of suspected usurpers-husband, wife, four sons, and two daughters-arrested and sentenced. Wearing a red dress as a symbol of revenge, she watched as her guard shot all the family except the two girls, whom she later adopted. She then rose calmly from her chair, walked over to the bodies, touched their still-warm blood, and licked her finger. And the next morning, she reputedly replaced her red dress with the black one traditionally worn by Yezidi widows.

After Ali Beg's death, the Yezidi leaders agreed that Said Beg, Ali and Mayan's son, should be the next mir. As he was still too young to rule, Mayan was appointed his guardian and administrator of the princely revenues, a role she did not relinquish until her death at age eighty-three in 1957. Serving first as regent for her son, a weak man whom she despised, and then her grandson, it was she and not they who ruled over the Yezidis throughout the demise of the Ottoman Empire, the establishment of Iraq, and World War II.

At the Baadri cemetery, Mayan Khatoun and Ali Beg were buried beneath fluted, cone-shaped spires of the type I'd seen at Lalish. We had to traipse past other overgrown graves to reach them, and when we entered, we found a dozen men seated in a circle on the floor before Ali Beg's walk-in tomb. Most were dressed in shal u shapik and red-and-white turbans, and had huge white mustaches. Several were astonishingly fat.

Everyone lumbered to their feet to kiss the hands of Kamerin Beg and his wife. She responded by kissing their heads, and a few women materialized out of nowhere, one wearing the traditional red-and-green dress and silver-and-black turban of the Yezidi women. Candy was pa.s.sed in honor of the New Year. Two women supplicants entered to visit Ali Beg's tomb, careful not to step on its threshold, covered with a thick layer of dinar bills.

"Where is Mayan Khatoun's grave?" I asked, and was pointed toward a flat and disappointingly nondescript grave near the door, marked only by an inscription on the wall. With death, the patriarchal order had reestablished itself.

The ruins of Ali Beg and Mayan Khatoun's palace still stood on a small hill. As we stopped to visit, the owners of a nearby house rushed out to kiss hands and invite us into their garden for tea. I could sense their excitement when we accepted, and there was much running to and fro as chairs were set up in a semicircle overlooking the town.

We sat down, birdsongs weaving around us. A man came out with a pitcher of water and a single gla.s.s that he refilled for each person in turn, followed by a woman carrying a silver-colored tray, about three feet in diameter and piled high with fruit. Both the single water gla.s.s and the silver tray were trademarks of Kurdistan. I encountered them everywhere, and marveled at the way the women could hoist the huge platters, often loaded with dishes, from the floor to above their shoulders in a single smooth swoop.

After the fruit came "chicklets," meaning candy, followed by more colored eggs, orange juice, and tea. Kamerin Beg instructed me how to take a colored egg, hold it in my fist, and tap the end of his egg while he tapped back. It was a New Year's game, and there was a knack to it; whoever cracked the other's egg first, won.

"Three things are special for the Yezidi men." Kamerin Beg fumbled around inside his shirt, pulling out a small pouch, which he opened to reveal a pebble. "One is the Lalish pebble, made from the dust of Shaikh Adi's tomb. It brings us good luck, and we give it to our enemies to make peace. It can pa.s.s from men to men, but not from men to women. My wife also has one, which can pa.s.s only to women."

He said something in Kurdish to her, and she smiled, but didn't oblige by pulling out her own pebble. She had been smoking steadily since our arrival, and each time she reached for her cigarettes, one of our hosts hurried over with a light, which she languidly accepted without a word of thanks.

"Another is our mustache," Kamerin Beg said. "It is our duty to wear a mustache. And a third is our white undershirt."

Kamerin Beg then offered to show me Shaikhan, still under Baathist control, and led me to the end of the hill beyond the palace ruins. We gazed west, over a rolling brown plain peppered with darker brown settlements-all in Saddam Hussein's territory, only two or three miles away, with no real barricades between.

"My uncle and brother live there-that's Shaikhan," Kamerin Beg said, pointing to one of the larger settlements, as I suddenly realized with a shock that his uncle, Tahsin Beg, the current Yezidi mir, must be Mayan Khatoun's grandson. As otherworldly as the Yezidi history seemed to me, it was no fairy tale.

KAMERIN BEG AND I continued our conversation later, in the garden behind his house. Dusk had fallen, and a bulldozer moved through town below us, its hungry mouth raised in the air, as if to catch the emerging stars. Giggling children peeked at us from behind a nearby wall until a man with a yellowing mustache big as a kitchen brush appeared to chase them away.

Kamerin Beg began to list for me the dozens of Yezidi villages that had been destroyed, partially destroyed, or moved by the Iraqi government- some before Saddam Hussein came to power, but most afterward. I tried to write them down at first, but finally gave up, confused by the seemingly endless litany of strange names.

A man in a turban and slippers approached, carrying a small silver urn and two handle-less ceramic cups. He poured Kamerin Beg a swallow of coffee, and then offered one to me, before wiping out the cups and serving a second round.

I would encounter the same ritual later in the homes of other Kurdish aghas, but it wasn't until I reached Turkey and saw a museum exhibit on mirra, meaning "bitter coffee," that I understood how widespread the practice is-or was, as it is dying out. The coffee brewer, who holds a privileged position in his employer's household, must always carry the urn in the right hand, the two special cups in his left. He must serve the eldest or most respected guests first, then, after serving everyone once, begin a second round. Only important personages can serve mirra, and should a poor man become wealthy, he must invite the elite of his village to a feast, where he asks permission to serve the brew.

"Saddam Hussein tried to enter Baadri one year ago," Kamerin said. "When there was no Bush, no Clinton."

"During the presidential inauguration, you mean?" I said, startled.

He nodded. "They came and surrounded the town for three days."

"What did you do?" I couldn't imagine the scenario. Baadri didn't seem capable of defending itself for more than ten minutes.

"I telephoned to Dohuk for peshmerga, and they came. They prevented the Iraqis from entering. There was some firing, but no one was hurt. The United Nations interfered."

Why had that mini invasion taken place, and why had it ended? The Iraqis could easily have taken Baadri if they'd wanted. And how many other mini invasions of Kurdistan had occurred?, invasions we public heard nothing about in the United States.

THE NEXT MORNING, Kamerin Beg excused himself after a light breakfast, saying that it was time for him to go to the "house of the old men." By this, he meant a dark building next door, housing a long hall and small kitchen. The "old men" were the villagers who dropped by every morning to ask for his advice or blessing. Today, there would be many of them, paying their respects for the New Year.

I followed my host about a half hour later, a.s.suming that since it was still early, the hall would be half empty. But by the door of the building nested dozens upon dozens of black shoes, many made of plastic and edged with drying mud. My heart sank a little-so many strangers' eyes lay ahead.

Entering, I found the hall packed with even more men than the empty shoes had prepared me for. Numbering about seventy or eighty, they rimmed the entire room-talking, smoking-with Kamerin Beg sitting in the center of one long wall, near the wood stove that was the hall's only furnishing.

He beckoned to me, putting me more at ease, and made room for me beside him, dislodging a young, heavyset man in the process. I sat down on the thin carpet, my mind swirling, unable to take it all in.

Before me sat an astonishing array of faces, heads, and bodies, most well worn with age and the elements, and clothed in striking costumes. There were turbans of red and white, black and white, pale pink, and solid white, some piled high on the head in a double spiral, some just a modest ring, and some draping down around the shoulders. There were flowing white gowns of the kind usually worn by Arabs, bulky woolen jackets, and hand-woven shal u shapik with wide brown-and-white stripes. One younger man was in starched, pale green khak worn with an electric green shirt and burnt orange sash. Another older man was entirely in white, from his socks to his turban, except for a richly textured black cape.

A few men had old-fashioned pistols, a few had tobacco pouches, and many had prayer beads. And whenever there was a lull in the conversation, the click-click-click of the beads was all that was heard.

The men in the flowing white gowns were Yezidis originally from the Sinjar region in Baathist-occupied Iraq, Kamerin Beg explained to me. That was the style there, due to Arab influence, and even though the men had been forced out of their homes following the Algiers Accord in 1975, they had never changed their dress. The brown-and-white-striped shal u shapik were typical of Dohuk province, and the heavyset man whom I'd displaced was now a citizen of Norway, back to collect his wife and children.

Every time a new man entered, "b'kher-hati" came from all sides, as the man crossed the room to kiss Kamerin Beg's hand. And occasionally, when the guest was very old or distinguished-looking, our host stood up, to embrace him or kiss his head. Others then cleared a s.p.a.ce for the new man on the floor, and servants proffered him a tray laid with open packets of cigarettes-Kent, Victory, Craven-followed by a tray of colored eggs, and a splash of bitter coffee from the silver urn. Kamerin Beg oversaw these proceedings carefully, making sure no man was slighted.

By ten-thirty or eleven, the crowd was thinning out, and we moved to the reception room of the main house. I naively thought that the visiting was nearly done. But almost immediately, it started all over again, this time with mostly younger guests, some dressed in khak, some in pants and crisp shirts, and some in suits and ties.

Throughout, I was the only woman in the room. The Yezidi women, I thought I was told at one point, were visiting in the back, but when I went to investigate, I found only Kamerin Beg's wife, daughter-in-law, and children, looking bored.

Two English-speaking doctors from Mosul arrived. They had crossed the Iraq-Kurdistan border secretly at night, traveling the back roads, taking a chance, in order to be in Baadri for the New Year. Kurds from apolitical families, which often meant uneducated, poor villagers, could usually cross the border in either direction without incident. Kurds from political families, which usually meant better-educated urban folk, could not. Heading either way, they would be subject to interrogation and perhaps worse.

A half hour later, a local official appeared with an entourage that included a TV cameraman, causing the two doctors to rise abruptly. We're sorry to be so rude, they said to me as they slipped away, but we don't want to run the risk of being seen on television.

Car doors started slamming on the driveway outside, and, a moment later, in swept two Chaldean bishops and a group of a.s.syrians, arriving together "by chance," someone whispered to me, while explaining that the two Christian groups didn't always get along. Like Bishop Raban of Amadiya, the Chaldean bishops were dressed in long black robes with fuchsia caps and belts, while the a.s.syrians wore black suits.

Both groups had come to wish the Yezidis a happy and prosperous New Year. Both had their contingent of guards, and photographers, including two a.s.syrian visitors from Australia, who snapped dozens of shots as the religious leaders drank tea together. Unable to understand Kurdish, Arabic, or Syriac, I wondered how much of all this goodwill was political.

Then, suddenly, we were all rising and crossing the yard, back to the "house of the old men." Apparently, it was time for lunch. Reentering the hall, men flowing around me, I saw a long skinny cloth on the floor, stretching the entire length of the room. Place settings for about fifty rimmed its edge, while in its middle rose heaping platters of rice and lamb, wheat and chicken, broiled whole fish, flat bread, and fresh greens. A Pepsi or Fanta soda can stood at each setting.

The men sat down quickly and began digging in, eating with spoons and fingers made slick with grease. From the head of the table, Kamerin Beg beckoned, and I sat down beside him and the older Chaldean bishop, who was gingerly balancing himself atop two cushions. But I had barely started eating when many of the men started rising again, already finished, to leave the room as abruptly as they'd entered.

We returned to the reception room for fruit and gla.s.ses of tea. Then it was time to go. The Chaldeans left first, followed by the a.s.syrians. Finally, only Kamerin Beg, a few neighbors, and I were left.

"I am sorry you are leaving," Kamerin Beg said, his kind eyes tired. "I wish you could stay."

He looked as if he meant it. The room felt cold and deserted, the chilly wind of an uncertain future brushing against our necks. The Baathists were only a few miles away. Anything could happen here.

A FEW MONTHS later, I visited the shrine of Soltan Sahak, the founder of the Ahl-e Haqq religion, in Iranian Kurdistan. The shrine was located in Perdiwar, an isolated spot between the southwestern Iranian city of Paveh and the Iran-Iraq border. With me was a high school student who spoke moderately good English, and one of his relatives, who was our driver.

The late-afternoon sun was pouring gold over our windshield by the time we pulled off the main road and onto the circuitous dirt lane that led to the shrine. b.u.mping our way along, we crisscrossed slopes bristling with bleached gra.s.ses, while below meandered the Sirwan River, shining with a strange, bright, dark green color-perhaps the effect of algae. No other person or vehicle was in sight.

As we pulled up to the compound that enclosed the shrine, I wondered for a moment if it was closed-it was so still and quiet. But then I noticed a souvenir shop where a vendor with a bushy mustache was lounging, half asleep.

Another mustachioed man wearing a loose shirt and sandals came out to greet us. As the guardian of the shrine, he, Taher Naderi, would be happy to give us a tour, he said. His family had protected Soltan Sahak's tomb for over eight hundred years, ever since the Soltan's death, when a Naderi ancestor had been by his side and pledged to take care of his body.

The Soltan's shrine was divided into two small rooms, with a tall marble tomb in the second chamber. Dozens of prayer rugs and photos hung on the walls, most depicting a doe-eyed man with a green mantle draped over his head. This was Imam Ali, founder of Shiism and a prophet for the Ahl-e Haqq.

Soltan Sahak had been born in the holy town of Barzinja, in Iraq, Taher told us as we left the tomb, and had come to Iran only later. When he first arrived, the sound of the river had been very loud, but Soltan prayed and now-listen!-the river was very quiet.

I had read about Soltan Sahak. As the story goes, before his birth, three dervishes visited his father, Shaikh Ise, then an old man, and urged him to marry again. The shaikh, who already had three sons, tried to excuse himself, but the dervishes insisted, and he finally gave in, saying that he fancied the daughter of a local agha. Upon hearing the proposal, the agha was outraged-he would never marry his daughter to such an old man!-and ordered the dervishes torn to pieces. But no sooner had they been killed than they came to life again. This happened two more times, until the agha finally agreed to allow the marriage if the dervishes carpeted the road leading to his door with expensive rugs, brought him a thousand mules loaded with gold, and awarded him ten thousand camels and the same number of horses and sheep. The threesome went away and came back in the morning with all that he had requested. The couple was wed, and, a year later, in 1272 or 1273, Soltan Sahak was born.

"Why are mustaches so important to the Ahl-e Haqq?" I asked Taher, remembering the Yezidis' mustaches. The Ahl-e Haqq wore theirs equally thick and long.

We were walking back to the front of the complex. To one side were dormitories for pilgrims; to another, a white-tiled room with meat hooks, where worshipers brought their sheep and goats to be sacrificed.

"So we can recognize each other; it's a sign of our faith," he said. "And when someone comes here whose mustache is too short, I don't let him in."

It took me a moment to realize that he was joking.

"Do you know why Muslims fast for thirty days, but Ahl-e Haqq fast for only three?" he asked.

I shook my head, though I had heard that the Ahl-e Haqq, along with the Yezidis and Alevis, did not observe Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting.

"Because the Holy Prophet Muhammad's hearing was not so good! And when G.o.d said you must fast three days, he thought he said thirty!"

I tried to ask more questions about the Ahl-e Haqq, but Taher declined to answer, saying he was no expert. I suspected there was more to it than that. Like the Yezidis, too many painful memories of persecution have taught the Ahl-e Haqq to keep their beliefs deeply hidden.

Nearing the front of the complex, Taher invited us into his home for tea, and we entered a spare room where his wife was already heating water and preparing plates of fruit and fresh white cheese. Made from curdled milk flavored with herbs, the cheese is a staple throughout Greater Kurdistan.

In one corner of the room lay a tambur, a kind of long-necked lute. One of the world's oldest instruments, originating thousands of years ago, the tambur far predates the Ahl-e Haqq faith and is popular throughout Iran. But the instrument has become central to the religion, so much so that a tambur can be found in virtually every Ahl-e Haqq home, and most of Iran's best tambur players are Ahl-e Haqq.

The Ahl-e Haqq believe that when G.o.d created Adam and Eve, G.o.d wanted to put a piece of His soul inside Adam, but the soul didn't want to go, a musician told me later in Tehran. So G.o.d said to Gabriel, "Go inside Adam's body and play the tambur." Gabriel obeyed and played a beautiful song called "Tarz," which is still played today. The piece of G.o.d's soul became bewildered. He liked the song very much, but where was it coming from? He approached Adam, and the music pulled and pulled, finally pulling the piece of soul inside.

I asked Taher and his wife if it was difficult for them to live so far away from any settlement, at the end of a road that would become impa.s.sable with snow in the winter, mud in the spring. Taher looked confused at my question, then shrugged. Sometimes it was lonely in winter, he said, but in spring, summer, and fall, the shrine was always busy. Didn't I know that the Soltan's shrine was as important to the Ahl-e Haqq as Mecca was to Muslims? Pilgrims came from all over, and on major holy days, the place was so crowded that you couldn't even find a place to sit! Even Shiites and Sunnis believed in Soltan Sahak, and came here when they were sick, leaving a few hours later, miraculously cured.

As he spoke, I suspected that I was talking to a happy man.

ONE SUNDAY IN Istanbul, my new friends Ali, an economist, and Sheri, an architect, took me to a cem-an Alevi religious ceremony. Ali and Sheri were both Alevi Kurds, but they had never attended a cem before and were going only on my behalf. Like many younger urban Kurds in Turkey, and Americans, organized religion did not play much of a role in their lives. They could answer few of my questions about the Alevi faith, and they had as little curiosity about it as I have about Christianity.

Of Turkey's perhaps 3.5 million Alevis, almost half are Kurdish. Their heartland is Tunceli, known as Dersim in Kurdish, a hardscrabble city some distance north of southeast Turkey, where most Sunni Kurds live. The Alevis have a strong humanist tradition, celebrating their religion with song and dance, and often educating their daughters as well as their sons. The Alevis are also known for their leftist politics, which have often pitted them against Turkey's rightist government, with disastrous consequences.

The Alevi Turks and Alevi Kurds are two separate groups, in frequent disagreement with each other. Historically, however, the chasm between the Alevi Kurds and the Sunni Kurds has been far greater. Traditionally, the Sunni Kurds have viewed the Alevis as irreligious and unclean, abhorring their lack of mosques, ritual ablutions, and prayer. And the Alevi Kurds in turn have often viewed the Sunni Kurds as ignorant and backward. G.o.d is in the heart, not in ritual and prayer, they say, and ridicule the Sunnis for "hitting the ground with their heads five times a days."