They assert that they expect a prophet who will come from Persia to annul the law of Mohammed and abrogate Islam. They believe that there are seven gods, and that each god administers the universe for ten thousand years; and that one of these gods is Lasiferos, the chief of the fallen angels, who bears also the name Melek Ṭâ´ûs. They make him a graven image after the form of a cock[63] and worship it. They play the tambourine and dance before it to make it rejoice with them. They (_ḳawwâls_) travel within the Yezidis’ villages to collect money, at which time they take it into the houses that it may bless and honor them. Some say that Šeiḫ ‘Adî is a deity; others that he is like a Vizier to God. To him all things are referred. This is Melek Ṭâ´ûs age. The ruling and administrative power is in his hands until the thousandth year. When the time comes to an end he will deliver the power to the next god to rule and administer until another thousand years shall be ended, and so on until the seventh god. And yet there is accord and love among these gods, and none is jealous of the one who may rule and administer the world for a period of ten thousand years. They have a book named Al Jilwah that they ascribe to Šeiḫ ‘Adî, and they suffer no one who is not one of them to read it. Mention is made in some of their books that the First Cause is the Supreme God, who before he created this world, was enjoying himself over the seas;[64] and in his hand was a great White Pearl, with which he was playing. Then he resolved to cast it into the sea, and when he did so this world came into being. Moreover, they think themselves not to be of the same seed from which the rest of mankind sprung, but that they are begotten of the son of Adam, who was born to Adam of his spittle. For this reason they imagine themselves nobler and more pleasing to the gods than others. They say they have taken fasting and sacrifice from Islam; baptism from Christians; prohibition of foods from the Jews; their way of worship from the idolaters; dissimulation of doctrine from the Rafiḍis (Shi‘ites); human sacrifice and transmigration from the pre-Islamic paganism of the Arabs and from the Sabians. They say that when the spirit of man goes forth from his body, it enters into another man if it be just; but if unjust, into an animal. THE POEM IN PRAISE OF ŠEIḪ ‘ADÎ _Peace Be unto Him_