Before Adam: Reading Qewlê Afrîna Dinyayê

One creation Qewl does not have to sound exactly like another in order to belong to the same sacred tradition.

Qewlê Afrîna Dinyayê, the Hymn of the Creation of the World, shares several images with Qewlê Zebûnî Meksûr, but it gives them its own movement and emphasis.

Here we encounter darkness, the Pearl, Mihbet, the primeval ocean, a sacred ship, luminous Lalish, the soul, the Cup and Adam. The hymn moves from a world that is not yet settled toward a world that receives order, life and finally human responsibility.

For Yazidis reading these Qewls today, especially those raised outside the traditional centres of Yazidi life, it is tempting to ask immediately which better-known religion a particular image resembles. But that can make us miss what is directly in front of us.

The first task is to hear the Qewl on its own Yazidi terms.

A world in darkness and without foundation

The hymn opens with a world marked by darkness. Life has not yet unfolded in its familiar form.

Earth and sky are present, but the world is described as lacking stability. It exists, yet it has not fully become an ordered place in which life can flourish.

Then the Creator brings movement, beauty and structure into it. Roads are opened. Light appears. The earth becomes cultivated and habitable.

This is not a modern scientific account of the origin of matter. The language is sacred and poetic. Its concern is not simply when things appeared, but how an unstable world becomes a meaningful and ordered world.

The Pearl becomes more than an object

At the centre of the early part of the hymn is the Pearl.

At first, the ocean contains the Pearl while the world is still unable to progress. Divine light becomes manifest within it. The hymn then speaks of flesh, soul, sight, limbs and speech in relation to this strange cosmic image.

Later, it introduces what the published translation calls the Pearl of the Cup. The Pearl opens, rises and becomes associated with colour, light and transformation.

The result is an image that feels almost alive.

We should therefore be careful not to reduce the Pearl to a decorative object. In this Qewl, it functions as part of the sacred process through which hidden possibility becomes visible creation.

The Pearl is not merely inside the creation story. It helps give the story its language.

Mihbet enters the making of the world

Then comes one of the most important words in Yazidi sacred poetry: Mihbet (Love).

The hymn speaks of the Mystery of Love and then describes Love as entering the cosmic process itself.

This matters because Mihbet is not presented simply as a private human emotion. It belongs to the ordering and unfolding of creation.

The same idea appeared in Qewlê Zebûnî Meksûr, but Qewlê Afrîna Dinyayê gives it its own imagery. Love is placed alongside the Pearl, water, light and the formation of the world.

Within this Qewl, Mihbet is therefore something active: a sacred principle through which creation takes form and life becomes possible.

Why does the hymn speak of rennet?

One of the most unusual images comes from something completely ordinary.

The Creator places rennet into the ocean. The waters begin to coagulate. From this transformation come further stages in the formation of heaven and earth.

It is a domestic image made cosmic.

Something fluid and unsettled is given form. What could not hold its shape begins to become stable.

This kind of imagery is one reason the Qewls can be difficult when read too literally. The hymn does not need the vocabulary of modern cosmology. It takes familiar processes and turns them into a language for speaking about the deepest questions of existence.

Creation here is repeatedly described as the movement from instability toward order.

Water from the Pearl and the sacred ship

Water then flows from the Pearl and becomes a vast primordial ocean.

Across this water, the hymn introduces a ship. Life is gathered into it. The divine guide stands at its head as it travels through the waters. When the vessel is damaged and water enters, a snake becomes part of the episode.

A reader may immediately think of stories known from neighbouring religious traditions. But resemblance does not mean that the Qewl has to be read through somebody else's theology.

Inside Qewlê Afrîna Dinyayê, the ship has its own place in a Yazidi creation hymn. It carries life through a world that is still being ordered.

That is the more useful starting point: what does the image do inside the Qewl itself?

Lalish before Adam

Later, the hymn gives Lalish an extraordinary place in sacred time.

It places luminous Lalish before Adam and connects its arrival with the earth finally becoming settled.

This should not be flattened into a modern chronological claim, as if the Qewl were giving us a date that could be placed on a scientific timeline.

Its meaning is larger than that.

Lalish is presented as belonging to the sacred order of the world before ordinary human history begins. The holy valley is not introduced merely because later Yazidi events happened there. Its holiness is woven into the creation narrative itself.

Lalish is not added to the story after the world is finished. In this Qewl, Lalish belongs to the world becoming stable.

For Yazidis, that is a powerful idea. It places the spiritual centre of Yazidi life not at the edge of creation, but inside the sacred imagination of how the world receives order.

The soul and the Light of Love

After the world has been ordered, the hymn turns toward Adam.

But once again, a physical body is not enough.

The soul is described as existing on high. It moves until the Light of Love reaches Adam and becomes manifest within his body.

This version of the creation story therefore connects human life directly with Mihbet.

In Qewlê Zebûnî Meksûr, sacred music plays an especially striking role in the soul entering Adam. Here the emphasis falls more strongly on the Light of Love and the Cup.

The two Qewls are not identical, and they do not need to be. Each preserves a different arrangement of sacred images.

The Cup of the Mystery

The Creator then brings Adam the Cup of the Mystery.

Adam drinks and comes to life. The hymn describes trembling, the movement of blood through the body, awakening and the arrival of consciousness.

Again, the Cup should not be treated as an ordinary drink in an ordinary scene.

Within the sacred language of the Qewl, drinking from the Cup marks transformation. Adam moves from a formed body toward conscious life and participation in sacred blessing.

The imagery connects body, soul, Mihbet, blessing and consciousness.

Human life is therefore not described as flesh alone. To be alive is to receive something that physical form by itself cannot provide.

Creation ends with responsibility

The closing movement of the hymn is easy to overlook, but it may be one of its most important parts.

After speaking about the formation of the world and the awakening of Adam, the Qewl turns toward human conduct.

It speaks to the Mirid, invokes blessing, and calls on people to become people of good deeds and not to forget.

That changes the meaning of everything that came before.

The creation story is not presented only so that a listener can know how the cosmos began. Sacred order creates a responsibility for the people who live within it.

The Pearl, Mihbet, Lalish, the soul and the Cup lead eventually to a very human question:

What kind of person will you be inside the world you have been given?

What does this Qewl add to the Yazidi creation story?

Qewlê Afrîna Dinyayê contains themes that are familiar from other Yazidi creation hymns, but it does not simply repeat them.

It gives the Pearl an almost living quality. It places Mihbet inside the formation of the cosmos. It transforms the ocean through the image of rennet. It carries life across the waters in a sacred ship. It places luminous Lalish before Adam. It connects the awakening of the human being with the Light of Love and the Cup. And it ends by turning cosmic order into an ethical demand.

For modern readers, differences between Qewls can feel confusing if we expect sacred tradition to behave like one printed textbook with a single fixed chapter order.

But the Qewls belong to a living oral tradition. Related hymns can preserve overlapping images while giving them different emphases.

Rather than forcing every Qewl into one outside system, we can first allow each hymn to show us how Yazidi sacred language works from within.

The Qewls deserve to be read first on their own terms.

The Pearl. Mihbet. The ocean. Lalish. The soul. The Cup. And finally: good deeds and remembrance.

Qewlê Afrîna Dinyayê is therefore not only a story about how the world begins. It is also a story about how sacred order becomes human responsibility.

A note on this article

This article is not a translation of the Qewl and does not replace the original oral tradition. It is an accessible explanation based on one published version of Qewlê Afrîna Dinyayê. Qewls exist within a living oral tradition, and wording, interpretation and transmission can vary.

The published text used for this article attributes this version to Süleyman and Jindî (1979, pp. 58 to 62) and also refers readers to Kreyenbroek (1995, pp. 182 to 192).

For readers who can access the original Ezdiki, the Qewl itself should always remain the primary text.