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According to Zoroastrian legend, god would stop the flow of water through cities, leaving residents with no alternative but to sacrifice selected maidens. Then god would restore the water flow. (8) Later, they depicted god as a serpent. This is the source of the Yezidi practice of swearing by the yellow serpent. To the Yezidis, Azhi Dahak does not represent evil. They have not accepted Zoroastrian religious beliefs.
Nikolay Marr, an expert on the east and the Kurds, maintains that Yezidism is a distinct religion. "Here we see the remnants of an ancient religion, an original one," he writes. (9) Although some researchers, Qanate Kurdo, for example, (10) note that fire and hearth are sacred to the Kurds, some scholars view this sanctity as a remnant of Zoroastrianism (11). However they forget that in the religion of the Yezidis, fire and hearth are sacred as well.
According to Wahbi, during the 4th and 5th centuries AD the majority of Kurds east of the Zagros, Cizir, Botan, Kirkuk, and those in the mountains of southeast Kurdistan were not Zoroastrians. (12) We see that the people of the Medes' Empire, whom we regard as the ancestors of the Kurds, were not Zoroastrians. Moreover, the last emperor of the Medes, Rishti Vega-Azhi Dahak, killed Zoroaster, ruled his followers and overthrew Vishtaspa. His army reached the southwest of Afghanistan. During that attack, the army of the Medes inflicted cruelties on Zoroastrians. No doubt this explains in large measure why the Zoroastrians equated the name Azhi Dahak with oppression and cruelty.
In the Persian language large serpents are called dragons. Dragon is the name given to the emperor, Azhi Dahak. It is linked to Newroz as well, for the name of the cruel ruler is Dahak. Three years later, in 549 BC, the founder of the Akkadian Empire, Cyrus the Great, grandson of Rishti Vega-Azhi Dahak, conquered the capital city Ekbatana and put an end to the Median Empire. Because it was three years or so after the attack by Azhi Dahak, it is not far fetched to assume that on this occasion the Zoroastrians took revenge on the locals and forced the angel-worshippers to pack up and leave.
The name of the Median Empire has not remained in history. Moreover, it has been forgotten by its own people. The religion of the Medes was supplanted by three religions emanating from it, which remain to this day: Yezidism, Yarsanism and Alewism.
M. R. Izady surmises that the name of that religion was Yazdani, but he is not 100% convinced. (13) Nevertheless, in his research to differentiate it from Yezidism, he uses the name. Both names refer to angels. The name might have been Yazdani, but it could also have been Yezidi. To differentiate between the two, I will call the religion of the Median Empire Yazdani.
Undoubtedly, over the past thousands of years and owing to significant changes introduced by Sheikh Adi, neither religion could have remained intact and unchanged. Nevertheless, they have much in common. The foundation of Yezidism is that there is but one God, with neither partner nor equal, and seven angels headed by Angel Peacock. Among the Yazdani sects of our day, Alewis and Yarsanis, beliefs are founded on the worship of seven angels.