Sheikh Mend: The Yazidi Lord of Snakes
- Sherko Sabir
- Jun 2
- 14 min read
Introduction
Among the many holy figures of Yazidism stands one whose name is bound, in the imagination of the faithful, to a creature both feared and revered across the ancient world: the serpent. Sheikh Mend, known in Kurdish as Sex Mend, is venerated as the Xudan, the lord and protector, of snakes, and his descendants are believed to this day to be unharmed by serpents and able to heal their bites. He is one of the most distinctive saints of the Yazidi tradition, a religion indigenous to the Kurds and one of the oldest faiths of the region.
Yet Sheikh Mend was far more than a figure of sacred legend. He was a real historical personage of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a Kurdish prince and a commander in the army of the Ayyubids, the dynasty of the famous Saladin, who honoured him with the title of Emir of the Kurds and made him the founder of a Kurdish principality that would endure for four hundred years. In him the sacred and the worldly meet: a saint who was also a warrior-prince, a holy lord of serpents who was also the ruler of an emirate.
To understand Sheikh Mend is to glimpse the richness of the Yazidi tradition, in which the serpent is not a figure of evil, as in some faiths, but a sacred and protective being, a symbol of healing, wisdom and safety. It is also to glimpse a chapter of Kurdish history in which the holy families of the Yazidis were also the lords and rulers of the land. His is a story where myth and history are woven inseparably together.
Contents
Who Was Sheikh Mend?
Sheikh Mend, in Kurdish Sex Mend and also called Sheikh Mand or Sheikh Mand Pasha, was a Yazidi saint of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, venerated above all as the Lord of Snakes. He was the eldest son of the great saint Sheikh Fakhradin, and belonged to the Shemsani lineage of Yazidi sheikhs. Beyond his sacred role he was a historical ruler and military commander who founded the Kurdish Emirate of Kilis and served the Ayyubid dynasty of Saladin. His descendants form their own sheikh family, the Mendkan, and are believed to carry his power over serpents to this day.
A Saint of the Shemsani Line
Sheikh Mend belonged to the most exalted sacred lineage of Yazidism. His father was Sheikh Fakhradin, in Kurdish Sex Fexredin, who is counted among the Heft Sirr, the Seven Mysteries or Seven Divine Beings to whom, in Yazidi belief, God entrusted the care of the world, and who are honoured together with the Peacock Angel at the head of the faith. Fakhradin was one of the four sons of the prince Ezdina Mir, the four who became the ancestors of the four Shemsani sheikh lineages and who are held to have been earthly incarnations of angelic beings.
Within this holy family, Sheikh Mend stood among illustrious kin. His uncle was the great Sheikh Shems, the saint of the sun and light; his sister was Khatuna Fexra, revered as one of the most important female saints of Yazidism, the guardian of childbirth and of women and children; and his brothers were Sheikh Bedir and Sheikh Aqub. From Sheikh Mend himself descends a distinct sheikh family, the Mendkan, who form their own group within the lineage of Fakhradin and who preserve his sacred role across the generations. To be born into this line was to inherit a place at the very heart of the Yazidi sacred order.
Key Takeaways
Sheikh Mend is the Yazidi saint venerated as the Lord of Snakes.
He was the eldest son of Sheikh Fakhradin, of the Shemsani sheikh lineage.
In Yazidism the serpent is a sacred and protective being, not an evil one.
His descendants, the Mendkan, are believed to heal snakebite and be unharmed by snakes.
He was a historical ruler, the first emir of the Kurdish Emirate of Kilis.
Saladin honoured him with the title of Emir of the Kurds.
Quick Facts
Name: Sheikh Mend (Kurdish: Sex Mend); also Sheikh Mand, Sheikh Mand Pasha
Lived: The 12th to 13th century
Type: A Yazidi saint of the Shemsani sheikh lineage
Father: Sheikh Fakhradin (Sex Fexredin), one of the Seven Divine Beings
Siblings: Sheikh Bedir, Sheikh Aqub, and the saint Khatuna Fexra
Known as: The Xudan, or Lord, of Snakes in Yazidism
Lineage: Founder of the Mendkan sheikh family, who still heal snakebite
Shrines: At Lalish and at Ain Sifni in the Sheikhan region
Historical role: First ruler of the Kurdish Emirate of Kilis
Honoured by: Saladin, who named him an Emir of the Kurds
The Lord of Snakes
The role for which Sheikh Mend is most beloved and best known is that of the Xudan of snakes, the lord, patron and protector of serpents in the Yazidi faith. In a tradition rich with holy figures who watch over particular spheres of life, Sheikh Mend is the one to whom the world of snakes belongs, and the serpent is his sacred emblem. This association is no mark against him, for in Yazidism the snake is a creature of deep and positive meaning, and to be its lord is to hold a place of honour.
The tradition tells, in one of its vivid accounts, that Sheikh Mend himself once took the form of a great black serpent in order to drive away enemies who came against his people, turning the power of the snake to the protection of the faithful. Whether told of the saint in life or in legend, such stories express the heart of his role: that the serpent, under his lordship, is a guardian and a protector, and that Sheikh Mend wields its power for the good of his people. It is a striking and beautiful conception, and it sets him apart among the saints of the region.
The Sacred Serpent
To understand Sheikh Mend, one must understand the place of the serpent in Yazidism, which is very different from its place in some other faiths. Far from being a creature of evil or temptation, the snake in the Yazidi tradition is sacred and benevolent, associated with wisdom, knowledge, healing, fertility and, above all, protection and safety. The most famous expression of this is found at Lalish, the holy valley that is the spiritual heart of the Yazidi world, where a great black serpent is carved upon the wall beside the doorway of the central shrine.
This image, the immense black snake standing erect by the entrance to the Shrine of Sheikh Adi, darkened over the centuries by the soot of the holy lamps, is one of the first things every pilgrim sees on entering the sanctuary, and it is treated with reverence. It is a sign of the protective power that watches over the holy place. In honouring the serpent in this way, the Yazidis preserve one of the most ancient sacred symbols of the whole region, and Sheikh Mend, as the lord of snakes, stands as the saint who presides over this venerable and protective emblem.
The Snake That Saved the Ark
The reverence for the serpent is explained, in Yazidi sacred tradition, by a beautiful legend connected to the story of the great Flood. As the tradition tells it, when the ark of Noah came to rest upon the mountain after the waters had risen, its hull was breached and began to leak, threatening to sink and to drown all the living things it carried. In that moment of peril, a black snake coiled itself tightly over the hole in the hull, sealing the breach with its own body, and so kept the ark afloat and saved the lives of all aboard, and with them the future of the world.
Because of this, the tradition holds, the serpent became a holy creature, a symbol of safety and security and salvation, and one that should never be killed. The black snake at Lalish is understood to be this same serpent, the saviour of the ark, and the snake that is holy to Sheikh Mend and his line is the same again. In this single image the whole meaning of the Yazidi serpent is gathered: not a bringer of ruin but a preserver of life, the very creature that once saved the world from the waters. It is this protective and life-giving snake that Sheikh Mend governs as its lord.
The Living Lineage
Sheikh Mend's sacred role did not end with his life but passes down through his descendants, the sheikh family known as the Mendkan, who are believed to carry his power over serpents to this very day. According to the living tradition, the members of his lineage are blessed so that snakes will not bite them, and so that they can cure the bites of snakes in others. They are, in effect, hereditary healers, and Yazidis afflicted by snakebite have traditionally come to them to be cured.
This is one of the most remarkable features of the cult of Sheikh Mend: that it is not merely a memory of a saint of long ago but a living practice, embodied in real families who continue to exercise the gift attributed to their holy ancestor. In their healing work, the descendants of Sheikh Mend may use the sacred image of the snake, drawing on the protective power that flows from their forefather. In this way the saint remains present and active among his people, his blessing renewed in each generation of his line, a vivid example of how the Yazidi sacred order weaves the holy into the fabric of daily life.
The Emir and Commander
For all his sacred aura, Sheikh Mend was also a figure of solid history, and a powerful one. He was one of the leaders of the Kurdish Hakkari tribe and a commander of the Hakkari regiment in the army of the Ayyubid dynasty, the house founded by the celebrated Kurdish ruler Saladin, who led the Muslim world in the age of the Crusades. As a warrior and a leader of his people, Sheikh Mend rendered notable service to the Ayyubid state.
In reward for that service, Saladin, himself a Kurd, granted Sheikh Mend the lofty title of Emir of the Kurds, together with the rule of the castle of Qoseir to the west of Aleppo and a fiefdom over the Kurds of the Levant. Thus the holy lord of serpents became also a temporal prince, set in authority over Kurdish communities in the lands of Syria. It is a striking illustration of how, in the Kurdish world of that age, sacred and worldly authority could be united in a single family, and how the great Yazidi holy houses were also houses of rule.
The Emirate of Kilis
From the authority granted to Sheikh Mend grew a lasting Kurdish principality: the Emirate of Kilis, in Kurdish Mirektiya Kilise, which ruled the regions of Kilis and Afrin in the borderlands of northern Syria and southern Anatolia. Established in the late twelfth century as a vassal of the Ayyubids, the emirate was founded by Sheikh Mend as its first ruler, and its rulers were his descendants, the line of the holy family of Fakhradin. For a remarkably long span, into the early seventeenth century, this Kurdish dynasty endured.
The tradition recalls that Sheikh Mend's rise to this high position was not unopposed. The sheikhs of the Yazidi Kurds who were spread across the regions between Hama and Maras at first contested his claim to such authority, and the rivalry was sharp, even leading at times to armed conflict. But Sheikh Mend prevailed over them, and they came in the end to acknowledge his leadership. In this way he consolidated his authority over the Kurdish and Yazidi communities of the western lands, and laid the foundation of a principality that would carry the name and the blood of his holy house for four centuries.
A Shared Serpent Heritage
The veneration of the serpent that centres on Sheikh Mend is not unique to the Yazidis but is shared, in differing forms, across several of the old faith-communities of the Kurdish world, including the Yarsanis and the Kurdish Alevis. This shared reverence points back, many scholars believe, to a very ancient layer of religion in the region, a pre-Islamic inheritance in which the snake held a sacred and protective place. It is one of the threads that bind together the diverse spiritual traditions that the Kurds have carried.
This sacred, protective serpent should not be confused with every snake-figure of Kurdish and regional legend. The serpent of Sheikh Mend is a holy guardian, quite distinct in meaning from a figure such as Shahmaran, the wise serpent-queen of the wider folklore of the region, or from the menacing serpents that coil from the shoulders of tyrants in the old myths. In the figure of Sheikh Mend, the snake is purely a creature of protection and healing, the saviour of the ark and the guardian of the holy place, and this is the meaning that the Yazidi tradition has preserved with such care.
Symbolism and Meaning
The figure of Sheikh Mend gathers several rich strands of meaning. As the lord of snakes, he embodies the Yazidi understanding of the serpent as a sacred protector, a being of healing and safety rather than of harm, and in him the faith expresses its reverence for one of the oldest holy symbols of the land. His living lineage of healers shows how the Yazidi tradition keeps its saints present and active in the world, their blessings flowing down through real families into the practical care of the sick and the suffering.
And in the union of his sacred and his worldly roles, the saint who was also an emir, Sheikh Mend embodies a whole world: the Kurdish world of the medieval centuries, in which holy families were also ruling houses, and in which the spiritual and the political were not separate realms but interwoven. To remember him is to remember that the Yazidi faith was once not only a religion of mountain villages but the faith of princes and emirates, woven into the history and the power of the Kurdish lands.
Sheikh Mend and the Kurds
Sheikh Mend holds a cherished place in the world of the Kurds, and above all among the Yazidis, for whom he is a living presence rather than a distant memory. As the lord of snakes whose lineage still heals, he is woven into the practical religious life of the community; as a saint of the holy family descended from the Seven Divine Beings, he stands near the heart of the Yazidi sacred order; and as the founder of an emirate and an Emir of the Kurds, he belongs also to the political history of his people.
For the Yazidis, who have suffered grievously through the centuries and who hold to one of the most ancient and most misunderstood faiths of the region, figures such as Sheikh Mend are a source of identity, continuity and pride. He links the present-day community to a long and dignified history, sacred and worldly alike, and his enduring veneration is a sign of the resilience of a tradition that has survived against great odds. To honour Sheikh Mend is to honour the depth and the endurance of the Yazidi heritage within the wider story of the Kurds.
Debates and Misconceptions
Does the serpent of Sheikh Mend mean something sinister? It does not, and this is the most important point to grasp. The Yazidis have long suffered from cruel and false accusations rooted in misunderstandings of their faith, and the presence of serpent-veneration has sometimes been wrongly seized upon by outsiders. In truth, Yazidism is a monotheistic faith, and the serpent within it is a sacred and protective being, a symbol of safety, healing and the salvation of life, honoured as the creature that saved the ark. Sheikh Mend, as its lord, is a benevolent protector-saint, and there is nothing dark in his veneration. The traditions of the Peacock Angel and of the serpent alike must be understood on the Yazidis' own terms, not through the distortions of those who did not understand them.
Was Sheikh Mend a saint or a historical figure? He was both, and this is part of what makes him so interesting. The sacred traditions present him as a holy figure of the Shemsani line, with miraculous powers over serpents, while the historical record attests him as a real ruler and Ayyubid commander, the founder of the Emirate of Kilis, honoured by Saladin. As so often in the lives of the Yazidi holy family, sacred legend and documented history are interwoven, and both belong to the full picture of the man.
How certain are the details of his life? As with most figures of that distant age, and especially given the great losses suffered by the Yazidi oral tradition through centuries of persecution, many specifics are known only through sacred tradition and are approximate. The dates of his life are given variously across the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and his sacred genealogy is held as a matter of religious tradition rather than documentary proof. It is most honest to receive these as the cherished traditions of a living faith, while noting the firm historical core of his role in the Ayyubid age and the founding of Kilis.
Related Topics
Lalish: the holy Yazidi valley where the sacred black serpent is carved by the shrine
Sheikh Adi: the central Yazidi saint whose shrine at Lalish bears the serpent
The Seven Angels: the Heft Sirr, among whom is Sheikh Mend's father Fakhradin
Tawuse Melek: the Peacock Angel, the head of the Yazidi faith
Sheikh Shems: the saint of the sun, Sheikh Mend's uncle of the Shemsani line
Shahmaran: the serpent-queen of the wider folklore, distinct from the sacred serpent
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Sheikh Mend?
Sheikh Mend, in Kurdish Sex Mend, was a Yazidi saint of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, venerated as the Lord of Snakes. He was the eldest son of the great saint Sheikh Fakhradin and belonged to the Shemsani lineage of Yazidi sheikhs. He was also a historical ruler and Ayyubid commander who founded the Kurdish Emirate of Kilis, and his descendants, the Mendkan, are believed to carry his power over serpents to this day.
Why is Sheikh Mend called the Lord of Snakes?
He is venerated as the Xudan, the lord and protector, of snakes in the Yazidi faith, for whom the serpent is a sacred and benevolent being. Tradition tells that he could command serpents and even took the form of a great black snake to protect his people, and his descendants are believed to be unharmed by snakes and able to heal their bites. The title reflects his role as the saint who presides over a holy and protective creature.
Is the serpent evil in Yazidism?
No. In Yazidism the serpent is a sacred and protective being, associated with wisdom, healing, fertility and safety, quite unlike its role in some other faiths. A famous legend tells that a black snake saved Noah's ark by sealing a leak with its body, and so the serpent is honoured as a saviour of life. The great black snake carved at the shrine of Lalish reflects this reverence. Yazidism is a monotheistic faith, and there is nothing sinister in its honouring of the serpent.
What is the Mendkan lineage?
The Mendkan are the sheikh family descended from Sheikh Mend, forming their own group within the lineage of Sheikh Fakhradin among the Shemsani sheikhs. According to the living tradition, the members of this line carry their ancestor's power over serpents: snakes do not bite them, and they can cure the snakebites of others. They are, in effect, hereditary healers who keep Sheikh Mend's sacred role alive in the present day.
Was Sheikh Mend a real historical person?
Yes. Alongside his sacred role, Sheikh Mend is attested as a real historical figure: a leader of the Kurdish Hakkari tribe and a commander in the Ayyubid army of Saladin, who honoured him with the title of Emir of the Kurds and a fiefdom in the Levant. He became the first ruler of the Kurdish Emirate of Kilis, a principality that endured into the seventeenth century under his descendants.
What was the Emirate of Kilis?
The Emirate of Kilis was a Kurdish principality that ruled the Kilis and Afrin regions in the borderlands of northern Syria and southern Anatolia, founded in the late twelfth century as a vassal of the Ayyubid dynasty. Its first ruler was Sheikh Mend, and its rulers were his descendants of the holy family of Fakhradin. The emirate endured for some four centuries, into the early seventeenth century.
References and Further Reading
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