A TRIBE whose members worship peacocks, believe that lettuces are evil and are considered to be heretics and Devil-worshippers by their Muslim neighbours yesterday thanked America and Britain for rescuing them from Saddam Hussein and laid out their plans for being part of the new government of Iraq.

The Yazidis, who practise one of the more bizarre, secretive and persecuted religions and claim to number 700,000 in Iraq, have been reclaiming land and villages taken by the former dictator and are resuming pilgrimages to their most holy shrine, the Lilash temple in the mountains of northern Iraq. They claim that they are descended from Adam while everyone else is descended from Eve.

They have already won a seat on the governing council of the northern city of Mosul and are planning to restart Yazidi lessons in schools.

For Yazidis, at least, life has never been better and their support for President Bush and Tony Blair is unqualified. Emir Farooq Saeed Ali Beg, vice-president of the Yezidis’ World Supreme Spiritual Council, said: “This is like a dream for us. The Americans liberated us and gave us our freedom. We hope they stay to protect the minorities like us.”

His brother, the Emir Thassin Saeed Ali Beg, who is the tribe’s religious and political leader, told The Times of his ambitions while sitting in his palace in the village of Sherhan, surrounded by guards holding Kalashnikovs.

“This is the first time we have had political power in Iraq. We want our religion in school, our name in the constitution, we want members in the parliament and ministers in government. We want just the same rights as Christians and Muslims,” he said.

The Yazidis claim to date from before the birth of the prophet Abraham 4,000 years ago and say that Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Zoroastrianism are all derived from them. Scholars suggest that they started just 1,200 years ago and borrowed beliefs from other religions.

They believe that Satan was redeemed and became a peacock, not a Devil. They deny that they are Devil-worshippers. The Yazidis pray twice a day and their day of rest is Wednesday. They can drink alcohol and eat pork but not lettuce, which is seen as a source of evil.

Their beliefs are not written down but memorised and passed on. Many of their rituals are so secret that they have never been seen by outsiders. It is impossible to convert to Yazidism and it is forbidden for Yazidis to marry outside the religion.

The Yazidis’ stronghold is northern Iraq but they are spread across Turkey, Russia, Syria, Georgia and Armenia. They claim to number about 1.5 million worldwide. They say that they have been persecuted for centuries by Muslims and that they lived in caves for protection between the 14th and 16th centuries. Saddam forced them to evacuate about 20 villages in the 1970s, giving their homes to Arabs, and killed about 3,000 Yazidis.

Emir Thassin, 70, became a refugee in London but was lured back in 1981 with the promise of getting Yazidi land back. “But when I came back they didn’t give us our land until this war. When Saddam fell, the tribes who had our land knew it wasn’t theirs and left,” he said.

A few weeks ago the Yazidis returned to the village of Rassalin. Going back to his house from which he had been ejected a quarter of a century ago, Yizmak Askander Abu, a teacher, said: “There are no words to describe what it was like coming back home. It is just the same as I remember it.”

Elsewhere in the impoverished farming village the departing Arabs took all the electrical fittings and wiring, plumbing, windows, doors and even roofs. But the Yazidis have the crops the Arabs planted and the extensions they built. “We are all very happy and comfortable. This is the freedom we want,” Mr Abu said.

Up in the mountains, the 950-year-old sacred temple of Lilash is tucked away from view in an idyllic little valley surrounded by groves of pomegranates, olives, figs and almonds. Streams trickle through the cobbled courtyard of the temple, which contains their most holy shrine, the tomb of Sheikh Adi, kept in almost pitch darkness in a windowless room lit only by a single olive-oil lamp. The entire village around it is lit up at night by 366 olive-oil lamps, supposedly the number of days in the year.

Yazidis are meant to make a pilgrimage to Lilash once a year but Saddam’s restrictions on travel for security reasons made it almost impossible to get to, and journalists were banned. Now everyone is free to come and it has never been so busy.

When The Times visited, a priest chanted from the roof of the temple and the entire village chanted back in unison, voices rising from balconies and courtyards.

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