Note 109 — Chapter I · The Religious Origin of the Yezidis

Warda, “the rose,” is the name of a collection of hymns composed by George Warda (1224 A. D.), Bishop of Arbila; cf. Bar Hebraeus, Chron. Eccl., vol. II, p. 402. Warda is one of the most conspicuous writers of hymns in the thirteenth century which was the age of song with the Nestorian church. His poems have entered so largely into the use of the Nestorian church that one of their service books is to this day called the Warda; Badger, The Nestorians, vol. II, p. 25. Some of his hymns speak of the calamities of the years 1224-1227. A few specimens are given by Cardaḥi in Liber Thesauri, p. 51. Badger has translated one in his Nestorians, vol. II, pp. 51-57. Warda’s poems have been edited by Heinrich Hilgenfeld, Ausgewählte Gesänge des Giworgis Warda von Arbil, Leipzig, 1904, and by Manna, Mosul, 1901.