Kurdish Studies 4(2), Special issue: Yezidism and Yezidi Studies in the early 21st century
guest edited by Omarkhali, Kh. and Kreyenbroek, Ph., London, Transnational Press London, 2016.
in the Yezidi community, and analyses contemporary portrayals of the Yezidis. The initial focus is on the far-reaching consequences of ISIS’s (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [also known as ISIL or the Islamic State (IS)]) genocide of Yezidis in the Sinjar region of Iraq which began in August 2014, and its possible implications for the Yezidi religion generally. Further contributions discuss how the Yezidis have recently been described in Western media and academic literature.
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The present volume deals with recent trends and developments in the Yezidi community, and analyses contemporary portrayals of the Yezidis. The initial focus is on the far-reaching consequences of ISIS’s (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [also known as ISIL or the Islamic State (IS)]) genocide of Yezidis in the Sinjar region of Iraq which began in August 2014, and its possible implications for the Yezidi religion generally. Further contributions discuss how the Yezidis have recently been described in Western media and academic literature.
Yezidism is a minority religion that originated in Kurdistan, and Kurdish is the common language of the community. Most Yezidis regard themselves as Kurds, while a minority use the term “Kurds” for Muslims and claim Yezidism as an ethnic as well as a religious identity. While there have been some earlier references to Yezidis, this community and their religion began to draw public and academic interest in the West from the 1850s onwards, with the publications of accounts by travellers and missionaries (Kreyenbroek, 995: 1–5). Early authors on the subject tended to be particularly interested in the possible origin of Yezidism, and to describe the Yezidis in a somewhat romantic light. A little later, there were many discussions about two short texts that were thought the “Sacred Books” of Yezidism. These were eventually shown to be inauthentic (Kreyenbroek, 1995: 10–16). The romantic perception of the Yezidis was strengthened in the German-speaking world by the author Karl May (1842–1912); in his Wild Kurdistan (Durchs Wilde Kurdistan 1892), May portrayed the Yezidis as noble and well-meaning “Devilworshippers”. The notion that Yezidis worship the principle of Evil is an
error, the result of a misinterpretation of the role of the Yezidi Tawûsî Melek (“the Peacock Angel”), the “Lord of this World” who is responsible for all that happens on earth, both good and bad (as humans would see it). However wrong, this label has deeply influenced outsiders’ perceptions of Yezidism, the more so because for many years, academic speculations on their religion were based on relatively little actual information. After decades of active academic discussions on Yezidism, around the 1930s M. Guidi’s definition of Yezidism as an aberrant form of Islam came to be widely accepted by academics (Kreyenbroek, 1995: 16–17). The resulting view of Yezidis as “Muslims who do not profess Islam” may well account for the gradual loss of interest in Yezidi affairs among scholars. A renewed interest in the religion began the 1990s (Allison, 2008: 3f), when Yezidis themselves started to take an active role in discussions on their own religion. The existence of a body of authentic Yezidi sacred and religious texts became known (these texts had always been transmitted orally and their importance was previously kept secret from researchers), and researchers had become more concerned with interpreting their data on Yezidism within the framework of the culture(s) of the communities in question. These more recent researchers tend to accept the Yezidis’ own view of their religion as an independent tradition, and both Yezidi and non-Yezidi authors seek to represent this religion in a manner that many Yezidis would understand and recognise. Since the 1990s “Yezidi Studies” can perhaps be said to have become established in academia, albeit in a very modest way.