Title: The Status of the Yazidis: Eight Years on from the ISIS Genocide
Author: Ely Sannes
Place of publication:
Publisher: Washington Kurdish Institute
Release date: May. 2022

The Yazidis are a religious group settled predominantly in northern Iraq around the Sinjar mountains, located in the disputed territory of the Sinjar region, which is geographically between the Kurdistan region and central Iraq. They are a double minority community in much of the Middle East and have resided in or around the Sinjar mountains and northern Iraq, in the Kurdistan Region, for centuries. Though most of the Yazidis are Kurdish in ethnicity and speak the Kurdish language (Kurmanji), religiously they are very distinct from the majority Sunni Kurdish population.[1] As minorities, some of Yazidis prefer to be recognized as an ethnic group, distinctly separate from the Kurds because of their cultural and religious differences.[2]

The religion of Yazidism is somewhat complicated, which is a reason it is misunderstood so easily. Yazidism mixes elements from Islam, Zoroastrianism, Nestorian Christianity, ancient Persian faiths, and Mithraism (a near-eastern faith that was very popular amongst the Roman legionnaires) to form their faith. This syncretism, which is an amalgamation of various faiths is often a subject of heavy criticism, and as a result, the Yazidis are considered heretics by the fundamentalist Muslims. Unlike other religious minorities in the Near East, they are considered devil worshippers by many Muslims for their worship of Tawusi Melek, an angel who resists God to be a link to the divine for humans or that God left the management of the world to the seven archangels, among whom Tawusi Melek enjoys the highest stature.[1]