Yazidis

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Yazidi men, traditionally with mustaches
A group of Yazidis on the Sinjar ridge in the Syrian-Iraqi border area (around 1920)
A meeting jesidischer tribal leaders with Christian Chaldean clerics (late 19th century)

The Yazidis ( listening ? / I ) or Eziden ( kurmandschiAudio file / audio sample ئێزیدی Ezidi ) are a mostly Kurmanji- speaking ethnic-religious minority with several hundred thousand members, whose original main settlement areas are in northern Iraq , northern Syria and southeastern Turkey . The Yazidis see themselves partly as ethnic Kurds , partly as an independent ethno-religious group . They are currently recognized as a separate ethnic group in Iraq and Armenia . The Foreign Office describes the Yazidis as an ethnic minority . Today, Yazidis have spread to other countries through emigration . With an estimated 200,000 members (2017), the largest diaspora community of Yazidis lives in Germany .

The Yazidis practice strict endogamy . Yezidism is a monotheistic , non- scriptural , syncretistic religion. Membership results exclusively from birth if both parents are of Yazidi descent. A marriage of Yazidis (of both sexes) with people of other faiths, in view of Yazidi marriage rules, results in exclusion from the religious community. In the center of the Yezidi faith are Melek Taus ( "Angel Peacock"), the Sheikh Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir (around 1073-1163) and the seven mysteries . The tomb of Sheikh ʿAdī in the Iraqi Lalish Valley is the main Yezidis shrine and the destination of an annual pilgrimage in autumn.

The Yazidis have been victims of an ongoing genocide since August 2014 . As so-called “ infidels ”, they are fleeing persecution, slavery and murder by the terrorist fundamentalist militia Islamic State in northern Iraq .

Origin of the designation

The Yazidis are also called Yazidis or Ezidis . Yazidis living in Germany mostly use the ethnonym “Eziden” or “Ezidis” as their own name and tend to avoid the foreign names “Yazidis”, “Yezidis”, “Yazidis” or “Yezidis”. The origin of the term Yezidi is still unclear today. Some scientists use the title Jesidi to the Caliph of the Umayyad Yazid ibn Muawiya I. (680-683) back. Other scientists attribute the name to the ancient Iranian word Yazata for "divine being". Another derivation of the word origin uses the reference to ez dā ("God created"). The religious scholar asch-Schahrastani (1076-1153) attributed the name of the Yazidis to the Kharijite clergyman Yazid bin Unaisa, whose followers they were.

Number and main settlement areas

Yazidis in Jabal Sinjar

The original settlement areas of the Yazidis are in northern Mesopotamia and are also known as Ezidikhan (Land of the Yazidis ). There is no official count of the Yazidis. Their number is estimated at over a million worldwide. The majority are the Iraqi Yazidis with half a million members. Around 200,000 live in Germany, with around 65,000 in the rest of Europe. Several thousand Yazidis live in the USA and Canada, mostly from Iraq. Over 35,000 live in Armenia . Yazidis also live in Georgia and Russia . Several thousand live in Syria and over 2000 in Turkey, mostly in Southeast Anatolia . In the 1980s there were around 60,000 Yazidis living in Turkey. The Yazidis now represent a religious minority among the majority Muslim population in the Middle East .

The mother tongue of the Yazidis is Kurmanji in northern Kurdistan . Arabic is spoken only in the Yazidi villages of Baʿšiqa and Baḥzānē in the disputed areas of northern Iraq .

The largest number of Yazidis live in northern Iraq. The Yazidis are mainly divided into two areas. One is the Shaikhan region northeast of the city of Mosul . Here you will find Lalisch , the religious center of the Yazidis , the place Baʿadhrā , in which the Mīr of Shaykhān, the secular and spiritual head of the Yazidis, resides, as well as the two villages Baʿschīqa and Bahzānē, which are considered the scholarly centers of the Yazidis. The second main settlement area of ​​the Yazidis is the Jabal Sinjar ridge west of Mosul on the border with Syria, but many Yazidis also live in the city itself. The Ba'ath Party under Saddam Hussein declared the Yazidis in northern Iraq to be Arabs during their Arabization campaign in the 1970s and 1980s .

Because of the advance of the jihadist ISIS army ( Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) in July and August 2014, many Yazidis from Mosul and the surrounding area fled to the Kurdish area around the city of Erbil and the Sinjar Mountains.

Censuses and estimates by the Turkish, British and Iraqi sides from the 1920s showed a Yezidi proportion of 4 to 7 percent of the Iraqi Kurds, which today would correspond to 160,000 to 350,000 people if the proportion remained the same. Some maximum estimates today assume up to 550,000 Yazidi believers. The Yazidis make up an estimated 1 percent of the Iraqi population. Since 1991 the Yazidi community in Iraq has been divided into two parts. 90 percent of Iraqi Yazidis live in Iraqi-administered areas and only about 10 percent in Kurdish-administered areas.

In northern Syria, Yazidis live mainly in Afrin and in northeast Syria mainly in and around the city of Qamishli and in the al-Hasakah governorate . However, their number decreased considerably. An estimate gives 12,256 for 1990, for the end of 2008 only 3,357. According to other estimates, their number is between 35,000 and 50,000. It is decreasing through emigration to Europe.

In the 1830s, after the end of the Russo-Turkish War in 1828/29, the first Yazidis came from Anatolia to Eastern Armenia, which was part of the Russian Empire . In 1855 about 340 Yazidis were counted in the Sardarabad district (around today's Armavir ). Several thousand Anatolian Yazidis were settled in the province of Shirak , among others, at the end of the 19th century . In 1912 over 17,000 Yazidis lived in what is now Armenia. At the 2001 census, their number was 40,000. In 2011 they made up the largest minority in the country with a share of 1.1 percent of the total population . Its cultural center in the Aragazotn province was the village of Alagyaz during the Soviet period .

Early history

There are different positions on the emergence of the Yazidi community: The Arab author Ahmad Taimur sees the Yezidi community not appearing before the 12th century (6th century AH ). The Yazidi author Darwis Hasso takes the position that Yezidism developed from Zoroastrianism . A group of authors from the Middle East portrays Yezidism as a very old Kurdish religion, which can be traced back to Iranian mythology , in particular to the Mithras cult .

The Yazidis are mentioned for the first time in writing in the 12th century. The arrival of Sheikh ʿAdī in the Kurdish mountains at the beginning of that century is regarded as the beginning of their religious development . However, before him there was a movement in the Kurdish region known as Yazīdīya, which contemporary Arabic sources report that it sympathized with the Umayyad Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiya . In addition, contemporary sources indicate that religious ideas of Iranian origin were widespread among the Kurds. ʿAdī himself founded a Sufi order , the so-called ʿAdawīya , after he had settled in the valley of Lalisch , which spread over the whole of the Middle East, especially to Syria and Egypt.

While the ʿAdawīya in Syria and Egypt remained on the ground of Islam, the order took a special development among the Kurds. Under Sheikh al-Hasan ibn ʿAdī, a successor and distant relative of Sheikh ʿAdī, who lived in the early 13th century, the founder of the order was increasingly venerated. The influence of the Iranian ideas widespread among the Kurds on the order increased, so that it became an independent religious community. Around the year 1254 AD, there was a conflict between Sheikh Hasan (1195-1246) and the governor of Mosul, Badr al-Din Luʾluʾ. In Sinjar -region to Yezidi warriors gathered. After the defeat of the Yazidis, Badr al-Din's men arrested Sheikh Hasan and hung him at the gate in Mosul. Lalisch was also attacked. Hasan's son Scherfedin sent the Yazidis in Lalisch a message calling for cohesion, defense and preservation of the Yazidi religion. He was killed in the renewed fight. His message became the religious hymn of the Yazidis.

Doctrines

Oral and written transmission

Yezidism does not refer to any scriptures. Faith is passed on mainly through hymns ( Qewlên, Sg. Qewl ) and customs. The conveyance of religious traditions and beliefs was based exclusively on oral tradition until the 20th century . There are two texts that appear to be sacred scriptures of the Yazidis, the "Book of Revelation", the Kitêba Cilwe , and the "Black Book", the Mishefa Reş . The books were published in 1911 and 1913, although not all of the Yazidis' beliefs are completely authentically reproduced. In Iranian studies they are considered to be records by non-Yezidis, but contain authentic material that was already known to the Yazidis.

Oral traditions usually exist in several versions at the same time. This makes it difficult to translate the oral tradition into a written canon of belief that is accepted by all groups. Due to the improved school education in the region, the number of illiterate people there has fallen sharply. Because of this and because the many Yazidis living in western countries are influenced by the ideas of their surroundings, there is a widespread desire to also belong to a “book religion”. For the first time in the 1970s, two Yazidi university graduates received permission from religious leaders to write down beliefs. Several publications by Yazidis of their sacred poetry and folk tales followed and have been widely distributed in magazines ever since. In addition, attempts are being made to remedy the alleged stigma of a missing scriptural tradition by presumably disappearing and reappearing old holy books, for example in the form of the old Persian Avesta . Hilmi Abbas published some of the old Kurdish legends that had previously only been passed on orally in 2003 under the title The Unwritten Book of the Kurds . The book describes the creation story from a Yazidi point of view and the mythical migration of the Kurdish people from east to west in what is now Kurdistan .

cosmogony

The Yazidis religion is monotheistic : Almighty God created the world out of a pearl. After some time, seven holy angels formed the world with all heavenly bodies from this pearl.

“The Mishefa Reş explains how God created the seven angels:

II. The first day on which he created was Sunday; he created an angel, to whom he attached the name 'Azra'il , namely the one who is the angel peacock, who is the great one of all of them.

III. On Monday he created the angel Dardail, who is Sheikh Hasan.

IV. On Tuesday he created Israfail who is the Sheikh Shams.

V. On Wednesday he created the angel Mikail , who is Sheikh Abu-bakr.

VI. On Thursday he created the angel Gibrail , who is the Sagg (ad) -id-din.

VII. On Friday he created the angel Shamnail who is Nasir-ad-din.

VIII. On Saturday he created the angel Turail, who is Fahr-ad-din.

IX. The angel peacock, he made her great. "

- Irene Dulz

The similarity of the cosmogonic ideas of the Yazidis with Zoroastrianism leads to the assumption that there is an original relationship here.

The creation of the first Yazidis is portrayed in the well-known myth of Shahid bin Jarr. Thus , after having fathered some children , Adam and Eve began an argument about which of the two was the actual creator of those children: Eve because she had given birth to the babies, or Adam, who claimed he had added the life force. An experiment should provide the proof. In two clay pots everyone gave something of their own "semen" (interpreted as saliva, blood from the forehead or sweat). When they took off the lid after nine months, they found Eva's pot full of worms and maggots, while a beautiful boy emerged from Adam's pot, whom they called Shahid bin Jarr ("Witness, Son of the Clay Pot"). According to one narrative, Eve was so upset that she tried to break the pot, but - stopped by Adam - only hit one of the boy's leg, which was paralyzed. The unusually born Shahid ben Jar fathered children with a Huri (virgin in paradise) according to one version, and according to another version with his sister who had been in the pot with him. In any case, he became the ancestor of the Yazidis, while the rest of the people are descendants of the children of Adam and Eve. From the myth, the Yazidis derive the exclusive claim to be a unique people and to have the only true religion. This myth is socially significant because it is the foundation of the Yazidis' strict practice of endogamy .

Melek Taus

Yazidi burial ground at the Hannover-Lahe city ​​cemetery with a Melek Taus (“God's angel”) in the showcase on the grave

Melek Taus (Tausî Melek) , "God's angel", which God created with six other angels from his light and whose symbol is a blue peacock, has a central meaning in the Yezidi beliefs . According to Yazidi mythology , he paid homage to the omnipotence of God in a special way and was therefore chosen by God to be the head of the seven angels. According to the myth , he wanted to rise to god himself and fell into disfavor because of it, but he regretted his presumptuousness and atone for it in hell . His guilt was finally forgiven. Since then he has served God as a representative in the world and as a mediator and contact person for the faithful. According to the creation story of the Yazidis, Melek Taus is actively involved in all creation, in the divine plan.

Melek Taus was identified with Satan (Arabic Shaitan ), especially by Islam, and the Yazidis were defamed and persecuted as devil worshipers. In fact, Yazidis do not pronounce the word Shaitan and otherwise refuse to confront God with a personification of " evil " or an adversary, because this would mean doubts about the omnipotence of God. This goes hand in hand with the idea that people are primarily responsible for their own actions. From the Yazidi point of view, God has given man the opportunity to use his sense organs. He has also given him the mind and thus the opportunity to find the right path for himself.

Sheikh ʿAdī

The grave of Sheikh ʿAdī in the Lalish Valley in Iraq

A second important figure for the Yazidis is the reformer Sheikh ʿAdī ibn Musāfir (around 1073–1163). For the Yazidis it is an incarnation ( incarnation ) of the angel Melek Taus, who came to revive Yezidism at a difficult time. The Feast of the Congregation (Jashne Jimaiye) takes place every autumn at his grave in the Lalisch Valley in northern Iraq . Yazidis from all communities from the settlement and living areas come together for this festival to strengthen their community and their solidarity.

The "seven mysteries"

When God first created the world, He placed its welfare in the hands of seven angels, also known as the seven mysteries ( Booklet Sirr ). The main angel among them was Melek Taus, while all seven angels come from God's emanation . You can reincarnate in a human regularly. This form is called Koasasa . That is why they are also considered to be “God's governors on earth”.

In the story, there are said to have been seven reincarnations in the form of sheikhs: When Sheikh Adī moved from Syria to Lalish in Iraq, he is said to have found four holy men there. These were Sheikh Shems ed-Dīn, Sheikh Fachr ed-Dīn, Sheikh Sajādīn and Sheikh Nāsir ed-Dīn. They were all sons of a man named Ēzdīna Mīr. They were later joined by a fifth person, Sheikh Hasan , who according to popular belief of the Yazidis is identified with al-Hasan al-Basrī , who in the 7th / 8th centuries. Century lived. Together with Sheikh ʿAdī and Melek Taus these five persons form the seven mysteries (booklet Sirr) of the Yazidis. Shems ed-Dīn is said to have been the vizier of Sheikh ʿAdī and had nine children.

The black snake

The symbol of the black serpent at the entrance to the shrine of Sheikh ʿAdī ibn Musāfir

The black snake has an important position in the Yazidi faith and is revered as a sacred creature along with other depictions of animals (for example the angel Melek Taus as a peacock). Killing a black snake is considered a sin in Yezidism. Depictions of snakes can be found on the walls of Yezidi shrines, such as the shrine of Sheikh ʿAdī ibn Musāfir . Usually those snake representations are black and are kissed by devout Yazidis before entering the building. They serve to protect the house. In the Yezidi Black Book , which is one of two works that were written in the style of a holy book, there is a story of Noah's ark , in which there was a snake that wrapped around the ark and thus saved it from threatening sinking :

As the water rose and the ship floated, it came above Mount Sinjar, where it ran aground and was pierced by a rock. The serpent twisted itself like a cake and stopped the hole. Then the ship moved on and rested on Mount Judie.

In the caste-like system of the Yazidis there is the Sheikh-Mend caste. Members of the Sheikh Mend have a special relationship with snakes and, in their religious position as natural healers, are especially trained in dealing with snake bites. Snakebite wounds can be healed with the help of saliva and prayer.

The religious-social organization

The traditional religious organizational structure of the Yezidi community is recorded in a document that the heads of the Yezidi religious classes presented to the British and Iraqi authorities in 1931. This text, known as the Shaykhan Memorial , deals with the distribution of alms paid by Yezidi believers among the Yezidi clergy.

Three boxes

Fundamental to the religious-social organization of the Yazidis is the division of their society into three religious hereditary classes or castes : the sheikhs , the pīre (Persian “the elder” or “the old, wise man”) and the murīdūn (lay people). The sheikhs are in turn divided into three subgroups, the Shamsānīs (descendants of Ēzdīna Mīr), the Ādanīs (descendants of Sheikh Adī) and the Qatanīs (descendants of the brothers of Sheikh Hesen).

The sheikhs and pīre are religious leaders (clergy) and must maintain the Yezidi religion among the believers and perform ceremonies, especially at festivals, the Yezidi baptism of newborns and at funerals. Their general role is to help believers in need and to resolve disputes between Yazidis. Sheikhs and Pīre are next to the Mīr (“prince, prince”, head of the Yazidis) and the priestesses and priests of Lalisch, the guardians of the religion and contact persons for every Yazidi believer. The sheikhs have an additional administrative duty in the community and must be active in political and social tasks for the community. They represent the community externally and internally and solve problems both inside and outside the community.

The lay people (Murīdūn) form the third and largest religious class. The Yazidis in this caste are divided into individual tribes , where marriage is not a problem. The tribes also have a general duty to contribute to the maintenance of the religion and to help one another in times of need.

Leadership positions

The religious and secular head of the entire Yazidi community is the Mīr ("prince"). In the documents from the British Mandate , he is referred to as the Prince of Shaykhan . He is considered to be the representative of Sheikh īAdī and Melek Taus and must always come from the circle of the Qatanī sheikhs. Its traditional official seat is the village of Baadra. The office of Mīr is hereditary and is passed on from father to son; Mir Tahsin Saied Beg (* 1933) has been in office since 1944 . By virtue of his authority, the Mīr appoints the following persons in their offices:

  • the Bābā Sheikh ("Father Sheikh"), who is considered to be the spiritual head of the Yazidis and "Father of the Sheikhs"; he must come from the family of Sheikh Fachr ad-Dīn and has a special seat at the sanctuary of Lalisch and is also called Echtiyārē Mergehē ("the old man from the sanctuary").
  • the peschimām ("chief"), who is responsible for marriages and must come from among the Ādanīs.
  • the Kocheks or Koceks , voluntary servants at the Lalish Shrine, who are under the supervision of the Bābā Sheikh and do not have to belong to any particular caste. They perform various services at the shrine (scooping water, collecting firewood), but are also known for their visions , fortune telling skills and miracles . There are different statements about the meaning of their name: while Ph. Kreyenbroek translates it as “the little ones” (from Turkish küçük ), I. Kizilhan thinks that he is different from the two Kurdish words guh (“ear”) and cak ( "Very good"). Koceks are called that because they heard voices from the invisible world.
  • the Chavush , the guardian of the sanctuary of Lalisch; he must be celibate .

The authority of the Mīr and the Bābā Sheikh has been challenged very strongly in recent years by the so-called Lalish Center, a Yezidi political and cultural organization based in Duhok and supported by the Kurdistan Democratic Party . In 2004 there was an attack on the Mīr, which he survived injured.

Yazidi tribes

There are many individual tribes in Yezidis , they have the character of clans and are the result of the cohesion of the descendants of certain founding fathers and the close feeling of belonging among Yazidis in certain Kurdish areas. The members of the tribes see it as their duty to help other members of the tribe. Marriage between members of different Yazidi tribes is permitted. A well-known tribe from the Dahuk governorate is the Qaidi tribe .

The Yazidi settlement areas were and are spatially separated from one another. For organizational reasons, Sheikh ʿAdī has determined that both the members of the Pīre and the Sheikhs should be divided among the Yazidi tribes depending on their size. So each tribe got its own sheikhs and pires, and in every settlement area there is the responsible pire and sheikhs for each group of Yezidi believers of a tribe. In the event of problems, however, the believers can also turn to Pīre and Sheikhs, who are responsible for other tribes.

Religious Practices and Festivals

Rites of passage

The Yezidi community knows a number of rituals of passage that every person must go through in order to be accepted as a full member of the Yazidi community. In childhood, this includes the ritual of the first haircut (biska pora) , which only affects boys and takes place in the seventh or ninth month after birth. The sheikh of the boy cuts the boy's hair from both sides and takes off three curls (bisk) . Two of these are given to the parents, one is kept by the Sheikh himself and dedicates it to the ancestors of Sheikh ʿAdī . Another ceremony, mor kirin , is often compared to Christian baptism , since the head of the Yazidi boy or girl is sprinkled with water three times. As the water from one of the sacred white springs in Lalish is used for this, the ritual is locally restricted to Iraq. The circumcision of boys (sinet) as well as the choice of an “hereafter brother” (birā-yē āchiratē) or an “hereafter sister” (huschk-ā āchiratē) from a sheikh family are further rites of passage.

The connection with the brother or sister in the hereafter is usually closed at a celebration in Lalisch, remains lifelong and is committed to mutual help. The otherworldly siblings “accompany” the deceased in the death ceremony on the way to a new destination and should also assume mutual moral responsibility for their deeds in the afterlife. In this context, the Yazidi belief in the transmigration of souls ( reincarnation ) is important: Life does not end with death, but continues in another body. The new body is dependent on the deeds in the previous life. According to the Yazidi idea, however, the same hereafter siblings always connect in different lives.

Bellendan

This ritual is celebrated either on December 1st or 25th of the year, depending on the region. On this occasion, the Yazidis bake bread and distribute it to the poor among them. However, if no poor people are found, the bread is symbolically given to the neighbor. In some areas, raisins are mixed into bread because those who find them are said to be lucky in life. Most of the Yazidis believe that Bellendan is a "celebration for the dead". So they bake the bread and visit the gravedigger.

The pilgrimage to Lalisch

The portal to the tomb of Sheikh ʿAdī in the 19th century, color version and inscriptions with archaic symbols
The colorful cloths inside the Lalish Shrine , which are ritually washed at Parī Suwar Kirin

Every year in autumn the Yezidi gathering festival (Jashne Jimaiye) takes place in Lalisch at the grave of Sheikh ʿAdī , which lasts seven days and is the destination of the general Yazidi pilgrimage . The exact fixed date varies. Sometimes it is at the end of September, sometimes at the beginning of October. Often political circumstances make the pilgrimage to Lalisch difficult or impossible, which is a duty for every Yazidis. According to Yazidi belief, all "seven mysteries" gather at this time to make important decisions about the coming year. Every Yazidis should have attended this pilgrimage festival at least once in their life.

On the first day, the pilgrims move to the lower end of the Lalisch valley, where the Silat Bridge ( Pira Silat ) is located, which separates the sacred from the profane. The pilgrims take off their shoes, wash their hands three times in the water under the bridge, cross the bridge with torches three times and say: “The Silat Bridge, on one side is hell, on the other that Paradise. ”Then they go to the top of the valley and sing religious hymns. All Yazidis religious personnel take part in the procession: the Mīr, the Baba Sheikh, the Peschimām, the Baba Chawūsh and others. These ceremonies are repeated on the second and third days. On the fourth day, the Parī Suwar Kirin ceremony is performed . Here the Baba Chawush and his helpers pick up the colorful cloths that cover the sarcophagus of Sheikh ʿAdī and the pillars of the sanctuary and bring them to the source of Kanīya Spi. There these cloths are ritually washed by a special clergyman, the serderī of Kanīya Spi, who must belong to a certain Pīr family. On the fifth day, the Qabach, the sacrifice of a bull, takes place. On the sixth day, the Berē Shibak ceremony is performed . In memory of the fact that Sheikh ʿAdī was transported on a stretcher after his death, a square stretcher made of wickerwork is brought into the assembly hall. On the last day of the festival the stretcher is brought to a basin inside the sanctuary, accompanied by music, and sprinkled with water. Prayers are said for this. She is then taken to her place in the sanctuary.

The Yazidi pilgrims bring consecrated earth with them from Lalisch, which has been formed into solid spheres with the holy water of the Zemzem spring (in Lalisch, not to be confused with the Muslim samsam). They are considered "holy stones" ( singular : advisory ) and play an important role in many religious ceremonies.

New year celebration

The religious New Year, Serisal , for the Yazidis does not fall on March 21st like the Kurdish Newroz festival, but takes place on the first Wednesday after April 14th in the Gregorian calendar . New Year's Wednesday is also called "Red Wednesday", Çarşema Sor . It is an important family festival of the Yazidis, at which members of the diaspora often come together over great distances. Yazidi children in Europe occasionally describe the festival in a simplistic way to their peers as “our Easter” - an obvious parallel, since in the Yazidi New Year festival as well as in European Easter traditions brightly colored eggs play a symbolic role, which are hidden and then hidden by the children during the festival to be sought.

Tawusgerran

One of the most important annual religious festivals in the villages was Tawusgerran, the "circulation of the peacock". That day, members of the separate Qawwal caste came to a village and sang sacred hymns. The Qawwal came from the two northern Iraqi small towns of Baschiqa and Bahzani . They brought a portrait (a metal peacock figure) of Melek Taus and set it up so that it could be worshiped by the villagers. The recitation of the verses was accompanied by the playing of the shebab longitudinal flute, considered sacred, and the duff frame drum . In the course of the 20th century, the drawing of borders and political problems ensured that the Tawusgerran, which is associated with long journeys by the Qawwal, can practically no longer be carried out in the home region of the Yazidis.

Religious-historical classification

Yezidism is one of the contemporary monotheistic religions , alongside Judaism , Christianity , Islam , Sikhism , Bahaitum and Zoroastrianism . According to some Yazidis, their religion is said to be older than Christianity and to have developed from the ancient Persian Mithras cult or from the cults of the Medes . More recent research in the history of religion emphasizes the independent character of the Yezidi religion after it has adapted elements of other religions in a complex process, including oriental Christianity (especially the Nestorian Eucharist ), Mandaeism , Manichaeism and Gnosis . In contrast, the older research on the history of religion initially understood the Yazidi religion as a split from Islam or as an “Iranian” religion.

In the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, European travelers handed down the description of the Yazidis as " devil worshipers ". They referred to reports from Muslims in the neighborhood of the Yazidis. One of these early depictions of the Yazidis can be found by Helmuth von Moltke , who left a folkloric description of Kurdistan around 1840: “… Yazidis live on the Sinjar and on the southern edge of their area [ed. in Moltke: "Religious sect which preserves pagan remains in a Muslim and Christian reinterpretation."], of which the Turks assume that they worship the devil and which therefore may be sold into slavery. "

The term "devil worshiper" comes from the veneration of the fallen angel Melek Taus, who was equated by the Muslims with Satan . According to the Koran, Satan ( Iblis ) is such a fallen angel as occurs with this word in Christian theology, and at the same time a jinn created out of fire who has power over people. From the Islamic point of view, heterodox efforts to pursue “a kind of rehabilitation of Satan” were undertaken at the forefront by the Sufi scholar al-Hallādsch (857–922). Al-Hallaj was executed on the basis of a fatwa for his view that Iblis was “more monotheistic than God” and, ultimately, for his saying “I am the (divine) truth” . In it, al-Hallaj was reinterpreted as an upright Yazidis who defended his true faith. The al-Hallādsch movement is one of the forms of Sufism that were involved in the formation of the syncretistic Yezidi belief system. “Devil worshiper” is, however, a wrong swear word, because Melek Taus is not worshiped as a devil, but as a redeemed supreme angel.

Persecution of the Yazidis in the Middle East

The residential area of ​​the Yazidis has been controlled by the Ottomans since the 16th century. In 1832 and after 1840 the Kurdish princes Mohammed Pascha Rewanduz and Bedirxan Beg committed repeated massacres of them. It was not until 1849 that they were placed under the legal protection of the Ottoman Empire and were thus legally equal to the book religions .

In the Ottoman Empire, the Yazidis stood outside the Millet system , so they were not recognized as a religious community and thus still stood behind Christians and Jews in the social hierarchy. There were repeated attempts to convert the Yazidis, who were considered “godless”, to Islam. Under Sultan Abdülhamid II , the situation deteriorated considerably from 1876 onwards. A controversial decree that also obliged Yazidis to serve in the military was reinstated. Tax demands were levied, which were to be waived upon conversion to Islam. Nonetheless, there were often massacres of the Yazidis by the Ottomans. These are called Farmān by the Yazidis . The consequence for Yazidis who gave in to pressure and converted to Islam was expulsion from their own community.

In 1892 the Sultan sent a special envoy to convert the Yazidis by force if necessary. There were skirmishes and massacres of the Yazidis after their defeat in 1893. In 1894, thousands of Yazidis were also killed during the massacre of the Ottoman troops, mainly of Armenians and Christians.

From the 17th century onwards, Yazidis settled in the area of ​​the Jabal Sinjar ridge in today's Ninawa province in northern Iraq , presumably due to the expansion of the Ottoman Empire . In the course of the Iraqi Arabization policy from 1965 onwards, there were repeated expulsions, the villages and arable land were largely depopulated. The approximately 400 Yazidi villages were razed to the ground and the inhabitants were forced to resettle. Similar practices were followed in other areas of Iraq, and several Yezidi villages were destroyed in the construction of the Mosul Dam .

In the past 30 years, the Yazidis have left Turkey in large waves of emigration due to the Turkish-Kurdish conflict .

In Iraq, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Yazidis do not have their own representation of interests in the current central Iraqi government structure after the former Ministry of Religious Affairs was dissolved in favor of three newly created departments for the affairs of Shiites, Sunnis and Christians.

Since the end of the Iraq war in 2003, the Yazidis have been targeted by fundamentalist Muslims. They must fear for their lives. This leads to the Yazidis fleeing Iraq en masse to Europe and North America. On August 14, 2007, al-Qaida terrorists carried out four attacks in the exclusively Yazidis-inhabited villages of El Khatanijah and El Adnanijah (see Sinjar attack ). The attacks resulted in a total of over 500 deaths and hundreds injured. The act is considered an act of revenge for the murder of the 17-year-old Yezidi girl Du'a Khalil Aswad , who was committed 15 days earlier and who was stoned by her own clan for allegedly converting to Islam. In addition, al-Qaeda in Mosul issued a fatwa forbidding food to be given to the Yazidis, which dramatically deteriorated the food supply in the Yazidi villages. Terrorists used the promise of the Americans and the Kurdish regional government to send food transports soon. These attacks against the Yazidis were the most serious since the beginning of the Iraq war.

Iraq crisis from 2014

Yazidi refugees from Iraq receive help from the International Rescue Committee at Camp Newroz ( al-Hasakah province in northern Syria , August 2014)

Since the Iraq crisis in 2014 , the advance of the terrorist group Islamic State in northern Iraq has led to extensive exodus, mainly of Yazidis. The terror group considers the Yazidis to be infidels and persecutes and murdered them. The IS organization had declared Yezidism to be a “pagan religion from pre-Islamic times” and “legally” released captured women and girls into slavery . According to Islamic law , this is justified. The goal is the complete annihilation of this religion.

The only way out for many Yazidis was to convert to Islam. Those who refused were shot on the spot. The reaction was that Yazidis did not exclude those members who converted under these circumstances from the community, as they did under the massacres of the Ottomans, but enabled them to return to the faith. In reference to those earlier massacres, Yazidis also call the acts of the IS organization Farmān .

Reactions

According to the assessment of a UN commission from June 2016, the IS organization committed “genocide” on the Yazidis. The IS militia tries to wipe out the Yazidi population through murders, rape, enslavement and starvation. The head of the commission, the Brazilian diplomat Paulo Pinheiro , appealed to the UN Security Council to instruct the International Criminal Court in The Hague to prosecute the responsible IS commanders.

In July 2014, Yezidi Qasim Şeşo and his nephew Haydar Şeşo founded the Yezidi vigilante group Hêza Parastina Şingal (HPS). Their work was able to prevent further atrocities against the escape of many Yazidis in the Sinjar Mountains. The HPS established itself in the mountains and, with the support of YPG fighters from Syria, was able to clear an escape corridor for the 20,000 to 30,000 refugees, with great support from fighters close to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). After the successful escape, the HPS concentrated on the defense of the Yazidis' sanctuary in the mausoleum of Sharaf ad-Din (see also Battle of Sharaf ad-Din ). Until December 19, 2014, the HPS protected and defended the Yazidis' holy place near Scheferdin, at the foot of the Sinjar Mountains. Due to the sustained influx of Yezidi fighters, there are considerations to recapture the Sinjar by the Yazidi vigilantes (see also Hêza Parastina Şingal, Yezidi vigilante founded in 2014).

filming

In the film 74th Genocide Sengal , the events during the persecution of the Yazidis by IS and the defense of the Yazidis by the YPG and the PKK were filmed. The script was written by the German-Kurdish singer Hozan Canê , who also directed and played the leading role in the film.

The Yazidi diaspora

Caucasus

There were a total of three waves of flight of the Yazidis from the Ottoman Empire to the Caucasus , Georgia and Armenia. The first was in the 18th century. The second wave of refugees occurred during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 . The third and largest wave of refugees took place at the beginning of the 20th century, during the First World War . The trigger for the flight was the targeted persecution, repression and massacre of Yazidis and other ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire. It is not uncommon for Muslim Kurds and Ottoman authorities to support these persecutions and massacres. The Yazidis, who were themselves victims of the Ottomans, protected the Armenians during the First World War by hiding them in their homes. This protection of the Armenians by the Yazidis formed a basis for the coexistence of Yazidis and Armenians in Armenia.

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union around 1990, the number of Yazidis in Georgia was 22,000 and in Armenia 60,000. After the collapse, however, there was growing nationalism in both states, and the situation for the Yazidis and other minorities deteriorated. The number of Yazidis fell to 1,200 in Georgia between 1989 and 1997 and to 18,000 in Armenia. Many Yazidis fled to Europe and Russia.

In Georgia there are many reasons for fleeing. The Yazidis complain of massive attacks by police officers and officials, allegations of murder, bodily harm, false accusations, hatred and incorrect negative reports in the press and public statements by politicians. The Yazidis have no chance of higher posts and equal treatment in administration and medical care. Nor do they have a chance of higher education and higher income. The refugees report blackmail, threats and persecution by the police. The Yazidis in Georgia are banned from building Yazidi houses of prayer. They are not represented in either parliament or government in Georgia, so their demands for a normal life are not heard. During the Soviet era, guarantee mandates were given to the Yazidis; but after the collapse of the Soviet Union they were abolished.

In Armenia, the Yazidis were the largest minority in 2011 with 1.1 percent of the total population. Since they are no longer entitled to guarantee mandates after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they are not represented in parliament. In Aknalitsch , the “Quba heft merē dīwāne u Tawūs-e Melek ” has been the largest temple of Yezidism since 2019 .

In Russia, Yazidi was only officially recognized as a religious community and thus as a public corporation at the end of July 2009.

Radio Yerevan (Armenia's public radio) has been broadcasting the Voice of the Yazidis in Northern Kurdish ( Kurmanji ) for half an hour every day since 1990 . The Yezidi weekly newspaper, which is also called the Voice of the Yazidis, is written in the Armenian language . In Armenia, North Kurdish can be taught in Yazidi schools.

Europe and America

A significant number of Yazidis currently live in Europe, mainly in France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain and especially Germany. A few live in Sweden, Denmark, Austria and in non-European countries such as the USA, Canada and Russia.

Germany

From the 1960s migrated through the recruitment agreement between the Federal Republic of Germany and Turkey, many Yazidis first from Turkey , later among other things, Syria and Iraq to Germany . In addition to economic motives, experiences of oppression and discrimination over the decades increasingly led this religious minority to flee . The largest Yazidi communities such as the "Federation of Ezidische Vereine in Deutschland e. V. "are represented in the federal states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia . It is estimated that between 100,000 and 150,000 Yazidis live in the Federal Republic of Germany today.

Future debate

Due to the now strong diaspora and the persecution to which the Yazidis are exposed, especially in Iraq, a debate about the future of the religious community has arisen. Idan Barir, a PhD student from Tel Aviv, writes in an article that returning to Yezidi areas like Sinjar or Shaykhan is no longer an option for most Yazidis. The distrust of the local population, some of whom collaborated with the IS organization, is too great. In addition, they do not see themselves politically represented in the autonomous region of Kurdistan , and in some cases even feel hostile. Many Yazidis therefore wanted their community to have a future outside of Iraq.

Suggestions vary. On the one hand, there are those who favor the old idea of ​​a small state in the Iraqi province of Ninawa . Such a state would be protected by the international community and offer minorities a safe home, without religious persecution or political pressure. Further options are the resettlement of the entire community to Armenia , where around 40,000 Yazidis already live, and, in the long term, Israel .

Yazidis in literary works

See also

literature

  • Hilmi Abbas (ed.): The unwritten book of the Kurds. Myths and Legends. Hugendubel, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7205-2387-X .
  • Birgül Açıkyıldız: The Yezidis. The History of Community, Culture and Religion. Tauris, London a. a. 2010, ISBN 978-1-84885-274-7 .
  • Andreas Ackermann: Yeziden in Germany. From the minority to the diaspora in Paideuma - communications on cultural studies. Volume 49, 2003, pp. 157–177 ( PDF file; 417 kB; 18 pages ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )).
  • Martin Affolderbach, Ralf Geisler: The Yezidis. (= EZW texts. No. 192). Evangelical Central Office for Weltanschauungsfragen, Berlin 2007 ( PDF file; 536 kB; 40 pages on ekd.de).
  • Christine Allison: Yazidis i. General. In: Encyclopaedia Iranica. July 2004 (English; online at iranica.com).
  • Christine Allison: The Yezidi Oral Tradition in Iraqi Kurdistan. Curzon, Richmond 2001, ISBN 0-7007-1397-2 (English; excerpt in the Google book search).
  • Carsten Colpe : Consensus, discretion, rivalry: From the ethno-history of Kurds and Yezidi. In: Carsten Borck, Eva Savelsberg, Siamend Hajo (eds.): Ethnicity, nationalism, religion and politics in Kurdistan. (= Kurdology. Volume 1). Lit, Münster 1997, ISBN 3-8258-3420-4 , pp. 279-300 ( PDF file; 109 kB; 16 pages ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )).
  • Mirza Dinnayi : Yazidis in Iraq. A threatened minority without existential rights. In: Mary Kreutzer , Thomas Schmidinger (Ed.): Irak. From the republic of fear to bourgeois democracy? Ça Ira, Freiburg 2004, ISBN 3-924627-85-1 , pp. 197–204 ( PDF file; 109 kB; 16 pages ( memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )).
  • Johannes Düchting, Nuh Ates: The children of the angel peacock. Religion and History of the Kurdish Yezidi. Komkar, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-927213-23-3 .
  • Irene Dulz: The Yazidis in Iraq. Between “model village” and escape. (= Studies on the Contemporary History of the Middle East and North Africa. Volume 8). Lit, Münster u. a. 2001, ISBN 3-8258-5704-2 ( excerpt in the Google book search).
  • Nelida Fuccaro: The Other Kurds. Yazidis in Colonial Iraq. Tauris, London 1999, ISBN 1-86064-170-9 (English).
  • Chaukeddin Issa: The Yezidism. Religion and life. Dengê Êzîdiyan, Oldenburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-9810751-4-4 .
  • Joseph Isya: Devil worship. The sacred Books and Traditions of the Yezidis. Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1919. Digitized .
  • Ilhan Kizilhan : The Yazidis. An anthropological and social psychological study of the Kurdish community. Medico, Frankfurt 1997, ISBN 3-923363-25-7 .
  • Philip G. Kreyenbroek: Yezidism. Its Background, Observances and and Textual Tradition. Mellen, Lewiston, et al. a. 1995, ISBN 0-7734-9004-3 (English).
  • Philip G. Kreyenbroek, Z. Kartal, Khanna Omarkhali, Kh.J. Rashow: Yezidism in Europe. Different Generations Speak About Their Religion (= Göttingen Orient Research: Iranica. Volume 5). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-447-06060-8 (English).
  • Philip G. Kreyenbroek: Yazīdī. In: Peri J. Bearman (Ed.): The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Volume 11, Brill, Leiden 2001, pp. 313a-316a (English).
  • Roger Lescot: Enquête sur les Yezidis de Syrie et du Djebel Sindjār . Institut Français de Damas, Beirut, 1938. Digitized
  • Khanna Omarkhali: Current Changes in the Yezidi System of Transmission of Religious Knowledge and Status of Spiritual Authority. In: Derselbe (Ed.): Religious Minorities in Kurdistan. Beyond the mainstream. (= Studies in Oriental Religions. Volume 68). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2014, ISBN 978-3-447-10125-7 , pp. 67-77 (English).
  • Khanna Omarkhali: The Status and Role of the Yezidi Legends and Myths. To the Question of Comparative Analysis of Yezidism, Yārisān (Ahl-e Haqq) and Zoroastrianism: A Common Substratum? In: Folia Orientalia. No. 45-46, Cracow, 2009, pp. 197-219.
  • Artur Rodziewicz, Yezidi Eros: Love as the Cosmogonic Factor and Distinctive Feature of the Yezidi Theology in the Light of Some Ancient Cosmogonies. In: Fritillaria Kurdica. No. 3–4, Institut Of Oriental Studies Jagiellonian University, 2014, pp. 42–105 (English; PDF file; 1.8 MB; 203 pages on kurdishstudies.pl).
  • Artur Rodziewicz, Tawus Protogonos: Parallels Between the Yezidi Theology and Some Ancient Greek Cosmogonies. In: Iran and the Caucasus. Volume 18, No. 1, 2014, pp. 27-45 (English).
  • Eszter Spät: The Yezidis. Saqi Books, London, 2005.
  • Eszter Spät: Late Antique Motifs in Yezidi Oral Tradition (= Gorgias Dissertations in Religion. Volume 52). Gorgias, Piscataway 2010, ISBN 978-1-60724-998-6 (English; doctoral thesis).
  • Eszter Spät: Religious Oral Tradition and Literacy among the Yezidis of Iraq. In: Anthropos. Volume 103, No. 2, 2008, pp. 393-403.
  • Ursula Spuler-Stegemann : The angel peacock. To the self-image of the Yezidi. In: Journal for Religious Studies. Volume 5, 1997, pp. 3–17 ( PDF file; 226 kB; 12 pages ( memento of October 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive )).
  • Sefik Tagay , Serhat Ortac: The Ezidis and the Ezidism - the history and present of a religion threatened with extinction . State Center for Political Education, Hamburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-946246-03-9 .
  • Telim Tolan: Religion and Life. In: Erhard Franz (Ed.): Yeziden. An old religious community between tradition and modernity. Contributions from the conference from 10. – 11. October 2003 in Celle. German Orient Institute, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-89173-085-3 .
  • Udo Tworuschka , Helga B. Gundlach: The Yezidi. In: Michael Klöcker, Udo Tworuschka (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Religionen. Churches and other religious communities in Germany. Loose-leaf work in seven volumes. Volume 5: Islam. Olzog, Landsberg / Munich 2006, Chapter 6: Other Minor Religions , ISBN 3-7892-9900-6 .
  • Burkhard Weitz: Angel, honor, many children . In: Chrismon , July 2017 issue, pp. 62–69.
  • Gernot Wießner : "... wandered into the killing light of a strange world". History and Religion of the Yezidi. In: Robin Schneider (Ed.): The Kurdish Yezidi. A people on the way to doom (= Pogrom. Volume 110). Society for threatened peoples, Göttingen 1984, ISBN 3-922197-14-0 , pp. 31-46 ( PDF file; 300 kB; 13 pages ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )).
  • Bânu Yalkut-Breddermann : The change of the Yezidi religion in the diaspora. In: Gerdien Jonker (Ed.): Kern and Rand. Religious minorities from Turkey in Germany (= Center for Modern Orient: Studies. Volume 11). Das Arabische Buch, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-86093-227-6 , pp. 51–63 ( PDF file; 177 kB; 11 pages ( memento of October 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive )).
  • Kai Merten: Among each other, not next to each other: The coexistence of religious and cultural groups in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century . tape 6 of Marburg's contributions to the history of religion. LIT Verlag , Münster 2014, ISBN 978-3-643-12359-6 , 7. The Yeziden in the Ottoman Empire, p. 226–245 ( limited preview in Google Book search).

Web links

Commons : Yezidism  - Images and Media Files
Wiktionary: Jeside  - explanations of meanings, word origins , synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Sefik Tagay , Serhat Ortac: The Eziden and the Ezidenum - history and present of a religion threatened with extinction . State Center for Political Education, Hamburg 2016, p. 90, ISBN 978-3-946246-03-9
  2. ↑ a b c d Christine Allison: Yazidis i. General. Encyclopaedia Iranica, July 2004, accessed October 28, 2014 .
  3. ↑ Garnik S. Asatrian, Victoria Arakelova: The Religion of the Peacock Angel: The Yezidis and Their Spirit World . Routledge, 2014, ISBN 978-1-317-54429-6 ( google.de [accessed on May 14, 2019]): "Yezidism is a unique phenomenon, one of the most remarkable illustrations of ethno-religious identity."
  4. ↑ Gudrun Harrer : "Islamic State" targets religious minorities. In: The Standard . 4th August 2014.
  5. ↑ The Kurds are also against the Yazidis. In: euronews . 5th October 2014.
  6. ↑ Patrick Franke : Weapons for the Wrong? In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , August 29, 2014.
  7. ^ Yazidis celebrate New Year . ( dewezet.de [accessed on January 2, 2018]).
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  9. ^ A b Foundation of a federal association - Yazidis in Germany organize themselves. Retrieved February 24, 2019 .
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  11. ↑ The increasing number of Yazidis in Germany can only be roughly estimated. REMID has corrected its number upwards from 35,000-40,000 (2005) over 60,000 (2011) to 100,000 (2015) and gives further estimates: Central Council of the Yezidis in Oldenburg: 120,000 (2016), new Central Council of the Ezidis in Bielefeld: over 150,000 (Beginning of 2017). Membership: Yazidis. REMID
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  36. ↑ Hilmi Abbas (ed.): The unwritten book of the Kurds. Myths and Legends. Hugendubel, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7205-2387-X . Note: Martin Zähringer pointed out the philological problems of the work in his review in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on September 19, 2003.
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  59. ↑ Cf. Kizilhan: The Yezidis. 1997, p. 112.
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  63. ↑ Ilhan Kizilhan: The Yezidis. An anthropological and social psychological study of the Kurdish community. Medico, Frankfurt 1997, ISBN 3-923363-25-7 , p. 92.
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  65. ↑ Birgül Açıkyıldız: The Yezidis. The History of Community, Culture and Religion. Tauris, London a. a. 2010, p. 99 (English).
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  67. ↑ Ilhan, Kizilhan: The Yezidis. An anthropological and social psychological study of the Kurdish community . Medico International, 1997, ISBN 3-923363-25-7 .
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  71. ↑ Max Horst: Moltke. Life and work in self-testimonies - The writings: The land and people of the Kurds. , Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1892, p. 410 f.
  72. ↑ Annemarie Schimmel : Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Insel, Frankfurt 1995, p. 276
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