Tawûsî Melek, also spelled Melekê Tawûs and Tawûsê Melek, translated in English as Peacock Angel, is one of the central figures of the Yazidi religion. In Yazidi creation stories, before the creation of this world, God created seven Divine Beings, of whom Tawûsî Melek was appointed as the leader. God assigned all of the world's affairs to these seven Divine Beings, also often referred to as the Seven Angels or heft sirr.
The Yazidi Black Book is one of two books written in the style of a holy book of the Yazidis in their native Kurmanji tongue, the other being the Yazidi Book of Revelation. The authenticity of these two books has been questioned. Dr. Frederick Forbes visited Sinjar in 1838 and ascribed the authorship of the Yazidi Black Book to Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir. It is believed that the content of the Yazidi Black Book is a fusion of authentic Yazidi traditions and beliefs with Western forgeries.
Yazidism, alternatively Sharfadin is a monotheistic ethnic religion that has roots in a western Iranic pre-Zoroastrian religion directly derived from the Indo-Iranian tradition. It is followed by the mainly Kurmanji-speaking Yazidis and is based on belief in one God who created the world and entrusted it into the care of seven Holy Beings, known as Angels. Preeminent among these Angels is Tawûsê Melek, who is the leader of the Angels and who has authority over the world.
Lalish is a mountain valley and temple in Shekhan, Duhok Governorate in Iraq. It is the holiest temple of the Yazidis. It is the location of the tomb of the Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir, a central figure of the Yazidi faith.
Yazidis in Armenia are Yazidis who live in Armenia, where they form the largest ethnic minority. Yazidis settled in the territory of modern-day Armenia mainly in the 19th and early 20th centuries, fleeing religious persecution by the Ottoman Empire and Sunni Kurds. While Yazidis were counted as Kurds in censuses for much of the Soviet period, they are currently recognized as a separate ethnic group in Armenia. According to the 2011 census, around 35,000 Yazidis live in Armenia.
Sheikh Hasan ibn Sheikh ‘Adī II is a holy and historical figure in that is revered in Yazidism and considered the physical or earthly incarnation of Melik Şêxsin, one of the Seven Divine Beings to whom God assigned the World's affairs. Melik Şêxsin is associated with the Pen and consequently with writing and books, he is thus called Xudanê Qelemê. Adani Sheikhs are the descendants of Sheikh Hasan and were traditionally the only ones in Yazidi society that had the privilege to acquire the art of writing and reading.
Yazidis or Yezidis are a Kurmanji-speaking endogamous minority group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The majority of Yazidis remaining in the Middle East today live in Iraq, primarily in the governorates of Nineveh and Duhok. There is a disagreement among scholars and in Yazidi circles on whether the Yazidi people are a distinct ethnoreligious group or a religious sub-group of the Kurds, an Iranic ethnic group. Yazidism is the ethnic religion of the Yazidi people and is monotheistic in nature, having roots in a pre-Zoroastrian Iranic faith.
The main religions that exist or existed in Kurdistan are as follows: Sunni Islam, Shia Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Yarsanism, Yazidism, Alevism and Judaism. Sunni Islam is the most adhered religion in Kurdistan.
Yazidis in Syria refer to people born in or residing in Syria who adhere to Yazidism, a strictly endogamous religion. Yazidis speak the Kurdish language of Kurmanji. Although some are scattered in Turkey and the Armenia, Iraq is the center of their religious life, the home of their Amir, and of the tomb of their most revered saint, Sheikh Adi. Yazidis in Syria live primarily in two communities, one in the Al-Jazira area and the other in the Kurd-Dagh.
The Yazidism in Russia refers to believers of Yazidism in Russia. This community is part of the Yazidis who emigrated to Russia from the Armenian and Georgian parts of the Soviet Union after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. In 2009, the Yazidis were recognized as a religious community in Russia.
The November Sinjar offensive was a combination of operations of Kurdish Peshmerga, PKK, and Yezidi militias in November 2015, to recapture the city of Sinjar from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. It resulted in a decisive victory for the Kurdish forces, who expelled the ISIL militants from Sinjar and regained control of Highway 47, which until then had served as the major supply route between the ISIL strongholds of Raqqa and Mosul.
Nadia Murad Basee Taha is an Iraqi Yazidi human rights activist who lives in Germany. In 2014, she was kidnapped from her hometown Kocho and held by the Islamic State for three months.
Khanna Omarkhali, also Khanna Usoyan is a Yezidi-Kurdish religion researcher.
A genocide of Yazidis by the Islamic State was carried out in the Sinjar area of northern Iraq in the mid-2010s. The genocide led to the expulsion, flight and effective exile of the Yazidis. Thousands of Yazidi women and girls were forced into sexual slavery by ISIL, and thousands of Yazidi men were killed. About 5,000 Yazidi civilians were killed during what has been called a "forced conversion campaign" carried out by ISIL in Northern Iraq. The genocide began after the withdrawal of Iraqi forces and Peshmerga, which left the Yazidis defenseless.
Yazda: Global Yazidi Organization, is a United States-based global Yazidi nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO) advocacy, aid, and relief organization. Yazda was established to support the Yazidi, especially in northern Iraq, specifically Sinjar and Nineveh Plain, and northeastern Syria, where the Yazidi community has, as part of a deliberate "military, economic, and political strategy," been the focus of a genocidal campaign by ISIL that included mass murder, the separation of families, forced religious conversions, forced marriages, sexual assault, physical assault, torture, kidnapping, and slavery.
The persecution of Yazidis has been ongoing since at least 637 CE. Yazidis are an endogamous and mostly Kurmanji-speaking minority, indigenous to Kurdistan. The Yazidi religion is regarded as "devil-worship" by Muslims and Islamists. Yazidis have been persecuted by the surrounding Muslims since the medieval ages, most notably by Safavids, Ottomans, neighbouring Muslim Arab and Kurdish tribes and principalities. After the 2014 Sinjar massacre of thousands of Yazidis by ISIL, which started the ethnic, cultural, and religious genocide of the Yazidis in Iraq, Yazidis still face discrimination from the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Alphabetical index of articles about the Yazidis, and their history and culture.
