Yazidis celebrate the Yazidi New Year in the Sinjar Mountain. The Yazidi temple of Quba Pire Ewra (Temple of the Pir of the Clouds) can be seen in the background. (April 16, 2014)
As a result of World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the territories which Yazidis lived in were divided into four nation-states which were founded on the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. In 1921, the victorious Allies established the state of Iraq under British Mandate, its borders heavily influenced by Britain in line with the European nations' interests and ambitions. Faisal ibn Hussein was chosen by Britain as the first king of Iraq.[7]
Yazidis refused to submit to King Faisal and any other Arabic state rule. They presented several reports and petitions to the British colonel in Mosul requesting that no Muslims are to be given the administrative posts in their districts and reaffirming they wanted a direct rule under Britain. John Guest reports that in the aftermath of World War I, minorities in Mosul province were invited to express their views about their destiny, about the Yazidis, the following was written:[7]
The Yazidi declaration, signed in the name of the whole Yazidi nation in the Vilayets [Mandates] of Diyarbakr and Mosul by some 50 persons, including all the leading Yazidis, stated that they desired to be subjects of Great Britain and that they would "never agree to have an Arab Government over us.”
This stance by the Yazidis had to do with King Faisal's Muslim family background, reigniting fears of persecution at the hands of Muslims that they had faced during Ottoman rule, consequently, they preferred to live under Britain, a Christian state. In 1925, the League of Nations set up an international committee and sent it to the areas within Mosul Mandate for the purpose of resolving the Mosul issue and organising a referendum in order to poll the population of Mosul to determine whether they wanted to join Turkey or Iraq. Yazidis refused Turkish rule, and according to the results of the 1925 referendum, Yazidis in Mosul Mandate voted to join Iraq provided they would be under direct protection of the British or European Mandate.[7]
The first Iraqi campaign against the Yazidis after the founding of the state took place in 1925 when the government of Iraq wanted to carry out the "Al-Jazeera" project, which aimed to evacuate Yazidi villages and confiscate their agricultural lands to later give them out to members of the large groups of Arab tribes, the Shammar. Their Yazidi inhabitants would then be relocated to collective towns built for them. This plan was met with stern opposition against the Iraqi government from the Yazidis, in particular from one of their tribal leaders in Sinjar, Dawud al-Dawud.[7]
The non-Muslim minorities, especially the Yazidis, were largely prohibited from participating in state institutions, even though the Yazidis were regarded by the League of Nations as a minority like the Jews and Christians, which ensured their rights in Iraq. But in 1925, the Jews and Christians had representatives in the Constituent Assembly (Iraqi Parliament), as provided by the quotas given to them by the Iraqi government based on their population numbers. On the other hand, the population statistics regarding Yazidi numbers in Iraq were at the time inconsistent. Between 1920-1947, population estimates of Yazidis ranged from 26,000-30,000, despite this, there was no Yazidi representation in the Iraqi parliament from the founding of Iraqi Monarchy until 1947. But the government cabinets during the last decade of the monarchy, which lasted until 1958, usually had a Yazidi representative from Sinjar region.[7]
Despite still remaining marginalized in some aspects, situation of Yazidis had still improved since Ottoman rule, as they were able to enjoy some of their religious rights as ensured by the first Iraqi constitution of 1925. Article 13 of the Iraqi constitution of 1925 declared Islam as the formal religion of the state, but at the same time, it decreed that the Iraqi government had to respect non-Islamic faiths and guaranteed religious rights for the minority rights, including the right to perform religious rituals freely. Despite not being mentioned in that constitution by name, Yazidis were still acknowledged by the government as an independent religion in other laws. This recognition would later be retracted under Ba'athist government who like the Ottomans, denied Yazidism as an independent religion, claiming its origins go back to Islam. Additionally, as per the Iraqi constitution of 1925, religious minorities also had the right to manage their own religious administrative affairs and as per recommendation by the Mosul Mandate, the Yezidi Spiritual Council was formally established in 1930, still existing until today.[7]
In 1934, universal military conscription was enacted in Iraq and in the following year, the Iraqi government tried to impose this law on Yazidis. Yazidis of Shingal demanded to be exempted from this law or at least, to be permitted to serve in a purely Yazidi unit, which was rejected by the government. This led to a revolt by a group of Yazidis in Shingal, led by Dawud al-Dawud, the chief of the Mihirkan tribe. With the fear that this revolt would extend to other Yazidi areas, the government launched a military campaign with the help of armed aircraft. The revolt was ultimately crushed by the authorities and most of the participants in the revolt were arrested or killed. Consequently, 11 Yazidi villages were destroyed, and Dawud escaped to Syria with a few of his followers.[7][8]
Simultaneously, the Iraqi government was using Arab tribes and inciting them against Yazidis in order to achieve their political goals. At the start of the Second World War, Yazidi-inhabited regions, in particular the Sinjar district, were facing neglect and harassment from the Iraqi government, which was enforcing policies aimed at supporting the Arab Shammar tribes against the Yazidis of Sinjar. Large tracts of land were given to Ajeel al-Jawar, a tribal chief of the Shammar near the Sinjar mountain. As a result, Yazidis readily supported any movement which was against the Iraqi government.[7]
In 1941, Yazidis supported the pro-German movement led by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani against the pro-British authority in Iraq. When the "National Defence Government" headed by al-Gaylani was established in April 1941, the Yazidi prince Seîd Elî Beg sent a telegram expressing his support for Gaylani's new government. Furthermore, Yazidi representatives from Mosul also went to Baghdad in order to congratulate al-Gaylani on the establishment of his government.[7]
Although Yazidis enjoyed some freedoms during the monarchical period such as managing their own religious affairs, they still participated in movements or revolutions aimed at changing the ruling power in Iraq, in hopes that it would improve their situation. Yazidis who were soldiers in the Iraqi army of the monarchy, along with other soldiers, participated in the revolution of 14 July, 1958, led by Abdul Karim Qasim and his followers. After the victory of the revolution, some Yazidi soldiers became close guards of Abdul Karim Qasim in his domicile in Baghdad.[7]
The revolution enjoyed the support of the majority among Yazidis in Sinjar, who hung banners, held demonstrations and national celebrations in favour of the revelation. On the other hand, some of the more religious Sinjari Muslims who saw the monarchy and king as a religious symbol, where unhappy with the change of the ruling power.[7]
On August 3, 2014, the Islamic State committed genocide against Yazidis in the Sinjar region of northern Iraq, killing an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Yazidis and abducting another 6,000 to 7,000 Yazidis women and children.[10][11][12]
Flight and migration
Due to persecution, many Yazidis fled Iraq, including over 75,000 to Germany since 2015.[10]
Notable people
Nadia Murad (Yazidi human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner)
The Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq was a state located in the Middle East from 1932 to 1958.
Sinjar is a town in the Sinjar District of the Nineveh Governorate in northern Iraq. It is located about five kilometers south of the Sinjar Mountains. Its population in 2013 was estimated at 88,023, and is predominantly Yazidi.
Lalish is a mountain valley and temple located in the Nineveh Plains of Iraqi Kurdistan. 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, also spelled Yezidis, are a Kurdish-speaking endogamous religious group 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.
The Sinjar Mountains, are a 100-kilometre-long (62 mi) mountain range that runs east to west, rising above the surrounding alluvial steppe plains in northwestern Iraq to an elevation of 1,463 meters (4,800 ft). The highest segment of these mountains, about 75 km (47 mi) long, lies in the Nineveh Governorate. The western and lower segment of these mountains lies in Syria and is about 25 km (16 mi) long. The city of Sinjar is just south of the range. These mountains are regarded as sacred by the Yazidis.
Bashiqa is a town situated at the heart of the Nineveh plain, between Mosul and Sheikhan, on the edges of Mount Maqlub.
The Sinjar Resistance Units is a Yazidi militia formed in Iraq in 2007 to protect Yazidis in Iraq in the wake of attacks by Sunni Islamist insurgents. It is the second largest Yazidi militia, after the Êzîdxan Protection Force (HPÊ). However, it is much more active than the HPÊ in fighting against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The Sinjar District or the Shingal District is a district of the Nineveh Governorate. The district seat is the town of Sinjar. The district has two subdistricts, al-Shemal and al-Qayrawan. The district is one of two major population centers for Yazidis, the other being Shekhan District.
Hemoye Shero, Hamu Shiru,, was a nineteenth century Yezidi tribal leader from the Shingal Mountains in what was the Ottoman Empire. Hemoye Shero was instrumental in transforming one of the Yezidi social classes, the Fakirs, into a tribal entity and establishing himself as the chief.
Vian Dakhil is a current member of the Iraqi parliament. She is the only Kurdish woman which religion is Yazidism in the Iraqi Parliament.
Yazidism in Turkey refers to adherents of Yazidism from Turkey, who remained in Turkey after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The Yazidis living in Turkey during and after the second half of the 20th century gradually left for European countries. In the 1980s, there were 60,000 Yazidis situated in Beşiri, Kurtalan, Bismil, Midyat, Idil, Cizre, Nusaybin, Viranşehir, Suruç and Bozova. Today, these places are almost empty due to exodus to Europe which was provoked by political, religious and economic difficulties. Today only small number remain in villages around Midyat, Viranşehir, Çınar and Beşiri. According to the census of 2000, only 423 individuals adhering to Yazidism remained in the country.
Between 1968 and 2003, the ruling Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party of the Iraqi Republic perpetrated multiple campaigns of demographic engineering against the country's non-Arabs. While Arabs constitute the majority of Iraq's population as a whole, they are not the majority in parts of northern Iraq, and a minority in Iraqi Kurdistan. In an attempt to Arabize the north, the Iraqi government pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing, killing and forcefully displacing a large number of Iraqi minorities—predominantly Kurds, but also Turkmen, Yazidis, Assyrians, Shabaks and Armenians, among others—and subsequently allotting the cleared land to Arab settlers. In 1978 and 1979 alone, 600 Kurdish villages were burned down and around 200,000 Kurds were deported to other parts of Iraq.
The November Sinjar offensive was a combination of operations of Kurdish Peshmerga, PKK, and Yezidi Kurd 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.
The Ezidkhan Command for Liberating Sinjar, known as the Sinjar Alliance, is a joint command of two–initially three–Yazidi militias, the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBŞ), and the Êzîdxan Women's Units (YJÊ). Both of the remaining two militias are supported by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The Yazidi genocide was perpetrated by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2017. It was characterized by massacres, genocidal rape, and forced conversions to Islam. The Yazidis are a Kurdish-speaking people who are indigenous to Kurdistan who practice Yazidism, a monotheistic Iranian ethnoreligion derived from the Indo-Iranian tradition.
The persecution of Yazidis has been ongoing since at least the 12th century. 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.
Pîr Xidir Silêman was a Kurdish-Yazidi writer, teacher and parliamentarian. He was born 1952 in the town of Ain Sifni in Shekhan, Iraq. He completed his secondary education in Shekhan in 1970 and studied Kurdish language and literature at the University of Baghdad. In 1974-1975, he worked as a translator for Dengê Kurdistan Radio and in 1977 he became Kurdish language teacher in Shekhan. In 1979, he joined Kurdish Writers' Union, of whom he became the president from 1991 to 1997, making him the first Yazidi to run the Union. He was also the editor-in-chief for their magazine. From 1992-1997, he was the president of Lalish Cultural Center, which he co-founded and was established in 1993 to archive and preserve Yazidi culture and history. He also edited for Lalish Magazine, which was owned by him until his death. In 2005, he became a member of Kurdistan Parliament. On 14–15 November 2021, he suffered a stroke at his home in Shekhan and was taken to Azadi Hospital in Duhok, where he died some hours later due to heart attack.
Alphabetical index of articles about the Yazidis, and their history and culture.
↑ Fuccaro, Nelida (1999). The other Kurds: Yazidis in colonial Iraq. Library of modern Middle East studies. London: Tauris Publ. p.165. ISBN978-1-86064-170-1.
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