Current Changes in the Yezidi System of Transmission of Religious Knowledge and Status of Spiritual Authority (original) (raw)

Introduction to the special issue: Yezidism and Yezidi Studies in the early 21st century

The articles in this volume deal with recent developments concerning the Yezidis. They focus on the consequences of ISIS' attempted genocide of Yezidis in the Sinjar region, and on aspects of the current public and academic discourse on Yezidis and their religion. Abstract in Kurmanji Destpêk bo hejmara taybet: Êzdiyatî û Lêkolînên li ser êzdiyan di serê sedsala 21an de Danasîna hejmara taybet: Êzdiyatî û xebatên li ser êzdiyan di destpêka sedsala 21em de. Nivîsarên vê hejmarê berê xwe didine têgihiştina rûdanên dawî yên derbarê êzidiyan de. Ev xebat dêneke taybet didine ser encamên hewla DAIŞê ya qirkirina êzdiyan li herêma Şengalê û cîhetên gotara/dîskûra giştî û akademîk li ser êzdiyan û dînê wan. Abstract in Sorani

The Yezidi Religious Textual Tradition: From Oral to Written. Categories, Transmission, Scripturalisation and Canonisation of the Yezidi Oral Religious Texts

Public and academic interest in the Yezidis, their religion and culture, has increased greatly in recent years. The study of Yezidism has also made considerable progress in recent decades. Still, several lacunae in our knowledge remain, notably concerning many concrete aspects of the textual tradition. This book is a comprehensive study of the Yezidi religious textual tradition, containing descriptions of many hitherto unknown aspects of the oral transmission of Yezidi religious knowledge. It presents a detailed account of the ‘mechanisms’ underlying various aspects of the tradition. It shows how the religious textual tradition functioned – and to a certain degree still does – in its pre-modern way, and also describes the transformations it is currently undergoing, including the issues and processes involved in the increasing trend to commit religious knowledge to writing, and indeed to create a written Canon. The work contains several hitherto unpublished texts and the most comprehensive survey to date of the extant Yezidi sacred texts. It is accompanied by a CD with an extensive collection of recordings of texts. https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title\_1833.ahtml

Kurdish Studies 4(2), Special issue: Yezidism and Yezidi Studies in the early 21st century

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. http://tplondon.com/journal/index.php/ks/issue/view/65 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.

Introduction to special issue: Yezidism and Yezidi Studies in the early 21st century

Kreyenbroek, Ph. and Omarkhali, Kh., ‘Introduction to special issue: Yezidism and Yezidi Studies in the early 21st century’, 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, pp. 122–130. The articles in this volume deal with recent developments concerning the Yezidis. They focus on the consequences of IS’s attempted genocide of Yezidis in the Sinjar region, and on aspects of the current public and academic discourse on Yezidis and their religion.

Review Article: The Yezidi Religion

Iran and the Caucasus, 2014

The article presents a detailed discussion of several key issues concerning the essentials of the Yezidi identity―the Yezidi religion, particularly the folk pantheon and the conceptions of divinity, based upon the analysts of the recent monograph by Garnik S. Asatrian and Victoria Arakelova.

Yezidis: An Ethno-Religious Group in Turkey

The most distinguishing feature of the Yezidi religion is its ethno-religious character. For Yezidi belief and its practices and symbols have heavily influenced the Yezidi culture and shaped its organizational structures. Its exclusive character, confining the privilege of being a Yezidi only to those born of Yezidi parents, further supports the conception of ethnoreligion. This article draws upon the author’s fieldwork among the Yezidis of Viranşehir (Şanlıurfa), Mardin and Batman in Turkey.

Kreyenbroek and Omarkhali, Introduction to Yezidism 2021

Introduction to Yezidism: Between Continuity and Transformation, 2021

KREYENBROEK, Ph. and OMARKHALI, Kh., Introduction to Yezidism: Between Continuity and Transformation, edited by OMARKHALI, Kh. and KREYENBROEK, Ph., Series: IRANICA 29, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 2021, pp. XI–XVI. https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/Yezidism/titel\_6984.ahtml The genocidal attack of ISIS on the Yezidi community of the Sinjar region in 2014, with its murder of men and enslavement of women and children, has had enormous consequences for Yezidi communities both in the homelands and in the Diaspora. At the same time, many communities are facing the intrusion of the modern world upon their hitherto very conservative religious traditions. This book focuses on the tensions between conservatism and the need to adapt to current circumstances in a religion which so far mostly resisted change. A number of specialists have been brought together here to offer insights into Yezidis’ often unexpected reactions to the pressures of genocide on the one hand, and modernity generally on the other. It deals with recent trends and developments concerning the Yezidis and is divided into two parts. The first part contains articles about the IS attack and its impact on Yezidi communities in the Middle East. The second part focuses on developments in the Yezidi Diaspora communities. The book will be of interest to specialists on religion, especially those working on the Middle East and on diaspora religion, but also to Iranists, Kurdologists and scholars of different disciplines working on the effects of genocide or other brutal attacks on the worldview of surviving victims, or on the influence of modernity on conservative societies.

Milete min Êzîd. The Uniqueness of the Yezidi Concept of the Nation

2018

Both the current increasing nationalistic discourse of the Yezidis and the discussion about their "Kurdishness" result from the growing political significance of the Kurds and the inclusion of the Yezidis into the geopolitical game in the Iraqi Kurdistan region. The paper concerns the traditional Yezidi understanding of their millet, still valid, but starting to change, which is based on the mystical and metaphysical ideas incompatible with the approach preferred by contemporary political science.