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Advances in Anthropology, 2017, 7, 333-339
http://www.scirp.org/journal/aa
ISSN Online: 2163-9361
ISSN Print: 2163-9353
DOI:
10.4236/aa.2017.74019 Nov. 15, 2017 333 Advances in Anthropology
The Yazidi—Religion, Culture and Trauma
Jan Ilhan Kizilhan1,2
1Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University, Stuttgart, Germany
2Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychotraumatology, University of Duhok, Dohuk, Iraq
Abstract
The Yazidi are Kurdish speakers who have lived for centuries as farmers and
cattle breeders, scattered about in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and the
former Soviet
Union. They shared the same fate as the Kurds when the areas were Islamized
in the 7th
century. Most of the Kurds were forced to convert to Islam. The
Yazidi live predominantly in present day northern Iraq. Their number worl
d-
wide is estimated to be in the region of 800,000 to 1,000,000 (Cetorelli et al.
,
2017). The troops of the self-
proclaimed “Islamic State” conquered 2014 the
areas of northern Iraq and turned on the long-
established religious minorities
in the area wi
th tremendous brutality, especially towards the Yazidi. Huge
numbers of men were executed; thousands upon thousands of women and
children were abducted and wilfully subjected to sexual violence. The religious
minority was to be eliminated and the will of the victims broken.
The future
of Yazidism is unclear, but it will certainly never be the same again.
Keywords
Yazidi, Religion, Trauma, Terror, Minority
1. Introduction
The word “Yazidi” “Yezidi”, “Izîdî” or “Ezdayi”, “Êzîdî”, as it is pronounced by
the members of the religious community, comes from Kurdish and means “the
one who created me”, that is, the Creator and God (Kreyenbroek & Rasho,
2005). I shall continue to use the term “Yazidi” in this text since it has been used
for several centuries and because it is the one the general public is most familiar
with. Yazidism is the belief in one Entity and in one God, in other words, a
monotheistic faith (Omarkhali, 2016). The Yazidi call God “Xweda” (Khuda),
which means “the one who created himself” (Grant, 1915).
The seven archangels follow God; they are also mentioned in Judaism, Chris-
tianity and in Islam. These angels are included in the Yazidi daily prayers. The
How to cite this paper:
Kizilhan, J. I.
(201
7). The Yazidi—
Religion, Culture and
Trauma
.
Advances in Anthropology, 7
,
333
-339.
https:
//doi.org/10.4236/aa.2017.74019
Received:
October 14, 2017
Accepted:
November 12, 2017
Published:
November 15, 2017
Copyright © 201
7 by author and
Scientific
Research Publishing Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution International
License (CC BY
4.0).
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Open Access
J. I. Kizilhan
DOI:
10.4236/aa.2017.74019 334 Advances in Anthropology
chief of the seven angels is Tausi Melek, the Peacock Angel, commissioned by
God with the surveillance of the world and in particular with the protection of
the Yazidi (Allison, 2016).
Each Yazidi is obliged to fast on three days per year, in December, as a sign of
gratitude for the creation of the earth and in remembrance of God and the
Yazidi faith. Each Yazidi must also visit the holy temple “Lalish” in northern
Iraq once during his or her lifetime. The Yazidi have a system of beliefs with
universal principles on ethics and morals, right and wrong, justice, truth, loyalty,
mercy and love (Guest, 1993).
2. The History of the Yazidi
The Yazidi themselves claim to be members of one of the oldest world religions
and make reference to Mithraism and its relationship to Yarsan and Zarathrustra
(Kreyenbroek & Rashow, 2005). The Yazidi have reported massacres since the
Arab invasion of the Near and Middle East in 637 A.D. and the enforced
Islamisation and these continue to the present day. They were, and still are, con-
sidered by radical Muslims as “Devil Worshippers” and are not regarded as
“Followers of the Book”. As a result of the pressure of being forced to convert to
Islam, the eretreated to the hills and had only limited contact to the other
groups. Their religion was passed on orally by the priests. Therefore, the history
of the Yazidi is an “Oral History” (Kizilhan, 2014). There are very few written
documents by the Yazidi about the Yazidi and this has only changed in the last
50 years (Furlani, 1936; Omarkhali, 2017).
The Yazidi generally assume that their origins are in the Mithraic religion, up
to the 14th century B.C. Up to the 7th century A.D. there is no mention in his-
torical sources of the term “Yazidi”. Around the turn of the century Moslem
clerics and historians started using the term “Yazidi” (Al-Damalgi, 1949).
In the 10th century the Arabian historian Al-Samani (ca. 1166) in his book
“Al-Ansab” (The Genealogies) describes the Yazidi as a group of Aztecs living in
the Helwan hills (nowadays Northern Iraq/Kurdistan Region). In his book he
also mentions that the Yazidi are loyal to Yazid Ibn Muawiya, the second Om-
mayid Caliph (Al-Samani, 1912). In some communities in Kurdish regions this
false assertion is still held today and has often been used as an argument and jus-
tification for plundering and enslaving the Yazidi. Since that time, and even to-
day, some Shiites and Alevites believe that the Yazidi, as followers of Yazid Ibn
Muawiya, killed the prophet Ali’s sons Hasan and Hüssein, who were to be Mo-
hammed’s successors. Only in the last forty years has there been any real contact
between the Yazidi and the Alevites and they are nowadays engaged in dialogue
(Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2014). When the Osman Empire collapsed, many Yazidi
fled, along with the Armenians, to present-day Armenia and lived there in the
Caucasus regions of the former Soviet Union. At the end of the First World War
and the foundation of Turkey in 1923 the Yazidi homeland was partitioned.
Since then, the Yazidi have been living in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and the former So-
viet Union.
J. I. Kizilhan
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10.4236/aa.2017.74019 335 Advances in Anthropology
2.1. Sheikh Adi and the Founding of a New System of Religion
In recent years the last Yazidi reformer has again and again been the subject of
countless discussions within the Yazidi community. Since the Yazidi are forbid-
den from having a relationship and marrying persons of a different religion,
Yazidi are very critical of Islam. In the past they have suffered countless repri-
sals, persecution and have fled from the Moslems on many occasions. Sheikh
Adi himself is supposed to have been a Moslem. Many Yazidi reject such a claim,
since a person can only be Yazidi by birth. There were no Yazidi missionaries as
there were in the case of Christians or Moslems.
Countless documents confirm, however, that Sheikh Adi, son of Musafir, was
born in the village of Bait al-Far (nowadays known as Khirbet Qanfar) in the
Baalbak region of Lebanon around 1050 or 1075. He is a descendant of the Ibra-
him family, son of Abdul Malik, son of Mervan Ibn Al-Hakam (Al-Jazri, 1966).
Sheikh Adi died aged ninety. The Yazidi regard Sheikh Adi as the incarnation of
Tausi Melek, the Peacock Angel. The Tal Lalish became Sheikh Adis headquar-
ters and since that time has been regarded as holy. It has become a place of pil-
grimage for all Yazidi (Kreyenbroek & Rashow, 2005).
At that time the Yazidi assumed that Sheikh Adi had received his mental and
spiritual power from Tausi Melek (the Peacock Angel). This tradition also says
that Sheikh Adi was sent by Tausi Melek to be the leader of the Yazidi
(Kreyenbroek & Rashow, 2005). After settling among the Yazidi, he introduced a
new religious doctrine called “Sad u Had”, “Rights and Duties” (Kizilhan, 1997).
2.2. The Caste System
Sheikh Adi’s arrival amongst the Yazidi community in the 12th century did not
only have religious significance. Setting up the caste system changed the whole
structure of the community. The relationship of the groups to each other was
re-defined. There were the
Sheikhs
(teachers) on the one hand and the
Murids
(lay people, the people) on the other. This structure can also be found among the
Sufis. The existing group of priests (
Pirs
) lost their position as the main instruc-
tors in the Yazidi religion. They were so strongly anchored in the Yazidi com-
munity however, that they continued to play an important religious role, albeit a
role subordinate to that of the Sheikhs (Lescot, 1938; Kizilhan, 2009).
The Yazidi tribes were divided among the Sheikhs and Pirs. Each Sheikh and
Pir who was responsible for a tribe had to have a connection to the instructor of
the other tribe (Kreyenbroek & Rashow, 2005).
Marriage between Pir and Sheikh (castes) is forbidden. Within the Sheikh
caste only descendants of the one group are allowed to marry one another. In the
Pir caste it is taboo for persons descending from Pir Hasan to marry Mamans.
The Pirs can, however, marry among their own people. It is strictly forbidden for
Murids to marry Sheikhs or Pirs (Jindy, 1998; Omerkhali, 2007).
From an ethical point of view the marriage prohibitions of the castes among
each other make for clear relationships (Al-Jadan, 1960). It is only possible to be
a member of a group by birth. It is not possible to change groups. Such a clear
J. I. Kizilhan
DOI:
10.4236/aa.2017.74019 336 Advances in Anthropology
division and the fact that it is impossible to change to a different caste prevents
any power struggle between the castes. Each individual is aware of his or her so-
cial status and has no chance to change this. Marrying a person from a different
religious community is also not possible.
Many of these rules have been destroyed as a result of the terror carried out by
the “Islamic State” 2014 and the rape of thousands of women, young girls and
children. Sexual contact with non-Yazidi also led to the community rejecting its
own daughters and wives since they were no longer Yazidi. At the same time, in
addition to destroying the infrastructure, IS terror is systematically trying to de-
stroy a complete community, which is why the UN speaks of genocide (UN Re-
port on Genocide against the Yazidi
http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20113
&LangID=E, 14.09.2017).
3. Collective Trauma and Terror
The Islamisation of the Kurdish areas in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey brought
with it an odyssey of persecution. The Kurds, and with them the Yazidi, were
forced to convert to Islam. This happened not with the onset of IS terror but
with the overall Islamisation of the Middle East. We must assume that 74 geno-
cides against the Yazidi have been carried out in the past 800 years by Islamised
groups and states. To date, according to conservative estimates, some 1.8 million
Yazidi have had to convert and some 1.2 million Yazidi have been killed
(Kizilhan, 2016; Gerdau et al., 2017). Numerous fatwas have “legitimised” their
killing, looting, abduction and, since their religion was not recognised, their
forcible conversion to Islam. IS also uses such spurious arguments to carry out
genocide against the Yazidi (Kizilhan & Othman, 2012).
Minority religions such as Yazidi, oriental Christians, Mandaeans, Shabaks,
Feylis and other groups have often been the target of persecution and annihila-
tion by radical Islamised groups in the Middle East (Gerdau et al., 2017).
After the end of the Saddam Hussein era in 2003, and particularly since 2007,
hundreds of Yazidi in Iraq have been murdered by the terrorist group Al-Qaida
(Kizilhan & Othman, 2012). Even today they are ostracised and have to suffer
reprisals from the Muslim majority. Since the attack by Islamic State (IS) at the
beginning of August 2014 more than 7000 Yazidi have been killed, thousands of
families held hostage in their villages and, if they did not convert to Islam, mur-
dered. Over 5800 young girls have been abducted, raped and sold on Arab mar-
kets, enslaved and killed. Over 20,000 Yazidi have fled to Syria, 30,000 to Turkey
and over 360,000 to the Kurdish region. The Yazidi have been, and are still be-
ing, systematically persecuted and murdered (Tekin et al., 2016).
4. Systematic Destruction of the Yazidi Community
From 3rd August 2014 onwards, IS began terrorising Yazidi villages and soon
gained control of the area. The Iraqi army and the Kurdish Peshmerga retreated
J. I. Kizilhan
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10.4236/aa.2017.74019 337 Advances in Anthropology
and the people were helpless, at the mercy of Islamic State terror. People were
herded into buildings such as schools and town halls and their jewellery and
valuables confiscated. IS then separated the men from the women. Many men
were executed immediately. More than 150 women who I interviewed reported
that in the village of Kocho, for example, more than 413 men were executed on
15th August 2015. After that, the older women, women with children, married
women without children, young boys and girls between eight and 14 years had
to form groups and were taken to various locations. Older women and women
with children were interned in mass accommodation or in villages, near Tel Afar
or Mosul for instance, where the Shiites had previously lived. They were guarded
by IS fighters, humiliated, beaten, raped. Every evening not only IS fighters but
also male civilians from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Tunisia and other
countries turned up because they wanted to buy the women and take them away
with them (Cetorelli et al., 2017).
Women are being forced to convert to Islam and to pray in Arabic every day,
even though they only speak Kurdish. Children are being drilled and exploited,
similar to African child-soldiers. They are being brought up to be brutal, even to-
wards their own families. In camps they are trained to beat other children, to cru-
cify them, or to bury them alive if they do not adhere to IS demands. Those who
are not sent to fight serve as the emirs’ lackeys or as guards or spies in the villages
or camps where Yazidi or other religious minorities are held captive (Kizilhan,
2017).
Since the Yazidi do not see any hope of a peaceful life in Iraq, they are trying
to leave the country, above all they want to come to Germany because the Yazidi
in Turkey have been migrating to Germany since the 1960s.
Flight and Migration
For more than 50 years the Yazidi have been living in Germany as migrants who
have left their homeland for economic and political reasons. Of some 40,000
Yazidi in Turkey there are, according to some estimates, around 38,000 living in
Germany today (Kizilhan, 2014). According to the Turkish interior ministry
there are no more than 470 Yazidi living in the whole of Turkey. On account of
their small number, the Yazidi are no longer in a position to live effectively as a
group in Turkey or to revitalise their community. Most of the 470 Yazidi are
over 60 years old and the majority of the following generation live in Europe.
In recent years, increasing numbers of Yazidi have fled to Germany from
Syria, Iraq and the former Soviet Union. Since the IS invasion in 2014 ca. 40,000
Yazidi from Iraq alone have fled to Germany. There are some 120,000 Yazidi in
Germany and some further 40,000 in the other European countries—and the
trend is upward (Kizilhan, 2016). Around 12,000 Yazidi are now living in the
USA, 5000 in Canada and 2000 in Australia.
Since Europe is completely strange to the Yazidi, they are exposed to many
social, political and cultural burdens. The way of life is different and is com-
pletely foreign for the new, severely-traumatised Yazidi.
J. I. Kizilhan
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10.4236/aa.2017.74019 338 Advances in Anthropology
The Yazidi refugee children and adolescents do not just suffer from PTSD but
from various other problems (Tekin et al. 2017). As a result, any problems which
the survivors of torture have need to be defined far more broadly than by mere
PTSD symptoms and recognition must be given to the contextual influences of
being a torture survivor, including as an asylum seeker or refugee—or belong-
ing to special ethnic group—, and to psychological and social health factors
(Kizilhan, 2016). In addition to mental disorders like PTSD, long-term studies
indicate a change in the social, culture and religion structure in the migration
after the IS. The Yazidi community has been changed fundamentally and it is
not clear whether they will survive as group or not. They can learn from the ca-
tastrophe of trauma and can grow as a group by adapting new rules in the wake
of migration such as the rules relating to marriage to a non-Yazidi, changing the
cast system, and trying to overcome the collective and individual trauma.
5. Conclusion
To what extent, trauma management is possible also depends on the way a soci-
ety deals with the topic of sexuality, violence, and transgenerational stress. The
women have been raped and abused and this is known publicly. In this context,
the women experience considerable insecurity, sometimes refusing to talk about
it (a complete taboo). High moral conceptions and limitations along with inter-
nalised attitudes relating to “honour and the violation of honour” lead to con-
siderable worry and the fear of collective exclusion. In this respect, feelings of
shame play a particular part. This is because, in a “shame culture”, it is not so
much the incident itself and the perpetration of a possible violation of the norm
which plays a part but rather how one can save one’s face in front of the others.
Thus, for instance, the rape of a young woman can be evaluated by the collective
as disgraceful and the victim can be ostracised.
The feeling of loss and the shift of balance on all sides triggers various
re-defining and cultural assertion tendencies, and these need a long time to take
hold. On the other hand the individual who is freed from his old rites and rules
will have difficulties to feel at ease in his new “religious homeland”. This new
homeland, however, can mean a real chance of survival for the following genera-
tion. Renewals, reforms and changes must not necessarily be negative or prob-
lematical experiences. It is conceivable that the increasing cosmopolitan nature,
migration, and becoming acquainted with other cultures can be experienced as
an enrichment and can therefore facilitate the renewal process.
Re-orientation and transformation are necessary, but are only possible once
the historical and individual trauma has been processed.
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