The Canon · No. 061
Yazidism
Ezidxelo; the Yezidi faith
c.12th c. CE (organised form) – present · Iranian · Living · Northern Iraq (Sinjar, Sheikhan), Syria, Turkey, Armenia, Germany
V. THE MEDIEVAL WORLD — c.500 – 1500 CE
How many
Roughly 700,000–1 million, of whom the largest single community outside Iraq is now in Germany.
Who began it
Reorganised in the 12th century by Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir (c.1075–1162), a Sufi of Lebanese origin who settled at Lalish in northern Iraq. The underlying religion is older and draws on ancient Iranian material.
What it is for
To honour God through the seven angels he set over creation, and to keep an oral tradition alive within an endogamous community.
What it worships
Xwedê, God, who created the world and entrusted it to seven angels. Chief among them is Tawûsê Melek, the Peacock Angel, God's regent on earth.
What it holds
Tawûsê Melek refused God's command to bow to Adam. In Yazidi understanding this was obedience to the deeper command — that he bow to no one but God — and he was rewarded, wept for the world for seven thousand years until his tears quenched the fires of hell, and was restored as chief of the angels. Because the surface of this story resembles the Islamic account of Iblis, Yazidis have been called devil-worshippers for eight centuries, and that libel has been the direct pretext for repeated massacres. Yazidism has no Satan and no ongoing principle of evil at all; good and evil are held to originate in the human heart. Speaking the Arabic name of Satan is forbidden.
What it does
Strict endogamy and a rigid caste structure of murids, sheikhs and pirs, who may not intermarry. No conversion is possible — one must be born Yazidi to both parents. Baptism in the white spring at Lalish. Prayer facing the sun at dawn and dusk. The annual seven-day Cejna Cemaiya, the Feast of the Assembly, at Lalish. Numerous taboos: on lettuce, on the colour blue, on certain words. Pilgrimage to Lalish, the holiest site.
After death
Reincarnation — kiras guhorîn, changing the garment. The soul passes through successive bodies, purified by its conduct, until it can enter the divine presence. There is no hell: Tawûsê Melek's tears extinguished it. This is one of the very few religious systems with no place of eternal punishment at all.
Its texts
Primarily oral — the qewls, sacred hymns transmitted by a hereditary class of reciters. Two written books, the Kitêba Cilwe and Mishefa Reş, circulated in the West from the early 20th century and are now generally regarded by scholars as forgeries produced for European collectors.
Its branches
None doctrinally; regional communities in Sheikhan, Sinjar, Syria, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia and the German diaspora.
Of note
Yazidism is the clearest case in this dossier of a religion persecuted for centuries on the basis of an outsider's misreading of one of its stories.
Its timeline
- c.1075–1162 CE Sheikh Adi at Lalish.
- c.1254–1832 CE Repeated massacres under successive Muslim rulers; Yazidi tradition counts 72 fermans, genocidal campaigns, before the modern era.
- 1892 CE Ottoman campaign; forced conversions.
- 2007 CE Sinjar bombings kill nearly 800 people — the deadliest coordinated attack of the Iraq war.
- <strong>3 August 2014 CE</strong> ISIS attacks Sinjar. Thousands of men murdered; an estimated 6,000–7,000 women and girls enslaved and systematically raped; hundreds of thousands displaced to Mount Sinjar and beyond. The UN determined in 2016 that this constituted genocide.
- 2016 CE Yazidi spiritual leadership takes the unprecedented step of declaring that women who were enslaved remain Yazidi and are to be received back into the community — a reversal of the tradition's own purity rules, made deliberately.
- 2018 CE Nadia Murad, a Yazidi survivor, receives the Nobel Peace Prize.
- Present Much of the community remains displaced; thousands of women and children are still missing.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.