Background: the Yezidi

Yezidis are members of a pre-Islamic Kurdish minority sect who live primarily in northern Iraq, with other populations scattered around Syria, Turkey, Georgia, Russia and Armenia.

They number around 500,000 in total, although that figure is inexact because of the Yezidi tradition of secrecy when asked about their religious beliefs.

Most speak Kurdish and believe their name comes from the ancient Kurdish word Yezdan, meaning God. Another explanation for the name is their presumed descent from supporters of the Umayyad caliph Yazid I.

Their religion, whose origins are shrouded in middle east prehistory, is highly syncretic, attempting to reconcile disparate or contradictory beliefs. It combines aspects of Zoroastrian, Manichaean, Jewish, Nestorian Christian and Islamic faith.

Yezidis believe that they were created separately from the rest of mankind, and have therefore kept themselves strictly segregated from followers of other religions, even if they live in same community.

They are anti-dualists, denying the existence of evil and therefore also rejecting sin, the devil and hell. The Yezidis relate that, when the devil repented of his sin of pride before God, he was pardoned and regained his previous position as chief of the angels. This has often resulted in Yezidis being described as devil worshippers.

Sheikh Adi, the chief Yezidi saint, was a 12th century Muslim mystic whom the Yezidis believe to have achieved divinity through metempsychosis, or the reincarnation of souls after death. His tomb, the focus of Yezidi pilgrimage, is in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul.

Two key features of Yezidism, therefore, are a preoccupation with religious purity and a belief in metempsychosis. Their strict religious purity beliefs express themselves in a caste system, the traditional preferences for living in Yezidi communities and a variety of taboos governing many aspects of life.

Yezidi society is hierarchical. The secular leader is a hereditary emir or prince, whereas a chief sheikh heads the religious hierarchy. The Yezidi are strictly endogamous and only marry within their own group.

In addition, members of the three Yezidi castes, the murids, sheikhs and pirs, marry only within their group. Yezidis consider marriage outside their faith to be a sin punishable by death to restore lost honour.

Their sense of strict segregation has brought them into previous conflict with other groups in Iraq. In April, gunmen shot dead 23 Yezidi factory workers in Mosul in apparent retaliation for the stoning, several weeks earlier, of a teenage Yezidi girl who police said had fallen in love with a Muslim man and converted to Islam.

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