The Yezidis are members of the oldest culture of Mesopotamia, the land between the

 Tigris and Euphrates. They came to this land with the Iranian and Indo-Iranian settlers,

 and theirs is the oldest Kurdish religion.

Yezidis are monotheists, as their religious tradition shows. They also have great faith in

Melek Tawus, the Peacock Angel, whom they regard as the Chief Angel and who, contrary

 to what is sometimes claimed by outsiders, is a good Being who rules this world.

 Furthermore, the Yezidis believe in the manifestation of God's Power (the Divine Mystery)

, part of which became incarnate in Prophets and righteous human beings. They believe,

 therefore, that God manifested Himself in different human forms (called by many names),

 each of whom was responsible for furthering the affairs of the world. Some of these great

 beings are: Sheikh Adi, Melik Sheikh Sin (Hesen), Melik Sheikh Fekhredin, Sheikh Shems,

 Pir Hesen Meman, Melik Nasirdin, and others.

Yezidism is not a proselitising religion; only those who are born of two Yezidi parents are

 accepted as members of the community. Outsiders cannot become Yezidis, and those

 who marry outside the community are excommunicated.  Nor may a Yezidi marry just

Yezidi of the opposite sex. There are five 'castes'or groups whose members must marry

 among themselves. These groups are:

1. The Adani Sheikhs. 

2. The Shemsani Sheikhs.    

3. The Qatani Sheikhs.

4. The (priestly) caste of Pirs, which includes 40 lineages and whose leader is the clan of

Pir Hesen Meman.

5. The laity,  or Mirîds. This is the largest group of Yezidis.

One may legitimately wonder how this small ethnic group preserved its identity over the

 ages, in the face of the brutal Islamic invasion and the many ethnic conflicts of the area.

 Their very  survival  inspires both wonder and admiration. However, the present paper

does not aim to describe the history of the Yezidis and their religion in Islamic times, but

 rather to discuss the present of the Yezidis community, and its future.

Geography and demography

The original homelands of the Yezidis are Northern Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Yezidi

 communities are also found in Armenia and Georgia; a small number live in Iran, and

 there is some speculation as to a Yezidi presence in India. As there has never been a

census to establish the numbers of the community as a whole, we have no exact

 knowledge in this matter, but an informed guess puts their numbers in Northern Iraq at

more than 500,000, living in Sinjar, Seikhan, Zakho and the region of Duhok. In Syrian

 Kurdistan there are approximately 30,000 Yezidis, 12,000 of whom live in the Kurdagh

 mountains in the Aleppo region.  A census in Turkey showed their numbers to be higher

 than in Syria, namely 49-50,000. In Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, there are some 30,000

 Yezidis, and a greater number live in Armenia.  Finally, we have been assured that there

 are more than six Yezidi villages in Kermanshah province in Western Iran, whose main

centre is Garmin, south of the city of Kermanshah.

The Yezidis of Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia

As a result of an agreement between the governments of (West) Germany and Turkey,

 prompted by Germany's need of immigrant workers, a number of Yezidis  migrated to

 Germany from Kurdistan from the early 1970s onwards. In the 1980s and 90s, Yezidi

 migration was prompted by other factors, such as persecution for political and religious

reasons. As a result of all this, more than 98 % of Yezidi villages in Turkey are now empty

as their inhabitants have fled, mostly to Germany. Most of the estimated 50,000 Yezidis

 now living in Germany come from Turkey. Smaller groups of Yezidis are found in Belgium,

 the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, the USA, Britain and Canada. A

 few families live in Australia.

Yezidi life in the homelands: economical and social conditions

Until 1975, most of the Yezidis of Iraqi Kurdistan lived in small villages which either

  belonged exclusively to them, or which they shared with Christians. They were small

 farmers keeping sheep and cattle, and whose livelihood essentially depended on rain.

In 1975 the Iraqi Government  forced the Yezidis to leave their villages, and to settle in so-

called mujamma‘at  or 'collective villages', while their lands and villages were given to Arab

 settlers. The Yezidis, in other words, lost the lands on which their livelihood depended,

and were forced to rent their own lands from their new, Arab owners in order to be able to

 work. Others became labourers, seeking work in large Iraqi cities  such as Mosul and

 Baghdad.

In spite of these difficulties, the rate of literacy went up at this time as more and more

Yezidis, especially males, went to school. At present many children of both sexes go to

school, but older people are still  largely illiterate.

In Yezidi society the family plays a central role. The bond of family ties, and specific socio-

religious relationships between individuals are honoured. It is a paternalistic society, with

 the father as head of the family, but women are also much respected. Furthermore, the

relationships between the various clans also play a role in the Yezidi community,

particularly in Sinjar, Duhok and Zakho, but less so in the Sheikhan area and in Ba‘shiqa

 and Behzani.

Clothes: The Yezidis, both men and women, wear distinctive clothes, which vary from

 region to region. In Sinjar the men wear a white woollen turban wound around a red

kerchief or a piece of black cloth. Others wear a white head-dress held in place by black

 bands, like Arabs. Women wear white clothes, winding a white cloth around their head or

 wearing it loose, as a sort of headscarf.

            The men of the Sheikhan area mostly wear white clothes, and special trousers

(serwal) with a short jacket (demir); they wear a red turban (jemedani) on their head. The

 women wear colourful dresses, with a round turban wound around a black kerchief. The

 women of the Duhok area are similarly dressed. The men wear trousers and jacket (shal u

 shapik) like most Muslim Kurds of Badinan. In Turkey, Georgia and Armenia, Yezidi

 women's clothes are similar to those of Christian women, and in Syria both men's and

 women's clothes are largely the same as those of Arabs.

            The Yezidis traditionally  celebrate many festivals, most of which are seasonal. The

 most important of these, the New Year, is celebrated on the first Wednesday of April

(Eastern); the 'Feast of Khidir-Ilyas' falls in January; the 'Forty days of summer' in August;

 the 'Feast of the Assembly' in September; the 'Fast of Ezid', 'Sheikh Shems', 'Belinda'

 and 'Batizmi' fall in December and January.

Iraqi Kurdistan

 The Yezidis are the victims of the Arab-Kurdish conflict and of Islamic  Fundamentalism

In earlier decades, the Yezidis have been persecuted  in Iraq both as a religious and an

 ethnic minority, but they managed to survive and went on working on their land and taking

part in religious rites by their holy shrines. However, since the Baath party came to power

 in Iraq in 1968, the government's position has been that the Yezidis are originally Arabs

and are no more than an Islamic sect.  In view of this, the Government systematically

 sought to destroy the territorial integrity of the Yezidi community. On 9 May 1975 the Iraqi

 Government ordered that all Yezidi villages in Sinjar (approximately 160 in all) were to be

 vacated, their inhabitants being forcibly resettled in 12 collective villages (mujamma‘at),

seven of them to the north of Mt Sinjar, the other five to the south. The villages were

 destroyed, their wells blocked; the farm lands of the Qirani clan were confiscated and

given to Arabs. The policy also involved  giving the villages Arabic names.

            Sinjar, which lies on the border between Syria and Iraq, is considered a sensitive

 area and was declared a military security zone. In 1975 the Government confiscated the

 weapons of the Yezidi population, while at the same time arming the neighbouring Arab

 tribes. The inhabitants of several villages were joined together in a large collective village,

 so that they could be easily controlled  by the ruling party and the secret police, and in

1982 the government sought to introduce Islamic mosques, but these were rejected by

the Yezidi inhabitants. Furthermore, the Government forcibly resettled the inhabitants of

three Yezidi villages in the Arab town of Ba'aj in the south, so as to reduce the Yezidi

 presence in Sinjar.

            Finally the 'Leadership of the Iraqi Revolutionary Council' ordered the secret

 deportation of the population of Sinjar to Hadar, some 100 kilometres south-east of Sinjar,

 and the division of the land among the Arab population, so as to wipe out Yezidi identity. 

            Under these conditions many Yezidis  were forced to move to such cities as Mosul

 and Baghdad in order to find work. As a result, the social structure of the community

disintegrated, which added to the Yezidis' social and psychological problems.

The Sheikhan area 

As the Iraqi regime regarded the Sheikhan area, to the east of Duhok, and Zakho, to the

 north-west, as a strategically sensitive area. The government began to deport the Yezidis

 living there and to settle Arabs in their villages. On 16 March 1978 the Iraqi Revolutionary

 Council issued a decree (No. 358), that all Yezidi lands in the Sheikhan area should be

confiscated  and redistributed to Arabs, a policy which had in fact been implemented from

 1975, and the government forcibly resettled the Yezidis in 9 collective villages, leaving 7

 villages untouched.

            This policy had very serious adverse effects on the psychological, economic and

social conditions of the Yezidi population, and caused the Yezidis to migrate to big cities in

 search of work.

The Yezidis of turkey, syria, armenia and georgia

In Syria, the Yezidis mainly live in two areas:( 1) in the North and North-east, and in 44

 villages in the Province of Hasaka, Ras al-‘Ain, Amuda, Terba Sipî, and al-Qahtâniya. (2)

 The second group lives in the kurdagh Mountains (Afrin) in the region of Aleppo. 

Ideologically (from an Arab nationalist point of view), the Syrian government sought to

 define the Yezidis as Arabs, and their religion as a lapsed Islamic sect, but in practice it

 regarded them as Kurds. In Syria, if Kurds obtain citizenship at all, they remain second-

class citizens; very often they are considered to be foreigners and cannot obtain

citizenship. Evidently, without citizenship they are barred from many important and

 sensitive jobs. Those Yezidis lucky enough to be able to send their children to school

 must accept that they are taught Islam there.

In Turkey the religious inequality,  and indeed persecution,  of Yezidis is stronger and

 more barefaced than in the other states, and this obliged most Yezidis to leave their

 homelands and flee to Germany and other European states. At present there are some

 100 Yezidis left in Turkey, most of whom are old. Their former villages in Midyat and

 Nisaybin in the Mardin  region, and in the Viransheher and Khaliti areas in the Diyarbekir

 region stand empty, as their inhabitants now live in Germany (where there are some

50,000 Yezidis).

            The Yezidis of Armenia and Georgia report that, as far as religion, language and

 general conditions were concerned, things were better under the former Soviet regimes;

religious and ethnic minorities enjoyed a certain degree of freedom without being

dominated by the majority groups. In Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, and Tbilisi, the

 capital of Georgia, the Yezidis had their own radio broadcasts; a journal, Riya T'aze, was

 published regularly; Yezidis were not discriminated against in the job market; they had

access to academic  foundations, and illiteracy was decreasing.  There was equality

 among the ethnic groups on the whole, polygamy was forbidden, and women's rights

 were respected in accordance with the Constitution.

            The fall of the Soviet regime put the religious and ethnic minorities at a

 disadvantage in the face of the nationalistic pride of the majority communities.  Moreover,

 in both Armenia  and Georgia the Yezidis are strongly associated with the previous

 regime, and they have now lost their former position in society.

            Another point is that, with the emergence of Kurdish political parties and Kurdish

 nationalist sentiments, which were shared by some Yezidis  particularly in Armenia, some

 Armenians became suspicious of Kurds. They recalled in the Ottoman  massacre of

 Armenians in 1915, in which Yezidis, who did not serve in the Ottoman  army, cannot have

 played a role. In this context, I would like to draw attention to the fact that the Yezidis in

fact saved Armenians at the time of this terrible massacre. Some 2000 Armenian and

 Assyrian families fled to Syria and to the Sinjar area, where they found refuge among the

 Yezidi population. The chief of the some Sinjari Yezidis, Hamo Shero, offered them

 shelter, and some 20 of these families are still living in the Sinjari  villages of Milik, Jadale

, and Khane Sur, and have a church (Mar Georgist) in Sinjar itself. The other Armenians

 and Assyrian Christians migrated;  6 families went to Syria (among them the family of

Mersho Siphan) and others went to Europe.

            Because of Hamo Shero's stance in this matter, and the protection he gave to

 Christians, the Ottoman  official Haji Ibrahim Basha mounted a campaing against him, but

he staunchly defended his protégés. When in 1917 Iraq came under British Mandate, the

British honoured Hamo Shero for his protection of the Armenians, gave him the status of

 Pasha, and appointed him ruler of Sinjar and Talafer.

            Owing to the aforementioned problems, the Armenian  and Georgian Yezidis left

 their homes and migrated to Belorus, Ukraine, Russia (esp. Krasindar, Moscow and

 Leningrad), Kazakhstan and Kyrgysia. Others went to Germany, France, Belgium and

 Australia.

Two factors affecting all yezidis

First of all, the current nationalist movements prevailing in the states where Yezidis live, as

 well as the increasing Islamic fundamentalism in some of these countries, are proving

 extremely detrimental for the Yezidi communities. In fact the Yezidi community not only

 faces the threat of the loss of its religious heritage, but there is even a serious danger that

 the whole ethnic group may become extinct. Yezidis, therefore, are deeply concerned,

 and wonder what the position of the international community, and in particular the United

 States, on this matter is. Will the Kurdish Secure Zone remain as it is, in a state where

 there is neither war nor peace? Will it be forced to come under Iraqi control again? Will it

be granted a form of independence? In the latter case, what guarantees will be given to

 the Yezidi community?

The unsettled  conditions of the Kurdish Free Zone in Iraq have led to a bloody conflict

between the various Kurdish Parties, notably the KDP and the PUK, and the KDP and the

PKK, as well as between secularist and fundamentalist Islamic parties. This situation has

 given rise to an increased influence of Islamic fundamentalism, which is exhorting people

 from the pulpit every Friday to fight the Yezidi  'infidels' (i.e. those who do not worship

 God and are not followers of the Prophet Mohammad). As a result, Muslims are now

 boycotting Yezidis.

The second factor is that the Yezidis living in Europe are facing an uncertain future, as they

 are torn between two cultures: their original, Oriental culture, which includes their customs,

 social structure and traditions, but also negative phenomena such as ignorance, polygamy

 and blood feuds, and on the other hand the culture of the European host countries, which

 is very different from the culture to which they are accustomed. It remains to be seem

which culture will prove dominant.

Besides all these factors, attention should be drawn to the negative role of some kudish

 party, which is wholly detrimental to the Yezidis of Europe. It threatens to tear families

 apart, to distort the Yezidis' religious heritage, and may eventually alienate the  Yezidis

from Turkey from those of Iraq, Syria, Armenia and Georgia, thus destroying the

 coherence  and unity of their community.

In an age in which all European countries, the United States, the United Nations and other

 international organisations are singing the praises of globalisation, democracy and human

 rights, it cannot be stressed enough that ethnic and religious minorities need far more

international support and protection. Conferences such as this have an important role to

play in defending the rights of these minorities and to protect them.