Yazidis, also spelled Yezidis (; ), are a Kurdish-speaking endogamous religious group indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in West Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran, with small numbers living in Armenia and Georgia. The majority of Yazidis remaining in the Middle East today live in Iraq, primarily in the governorates of Nineveh and Duhok.
There is a disagreement among scholars and in Yazidi circles on whether the Yazidi people are a distinct ethnoreligious group or a religious sub-group of the Kurds, an Iranic ethnic group. Yazidism is the ethnic religion of the Yazidi people. It developed through a complex historical process involving a pre-Islamic Kurdish religious substratum and the teachings of Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir. Scholars generally regard it as an independent religious tradition with deep roots in ancient Iranian beliefs, shaped by later Sufi influences. Although it shares certain parallels with Zoroastrianism, it is not considered to have developed out of it, and scholars note the presence of some pre-Zoroastrian elements.
In the aftermath of early Muslim conquests, Yazidis have often faced persecution from their Muslim neighbours, often being accused of heresy by clerics, while at other times they established alliances and held positions of influence in Islamic countries.
In modern times, Yazidis face persecution particularly by ISIS. Due to ongoing terrorist attacks in Kurdish regions, many Yazidis sought refuge in Western countries. The 2014 Yazidi genocide that was carried out by the Islamic State saw over 5,000 Yazidis killed and thousands of Yazidi women and girls forced into sexual slavery, as well as the flight of more than 500,000 Yazidi refugees.
Etymology
The Yazidis' own name for themselves is or, in some areas, , although the latter, strictly speaking, is a tribal name. Some western scholars derive the name from the Umayyad Caliph Yazid ibn Muawiyah (Yazid I). However, all Yazidis reject any relationship between their name and the caliph. The word Yazidi means 'the servant of the creator'. Although Yazidism was not named after Yazid ibn Muawiyah, the caliph was revered in Yazidism.The Yezidis: The History of a Community, Culture and Religion, Birgül Açikyildiz, 2014, pp. 37Liminal Minorities: Religious Difference and Mass Violence in Muslim Societies, Günes Murat Tezcür, 2024, pp. 79 Other scholars derive it from Old Iranian , Middle Persian , "divine being".Philip G. Kreyenbroek, "Yazīdī" in Encyclopedia of Islam, s.v. Another derivation of the word origin relates to ('Created me'): Yazidis also refer to ('God created me') and to ('We are the Ezdayi nation'). History Early history
Origin Yazidism took shape from a pre-Islamic Kurdish religious substratum, which was reorganized and given its lasting doctrinal and institutional form through the reforms and teachings of Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir and his successors in the 12th and 13th centuries. Scholars have proposed differing sources for this older substratum: Philip Kreyenbroek and Khanna Omarkhali point to parallels with Zoroastrianism and the neighboring Yaresan tradition as evidence of a shared Indo-Iranian background. Artur Rodziewicz has argued that too little attention has been paid to possible Western influences on Yazidism, proposing instead affinities with the pagan Harranian ('Sabian') religion and with Hellenistic and Orphic currents transmitted through regional centers such as Antioch, Edessa, and Nisibis. According to the scholars Majid Hassan Ali, Dimitri Pirbari and Rustam Rzgoyan, the Yazidi religion formed on the basis of an ancient Mesopotamian religion and the teachings of Sheikh Adi, who drew on a mixture of ancient traditions and rites, blended with the mysticism in which he believed and preached a possibility of direct union with God. Kreyenbroek notes that earlier characterizations of Yazidism as an offshoot of Islam have "been widely given up" among scholars, who instead broadly agree that this older system of Kurdish religious tradition, whatever its ultimate origin, was formative in shaping the religion.
The ninth-century East Syriac bishop Thomas of Marga, in his history of regional monasticism, described communities in the area where Yazidism originated, among them the village of Koph, near Akre in what is now Duhok governorate, whose inhabitants were described as an amalgam of Magians, Manichaeans, and heathens, "mad and drunk with the worship of idols and of trees and other things," venerating fire, sacred springs, and "the sun which was held to be a god by those who worshipped it." Practices consistent with this older substratum persist in Yazidism today, including belief in metempsychosis, sun worship, dietary and dress prohibitions, and fire-centred ritual observance such as the nightly lighting of wicks throughout the Lalish valley and the candelabrum ceremony of the autumn Feast of the Assembly.
Bar Hebraeus, a thirteenth-century Jacobite monk of the Mar Mattai Monastery, in his Chronicon Syriacum, refers to "Sheikh Adi, whom the Kurds of the country of Mosul hold to be a prophet." Describing a Kurdish group from the mountains of Madai known as the Taïrahites, who descended on the surrounding countryside in 1205 CE and "wrought great destruction in those countries," Bar Hebraeus records that they "had not entered the Faith of the Muslims, but had adopted the primitive paganism and Magianism." Rodziewicz notes that while Kurdologists have typically fixed on this last term and read the passage as describing Zoroastrian survival, Bar Hebraeus himself does not identify the group as Zoroastrian, only as holding beliefs that were neither Muslim nor Christian.
The Shafi'i scholar Ibn Kathir (1301–1373) similarly records a people called the Tirhiye practicing an older religion he identifies as Magian in the same territories later inhabited by Yazidis, noting that later generations of this group adopted a religion he describes as a hybrid with Islam. Communities already known as Yazidis, described as venerating the Umayyad caliph Yazid ibn Muawiya, are likewise attested in the region prior to Sheikh Adi's arrival, existing alongside these older Iranian-linked religious currents.
Prior to the 12th century, Yazidis in historical sources are identified as Dāsinī (Dasni). The name referred both to a religious community and to a territorial entity centered in the region of Dāsin, located northeast of Mosul and southwest of Amadiya in present-day northern Iraq. Yazidis identified as Dasini are recorded as inhabiting this region continuously, and the designation remained in use for Yazidi princes until the mid-19th century. The term Dasināyā is also used for Yazidis in Syriac and Neo-Aramaic Christian languages. Majid Hassan Ali identifies this period preceding the religious reforms associated with the saint Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir, as the phase during which Yazidi religious life was structured primarily around rituals, mythology, customs, and largely oral transmission.
Sheikh Adi's arrival Sheikh Adi, a twelfth-century mystic venerated as an incarnation of God in Yazidism, was born in the 1070s in Bait Far in the Beqaa Valley of present-day Lebanon. He studied in Baghdad among the prominent mystics and theologians of his era, including Ahmad al-Ghazali, and became closely associated with Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani; his milieu was permeated by the ideas of Mansur al-Hallaj, whose teaching Rodziewicz identifies as a significant influence transmitted to Sheikh Adi through al-Ghazali. Around the age of thirty he travelled to the Hakkari mountains, settling in the valley of Lalish.
Sheikh Adi's arrival in Lalish heralded a new era of considerable change in Yazidi history, as reforms in the system of rule, politics and religion transformed and modernised the Yazidi way of life. Before his arrival the community existed as scattered tribes with a shared theological orientation but no unified form. After coming to Lalish, he united the scattered Yazidi tribes around him and returned to them their ancient temple, which had been occupied by members of other faiths.
The Yazidi religion was revised and reestablished between the 12th and 13th centuries on the basis of Sheikh Adi's teachings, which drew from a mixture of ancient traditions and rites and blended them with the mysticism in which he believed. After its reestablishment during his era, the Yazidi belief system became open to accepting others, allowing them to embrace the religion. The religious reforms of the 12th and 13th centuries were the conglomeration of ancient traditions the Yazidi had been practicing before the coming of Sheikh Adi, along with the reforms that he introduced. The Yazidi religion is understood as rooted in ancient religious rites and traditions still practiced today, such as sanctifying the sun, the ritual of slaughtering bulls at the temple of Lalish, and celebrating feast days related to nature such as Sersal (the Yazidi new year), Bilindah, and the summer and winter festivals.
The era of his activity is described in Yazidi tradition as the "epoch of saints", during which his disciples spread his teaching of the possibility of direct union of the human spirit with God. Originally, the teaching had a supra-religious character, with the knowledge of God as its primary priority. Over time, due to continuous persecution and a hostile environment, the followers of this teaching gradually closed themselves within their community and became an ethno-religious community, one which, today, a person can only be born into.
The caste structure that came to define Yazidi social and religious life is conventionally traced to Sheikh Adi's reforms. The three castes consist of Sheikhs (şêx), who fulfill spiritual and administrative functions; Pirs (pîr), who fulfill religious and pastoral functions; and Murids (mirîd), the laypeople and followers. The relationship between the castes is seen as spiritually equivalent to siblinghood and thus, intermarriage between castes is considered sinful and is strictly forbidden. This system is understood as having served a protective function, fostering communal cohesion and continuity in the face of sustained pressure from proselytizing majorities. The long duration of this system, maintained continuously since Sheikh Adi's era, has been cited as a primary factor in the development of a distinct Yazidi ethno-religious identity over subsequent centuries.
The earliest Yazidi written source, the Mišūr of P'īr Sīnī Bahrī (604 AH / 1207–1208 CE), confirms that the caste system was still in formation in the decades immediately following Sheikh Adi's passing, with its final consolidation completed under Sheikh Hasan in the mid-13th century.
Among scholars, Sheikh Adi is also credited with introducing many elements from Sufism to Yazidism, such as the concept of nafs (ego-soul), reverence of some Sufi mystics and saints including Dhu'l Nun al-Misri, Bayazid Bastami and Abdulqadir al-Gilani, as well as metaphysical ideas and ascetic practices found in Sufism.
Sheikh Adi's era is also credited with a flourishing of Yazidi religious literature. Sacred poetry (Qewls, Beyts, Qasida, etc.) were composed, and hagiographies of Yazidi saints compiled. The corpus of Qewls that constitutes the primary source of Yazidi religious knowledge took its foundational form during this period. The Yazidi creed crystallized around his legacy in the formula still recited today: "Miletê Êzdî, Dîn—Şerfedîn" ("We are the Yazidi people, our religion is Sharfadin.")