Ethno-religious group of Kurdistan
This article is about Yazidis, the people. For their religion, see
Yazidism .
Yazidis Êzidî est.
700,000–1,500,000[ 1] [ 2] [ 3] See list of Yazidi settlements Iraq 500,000–700,000[ 4] [ 5] Germany 230,000 (2022 estimate) [ 6] Belgium 35,000 (2018 estimate) [ 7] Armenia 31,079 (2022 census) [ 8] Russia 26,257 (2021 census) [ 9] Georgia 12,174 (2014 census) [ 10] United States 10,000 (2017 estimate) [ 11] France 10,000 (2018 estimate) [ 12] [ 13] Syria 10,000 (2017 estimate) [ 14] [ 15] Sweden 6,000 (2018 estimate) [ 16] Turkey 5,000 (2010 estimate) [ 17] [ 18] Australia 4,123 (2021 census) [ 19] Canada 1,200 (2018 estimate) [ 20] Northern Kurdish [ 21] [ 22] [ 23]
Yazidis , also spelled Yezidis (;[ 24] Êzidî ),[ 25] are a Kurdish -speaking[ 26] endogamous [ 27] [ 28] religious group indigenous to Kurdistan , a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq , Syria , Turkey , and Iran .[ 29] [ 30] [ 31] The majority of Yazidis remaining in the Middle East today live in Iraq, primarily in the governorates of Nineveh and Duhok .[ 32] [ 33]
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 .[ 34] [ 35] Yazidism is the ethnic religion of the Yazidi people and is monotheistic in nature, having roots in a pre-Zoroastrian Iranic faith .[ 36] [ 37] [ 38] [ 40]
Since the spread of Islam began with the early Muslim conquests of the 7th–8th centuries, Yazidis have faced persecution by Arabs and later by Turks , as they have commonly been charged with heresy by Muslim clerics for their religious practices.[citation needed ] Despite various state-sanctions in the Ottoman Empire , Yazidis historically have lived peacefully in proximity with their Sunni neighbours .[ 41] In modern times, Yazidis face persecution particularly by ISIS .[ 42] Due to ongoing terrorist attacks in Kurdish regions , many Yazidis sought refuge in Western countries.[ 43] Recently, some Yazidis have returned to their home villages in Turkey.[ 44]
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 ,[ 45] as well as the flight of more than 500,000 Yazidi refugees.[ 46] [ 47] [ 48]
^ Lamb, Christina (22 September 2020). Our Bodies, Their Battlefields: War Through the Lives of Women . Simon and Schuster. p. 24. ISBN 978-1-5011-9917-2 .
^ "Aziz Tamoyan blames unknown forces for crippling history and culture of Yazidis" . armenpress.am . August 2013. Retrieved 10 January 2021 .
^ Cheng, Amy; Francis, Ellen (4 February 2022). "Biden said the killed ISIS leader persecuted Yazidis. Here's what to know about the religious minority" . Washington Post .
^ "Surviving Islamic State: The Plight Of The Yazidi Community" . Nikita Malik . Forbes. Retrieved 13 January 2019 .
^ Henne, Peter; Hackett, Conrad (12 August 2014). "Iraqi Yazidis: Hazy population numbers and a history of persecution" . Pew Research Center . Retrieved 30 August 2021 .
^ "Adrs. 20(17)20 Stellungnahme SV Dr. Irfan Ortac öA 20.06.2022" (PDF) . Bundestag . Retrieved 3 October 2024 .
^ "Exhibition in Brussels on the Yazidi community in Iraq" . 10 January 2018. Retrieved 13 January 2019 .
^ "The Main Results of RA Census 2022, trilingual / Armenian Statistical Service of Republic of Armenia" . www.armstat.am . Retrieved 3 July 2024 .
^ "Оценка численности постоянного населения по субъектам Российской Федерации" . Federal State Statistics Service . Retrieved 27 June 2024 .
^ "Ethnic Composition of Georgia" (PDF) . CSEM. Retrieved 18 May 2019 .
^ Knapp, Fred. "Iraqis a fast-growing group in Nebraska" . netnebraska.org . Archived from the original on 13 May 2018. Retrieved 20 September 2019 .
^ "La communauté Yézidie en France" . Retrieved 13 January 2019 .
^ "Non, les Yézidis ne sont pas voués à disparaître" . 1 August 2018. Retrieved 13 January 2019 .
^ Armstrong, Kerrie (22 August 2017). "The Yazidi people: who are they and why are they on the run?" . Explainer . SBS. Retrieved 25 February 2019 .
^ Andrea Glioti (18 October 2013). "Yazidis Benefit From Kurdish Gains in Northeast Syria" . al-monitor . Archived from the original on 19 February 2014. Retrieved 1 April 2014 .
^ "Många yazidier fortfarande försvunna" (in Swedish). SVT. 9 January 2018. Retrieved 13 January 2019 .
^ "Turkey" . U.S. Department of State . Retrieved 22 January 2019 .
^ International Religious Freedom (2010): Annual Report to Congress . DIANE Publishing. ISBN 9781437944396 .
^ "Religious affiliation in Australia" . ABS . Retrieved 19 December 2024 .
^ "For a Yazidi refugee in Canada, the trauma of ISIS triggers rare, terrifying seizures" . 1 December 2018. Retrieved 13 January 2019 .
^ Arakelova, Victoria (23 June 2021). "Yezidism" . Handbook of Islamic Sects and Movements . Brill Publishers . pp. 743–760. doi :10.1163/9789004435544_039 . ISBN 978-90-04-43554-4 . Retrieved 3 October 2024 .
^ "2.15.2. Yazidi | European Union Agency for Asylum" . euaa.europa.eu . European Union Agency for Asylum . Retrieved 2 October 2024 .
^ "Who are the Yazidis? – DW – 04/10/2018" . dw.com . Retrieved 3 October 2024 .
^ "Yazidi" . Oxford Dictionaries | English . Archived from the original on 3 August 2017. Retrieved 13 March 2019 .
^ Kreyenbroek, Philip G. ; Rashow, Khalīl Jindī (2005). God and Sheikh Adi are Perfect: Sacred Poems and Religious Narratives from the Yezidi Tradition . Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 118. ISBN 3-447-05300-3 .
^ Cite error: The named reference iranica
was invoked but never defined (see the help page ).
^ Açikyildiz, Birgül (23 December 2014). The Yezidis: The History of a Community, Culture and Religion . I.B.Tauris. ISBN 9780857720610 .
^ Gidda, Mirren (8 August 2014). "Everything You Need to Know About the Yazidis" . Time . Retrieved 7 February 2016 .
^ Nelida Fuccaro (1999). The Other Kurds: Yazidis in Colonial Iraq . London & New York: I. B. Tauris. p. 9. ISBN 1860641709 .
^ Pirbari, Dimitri; Grigoriev, Stanislav. Holy Lalish, 2008 (Ezidian temple Lalish in Iraqi Kurdistan) .
^ Omarkhali, Khanna (2017). The Yezidi religious textual tradition, from oral to written : categories, transmission, scripturalisation, and canonisation of the Yezidi oral religious texts: with samples of oral and written religious texts and with audio and video samples on CD-ROM . Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 978-3-447-10856-0 . OCLC 994778968 .
^ Kane, Sean (2011). "Iraq's disputed territories" (PDF) . PeaceWorks . United States Institute of Peace . Retrieved 15 October 2018 .
^ "On Vulnerable Ground – Violence against Minority Communities in Nineveh Province's Disputed Territories" (PDF) . Human Rights Watch . November 2009. Retrieved 15 October 2018 .
^ Ali, Majid Hassan (15 February 2019). "The identity controversy of religious minorities in Iraq: the crystallization of the Yazidi identity after 2003". British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies . 47 (5): 15. doi :10.1080/13530194.2019.1577129 . ISSN 1353-0194 . S2CID 150358224 .
^ "UNHCR's Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Iraqi Asylum-Seekers" (PDF) . pp. 11, 76.
^ Turgut, Lokman. Ancient rites and old religions in Kurdistan . OCLC 879288867 .
^ Kaczorowski, Karol (2014). "Yezidism and Proto-Indo-Iranian Religion" . Fritillaria Kurdica. Bulletin of Kurdish Studies .
^ Omarkhali, Khanna (2011). The status and role of the Yezidi legends and myths: to the question of comparative analysis of Yezidism, Yārisān (Ahl-e Haqq) and Zoroastrianism: a common substratum? . OCLC 999248462 .
^ Bozarslan, Hamit; Gunes, Cengiz; Yadirgi, Veli, eds. (22 April 2021). The Cambridge History of the Kurds (1 ed.). Cambridge University Press. doi :10.1017/9781108623711 . ISBN 978-1-108-62371-1 . S2CID 243594800 .
^ "The Yazidi Genocide: An Introduction" . Post Conflict Research Center . 8 September 2017. Retrieved 1 February 2024 .
^ "Iraqi Yazidis: Trapped Between the KDP and the PKK | The Washington Institute" . www.washingtoninstitute.org . Retrieved 1 February 2024 .
^ Taşğin, Ahmet. "Yezîdiyye" . TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (in Turkish). Retrieved 31 January 2024 .
^ "Jesiden in der Türkei: Alte Heimat, neue Heimat - Qantara.de" . Qantara.de - Dialog mit der islamischen Welt (in German). 7 May 2015. Retrieved 4 February 2022 .
^ Callimachi, Rukmini (12 March 2016). "To Maintain Supply of Sex Slaves, ISIS Pushes Birth Control" . The New York Times . ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 23 January 2022 .
^ Allison, Christine (25 January 2017). "The Yazidis" . Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion . Oxford : Oxford University Press . doi :10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.254 . ISBN 9780199340378 . Archived from the original on 11 March 2019. Retrieved 15 May 2021 .
^ "Statement by the Commission of Inquiry on Syria on the second anniversary of 3 August 2014 attack by ISIS of the Yazidis" . ohchr.org . OHCHR . Retrieved 17 May 2019 .
^ Suvari, Çakır Ceyhan (2018). "Being Ezidi in the Middle East" . Understanding Religious Violence . Springer International Publishing. pp. 195–212. doi :10.1007/978-3-030-00284-8_8 . ISBN 978-3-030-00284-8 .