Total population | |
---|---|
from 60,000 [1] [2] [3] to 100,000–120,000 [4] [5] | |
Religion | |
Yazidism (Sharfadin) |
Yazidis in Germany may refer to people born in or residing in Germany of Yazidi origin, an ethnic group [6] or Kurdish group [1] who are strictly endogamous. [7] [8]
There is a large Yazidi community in Germany, estimated to be numbering around 60,000 - 120,000 people. This makes the German Yazidi community one of the largest in the Yazidi diaspora.
Many Yazidis fled to Germany during the 1990s fearing religious persecution in Turkey. The Yazidi population of Germany was around 20,000 in 1998. [2] Many Yazidi intellectuals also fled during this time and now play a prominent role in Yazidi diaspora affairs and maintain connections with Yazidis in Iraq. [1]
In August 2014, German Yazidis held protests against the Islamic State and called for an immediate end of the Genocide of Yazidis by ISIL. Between 5,000 and 10,000 people attended the demonstrations. [3] [9] Three commanders of the Yazidi militias who fought against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq have lived for various years in Germany. [10]
Tawûsî Melek is one of the central figures of the Yazidi religion. In Yazidi creation stories, before the creation of this world, God created seven Divine Beings, of whom Tawûsî Melek was appointed as the leader. God assigned all of the world's affairs to these seven Divine Beings, also often referred to as the Seven Angels or heft sirr.
The Yazidi Black Book is one of two books written in the style of a holy book of the Yazidis in their native Kurmanji tongue, the other being the Yazidi Book of Revelation. The authenticity of these two books has been questioned. Dr. Frederick Forbes visited Sinjar in 1838 and ascribed the authorship of the Yazidi Black Book to Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir. It is believed that the content of the Yazidi Black Book is a fusion of authentic Yazidi traditions and beliefs with Western forgeries.
Yazidism, also known as Sharfadin, is a monotheistic ethnic religion that originated in Kurdistan and has roots in a western Iranic pre-Zoroastrian religion directly derived from the Indo-Iranian tradition. It is followed by the mainly Kurdish-speaking Yazidis and is based on belief in one God who created the world and entrusted it into the care of seven Holy Beings, known as Angels. Preeminent among these Angels is Tawûsî Melek, who is the leader of the Angels and who has authority over the world.
Lalish is a mountain valley and temple located in the Nineveh Plains of northern Iraq,. It is the holiest temple of the Yazidis. It is the location of the tomb of the Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir, a central figure of the Yazidi faith.
Yazidis in Armenia are Yazidis who live in Armenia, where they form the largest ethnic minority. Yazidis settled in the territory of modern-day Armenia mainly in the 19th and early 20th centuries, fleeing religious persecution by the Ottoman Empire. While Yazidis were counted as Kurds in censuses for much of the Soviet period, they are currently recognized as a separate ethnic group in Armenia. According to the 2011 census, around 35,000 Yazidis live in Armenia.
Sheikh Hasan ibn Sheikh ‘Adī II is a holy and historical figure in that is revered in Yazidism and considered the physical or earthly incarnation of Melik Şêxsin, one of the Seven Divine Beings to whom God assigned the World's affairs. Melik Şêxsin is associated with the Pen and consequently with writing and books, he is thus called Xudanê Qelemê. Adani Sheikhs are the descendants of Sheikh Hasan and were traditionally the only ones in Yazidi society that had the privilege to acquire the art of writing and reading.
Yazidis, also spelled Yezidis, are a Kurdish-speaking endogamous religious group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The majority of Yazidis remaining in the Middle East today live in Iraq, primarily in the governorates of Nineveh and Duhok.
The Kurds in Georgia form a major part of the historically significant Kurdish population in the post-Soviet space, and are members of the eponymous ethnic group that are citizens of Georgia. In the 20th century, most Kurds fled religious persecution in the Ottoman Empire to the Russian Empire. The return of their Kurdish surnames needs effort according to a Kurdish activist in Georgia. The Kurds also have their own schools, school books and a printing press in Georgia. Illiteracy among them disappeared in the early 1900s. Kurds in Georgia are politically neutral; however, in 1999 they staged a huge demonstration in Tbilisi, demanding the release of the founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, Abdullah Öcalan. Kurds in Georgia today use Cyrillic script. Earlier, in the 1920s, they used the Latin script.
The main religions that exist or historically existed in Kurdistan are as follows: Sunni Islam, Shia Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Yarsanism, Yazidism, Alevism and Judaism. Overall today, Sunni Islam is the most adhered to religion in Kurdistan.
Yazidism in Syria refers to people born in or residing in Syria who adhere to Yazidism, a strictly endogamous religion. Yazidis in Syria live primarily in two communities, one in the Al-Jazira area and the other in the Kurd-Dagh. Exact population data of Yazidis in Syria is unavailable, but it is estimated that between 10,000-50,000 Yazidis reside in Syria.
The Yazidism in Russia refers to believers of Yazidism in Russia. This community is part of the Yazidis who emigrated to Russia from the Armenian and Georgian parts of the Soviet Union after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. In 2009, the Yazidis were recognized as a religious community in Russia.
Nadia Murad Basee Taha is an Iraqi-born Yazidi human rights activist based in Germany. In 2014, as part of the Yazidi genocide by the Islamic State, she was abducted from her hometown of Kocho in Iraq and much of her community was massacred. After losing most of her family, Murad was held as an Islamic State sex slave for three months, alongside thousands of other Yazidi women and girls.
Khanna Omarkhali, also known as Khanna Usoyan, is a Yezidi-Kurdish religion researcher.
The Yazidi genocide was perpetrated by the Islamic State throughout Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2017. It was characterized by massacres, genocidal rape, and forced conversions to Islam. The Yazidi people, who are non-Arabs, are indigenous to Kurdistan and adhere to Yazidism, which is an Iranian religion derived from the Indo-Iranian tradition. Over a period of three years, Islamic State militants trafficked thousands of Yazidi women and girls and killed thousands of Yazidi men; the United Nations reported that the Islamic State killed about 5,000 Yazidis and trafficked about 10,800 Yazidi women and girls in a "forced conversion campaign" throughout Iraq. By 2015, upwards of 71% of the global Yazidi population was displaced by the genocide, with most Yazidi refugees having fled to Iraq's Kurdistan Region and Syria's Rojava. The persecution of Yazidis, along with other religious minorities, took place after the Islamic State's Northern Iraq offensive of June 2014.
Yazda: Global Yazidi Organization, is a United States-based global Yazidi nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO) advocacy, aid, and relief organization. Yazda was established to support the Yazidi, especially in northern Iraq, specifically Sinjar and Nineveh Plain, and northeastern Syria, where the Yazidi community has, as part of a deliberate "military, economic, and political strategy," been the focus of a genocidal campaign by ISIL that included mass murder, the separation of families, forced religious conversions, forced marriages, sexual assault, physical assault, torture, kidnapping, and slavery.
The persecution of Yazidis has been ongoing since at least 637 CE. Yazidis are an endogamous and mostly Kurmanji-speaking minority, indigenous to Kurdistan. The Yazidi religion is regarded as "devil-worship" by Muslims and Islamists. Yazidis have been persecuted by the surrounding Muslims since the medieval ages, most notably by Safavids, Ottomans, neighbouring Muslim Arab and Kurdish tribes and principalities. After the 2014 Sinjar massacre of thousands of Yazidis by ISIL, which started the ethnic, cultural, and religious genocide of the Yazidis in Iraq, Yazidis still face discrimination from the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Alphabetical index of articles about the Yazidis, and their history and culture.
There are probably 200,000–300,000 Yazidis worldwide.
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: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) Cites estimates between 100,000 and 700,000 worldwide.