Persecution of Yazidis

Yazidi refugee children from Sinjar in Newroz Camp, Al-Malikiyah District, August 2014, after the Sinjar massacre.
Ruins of the Yazidi shrine of Mam Rashan in Sinjar mountains after its destruction by the Islamic State.

The persecution of Yazidis has been ongoing since at least the 12th century.[1][2][3][4] Yazidis are an endogamous and mostly Kurmanji-speaking[5] minority, indigenous to Kurdistan.[6] The Yazidi religion is regarded as "devil-worship" by some Muslims and Islamists.[1][2][7][8] Yazidis have been persecuted by the surrounding Muslims since the medieval ages, most notably by Safavids[citation needed], Ottomans, neighbouring Muslim Arab and Kurdish tribes and principalities.[1][3][9][10] After the 2014 Sinjar massacre of thousands of Yazidis by ISIL, which started the ethnic, cultural, and religious genocide of the Yazidis in Iraq,[1] Yazidis still face discrimination from the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government.

  1. ^ a b c d 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.
  2. ^ a b Asatrian, Garnik S.; Arakelova, Victoria (2014). "Part I: The One God - Malak-Tāwūs: The Leader of the Triad". The Religion of the Peacock Angel: The Yezidis and Their Spirit World. Gnostica. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge. pp. 1–28. doi:10.4324/9781315728896. ISBN 978-1-84465-761-2. OCLC 931029996.
  3. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Oxford was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Acikyildiz, Birgul (2014-08-20). The Yezidis: The History of a Community, Culture and Religion. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-78453-216-1.
  5. ^ Allison, Christine (20 February 2004). "Yazidis i: General". Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved 20 August 2010.
  6. ^ Nelida Fuccaro (1999). The Other Kurds: Yazidis in Colonial Iraq. London & New York: I. B. Tauris. p. 9. ISBN 1860641709.
  7. ^ van Bruinessen, Martin (1992). "Chapter 2: Kurdish society, ethnicity, nationalism and refugee problems". In Kreyenbroek, Philip G.; Sperl, Stefan (eds.). The Kurds: A Contemporary Overview. London: Routledge. pp. 26–52. ISBN 978-0-415-07265-6. OCLC 919303390.
  8. ^ Jalabi, Raya (2014-08-11). "Who are the Yazidis and why is Isis hunting them?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-12-01.
  9. ^ Guest (2012-11-12). Survival Among The Kurds. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-15736-3.
  10. ^ Evliya Çelebi, The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman: Melek Ahmed Pasha (1588–1662), Translated by Robert Dankoff, 304 pp., SUNY Press, 1991; ISBN 0-7914-0640-7, pp. 169–171