Yezidis are a religious minority living in Kurdistan as the native land. They also live in Transcaucasia and in other countries as diaspora communities such as Russia and Western Europe and particularly in Germany. Their shared language is Kurmanji-Kurdish dialect. Yezidism is a cultural and religious system based on ancient religious traditions and it has roots in some ancient Iranian religions, Mesopotamian cultures and Sufism. Generally, it is regarded as a way to understand life, not an acquired dogma. In addition, each of monotheism, gnosticism, orthopraxy and the holiness of elements of nature play a central role in its traditions. What is more, its religious beliefs and practices have been preserved through oral traditions, which can be considered as a religious literature that has its own forms and categories such as Qewl, Beyt and Qeside, etc. Lalish which is located in Kurdistan is the Yezidis’ holiest place in the world. This book contains a detailed study of describing and analyzing the considerable role that the elements of nature, notably the four elements: fire, water, earth and air/wind play in Yezidism, in its religious beliefs and practices, and on the basis of the religious poetic texts and living religious traditions. The fieldwork of the study was carried out in Yezidi areas in the Kurdistan region of Iraq which is the centre of their religion.

Sweeping across centuries, and stretching from Mesopotamia to London, this enchanting new novel by a Booker Prize finalist conjures a trio of characters living in the shadow of one of the greatest epic poems of all time. In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives. In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur’s only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his interest: Ninveveh and Its Remains. In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazhidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family’s ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time. In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything. A dazzling feat of storytelling, There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and harbinger of death, rivers—the Tigris and the Thames—transcend history, transcend fate: “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.”

The diversity of Kurdish communities across the Middle East is now recognized as central to understanding both the challenges and opportunities for their representation and politics. Yet little scholarship has focused on the complexities within these different groups and the range of their experiences. This book diversifies the literature on Kurdish Studies by offering close analyses of subjects which have not been adequately researched, and in particular, by highlighting the Kurds' relationship to the Yazidis. Case studies include: the political ideas of Ehmede Xani, “the father of Kurdish nationalism”; Kurdish refugees in camps in Iraq; the perception of the Kurds by Armenians in the late Ottoman Empire and the Turks in modern Western Turkey; and the important connections and shared heritage of the Kurds and the Yazidis, especially in the aftermath of the 2014 ISIS attacks. The book comprises the leading voices in Kurdish Studies and combines in-depth empirical work with theoretical and conceptual discussions to take the debates in the field in new directions. The study is divided into three thematic sections to capture new insights into the heterogeneous aspects of Kurdish history and identity. In doing so, contributors explain why we need to pay close attention to the shifting identities and the diversity of the Kurds, and what implications this has for Middle East Studies and Minority Studies more generally.

From the table of contents: C.G. Cereti, Some Notes on the ?kand Guman?g WizarI. Colditz, Zur Adaption zoroastrischer Terminologie in Manis ?abuhraganA. Degener, The significance of the date palmPh. Gignoux, A propos de l'anthroponymie religieuse d'epoque sassanideGh. Gnoli, Further notes on Avestand geographyPh. Huyse, Ein erneuter Datierungsversuch fur den Ubergang vom Schluss-y der mittelpersischen Inschriften zum Endstrich im Buchpahlavi (6.-7. Jh.)Ph. Kreyenbroek, Yezidism and its Sacred Literature: Eastern and Western PerceptionsG. Lazard, Structures d'actances dans les langues irano-aryennes modernesM. Macuch, Language and Law: Linguistic Peculiarities in Sasanian JurisprudenceB. Meisterernst, D. Meisterernst-Durkin, Some remarks on the Chinese and Sogdian SCEA. Panaino, The "Rook" and the "Queen" Some Lexicographic Remarks about the Sasanian Chess PiecesL. Paul, The language of the ?ahname in historical and dialectical perspectiveCh. Reck, Reste einer soghdischen Version von Huyadagman I in der Form eines Responsoriums zwischen Erwahltem und HorerM. Schwartz, On Khwarezmian Loss of -R-Sh. Shaked, Iranian words retrieved from AramaicD. Shapira, Pahlavi FlowersN. Sims-Williams, Fr. de Blois, The Bactrian calendar: new material and new suggestions

A new History of Persian Literature in 18 Volumes. Persian literature is the jewel in the crown of Persian culture. It has profoundly influenced the literatures of Ottoman Turkey, Muslim India and Turkic Central Asia and been a source of inspiration for Goethe, Emerson, Matthew Arnold and Jorge Luis Borges among others. Yet Persian literature has never received the attention it truly deserves. A History of Persian Literature answers this need and offers a new, comprehensive and detailed history of its subject. This 18-volume, authoritative survey reflects the stature and significance of Persian literature as the single most important accomplishment of the Iranian experience. It includes extensive, revealing examples with contributions by prominent scholars who bring a fresh critical approach to bear on this important topic. This companion volume deals with two of the most under-researched areas of study in the Modern Iranian field: the Persian oral and popular literature of Iran, Tajikistan and Persian-speaking Afghanistan on the one hand; and the written and oral literatures of the Kurds, Pashtuns, Baloch and Ossetians on the other.

Yezidism is a fascinating part of the rich cultural mosaic of the Middle East. The Yezidi faith emerged for the first time in the twelfth century in the Kurdish mountains of northern Iraq. The religion, which has become notorious for its associations with 'devil worship', is in fact an intricate syncretic system of belief, incorporating elements from proto-Indo-European religions, early Iranian faiths like Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism, Sufism and regional paganism like Mithraism. Birgul Acikyildiz here offers a comprehensive appraisal of Yezidi religion, society and culture. Written without presupposing any prior knowledge about Yezidism, and in an accessible and readable style, her book examines Yezidis not only from a religious point of view but as a historical and social phenomenon. She throws light on the origins of Yezidism, and charts its development and changing fortunes - from its beginnings to the present- as part of the general history of the Kurds. Her book is the first to place Yezidism in its complete geographical setting in Northern Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Transcaucasia. The author describes the Yezidi belief system (which considers Tawusi Melek - the 'Peacock Angel' - to be ruler of the earth) and its religious practices and observances, analysing the most important facets of Yezidi religious art and architecture (including funerary monuments and zoomorphic tombstones) and their relationship to their neighbours throughout the Middle East. Acikyildiz also explores the often misunderstood connections between Yezidism and the Satan/Sheitan of Christian and Muslim tradition. Richly illustrated, with accompanying maps, photographs and illustrations, this pioneering book will have strong appeal to all those with an interest in the culture of the Kurds, as well as the wider region.

Until the late 20th century the West was unaware of the existence of an extensive corpus of Yezidi religious texts. These were traditionally transmitted orally, and were kept secret from outsiders. It was not until the 1970s that a few Yezidi intellectuals began to commit these texts to writing. These first publications included only specimens of the most prestigious genres, which for a time were thought to be representative of Yezidi religious literature as a whole. It was later discovered, however, that this literature was far richer. Furthermore it became clear that an understanding of Yezidi oral culture as a whole was indispensable for a proper understanding of the religious texts.The present work offers the reader a representative selection of the main genres of Yezidi religious texts, with translation and commentary. The texts are intended, moreover, to cover the topics most often addressed in the Yezidi religious tradition.The first introductory chapter aims to introduce the reader to the Yezidi community's history, aspects of its religion, and its social structures and institutions. The next chapter focuses on some of the implications of the oral transmission of this literature and on its contents, especially the sacred history of Yezidism. The third chapter discusses aspects of orality and the transition to written culture, questions of performance and reception, and the formal characteristics of the various types of texts.