Religious Minorities in Kurdistan
Khanna Omarkhali
Harrassowitz
This anthology represents an account of the religious milieus flourishing beyond the Islamic mainstream in all parts of Kurdistan. Although nowadays Kurdistan is mostly identified with Islam, practiced by the majority of Kurds, it can be called a reservoir of religions because various religious groups of minority faiths coexist there.
During this period of profound and rapid change, especially in the last few decades, various economic, political, and social transformations have taken place throughout the Middle East. The Kurds are now living under very different political conditions and the profound changes in the political landscape of each of the involved regions during the past few decades have affected the religious minorities in the Kurdish regions in various ways.
Religious minorities have always remained beyond the mainstream both in Kurdistan itself and elsewhere. Most of the literature on religious minorities in the Middle East that has appeared in recent years is dedicated to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religious tradition, while many other religious minority groups are frequently overlooked in this research. Until now very little has been published in the field of study of the non-Christian and non-Jewish minorities in the Middle East.1 Moreover, the focus of the scholarship, as well as that of international human rights institutions, has primarily been on the rights of religious and ethnic minorities.
The idea to publish this volume was partly inspired by the ... | 
