The Yezidis
Eszter Spät
Saqi
Little is known about the Yezidis, an ancient and enigmatic mountain people of Kurdistan who have been unjustly labelled ‘Devil-worshippers’ and persecuted through the ages. Eszter Spat lived in their midst over several journeys, observing and recording their ways of life. The result is one of the first detailed surveys of Yezidi culture to appear in English.
The Yezidis’ distinctive religious oral tradition incorporates motifs from Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Gnosticism. They are monotheists but revere their protector, the Peacock Angel - a being inaccurately associated with Satan by outsiders.
In Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the Yezidis’ resolutely traditional culture endured radical changes including forced resettlement, geographical isolation and the political fallout from two Gulf wars. More recently, Spat shows, the pervasive influence of modern media culture is having possibly further-reaching effects. Proud to be known as ‘the original Kurds’, the Yezidis have also long supported the creation of an independent Kurdistan.
The author has been privileged with very rare access to some of Yezidi culture’s holiest sites and rituals. Together with an insightful analysis ofYezidi practices and beliefs, Spat documents the increasing demands of modernisation on one of the oldest ethnic minorities of the Middle East, which continues to endure despite many attempts at eradication over the centuries.
Eszter Spat is a Hungarian scholar who has extensively researched
Yezidi history and culture. | 
