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Contemporary Social Identities
Philip Kreyenbroek's Yezidism in Europe is the third volume in what could be termed a "series on Yezidi religion.â[euro] Yezidis are a Kurdish-speaking religious minority that originally lived in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Armenia, and Georgia. In the past few decades, political upheavals and economic difficulties have forced many members of the community to migrate to Western Europe (primarily Germany) and the states of the former Soviet Union. In their new environments, they take on multiple minority identities, not only as "Turkishâ[euro] or "Iraqi' migrants (depending on their country of origin) but also as "Kurdsâ[euro] and "adherents of Yezidism,â[euro] a faith that is as radically different from Christianity as it is from the Sunni Islam that is practiced by Muslim Kurds. Because Yezidi religion is based not on books but rather on oral tradition, it does not fit into the confines of either Islam or any other of the religions of so-called "Peoples of the Book.â[euro] This difference was the cause of considerable persecution in the past and led to Yezidis living on the social peripheries of their respective homelands.
The first two volumes published by Kreyenbroek (Yezidism: Its Background, Observances and Textual Tradition [Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1995]; and God and Sheikh Adi are Perfect: Sacred Poems and Religious Narratives from the Yezidi Tradition [Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 2005]) introduced the academic public to the Yezidi religious oral tradition, complete with the translation of a number of Yezidi sacred texts from Iraq. This third volume concentrates more on...