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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 April 2025
Early researchers of Yezidis, a small religious minority of the Middle East, often noted with dismay that Yezidis did not say or know prayers. This observation is partially supported by modern-day research, as knowledge of orally transmitted religious texts and their performance is mostly limited to people recognized as religious experts. However, there exists a special sub-genre of prayers which are known and recited by “ordinary” Yezidis. Although they are referred to as “prayers” (dua), these texts do not constitute part of formal religious performances during ceremonial occasions. They could better be described as verbal charms or incantations aimed at healing sickness or warding off evil. This article gives a translation of four previously unrecorded such “prayers”, describes their role in oral tradition, and finally shows how they are now being transformed from performed (and practical) oral religion to written heritage by the younger generation.
1 G.P. Badger, The Nestorians and Their Rituals: With the Narrative of a Mission to Mesopotamia and Coordistan in 1842–1844, vol. 1 (London: Joseph Masters, 1852), 117–8.
2 Badger, The Nestorians, 115–6.
3 P.G. Kreyenbroek, God and Sheikh Adi Are Perfect: Sacred Poems and Religious Narratives from the Yezidi Tradition (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005), 70.
4 This is probably a reference to the (forged) manuscripts of the alleged Yezidi sacred books, the Splendour or Revelation (Jilwe) and the Black Book (Mesḥefa Resh), which he describes on pages 145–52. In reality, the Yezidi religion has until recently been exclusively transmitted through oral tradition. (On the alleged Yezidi sacred books see A. Mingana, “Devil-worshippers: their beliefs and their sacred books”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Jul. 1916, 505–26; J. Guest, Survival among the Kurds: A History of Yezidis (London: Kegan Paul International, 1993), 146–63; P.G. Kreyenbroek, Yezidism, Its Background, Observances and Textual Tradition (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1995) 14–5.
5 R.H. Empson, The Cult of the Peacock Angel (London: Witherby, 1928), 79.
6 E.S. Drower, The Peacock Angel (London: Murray, 1941), 92.
7 The only time I saw prayer said (always by religious experts) before and after eating was during ritual meals, for example when the Baba Sheikh went on his customary round of visiting villages (see E. Spät, The Yezidis (London: Saqi Books, 2004) 60–61) or during the ritual of “Parading the Peacock”, when the sanjak, the sacred symbol of the Peacock Angel is taken around the villages, accompanied by religious leaders and qewwals, who perform rituals. (See the documentary Following the Peacock http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3Y8CXxJEv4 17.15–17.42 and 31.44–31.55 (accessed 16 February 2024)). I have never seen individual Yezidis pray before the meal, though on one occasion the son of a religious leader berated me, more in jest than seriously, for not saying a prayer before lunch (neither did he).
8 Yezidis usually refer to such people (of both genders) as çilgirti, “those who keep the forty”, that is the forty days of fast in winter and summer (this is not expected of common Yezidis, only of religious leaders, but common people of exceptional devotion may also opt to do so).
9 No other source mentions praying to the rising and setting moon, nor have any of my informants referred to such a thing. It is likely that Lescot misunderstood something.
10 Sheikh Shems, one of the Seven Great Angels, is associated with the sun, and hence with the light (nûr) of God. Many personal prayers/supplications seeking help and healing are addressed to him, and so is the Morning Prayer, which should theoretically be said turning towards the rising sun. (On the Seven Great Angels and Sheikh Shems see Kreyenbroek, Yezidism, 97–9.)
11 R. Lescot, Enquète sur Les Yezidis de Syrie et du Sjebel Sindjār (Beirut: Institut Français de Damas, 1938), 70.
12 Lescot, Enquète sur Les Yezidis, 70, n. 1.
13 For English translations of Yezidi sacred texts see Kreyenbroek, Yezidism and God and Sheikh Adi; E. Spät, Late Antique Motifs in Yezidi Oral Tradition (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2010); K. Omarkhali, The Yezidi Religious Textual Tradition: From Oral to Written (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2017). The Yezidi periodical Lalish, published in Duhok (Kurdistan Region of Iraq), also publishes Yezidi texts in English translation from time to time (these, however, are not easily available outside Iraqi Kurdistan).
14 See Spät, Late Antique Motifs, 104–5.
15 See Kreyenbroek, God and Sheikh Adi, 48–51.
16 These two prayers (consisting of 45 and 56 lines, respectively) are included among the nineteen sacred poems published by Kreyenbroek in his first book, Yezidism, indicating that his Yezidi sources considered these among the most important religious texts. Kreyenbroek’s second volume of Yezidi sacred texts contains “The Prayer of Belief”, “The Prayer of Agreement”, “The Prayer of Pilgrimage” and “The Prayer to Sheikh Shems”. Omarkhali’s list of sacred texts also contains a long list of various texts referred to as duʿa or prayer (Omarkhali, Yezidi Textual Tradition, 485–502).
17 Religious experts claim that some of these poems may take half an hour or even an hour to recite. While this seems an exaggeration, most sacred poems would certainly necessitate an effort to memorize.
18 Omarkhali, speaking of religious experts in Armenia, spells the word as ʿulimdar, reflecting the Arabic root of the word (Omarkhali, Yezidi Textual Tradition, 139). However, Sinjari Yezidis in Iraq, who often use this term to refer to religious experts, pronounce it as ʿalemdar.
19 Yezidi society has three (endogamous) castes: the two “priestly” castes of sheikhs and pîrs, and the caste of murids or commoners. Each Yezidi must have a sheikh and a pîr, a socio-religious relationship which is usually inherited within families.
20 Sheikhs and pîrs are supposed to recite sacred texts upon the birth and death of their murids as well as other important occasions. In reality, these days there are many people in the priestly castes who no longer know sacred texts. A salient example is the pîr family of Mem Shivan, who are the guardians of the important shrine complex of Mem Shivan in Northern Iraq, near the town of Duhok. Though the inhabitants of many surrounding villages “belong” to Mem Shivan, meaning that they are buried there, the members of the family can no longer recite the hymns and prayers associated with funerals. (As an older female member of the family has told me, her parents still knew some hymns, but she had never learnt them.)
21 The Yezidi community of northern Iraq can be roughly divided into two distinct communities. Those living east of the river Tigris, in and on the borders of the Kurdistan Region, and those from Sinjar, living on and around Sinjar Mountain near the Iraqi–Syrian border. In August 2014 it was the Sinjari community which came under the attack of the Islamic State, forcing several hundred thousand Yezidis to take refuge in the Kurdistan Region or seek asylum in Europe. The displacement of most of the Sinjari Yezidi community still continues, despite the military conquest of the Islamic State.
22 On the topic of religious experts see also Omarkhali, Yezidi Textual Tradition, 137–61.
23 M. Febvre, Theatre de la Turquie (Paris: Couterot, 1682), 365; N.M. Siouffi, “Notice sur le Chéikh ̉Adi et la Secte des Yézidis”, Journal Asiatique ser. 8, vol. 5, 1885, 92; Kreyenbroek, Yezidism, 133.
24 Just like feqîr, khirqe is originally a Sufi expression and refers to the rough cloak worn by Sufis. The investiture of khirqe symbolized a follower’s initiation into a Sufi order or path.
25 C. Allison, The Yezidi Oral Tradition in Iraqi Kurdistan (Richmond: Curzon Press, 2001), 34.
26 Kreyenbroek, God and Sheikh Adi, 15.
27 Kreyenbroek, God and Sheikh Adi, 21.
28 Anon., “The Yezidis (Ezidis) and Yezidism”, Lalish 32–3, Spring 2011, 8; Anon., “Yazidi”, Lalish 24, May 2006, 24.
29 M. Othman, “Izidy religion between the sun-worshipers and mysticism”, Lalish 36, 2012, 9; K. Salih, “The Yazidian religion as a religion of canonizing the elements of nature”, Lalish 38, 2013, 10; A.R. Mizouri, “Taj Al-Arifeen: Udday bin Musafir al-Kurdy al-Hakary Is not an Umayyad”, Lalish 28, 2008, 9.
30 http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-28686607 last accessed 3 March 2025; https://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-schwartz/the-yezid-sect-isis-targe_b_7542484.html last accessed 3 March 2025; https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/13/yazidi-religious-beliefs_n_5671903.html last accessed 3 March 2025.
31 On Sheikh Shems see footnote 10.
32 Tariqat originally means “path”, and is used to denote a Sufi order. My informants insisted that here it refers to Muslims, though I have never heard Muslims referred to as (the tribe of) tariqat in other contexts.
33 Although some have been included in Kurdish-language collections of sacred texts by Yezidis. Cf. the list of published prayer compiled by Omarkhali, Yezidi Textual Tradition, 487, 492–3, 496.
34 Omarkhali, Yezidi Textual Tradition, 106. However, while most of these charm-prayers aim at healing, not all do (for example, prayer against ants was mentioned by a Sinjari informant).
35 J. Roper, “Towards a poetics, rhetorics and proxemics of verbal charms”, Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore 24, 2003, 10.
36 On the decline of religious experts or alemdars even in the Sinjar see E. Spät, “Displacement, loss and transformation: Yezidi ritual life in Iraq”, in K. Omarkhali and P. Kreyenbroek (eds), Yezidism: Between Continuity and Transformation (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz), 111–19. On the topic of scripturalization see E. Spät, “Religious oral tradition and literacy among the Yezidis of Iraq”, Anthropos 103/2, 2008, 393–40; Omarkhali, Yezidi Textual Tradition, 255–73.
37 On the legendary figure of Hamu Shiru see N. Fuccaro, The Other Kurds: Yazidis in Colonial Iraq (London: Tauris, 1999), 33–4 and passim. Interestingly, the section of the family living in the Kurdistan Region were not feqirs, despite sharing common ancestors.
38 Transcribing the text posed several difficulties. The texts of the prayers do not always follow the “formal rules” of Kurdish grammar. This is especially conspicuous in the case of word endings (the oblique form of nouns), probably because rhyming is more important. Furthermore, the vernacular spoken in Northern Iraq differs from what is accepted as literary Kurdish. Following the advice of my linguist colleague, Baydaa Mustafa, I have opted to transcribe the prayers as they were pronounced, rather than according to rules of literary Kurdish. I thank colleagues Baydaa Mustafa and Khana Omarkhali for their help with the transcription and translation of the recordings.
39 Recited by Tamina Hecî Hecî https://catalog.osaarchivum.org/catalog/k4vGmyBpWw.
40 While the prayer was referred to as “dua dûbişkê”, with dûbişk being the Kurdish word for scorpion, the incantation used the Arabic word ʿaqrab, however the consonant q was pronounced as a kh (x according to Kurdish orthography).
41 The women reciting the text insisted that it went kulu jehr, with kulu meaning hemî or “all” (he is all poison) in Arabic. However, Khaled Aomar (another native of Sinjar with education both in English and Arabic), later insisted that this was wrong, and the text says kul û jehr, that is, “wound/inflammation and poison”.
42 My informants said that debî(b) means “animal” or “violent animal”. Khaled Aomar later elaborated that it refers to animals like snakes, scorpions, or even ants among Sinjaris. He added that this is an old Yezidi word and younger people probably would not even know it. (It is not in the dictionaries.)
43 The transcription follows the recitation, consequently it contains mahar instead of mar (the usual term for snake in Kurdish).
44 Later some of the women argued that one should say “Ya Şex Şems” (Oh Sheikh Shems) instead.
45 Recited by Kamo Hasim Xidir https://catalog.osaarchivum.org/catalog/5OWOnm5JlA.
46 Kamo, who recited the charm, and the other women present did not know what “haaş” exactly meant, but it is likely to be a variant of the word “êş”, that is “pain”.
47 Literally “are” even though the subject (dest/hand) is singular.
48 The transcription here reproduces the local use of grammar, which differs from “official” Kurdish grammar.
49 Recited by Tamina Hecî Hecî https://catalog.osaarchivum.org/catalog/73692wQBvk.
50 Șakhr el-Jinn is known from Muslim legends as the evil jinn who stole the magic ring of Solomon (enabling him to command the jinn) from King Solomon, see E.W. Lane (trans.), The Thousand and One Nights: Commonly Called in England The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments (London: Charles Knight and Co., 1889), 117 and W.M. Brinner (trans.), ʿArā’is al-Majālis fi Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyā or “Lives of the Prophets” as recounted by Abū Isḥāq Ahmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Thalaʿbī (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 539–40. He is also said to be the king of the jinn (Brinner, Lives, 597), and the one with the most experience and learning (Brinner, Lives, 516). He is known as Sakhre Div in Iran, while Iranian Kurdish folktales attribute to Sakhre Div/Sakhre Jinn various magical objects, for example the “hat of invisibility” (personal communication by Rita-Johanna Häring). In Yezidi lore, however, there is no reference to this legend, and Sakhre Jinn’s figure is associated with the Yezidi Holy Being, Sheikh Shems. Sheikh Shems is said to have been his “brother-of-hereafter”, an important Yezidi religio-social institution (Kreyenbroek, Yezidism, 136), and a cave, or rather a chamber carved underground, consecrated to Sakhre Jinn adjoins the shrine of Sheikh Shems both in the holy valley of Lalish and in the village of Bozan.
51 “Sakhr” means “rock” in Arabic.
52 Kan may literally mean “source, origin”, but it is likely that here we are simply dealing with rhyming voces magicae with no real meaning.
53 Can (pronounced “jan” in English) means soul. However, according to my informants, the next words, Sakra can, actually refer to Sakhre Jinn (the vowel “i” seems to have been changed to an “a” here for the sake of rhyming), so it is possible that can here refers to jinn, though Yezidis do not use the Arabic collective form of jann for jinn.
54 Bedele Feqîr Hecî published a version of this prayer in his book Bawerî û Mitologiya Êzidîyan (Dihok: Hawar, 2002), 212. His version is quite different and starts with the nonsensical voces magicae “Wehan, wekan, wecan, exusixran, cireytu, rasel ban”.
55 My informants said that Dawdî was a xas or holy being, but they could not give any further information. Also known as Dawûdê Derman (Kreyenbroek, Yezidism, 114–5) and Dawidî bin Derman (Omarkhali, Yezidi Textual Tradition, 90), he is an important holy figure with several sacred texts, qewls and beyts, ascribed to him. However, his role in the prayer or connection to curing is not clear. Khaled Aomar suggested that this may be another name for Sakhre Jinn, but this is very unlikely. One possible explanation may be his name, Dawud/Dawdî son of Derman. Derman (still used by Yezidis as a first name) literally means “medicine, cure” which may have associated this figure with healing. In fact, the version of Bedele Feqîr Hecî has “Dawîdi bi derman”, that is, “Dawîd of medicine” (Hecî, Bawerî, 212).
56 Recited by Kamo Hasim Xidir https://catalog.osaarchivum.org/catalog/Ryv82pJEWZ.
57 According to a Sinjari informant, this is a mythical river which makes anyone entering it forget his past sorrows.
58 The Kurdish text uses two different words for “root”.
59 The transcription here reproduces the local use of grammar, which differs from “official” Kurdish grammar.
60 “Şîrr” is not a word, it simply imitates the sound of peeing, while it also rhymes with mîz, that is, pee.
61 For example: https://www.yazda.org/culture; the group Xwe Nas Bike Ezidy (“Yezidi, know yourself”) created a great number of videos available on Facebook and YouTube in the late 2010s, though they no longer seem to be active (some of their photos can still be found on their Instagram page, https://www.instagram.com/xwa.nasbka.ezdi/, but the link provided is no longer working). A great number of recitals of sacred texts can also be found on private Facebook pages.
62 P.G. Kreyenbroek, “Storytelling, history and communal memory in pre-Islamic Iran”, in C. Allison and P.G. Kreyenbroek (eds), Remembering the Past in Iranian Societies (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013), 21.
63 Similarly, young people often brought out their Yezidi religion textbooks when discussing any question to do with Yezidi religion.
64 I have known the young man in question since 2011 and neither he nor his family demonstrated any interest in sacred texts, though they were appreciative of my research and very helpful.
65 For more on the post-ISIS “religious renaissance” see E. Spät, “Persecution and the development of Yezidi ritual life”, Kurdish Studies 4/2, 2016, 163–70 and Spät, “Displacement”, 119–27.
66 https://www.gulanmedia.com/en/story/304894/lalish-cultural-center-festival-showcases-yazidi-kurdish-art-and-heritage-in-duhok (accessed 14 February 2024).
67 Their Facebook page can be found under “mirzo music”, https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063744398740.
69 https://medium.com/usaid-2030/reviving-sinjar-4452df16ae21 (accessed 3 March 2025). And on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mirzomusic9/reel/C4VkAD2ssSt/?locale=id.
70 https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=689696523298087&set=a.513353657599042 and https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=676947074573032&set=a.513353657599042 (accessed 14 February 2024).