The Rise of Ethnonationalist Identities within the Religious Minorities

The political concepts of nationalism and ethnonationalism may assume different meanings among researchers, as there is no ultimate consensus. Furthermore, notions of nationalism and the nation are often linked. For some, the sense of belonging to a nation is a mental status characterized by absolute loyalty of the individual to the nation. However, this concept is not linked to the concept of the state because it is a psycho-cultural concept (Lee, Pratto, and Johnson Reference Lee, Pratto and Johnson2011, 1029–1064), which means that a state can exist without a nation and a nation without a state. Nevertheless, the differences between the ethnic affiliations of human groups and their feelings of belonging to a national identity or group must be considered. These differences belong to the fields of ethnicity, anthropology, and sociology. While notions of national identity, nationhood, and ethnicity and their definitions and their comparisons may not yet have been applied to religious minorities in Iraq, they remain indispensable for understanding the situation of minorities.Footnote ⁶ To this end, we may refer to social scientists such as Max Weber (Reference Weber1978, 389, 921–926) and Anthony Smith (Reference Smith1991; 21–31; Reference Smith1996; Reference Smith2003) for their concepts of nationalism and national identity and how they correlate.

The nationalist and sectarian aims of contemporary Iraqi majority groups, namely the Arab Shi’a, Arab Sunni, and Sunni Kurds, and internal political developments of multiple dimensions, created contradictory outcomes that increased the role of religion in politics in Iraq, wittingly or unwittingly. Thus, in Iraq, life in general and social issues in particular have been subject to religious or Islamic law to a greater extent. This development has provided strong incentives for religious minorities to either support the central authority, which has claimed to be secularist at different junctures, or to lean politically toward Iraqi leftism. Overall, the affiliations of the religious minorities in Iraq have not taken on the nationalist characteristics of either of the warring parties, meaning neither Arab nor Kurdish. Prior to this period, religious minorities practiced their social and religious customs and were bound together by a coherent religious identity. This made them self-defining communities with distinct core identities. The nationalist affiliation of the religious minorities, which had an evident political dimension, began to emerge only in the early 1960s. It came about due to political developments after the coup of 1963 and the Kurdish movement, and was also the product of domestic conflicts and external factors. This period, generally called the Liberal National Movements in Iraq and the Middle East, reached its climax in the 1960s. It both affected the religious minorities and was affected by them. The 1960s can be considered a period of great change in the region in general and in Iraq in particular. It was at this time that Arab nationalism peaked and a number of the Arab nationalist and pan-Arabism parties came to power. It was also the time when the armed conflict between the central government and the Kurdish movement (Aziz Reference Aziz2011, 66–70), intensified and continued for many years.

Despite the Yazidi’s refusal to submit completely to the laws and policies of the country, of which their revolts, movements, and mutinies during the period of the Iraqi monarchy were examples, the Yazidi had never publicly gravitated toward any nationalist movement, be it Arab or Kurdish. For instance, in the 1930s, although Khoybun, the Kurdish nationalist association in exile, idealized Yazidis as the one true Kurdish religion, it did not have prominent Yazidi members. Some sources claim that Hajo Aga Havrki, the chieftain of the Havrkan Kurdish tribe and a Khoybun member, was a Yazidi, but it is generally accepted that he was not openly so (van Bruinessen Reference van Bruinessen1994, 23–24; Fuccaro Reference Fuccaro1994, 222–240).

Yazidis’ apparent lack of interest in the nationalist wave of the time was multifaceted, with one primary reason for it being that religion rather than ethnonationalist thought dominated national discourse in Iraq. Furthermore, a clannish and tribal character prevailed within the political and social movements of Iraqis at the time. Thus, belonging to a political party or organization was often viewed as an expression of loyalty to the clan or tribe of that party’s or organization’s president. In addition, there were few mass conversions to any of the political ideologies espoused by these movements, making membership an individual decision. The hitherto unknown claims that emerged in the 1960s that the Yazidis belonged to either the Arab ethnonationalist identity or the Kurdish ethnonationalist identity were disputed. Such claims were the product of internal and external aspects of the conflicts and originated in the political discourse of the nationalist movements.Footnote ⁷

Accordingly, the Yazidis’ political loyalty and their participation or membership in any of the political parties in Iraq were primarily driven by their loyalty to their own tribe or religious leaders. In the republican era, the majority of the Yazidi community consisted of illiterate peasants who had just begun to enter official schools. Due to poverty and isolation, a lack of political awareness prevailed, not least since an educated Yazidi class did not yet exist. Thus, the loyalty of the Yazidis belonged to the mir (prince) and the spiritual council. It is well known in Yazidi tradition that the mir is the supreme sovereign of what is known by the Yazidi as the millat (a Yazidi concept meaning “nation and people”) in Iraq and worldwide. Furthermore, to the Yazidi, the prince is sovereign in both worldly and religious affairs. He is the leader of the spiritual council and the custodian of the temple of Lalish. The quasi-absolute loyalty to the prince in Yazidi community ensured that the decision of the prince would garner the support of the majority of the Yazidis.

Changing Political Attitudes among Yazidis toward the Conflicting Parties in Iraq

The Kurdish Revolt against the Iraqi state broke out on September 11, 1961, after which Iraq was clearly heading toward civil war. In the same month, the government, with some allied Kurdish Muslim tribes, attacked the Kurdish Barzani tribe and Christian towns close to the Barzan region. This, along with the war in Kurdistan, forced about 6,000 Christians to leave their districts in 1960s (Schmidt Reference Schmidt1964, 79–82).

This struggle and its consequences made the Christians and Yazidis in Kurdistan and Northern Iraq’s disputed areas assume different attitudes toward the KDP and the Iraqi Communist Party. Some members of the religious minorities even joined the Kurdish armed revolt, and the KDP continued to exert influence over the Yazidis and Christians and other minorities for many years thereafter, in part due to the strong participation of some of the minority groups.Footnote ⁸ This presents a compelling question as to why the change in attitude of religious minorities, particularly attitudes toward the Kurds, occurred at this time. Prior to these events, these minorities, especially the Christians, perceived the Kurds as enemies due to the active participation of a number of Kurdish clans in suppressing past Assyrian movements, especially in the massacres in 1933 (Malek Reference Malek1935, 118–119; Stafford Reference Stafford2004).Footnote ⁹ The question here is why those minorities fought alongside their enemies and what they hoped to gain by joining the fight.

Firstly, Iraq’s central government failed to address the violent crimes committed by pan-Nationalist Arab currents against Christians and others after the Nationalist-Islamist Revolt, namely, the “Shawwaf Revolt” in Mosul in 1959.Footnote ¹⁰ Secondly, the territory where religious minority populations (mainly Christian, Kaka’i, and Yazidi) were concentrated—which became known as the “disputed areas” after 2003—became the battleground of the conflicting parties (the Iraqi central government and the Kurdish movement). This was primarily because of its strategic location (Rush and Priestland Reference Rush and Priestland2001, 515).Footnote ¹¹ Peoples living in these areas therefore did not have much of a choice: they could either join one of the conflicting parties or migrate elsewhere. Thirdly, the Kurdish movement leader, Mustafa Barzani, forced the religious minorities to side with his movement. He had intentions and comprehensive strategies for gaining the support of all the clans, parties, religious minorities such as the Christians, Yazidis, Kaka’is, and Jews. This marked the first time that a leader of the Kurdish movement gained support from the minorities. Meanwhile, religious fanaticism was at a high point among the Kurdish populous. Mustafa Barzani toured the area in a rigorous political campaign and demanded that they either support the Kurdish movement or hand over their weapons to him. As Donabed (Reference Donabed2015, 143) has pointed out, similarly to the other minorities in the North, the Assyrian (Christians) also found themselves having to either fight or flee. Consequently, about 4,500 Christians left their homes and migrated to other areas (Rubin Reference Rubin2007, 369–370). It can be argued that Christians played a minor role here, since they had neither the backing nor the numbers in the Kurdish struggle. It should be noted that Qasim was not their enemy. Initially, the Christians remained neutral; this changed, however, after Barzani campaigned for the Kurdish cause in the northern regions, attempting to recruit Assyrians to his cause, prior to the outbreak of the war in 1961 (Donabed Reference Donabed2015, 142–143).

Minorities also became politically involved elsewhere, mainly in the Communist Party. As early as the 1940s and 1950s, some members of the Christian and Jewish minorities occupied leadership positions within the Communist Party. In time, many ethnonationalist and religious minority group members came to be involved in the party. The party’s support for the Kurdish Revolt greatly influenced the religious minorities. Significantly, the Communist Party characteristically included more religious minority group members than did any other political current of the time by virtue of its program and ideology. The party was also historically significant in that it functioned beyond the prevalent sectarian and ethnic divisions in Iraq. In addition, it raised doubts about the theory of a single Arab nationalism adopted by pan-Arabist nationalists and other rightist Arab parties. Thus, the Communist Party attracted Iraqis who did not support pan-Arabism or Arab nationalism. This was particularly true of Iraqi religious minorities. It was the only major party that offered a political alternative to Arab nationalism.

The Creation of the Yazidi Identity

In terms of religious identity, some claim that the Yazidi religion comes from the Sabean-Mandaeans, citing the similarity of rituals in both religions. Others claim that the Yazidi are of Christian origin, on the grounds that baptism, belief in Christ, and respect for churches are common to both religions (Layard Reference Layard1867, 198–199, 205). Claims that their origin is Assyrian are based on commonalities, such as women’s traditional dress, the presence of statues and symbols in the Yazidi religion similar to those found in the ancient Assyrian religion, and their present location close to the Assyrian capital of Nineveh. In addition, anthropological differences in the shape of the body and the lineaments of the Yazidis have been observed (Ainsworth Reference Ainsworth1861, 17–18).

With regard to the political and ethno-religious identity of Yazidis, it is important to note that in many parts of the world, distinct peoples and groups originate in and occupy areas that overlap geographically and demographically, and thus they possibly share ethnic origin. Because of significant and substantive historical factors, religious or doctrinal differences may be highlighted at a certain juncture so that separate groups and identities are created, altered, or crystallized. This was the case in Yugoslavia, whose peoples—the Serbians (Orthodox Christians), Croats (Roman Catholics), and Bosnians (Muslims)—shared common ethnic and linguistic origins (See: Singleton Reference Singleton1989) and became bound together within a single state in the aftermath of World Wars I and II. However, these three groups also remained separate from each other by religion, not least due to doctrinal and national discrimination on the part of the strongest group. This led the others to identify with and foster their own distinct cultures based on feelings of affiliation to religion or doctrine. Ultimately, this led to the formation of individual states, which made each group independent from one another.Footnote ¹²

Another example of this phenomenon can be found in India and Pakistan, whose peoples once shared the same nationality. In time, however, for substantive reasons, they came to emphasize their separate religious identities. Today the Indian subcontinent is divided into two states, with Pakistan a separate Muslim country. India also saw the emergence of another distinct ethno-religious identity, namely the Sikh. The Sikh religion appeared in the 16th century on the Indian subcontinent (Takhar Reference Takhar2005). Its followers differed from Muslims and other Indians on religious and social grounds, and abolished the Indian caste system and other basic tenets of the Hindu religion, for example. Irrespective of their ethnic or national affiliation, the Sikhs have become a distinct ethno-religious identity.

Similarly, the Yazidis can be regarded as a group that shares many linguistic and ethnic characteristics with its neighboring peoples. However, over time, the Yazidi developed into a separate and distinct ethno-religious identity.

Distinct Core Identity

Religious communities can be said to exhibit diverse identities. The Yazidi community presents many layers of identity. This is geographical, as is reflected in the Yazidi sub-identity demarcation Shingali (Sinjari) and Walati. It is also tribal, and features sub-sect groups, such as the Chilka and the Faqirs. Similarly, Yazidi community is characterized by caste-like groupings such as the Pir and the Murid. This diversity of identity within Yazidi society is probably also characteristic of Sunni and Shi’i societies. As in other groups, diversity within Yazidi community goes hand in hand with core Yazidi identity. Within all of the subcategories listed above, a larger awareness of identifying as something called “Yazidi” prevails.

However, in the eras prior to the emergence of Arab and Kurdish nationalism, before the need arose to assert “Yazidi-ness” in the face of “Kurdish-ness” or “Arab-ness,” perhaps people constructed their identities primarily in relationship to other Yazidi social groups, based on tribe or caste, for existence. Because their whole world was constructed within Yazidi community (and not vis-à-vis Kurdish Muslims, for example) their identity categories were all Yazidi. Many probably lived their entire lives without any contact with non-Yazidis, so naming a “Yazidi” identity per se was not urgently important in their daily lives, nor did they feel impelled to assert it in the face of an external challenge to that identity. Internal and external identity domains may have been defined in a completely different way; they might have seen Yazidis from a neighboring village as the main external category, and might have identified primarily with their own village. In essence, therefore, identity is not fixed, but rather changes. There is a coherent Yazidi identity, but there is also tremendous diversity within the Yazidi community, which can also change over time. Yazidi identity is very complex and rich, as there are a range of identities within it.

The Elements of Yazidi Core Identity

Ethnonationalism of Yazidi in Separate Regions

On the issue of nationalism and the ethnic affiliation of the Yazidis, it is of vital importance to point out that the British mandate in Iraq considered the Yazidis to be a small nation: “the Yazidis: this people is also indigenous to the country that it now inhabits, and was also treated as a small Nation by the Turkish [Ottoman] Empire” (Rush and Priestland Reference Rush and Priestland2001, 580).Footnote ¹⁸ It should also be pointed out that in the republics of the Soviet Union, the Yazidis, and the Muslim Kurds were considered ethnonationally distinguishable, meaning they were separate nationalities. The Yazidi were thus registered in official documents as an independent ethnonationality, and on their civil identity documents, their nationality was registered as Yazidi. Similarly, in 1919, the Yazidis were granted permission by the Georgian government to register an organization specific to themselves, called the Yazidi Ethno-Nationality Consultative Council, in Tbilisi (Pirbari and Rzgoyan Reference Pirbari and Rzgoyan2014, 182), which indicates that the Yazidis saw themselves as a distinct nationality.

Educated Yazidis in the Soviet Union considered themselves representatives of the Yazidi nation in their publications. They also considered their dialect of Kurmanji to be the Yazidi language Yazidiki.Footnote ¹⁹ However, during the era of Joseph Stalin many measures were adopted to resolve the national issue (Stalin n.d., 513; Stalin 1953, 42). Stalin’s efforts to establish his authority gradually saw linguistic and nationalist authorities in the Soviet Union emerge and gain importance, which ultimately led to the unification of the country.Footnote ²⁰ Some Yazidi writers and educated Yazidis were influenced by this development, and in their writings and publications they declared themselves Kurdish, despite having claimed in the past that they were Yazidi (Pirbari and Rzgoyan Reference Pirbari and Rzgoyan2014, 183).

In addition to the influence of Stalin’s policies, the Yazidi may have begun calling themselves Kurds because religion per se had come to be considered undesirable in the Soviet Union. These Yazidi writers and academics, therefore, went about publishing their writings under the rubric of Kurdish literature and heritage.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1993, many Yazidis in the Caucasus have not made a sharp distinction between Yazidi and Kurdish ethnonational identity. In the meantime, however, many Yazidi leaders in Armenia disavow Kurdish roots. For instance, in the communication by A. F. Godfrey (Reference Godfrey2006), one such leader “characterized his own pro-Armenian position as a question of loyalty to the government” in gratitude that it “finally recognized the Yazidi as a distinct ethnicity.”Footnote ²¹ This was a significant juncture, “after years of Soviet insistence that the Yazidi were Kurds,” which marked a turnaround for Yazidis trans-ethnonationalism.

The Historical “Otherization”: The Stereotypical Image of the Yazidi in the Social Mentality of the Muslim Kurds

Several factors caused the Yazidis to become more socially isolated—and thus further consolidated their own identity—and widened the differences between them and the social and religious-Islamic environment that surrounded them. In addition to historical “otherization” and persecution, the stereotypical outlook that the Muslim Kurds and Arabs maintained toward the Yazidis, which was evident in their accusations of devil-worship and impurity, restricted the Yazidis in their identities. Thus, separated from a collective identity based on ethnonationalist considerations (whether Kurdish or Iraqi), the Yazidis in Iraq were treated as second-class citizens. The stereotypical image of Yazidis in the social mentality of Muslim Kurds is reflected in a description of the Yazidi by Amin, an educated Kurd who worked as an interpreter for the writer David Adamson. Amin was assigned by Mustafa Barzani to accompany Adamson (Reference Adamson1964, 100) on his journey through the Kurdish areas in Iraq in the early 1960s. When Adamson asked his Kurdish interpreter whether he had seen the Yazidi tribes in the northern areas, and according to Adamson, the interpreter told him that

This opinion is an example of the prevailing view of the Yazidis in Kurdish social milieus, especially in its description of the Yazidi as devil-worshippers. It reflects the image of the Yazidi rooted in the mentality of the Muslim Kurds as impure people. It is very significant that these stereotypes of Yazidis also come not only from Arabs but also from Kurds, who claim affinity with the Yazidi in various ways and in a range of contexts.

There are many other manifestations of negative attitudes toward and ill-treatment of Yazidis exist in Sunni-Kurdish social circles that constitute discrimination and negative stereotypes of the Yazidis. For instance, it is forbidden for Kurdish Muslims to eat food that has been touched by Yazidis. This means that Yazidis cannot open restaurants in Kurdish cities.Footnote ²² Yazidis are described by many Kurds as unclean.

Despite the myth that the Yazidi do not allow the pronunciation of any word that starts with sh-, mentioned in many studies (Eagleton Reference Eagleton1988, 12; Hasani Reference al-Hasani1982, 95), this supposed prohibition is untrue. Indeed, the name of the most popular religious figure in the Yazidi religion, Sheikh-Adi, begins with sh-. There are also many names and religious centers used by Yazidi people that start with this phoneme, such as Sh-e-shims, Shikhsin, and Sharfaddin. However, this myth has been ascribed to the Yazidi as an absolute truth and has been maintained as a false stereotype of the Yazidi.

Are Yazidis a Different Kind of Kurd or a Different Ethnicity? Manifestations of Similarities and Differences

On the question of Yazidi origins and ethnicity, most scholars espouse the view the Yazidi are related to the Kurds ethnically.Footnote ²³ However, the Yazidi consider the Kurds different from them. Yazidis are not considered Kurdish Muslims, and they emphasize their different identity with various external signs (see examples below). Although a clear boundary has existed between Sunni Kurds and Yazidis, its significance has varied over time. An even bigger issue—and one which is more controversial for contemporary Kurds—is whether all Kurdish-speaking people identify as Kurdish or whether Kurdish identity is, in fact, an invention of the nationalist era. Non-Yazidi Kurmanji speakers in Sinjar are usually called Kurmanj people by Yazidi local people, not “Kurds.” The claim, therefore, that all Kurmanji, Bahdini, and Sorani speakers who reside in a region that extends from Turkey to Iran identify themselves as a single nationalist identity, namely Kurdish, is untenable. It should be mentioned that many tribes spread across the Kurdish regions of Iraq, Turkey, and Syria. These territories appear to have had Yazidi as well as Muslim segments (Sykes Reference Sykes1908) probably due to the gradual conversion of Yazidi tribes to Islam that occurred during the spread of Islam (van Bruinessen Reference van Bruinessen1994, 22).

Although the Yazidi share some cultural features with Muslim Kurds, especially those who speak Kurmanji, there are many differences between them. Many villages in mountainous areas where the Yazidi have dwelled have names with Yazidi connotations. Those areas came to be abandoned by the Yazidi due to enforced land seizures and Islamization by Kurdish-Sunni Muslims. Under such policies, many Yazidis were forced either to convert to Islam to save their lives or to flee to the plains, where they established new villages that had the same ancient names.Footnote ²⁴ Those Yazidis who settled on the plains planted mainly wheat and barley and depended on the seasonal rains, whereas the Muslim Kurds who settled in mountainous areas, where water and natural rivers are plentiful, planted trees and fruit.

The Yazidi community became a stable, rural one that was relatively removed from the urban areas in which Arabs and Muslim Kurds lived. Interestingly, religious minorities, especially the Yazidis, Christians, and Kaka’is are primarily located in an area that has become a disputed territory of northern Iraq, a buffer zone separating the Arabs in the south and the Muslim Kurds in the north. The demographic development of this buffer zone into a region inhabited by these minorities can also be interpreted as the result of constant religious pressure by the Arab Muslim tribes in the south and the Kurdish Muslim tribes in the north. In essence, therefore, the region can be referred to as unwanted territory, for two reasons: its historical function as a buffer zone between two conflicting majorities and its lack of agricultural value. It is an arid region that is difficult to farm and to survive on, not least because water is scarce and drought is a constant threat. Furthermore, it lies between the mountains to the north and the desert to the south, two inhospitable, dangerous places to which the minorities might flee in times of crisis and armed conflict.

It should be mentioned that the Yazidi recognize the terms Kurd and Kurdish as referring to, and only to, the Muslim Kurds. The Yazidi of Sinjar still refer to the Kurdish as Muslim Kurds to define them as non-Yazidi, but this is not the case for all Yazidis. Some Walati Yazidis residing in the Sheikhan region after 1963 identify as Kurdish ethnic, for example. This is a method of differentiating themselves as a group different from the Kurdish Muslims. Moreover, it also indicates that, in the minds of the Yazidi, these terms are associated with Islam. This concept is still prevalent in the Yazidi social milieu, an understanding that may be considered one of the important factors that supports the Yazidi in regarding themselves as having an independent religion and ethnicity.

There is considerable controversy in political and social circles about the ethnic origins of the Yazidi (Ali Reference Ali2019). It can be assumed that if the Yazidi are to be regarded as Kurds in terms of ethnicity and ethnonationality, then an acute difference in terms of religion nevertheless remains. In other words, the main difference between the two cultures is religious. Various other groups share their Islamic religion with the Kurds, and this religious bond can be said to be stronger than the bond of mutual ethnicity. In turn, this places the Yazidi outside of a shared Kurdish collective consciousness.

While most Kurds are Sunni Muslim, the Yazidi practice a distinct religion that is rooted in ancient religions that precede Islam. The Yazidi religion clearly differs from Islam in terms of liturgy, religious rites and practices, and the social norms and mores of its adherents.Footnote ²⁵ If the Yazidi are to be considered to belong to the Kurdish ethnicity and thus the Kurdish nation, their historical separation from their ethnic brethren who converted to Islam must be taken into account. If the Yazidi were to be deemed Kurds, they would have to be Kurds of a different kind, as they cannot be categorized as Sunni Kurds for denominational reasons.

Many religions began as an original idea that then divides into diverse belief systems. Thus, over time, each belief system develops distinct cultural and social peculiarities, based on religious principles. Religion, at least in its beginning, stems from a theoretical idea, then turns into belief, and develops subsequently into an ideology. The same observation can be made for the development of nationalism. The nationalist idea, too, follows the same course, although its trajectories of time and place differ from that of religion. In many nationalist movements, nationalism beings as a new idea that ultimately becomes an ideology. In the case of Kurdish nationalist thought, the core concept was a shared ethnic origin of the nation from which many groups branched out for religious or linguistic reasons over time, so that each formed a special group different from the others.Footnote ²⁶ This concept allowed the formation of a sense of nationhood that includes distinctly different groups, such as the ‘Alawi, Feilis, Zazaki Kurds, and others, such as the Sunni Kurds and the Shi’i Kurds.

Among the Sunni Kurds in Iraq, various noteworthy factors have expanded the gap between social and political identity. This clearly has affected the course of the Kurdish nationalism movement that has been navigated by the nationalist Kurds in Iraq. Some new aspirations and trends call for local independence based on linguistic dialects, such as the Bahdinan and Sorani dialects. For instance, the Kurdistan region of Iraq was divided by the political powers on the basis of these linguistic differences (Gunter Reference Gunter1996, 228). The significance of the linguistic factor is also related in the Kurdish political parties. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK party, predominates almost exclusively in the Sorani-speaking regions, whereas the KDP carries the most weight in the regions where the Bahdinani dialect is mainly spoken. This signals that the two major current Kurdish political parties—the KDP and PUK, each of which considers itself one group—represents their areas on the basis of linguistic dialect (Zaman Reference Zaman2016, 10–11). In other words, Bahdinani people and Sorani people identify themselves as separate peoples.

Another factor has an indirect effect on these political divisions for the nationalist movements: the mysticism that has spread in Kurdistan, especially through the founder and chief of the PUK, Jalal Talabani, who belongs to the Qadiriyya Sufi order. The chief of the KDP, Massud Barzani, is a member of the Naqshabandiyya Sufi order.Footnote ²⁷ These two Sufi orders ascribe to the mystic ways that are widespread in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

No unified school of thought or theory can be established to accommodate the acute variability of the groups (in terms of size, religion, beliefs, or language) that are considered ethnically Kurdish by Kurdish nationalists. The inherent diversity of these peoples calls for a new theory to replace traditional ethnonationalist theories and variants that stem from outside the Islamic World. It should be borne in mind that the concept of nationalism is newer in the Middle East than elsewhere. Turkish, Iranian, and even Arab nationalism largely emerged after World War I, following the demise of the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire and its emphasis on Islam as the supreme focus of one’s loyalty, as opposed to loyalty to the empire. This has prompted the majority of Kurds to identify with Sunni religious unity, whereas religious minorities became more self-aware after the fall of Ottoman state.

Scholars who argue that the ethnonationalist identity of the Yazidi is Kurdish often refer to common factors such as the language, clothes, and kinship of various peoples in the region. Linguistically, the Yazidi are not homogenous, however. Although the majority of the Yazidis speak Kurmanji, some speak other languages such as the Bahzanian dialect, which is close to some Levantine Arabic dialects and is spoken by both Yazidis and Christians in the towns of Ba’shiqa and Bahzani. In terms of traditional dress, the customary Kurdish clothes are generally not worn by the Yazidi. The traditional attire of both Yazidi men and women, particularly in the Sinjar area, is distinctly different from their Kurdish counterparts. Interestingly, the same kind of clothing is worn by all three minorities, the Yazidis, Christians, and Jews, in the Nineveh Plain. Women’s clothing, in particular, differs greatly from that of Kurdish Muslim women. There is also clothing peculiar to the Yazidi men (Joseph Reference Joseph1919, 190–191). Further, they choose their own names from nature, such as Cholo, Mando, Khudeida, Khiro, and Jirdo for men, and Khokh-e, Sham-e, Mayan, and Khfsh-e for women. Such names are not found among the Muslim Kurds (Bois Reference Bois1966, 56). Many other external features distinguish the Yazidis from other peoples. Although wearing a long moustache is also characteristic of Kaka’is and other peoples in the Middle East, such as the Assyrians in the Hakkari Mountains, for example, in the case of the Yazidi, it is a religious obligation. In addition, religious idiosyncrasies, such as burial ceremonies, rites, and religious holidays that are unique to the Yazidi, forge their social and religious identity and strengthen their affiliation to their own group.