The Fermans: A Chronicle of the Persecutions of the Êzîdîs

In their tradition, the Êzîdîs count 72, 73 or 74 Fermans: extermination decrees and genocides that have struck their community over the centuries. This chronicle situates the oral memory within the documented historical record: from the early pogroms through the Ottoman campaigns to the genocide committed by the so-called “Islamic State” in Şingal in 2014.

Êzîdî martyrs’ memorial on Mount Şingal (June 2019). The memory of the Fermans is at the core of Êzîdî identity. · Photo: Levi Clancy · Licence: CC0 · Wikimedia Commons

What does “Ferman” mean?

The word ferman (Persian/Turkish fermān) originally denotes a ruler’s edict or decree. In Êzîdî usage, the term became a synonym for religiously motivated mass murder, forced conversion and expulsion: because most of these waves of violence were legitimised by fatwas (legal opinions) issued by Islamic scholars who declared the Êzîdîs to be “unbelievers” and deemed killing, enslavement and dispossession permissible (Yazidi Legal Network; Açıkyıldız 2010, ch. 5).

An early and consequential example is the fatwa of the Ottoman Şeyhülislam Ebussuud Efendi (c. 1566), which classified the Êzîdîs as apostates. Today Ferman stands in the collective memory of the Êzîdîs for any genocidal act against the community, regardless of whether a formal sultanic decree was issued.

The number 72, 73 or 74

The numbers 72 / 73 / 74 are orally transmitted, partly symbolic figures in the Êzîdî tradition. In the Kurdish-Mesopotamian narrative world, “72” often stands for “very many”; the actual number of persecutions is regarded as impossible to determine conclusively (Wikipedia, Persecution of Yazidis; Yazidi Legal Network).

• Until 2007, tradition spoke of 72 Fermans, with the genocide during the First World War (1915–1918) counted as the 72nd.
• The attacks at Til Ezêr / Sîba Şêx Xidir on 14 August 2007 were incorporated as the 73rd Ferman.
• The genocide perpetrated by ISIS from 3 August 2014 is regarded, as confirmed by Mîr Tahsin Beg (1933–2019, the spiritual and secular head of the Êzîdîs) and the Spiritual Council, as the 74th Ferman. This count is the most commonly used today.

Important: No canonical list, adopted by the Spiritual Council and numbered continuously from 1 to 74, exists. The chronology that follows is a reconstruction drawn from historical chronicles (including Evliya Çelebi, Ottoman salname registers, the Mosul chronicle of the Jalili era, and travel and consular reports) and from the oral tradition of the Şêx and Pîr lineages (collected, among others, by Allison 2001, Açıkyıldız 2010, Kreyenbroek & Rashow 2005). Unless otherwise indicated, figures are estimates with sometimes considerable ranges.

Timeline of the most important Fermans

Early persecutions (before the 16th century)

In the conservative Êzîdî count (Mîr Tahsin Beg), the pre-Ottoman pogroms are not listed as numbered Fermans, since the term is tied to Ottoman decree practice. In an expanded count, they are regarded as the first Fermans. Documented early episodes:

• c. 1218, Mongol invasion: the first supra-regional upheaval of the Êzîdî heartland; no reliable casualty figures (Açıkyıldız 2010, ch. 5).
• 1246/1254, Execution of Şêx Hasan: Badr al-Dīn Luʾluʾ, Atabeg of Mosul, has Şêx Hasan and around 200 of his followers killed; the tomb of Şêx Adî in Lalîş is desecrated for the first time (Açıkyıldız 2010; Kreyenbroek 1995).
• 1414, Burning of Lalîş: the Shāfiʿī theologian ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Hulwānī burns down the sanctuary; the bones of Şêx Adî are desecrated (al-Maqrīzī as the primary source).
• 1585, Attack on Şingal: the first documented attack on the stronghold in the Şingal mountains, more than 600 dead (Açıkyıldız 2010).

Ottoman period (16th–18th century)

Şingal (Sinjar), July 2019: ruins in the city centre after liberation from ISIS. · Photo: Levi Clancy · Licence: CC0 · Wikimedia Commons

The fatwa of Ebussuud Efendi (1566)

The fatwa of Şeyhülislam Ebussuud Efendi declared the Êzîdîs to be apostates and legitimised killing, enslavement and dispossession. It did not itself demand any immediate fatalities, but it became the enduring theological mandate on which Ottoman commanders relied for three centuries (Açıkyıldız 2010; Kreyenbroek 1995).

The campaign of Melek Ahmed Paşa (1640)

Under Sultan Murad IV (and later İbrahim), Melek Ahmed Paşa led a major campaign against the Şingal mountains. The eyewitness Evliya Çelebi reports in his Seyâhatnâme of thousands killed and thousands taken captive (the source figures vary between around 3,000 and several tens of thousands). In the Êzîdî tradition this is widely regarded as the “First Ferman”: the oldest Ottoman sultanic decree accompanied by a documented genocide (Çelebi; Dankoff 1991; Açıkyıldız 2010).

The Mosul Pasha era (1715–1809)

According to the orientalist Roger Lescot, at least 15 campaigns were waged against the Êzîdîs in Şingal and Şehîxan during the 18th century. Recurring patterns were punitive expeditions over caravan raids, plundering, the abduction of women and forced conversions, for instance under Hassan Paşa (1715), in the Zab massacre with around 3,000 forced conversions (1733), or under Süleyman Paşa, who in 1752–1754 killed about 3,000 Êzîdîs and abducted 500 women (Açıkyıldız 2010; Yezidi Cultural Heritage). In 1809–1810 Lalîş was desecrated once again and the bones of Şêx Adî were burned before the eyes of the Êzîdîs, the gravest religious desecration before 1892.

The Kurdish emirate genocides (1832–1844)

Firmana Mîrê Kor: the Soran Emirate (1832–1834)

The campaign of Mîr Muhammad Paşa of Rawanduz (“Mîrê Kor”, the blind prince) is regarded as the largest documented single massacre in Êzîdî history. Triggered by a fatwa of Mulla Yahya Mizurî, between 40,000 and 50,000 fighters swept through Şehîxan, Şingal and the banks of the Tigris.

Casualty figures are given in scholarship as 70,000 to 135,000 dead (Eppel 2019, The Firmān of Mīr-i-Kura, Genocide Studies International); the Êzîdî chronicler al-Damlouji spoke of around 95 percent population loss in the affected areas. Thousands drowned or perished while fleeing along the Tigris; thousands of women and children were abducted to Rawanduz and forcibly converted. In Lalîş, people seeking refuge were suffocated by fire in a cave beneath the sanctuary. The Êzîdî leader Mîr Ali Beg I refused conversion and was executed in Rawanduz in late 1833.

Bedirxan Beg and the Botan Emirate (1836–1844)

Bedirxan Beg, prince of the Botan Emirate, continued the persecution. In Cezîra (1836) a large part of the Êzîdî population was killed or enslaved; in Tur Abdin (1840–1844) seven villages were forcibly converted and those who refused were killed. In 1843 the Russian orientalist Ilya Berezin documented as an eyewitness a massacre with around 7,000 dead near the hills of Nineveh (Berezin 1843; Açıkyıldız 2010).

Late Ottoman period (1849–1918)

Tanzimat and conversion pressure (1849–1885)

With the Tanzimat reforms the Êzîdîs received a legal status for the first time, yet not as “People of the Book” (ahl al-kitāb), but rather under a higher tax burden and conscription. This gave rise to decades of conflict and escalation (1850–1864, 1872, 1885). The great Şingal massacre of 1854 under Muhammad Reschid Paşa and Hafiz Paşa, in which people seeking refuge were suffocated in caves, is still sung of today in Êzîdî laments (Stran) (Wikipedia, Persecution of Yazidis; Sykes).

The Omar Wehbi Paşa campaign (1890–1893)

Under Sultan Abdülhamid II, General Omar Wehbi Paşa (“Ferîq Paşa”), together with the newly formed Hamidiye cavalry, conducted a campaign with the ultimatum “conversion or death”. Estimates speak of 10,000 to 15,000 Êzîdîs killed or forcibly converted (ÊzîdîPress); for the Şingal campaign in late 1892 Açıkyıldız gives around 500 immediate deaths. The Lalîş sanctuary was converted into a Quran school (madrasa) for about twelve years, and sacred objects were taken to Baghdad. In memory, this counts alongside 1832 as the “Great Ferman” of the 19th century (Açıkyıldız 2010, ch. 5; Edmonds, A Pilgrimage to Lalish; Encyclopaedia Iranica).

The genocide during the First World War (1915–1918): the 72nd Ferman

Within the framework of the genocide of the Armenians, the Êzîdîs too became a target of the Young Turk CUP government and allied tribes. The casualty estimates diverge widely: the academic consensus lies at several tens of thousands up to around 100,000; a maximum figure of 300,000 (Aziz Tamoyan, Soviet-Armenian-Êzîdî school) circulating in the Armenian-Êzîdî diaspora is regarded by scholars as inflated and unreliable (Allison 2001; Açıkyıldız 2010).

At the same time, this period stands for a chapter of humanity: the Şingal tribal leader Hemoyê Şêro (Hammo Shero) refused the Ottoman ultimatum and took around 20,000 Armenian refugees under the protection of his tribe; hundreds of Êzîdîs died in their defence (Gariwo; Açıkyıldız 2010). In the classic count before 2007, 1915–1918 is regarded as the 72nd Ferman.

Kingdom and Republic of Iraq (1925–2003)

• 1935, Şingal revolt: General Bakr Sidqi crushes the resistance against forced conscription; more than 200 Êzîdîs are killed and martial law is imposed over Sinjar (Wikipedia, 1935 Yazidi revolt; Bet-Shlimon, City of Black Gold, 2019).
• 1974–1975, Mass expulsion under Saddam Hussein: in the course of the Baʿath government’s Arabisation policy, 37 villages in Sinjar are destroyed and in Şehîxan 147 of 182 villages are forcibly resettled. The inhabitants are forced into so-called mujammaʿat (collective settlements); in the 1977 and 1987 censuses the Êzîdîs are required to register as “Arabs”. In total more than 150 Êzîdî villages are destroyed (Human Rights Watch, Iraq’s Crime of Genocide, 1995).

The post-Saddam era and the rise of ISIS (2003–2014)

After 2003 the Êzîdîs repeatedly became a target of Sunni insurgents and of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), including in an attack on a bus carrying Êzîdî students and a targeted killing in Beşîqe (both in 2007).

The attacks at Til Ezêr and Sîba Şêx Xidir (2007): the 73rd Ferman

On 14 August 2007, four coordinated suicide bombers blew themselves up with tanker- and car bombs in the Êzîdî towns of Til Ezêr (Qahtaniyah) and Sîba Şêx Xidir in the Sinjar district. With 796 dead (initial reports spoke of around 500) and more than 1,500 injured, the attack is regarded as the deadliest bombing of the entire Iraq War (Wikipedia, Qahtaniyah bombings; Yazda). Responsibility lay with the network of al-Qaeda in Iraq. In the Êzîdî tradition this event was incorporated as the 73rd Ferman.

The 74th Ferman: the ISIS genocide in Şingal (2014)

Êzîdî refugees in the Newroz camp (Syria, 2014), assisted by the International Rescue Committee. · Photo: International Rescue Committee · Licence: CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

The attack

In the early morning hours of 3 August 2014, the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS / Daesh) under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi attacked the town of Şingal and around 68 surrounding villages. ISIS had previously defamed the Êzîdîs as “devil worshippers”, a factually false slander, long since refuted by scholarship, for the Êzîdîs venerate the angel Tawûsî Melek: and had thus prepared the genocide in propaganda terms.

The procedure followed a systematic pattern: men and older boys were shot or beheaded; women and girls, in part from about the age of nine, were abducted, sold in slave markets and sexually enslaved (sabaya); younger boys were forcibly recruited as child soldiers. In the village of Kocho on 15 August 2014, dozens of men were executed, among them relatives of the later Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad, and the women enslaved.

Casualty figures (estimates)

• Killed: point estimate around 3,100 Êzîdîs (PLOS Medicine 2017: range 2,100–4,400; UN initial estimate: up to 5,000).
• Abducted: point estimate around 6,800 women and children (Cetorelli et al., PLOS Medicine 2017: range 4,200–10,800).
• Displaced: several hundred thousand Êzîdîs (the German Bundestag names around 550,000 members of the community affected; around 400,000 were directly displaced).
• Mass graves: more than 200 documented mass graves (of which around 80 in the Sinjar district); UNITAD supported the exhumation of 37 mass graves; to date 186 victims have been identified and given dignified burial (UNITAD; UN news service).

The siege of Mount Sinjar

Tens of thousands of Êzîdîs fled to Mount Sinjar, where they were trapped without water or food. Between 7 and 11 August 2014, US airstrikes and a corridor secured by Kurdish forces opened an escape route through which more than 100,000 people got out. In November 2015 the town of Şingal was recaptured.

Aftermath, reckoning and international recognition

Trauma and diaspora

The genocide left a deeply traumatised community. Hundreds of thousands continue to live in camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq or have fled abroad. With an estimated 200,000 to 250,000 people, Germany hosts the largest Êzîdî diaspora outside Iraq (ZÊD 2024; conservative estimates from ~100,000). The reconstruction of Şingal is proceeding slowly; the fate of thousands of abducted women and children remains unresolved to this day.

Nadia Murad and the Nobel Peace Prize

Nadia Murad, herself a survivor from Kocho, became the worldwide voice of the Êzîdîs. In 2018 she received the Nobel Peace Prize together with the Congolese physician Denis Mukwege “for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war”. She is the first Iraqi and the first Êzîdî to receive a Nobel Prize. Her foundation Nadia’s Initiative supports reconstruction in Sinjar (Nobelprize.org; Nadia’s Initiative).

Legal reckoning

• 2017, UNSC Resolution 2379: the UN Security Council, largely at Nadia Murad’s instigation, established the investigative team UNITAD, tasked with securing evidence of ISIS crimes.
• 2021, UNITAD findings: the team established “clear and convincing evidence” that ISIS had committed a genocide against the Êzîdîs, and supported the Iraqi authorities in exhuming the mass graves (UN News, May 2021; UNITAD).
• 2021, Yazidi Survivors Law: the Iraqi legislature passed a law on compensation and recognition for surviving Êzîdî women.
• 2023, Recognition by the German Bundestag: on 19 January 2023 the Bundestag recognised the crimes against the Êzîdîs as a genocide, thereby following the legal assessment of the UN investigators. Germany thus joined a group of more than a dozen states and bodies, as of 2026, over 13 countries as well as the EU, the Council of Europe and the UN have officially recognised the genocide (Al Jazeera; Bundestag).

Several Êzîdî and international organisations, among them Yazda, the Free Yezidi Foundation and Nadia’s Initiative: document the crimes, support survivors and advocate for criminal prosecution and further recognition under international law.

Remembrance and survival

Pilgrims at the Êzîdî New Year festival (Sersal) in Lalîş, 2017. Remembrance and survival are both pillars of the community. · Photo: Levi Clancy · Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

For the Êzîdîs, the Fermans are more than historical dates: they are a core of the collective identity, living on in laments (Stran), in pilgrimages to Lalîş and in the festival calendar. The count “72 + 1 = 73 + 1 = 74” is at once a practice of remembrance and a warning. Mîr Tahsin Beg summarised it in essence: “We have suffered 73 tragedies, the genocide of Sinjar in 2014 is the 74th.” Remembrance and survival are not opposites here, but rather both load-bearing pillars of the Êzîdî community.

Sources

Scholarly literature

• Açıkyıldız, Birgül: The Yezidis. The History of a Community, Culture and Religion. I.B. Tauris, 2010 (ch. 5 “Persecution and Resistance”).
• Allison, Christine: The Yezidi Oral Tradition in Iraqi Kurdistan. Routledge Curzon, 2001.
• Kreyenbroek, Philip G.: Yezidism. Its Background, Observances and Textual Tradition. Edwin Mellen, 1995.
• Kreyenbroek, P. G. & Rashow, Khalil J.: God and Sheikh Adi are Perfect. Harrassowitz, 2005.
• Eppel, Michael: Genocidal Campaigns during the Ottoman Era. The Firmān of Mīr-i-Kura against the Yazidi Religious Minority in 1832–1834. Genocide Studies International 13(1), 2019. https://utppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3138/gsi.13.1.05
• Cetorelli, V. et al.: Mortality and kidnapping estimates for the Yazidi population in the area of Mount Sinjar, Iraq, in August 2014. PLOS Medicine, 2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5423550/
• Bet-Shlimon, Arbella: City of Black Gold. Oil, Ethnicity, and the Making of Modern Kirkuk. Stanford UP, 2019.
• Dankoff, Robert: The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman. Melek Ahmed Pasha. SUNY, 1991.
• Cambridge World History of Genocide, ch. “The Yazidi Genocide”. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-world-history-of-genocide/yazidi-genocide/B660D9FB9837C2AC8685A64526104355
• Edmonds, Cecil J.: A Pilgrimage to Lalish. RAS, 1967.

Primary and eyewitness sources

• Evliya Çelebi: Seyâhatnâme, vol. 4, eyewitness of the campaign of 1640.
• Ilya Berezin: travel accounts 1843: eyewitness of the aftermath along the Tigris.
• Henry Layard: Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, 1853.
• al-Maqrīzī: account of the burning of Lalîş in 1414.
• Mosul chronicle of the Jalili era (1726–1834). https://archive.org/stream/Mosul17261834/

UN, human rights and justice sources

• UN Human Rights Council: “They came to destroy”. ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis. A/HRC/32/CRP.2, June 2016.
• UNITAD (UN investigative team, established by UNSC Resolution 2379/2017): findings on the genocide, May 2021. https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/05/1091662 · https://www.unitad.un.org/news/unitad-publishes-detailed-findings-international-crimes-including-genocide-committed-isil-da
• Human Rights Watch: Iraq’s Crime of Genocide. The Anfal Campaign against the Kurds. Yale UP, 1995.
• NIOD: Ten Years of Ongoing Genocide Against the Yazidis. https://www.niod.nl/en/longreads/ten-years-ongoing-genocide-against-yazidis
• Nobelprize.org: Nobel Peace Prize 2018, Nadia Murad. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2018/murad/facts/
• Al Jazeera: Germany recognises Yazidi massacre by ISIL as “genocide”, 19.01.2023. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/19/germany-recognises-yazidi-massacre-as-genocide

Encyclopaedic sources

• Encyclopaedia Iranica, “Yazidis i. General”. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/yazidis-i-general-1/
• Wikipedia: Persecution of Yazidis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Yazidis
• Wikipedia: Yazidi genocide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazidi_genocide
• Wikipedia: Yazidi genocide by the Soran Emirate (1832–1834). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazidi_genocide_by_the_Soran_Emirate_(1832-1834)
• Wikipedia: Qahtaniyah bombings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qahtaniyah_bombings
• Wikipedia: 1935 Yazidi revolt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1935_Yazidi_revolt
• Wikipedia (DE): Jesidenverfolgung. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesidenverfolgung

Êzîdî and civil-society organisations

• Yazidi Legal Network: Genocide at the Hands of ISIS & the 74 Firmans. https://www.yazidilegalnetwork.org/blog/efom6u2th25llc1f9eo4s8qm7u746c
• Yazda. https://www.yazda.org/
• Free Yezidi Foundation: Genocide Timeline. https://freeyezidi.org/yezidi-genocide-timeline/
• Nadia’s Initiative. https://www.nadiasinitiative.org/the-genocide
• ÊzîdîPress. https://www.ezidipress.com/en/
• Yezidi Cultural Heritage. https://www.yazidiculturalheritage.com/history/
• Gariwo (biography of Hemoyê Şêro). https://en.gariwo.net/righteous/armenian-genocide/hammo-shero-17295.html