diaspora

Êzîdî Identity: Caucasus vs. Middle East: why the self-designation differs by region

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In short: Êzîdî in the Caucasus (above all in Armenia) and Êzîdî in the Middle East (Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Iran) share the same religion and largely the same language (Kurmancî / Northern Kurdish), and yet their official and political self-image developed in opposite directions over the course of the 20th century: in the Caucasus toward an officially anchored self-description as a “distinct Êzîdî nation,” in the Middle East long toward subsumption under “Kurds” (or, at times, forcibly under “Arabs”). This article reconstructs the concrete history of regional divergence: census politics, the mechanics of persecution and labelling, and the Armenian–Êzîdî history of solidarity as one factor. It makes no ruling on the question “a people or Kurds.”

Methodology & delimitation: This article complements, and does not repeat, the foundational article Êzîdî Identity and Ethnogenesis, which systematically separates the general ethnogenesis debate (a people vs. a religious group) and the three levels of self-identification / ethnogenesis / recognition. Here the focus is exclusively on the regional divergence between Caucasus and Middle East, its historical causes and mechanisms. Every figure and every contested statement is attributed. Personal opinions are not reproduced; sweeping judgements about religious or ethnic groups are expressly avoided.

1. Starting point: same religion, same language: different self-image

The core of this topic is an apparent paradox. Caucasian and Middle Eastern Êzîdî share:

The difference therefore lies not in faith or language, but in the political environment: self-description followed wherever a state offered a distinct “Êzîdî” category, and was forced into a larger category wherever officially only “Kurd” (or “Arab”) existed as a pigeonhole.

Convention: Tawûsî Melek (the Peacock Angel) is in Êzîdism the highest angelic figure appointed by God. The equation with “the Devil” common in older literature is an external attribution and slander, not an Êzîdî position, this slander was for centuries an ideological lever of persecution (cf. section 4).

Scientifically the finding can be summarised thus: Êzîdism is everywhere the same ethno-religious community, but the political labelling depends on the state in which it lives (Spät 2018; Asatrian/Arakelova 2014; Kreyenbroek 1995, as a counter-position). Which of the two basic interpretations, “a distinct people” or “a religious group within the Kurdish sphere”, is scientifically preferable remains disputed to this day and is dealt with in section 7 and at length in Identity and Ethnogenesis.

2. The Caucasus / the former USSR: the category was made: and reactivated

2.1 Soviet nationalities policy: separate counting in 1926

The Soviet census of 1926 was the first full survey to classify the entire USSR population by “nationality” (nacional’nost’). It listed Sunni Kurds and Yezidis as two separate categories: about 54,662 Kurds and 14,526 Yezidis were counted, of whom roughly 12,237 in Armenia (Cambridge History of the Kurds, chapter “Yezidis in the Soviet Union”; 1926 Soviet census). Thus “Êzîdî as a nationality” already existed in 1926 as an official reality: an option that never existed in the Middle East at any time.

2.2 1939: subsumption under “Kurds”: the category was switchable on and off

This separation disappeared again from the 1939 census: from then on Yezidis were administratively subsumed as “Kurds.” Here the Soviet korenizatsiya (“Kurdification”) was at work: from the 1920s the state promoted Kurdish-language institutions, such as the newspaper Riya Taze and Kurdish radio, in whose building-up Yezidis in particular played a decisive part (Cambridge History of the Kurds). This shows the core finding of this section: the official Êzîdî category was for decades switchable on and off depending on administrative line, that is, politically set, not “naturally given.”

2.3 Re-separation 1988 → 1989 → 2002 (Tamoyan)

The reintroduction of the separate category is datable:

  • In 1988 the 3rd All-Armenian Yezidi Assembly demanded official recognition as a distinct group.
  • In the 1989 census Yezidis appeared separately for the first time since 1926.
  • In 2002 parliamentary anchoring was secured with the statutory recognition in Armenia; the central figure was Aziz Tamoyan (1938–2021) with the National Union of Yazidis of Armenia (“Yezidi National Union”), which organisationally consolidated the thesis of a distinct ethnicity (Yazidis in Armenia; Aziz Tamoyan / Yezidi National Union ULE).

2.4 Geopolitics and the Christian-Armenian frame

After the First Karabakh War (1991–1994) an incentive arose in Armenia to distance oneself from a “Kurdish” identity. The researcher Barzoo Eliassi interprets this distancing as avoiding “double stigmatisation” in an environment in which the Christian-shaped Armenian majority offered the Êzîdî protection and loyalty (Rudaw 2014, as a source about the debate). This protective frame is closely linked with the older history of solidarity (section 5).

2.5 Armenia census 2022: Êzîdî as the largest minority

The 2022 census records about 31,079 Êzîdî against roughly 1,663 Kurds (self-identification), the Êzîdî are thus, at a good 1 %, the largest minority in Armenia (armstat.am 2022 / ARKA). Earlier levels: 2011 about 35,272; 2001 about 40,620; 1989 about 52,700 (the decline is predominantly migration to Russia and Western Europe, cf. Armenia & Georgia and Diaspora worldwide).

Research dissent running alongside here: Whether the Caucasian own-identity is “authentically old” (so the Tamoyan camp, with reference to an Old Babylonian origin and a distinct language “Êzdîkî”) or “post-Soviet (re-)constructed” (the constructivist reading of the Cambridge History) is the sharpest point of contention. Important: “co-shaped in the 20th century” does not mean “inauthentic”, all modern national identities arose this way. Details on the language question “Êzdîkî vs. Kurmancî” in Linguistics and Identity and Ethnogenesis.

3. The Middle East: no distinct category: appropriation instead of separation

In the Middle East the development ran as a mirror image: no state ever offered a distinct “Êzîdî” nationality.

3.1 Iraq: the binary census trap “Arab or Kurd”

In Iraq the Êzîdî were forced in the 1977 and 1987 censuses to register as “Arabs”: a so-called “ethnic identity correction” via the national identity register al-Jinsiya. Registration as Arab was coupled to access to state employment and property rights; whoever did not comply lost their economic livelihood (Wikipedia, Ba’athist Arabization campaigns in northern Iraq). The Ba’athist system in fact offered only two pigeonholes, “Arab” or “Kurd” –; a distinct Êzîdî category was not provided for.

3.2 Arabisation of Şingal and Şêxan

Under the Ba’ath policy, property was confiscated in Şingal (Sinjar), predominantly Êzîdî villages were destroyed and the population was forcibly resettled into new collective settlements with Arabic place names. 37 destroyed Êzîdî villages are documented; in Şêxan (Sheikhan) 147 of 182 villages were depopulated (Wikipedia, Ba’athist Arabization campaigns). This forced settlement geometry in the open plain made Şingal especially vulnerable decades later, in August 2014 (see Şingal and Genocide 2014).

3.3 Kurdish appropriation: “proto-Kurds” and “Kurd” as a protective umbrella category

While the Arab side assimilated, the Kurdish national movement worked in framing-politics in the other direction: it needed a pre-Islamic, “authentically Kurdish” identity foundation and stylised the Êzîdî into “keepers of the original Kurdish religion” / “proto-Kurds” (Eszter Spät 2018). In this context “Kurd” was the large, mobilisable umbrella category: belonging to the larger, organised minority offered relative security under Arab and Turkish assimilation pressure.

Research note on the “proto-Kurd” narrative: The equation “Êzîdism = original Kurdish religion = Zoroastrianism” is regarded by several authors as a nationalist projection and historically untenable (Richard Foltz, “The ‘Original’ Kurdish Religion? … The False Conflation of the Yezidi and Zoroastrian Traditions,” 2017). Both the Arab and the Kurdish framing instrumentalised the religion politically, in opposite directions. Cf. How old are the Êzîdî?.

Result: the same community, two opposing identity offers from the respective states, and from this two different self-images.

4. Hiding out of fear and the “betrayal” motif: as historical experience, not as collective guilt

Closely linked with the imposed label are two documented experiences: the concealment of one’s own identity and the trauma of forced conversion.

4.1 Dissimulation (concealment)

It is documented that Êzîdî concealed their identity to escape discrimination, for example children in schools (Wikipedia, Persecution of Yazidis). Eyewitness reports from the captivity of 2014/15 describe sham conversions “without inner conversion” (Al Jazeera 2015). Technically this is described as dissimulation under persecution pressure.

Clean delimitation: This concealment is analytically compared in research with the Islamic concept taqiyya (conditional concealment under mortal danger), but it is not an Êzîdî dogma. Êzîdism knows no formalised taqiyya doctrine; the concealment was a pragmatic survival practice. Christine Allison sums up the continuity: the “dilemma of converting or dying is not new.”

4.2 Forced conversion and “betrayal” in the culture of remembrance

The ferman ultimatum “Islam or death” runs through the centuries. Important for a differentiated account: in several documented cases the perpetrators were local rulers of differing origin: as in the massacre of 1832 under Mîrê Kor (Muhammad Pasha of Rawanduz, a Kurdish prince) and 1892 under Omer Wehbi Pasha (dispatched from Mosul) (Wikipedia, Persecution of Yazidis). The Êzîdî culture of remembrance processes forced conversion and betrayal in the Qewl and laments, for instance in the Qewlê Şêx Erebegî Întûzî (Holocaust Music / ORT; Kreyenbroek 1995). This explains a deep-seated historical mistrust (see Fermane Chronicle and Qewl Tradition).

Important boundary, explicitly: “Betrayal” is attested as a historical experience and as a motif of transmission. It was, however, situational and local: not an ethnic or religious collective guilt of an entire group. Precisely this differentiation protects the account from itself becoming a sweeping judgement. Even in the 2014 genocide, attributed accusations of local collaboration by individual tribes stand alongside documented cases in which Arab tribes (such as parts of the Shammar and Jahaysh) saved hundreds of Êzîdî and some died in the resistance (ECFR; HRW). The withdrawal of Kurdish forces in 2014, experienced by many Êzîdî as betrayal, is to be marked as Êzîdî perception, not as a judicially established fact (details: Genocide 2014).

5. The Armenian–Êzîdî history of solidarity as a factor

Why could the own-identity be freely asserted precisely in the Christian-Armenian environment? One factor is a concrete, repeatedly attested history of solidarity.

5.1 Shared persecution in 1915

The Ottoman violence of 1915 struck not only Armenians, but also Assyrians, Greeks, and Êzîdî. This shared victimhood is named in Armenian as well as diaspora historiography as a motif for the later solidarity. (Differentiation: the participation of local tribes in the violence was regionally very different: the dividing line ran situationally along religion, tribe and power constellation, not ethnically.)

5.2 Hemoyê Şero (Şingal as a refuge)

The Êzîdî tribal leader Hemoyê Şero (Hammo Shero, ~1850–1935) granted fleeing Armenians and Assyrians refuge in the Şingal mountains. It is transmitted that in this way around 20,000 Christians survived and Şero refused the extradition of the refugees (Gariwo; Armenian Weekly 2025; Wiener Holocaust Library). The figure “20,000” is an order of magnitude transmitted in the remembrance literature, not a hard statistic.

5.3 Cangîr Axa and Sardarabad 1918

Cangîr Axa (Jangir Agha, c. 1874–1943), leader of an irregular Êzîdî cavalry, fought in May 1918 on the Armenian side against the advancing Ottoman army. In the Battle of Baş-Aparan (16–18 May 1918) he led a battalion of around 300 horsemen; the victory at Sardarabad, together with Baş-Aparan, is regarded as the birth hour of the First Republic of Armenia. Cangîr Axa is today a hero of both cultures of remembrance (Wikipedia, Jangir Agha / Battle of Sardarabad; Kayaloff 1973). The “300 horsemen” are to be read as an order of magnitude.

5.4 Memorial culture today

In Aknalich (Armenia) the largest Êzîdî temple in the world (Quba Mêrê Dîwanê) has stood since September 2019; beside it an Êzîdî–Armenian friendship monument that symbolises the shared genocide experience (Armenians 1915 / Êzîdî 2014). Armenia has officially recognised the Êzîdî genocide of 2014 (Al Jazeera 2019; Eurasianet).

Differentiation against idealisation: Coexistence in Armenia is also described in the specialist literature as “conditional coexistence”, peaceful, but asymmetric (assimilation pressure, restricted mother-tongue instruction; Cultural Survival). The history of solidarity is real and deep, but the present is not free of conflict. Moreover the Êzîdî community is structurally non-expansive: one is born an Êzîdî, conversion to Êzîdism is not possible, there is no missionary activity (Encyclopaedia Iranica), a religious-sociological structural feature, not a moral argument.

6. 2014 as a turning point: and the diaspora today

The IS genocide against the Êzîdî in 2014 (over 5,000 murdered and around 10,800 abducted women and girls according to UN estimates; UN genocide determination 2016) also fed back into the identity question (details: Genocide 2014). Eszter Spät (2018) describes a shift “from Kurdish to independently ethno-nationalist”: the withdrawal of Kurdish forces, perceived as betrayal, shook the Kurdish-national loyalty among many Iraqi Êzîdî.

Thus the originally Caucasian thesis “Êzîdî = a distinct people” increasingly migrates into Iraq and into the diaspora: above all to Germany, which with over 200,000 people hosts the world’s largest Êzîdî community (Bundestag genocide recognition 2023; see Êzîdî in Germany and Diaspora worldwide). The historically regional divergence has thus partly converged since 2014, but remains context-dependent, because at the same time Kurdish alliances and sympathies persist.

7. Research dissent: both positions value-free

The regional divergence reflects a fundamental research dissent that is unresolved to this day. Both camps argue seriously:

  • “Distinct ethnicity” (Yerevan school): Garnik Asatrian and Victoria Arakelova (2014), and, politically, Aziz Tamoyan, hold that the fusion of religion and ethnicity among the Êzîdî is so strong that classification as a mere “religious subgroup of the Kurds” does not do justice to their self-perception; the shared language determines no ethnicity.
  • “Religious group within the Kurdish sphere”: Philip Kreyenbroek (1995) and largely Christine Allison (2001) locate the Êzîdî linguistically and culturally deep in the Kurdish world, the shared Kurmancî language (also of the sacred texts), origin in the Lalîş region of northern Iraq.

In the Western mainstream the distinct-ethnicity thesis counts as a minority position, in the Caucasus, however, it is institutional and a census reality. This article does not decide the question. Whoever answers it with a plain yes/no thereby tacitly adopts one of the two national framings. The detailed, systematic presentation of both positions is found in Êzîdî Identity and Ethnogenesis.

8. Summary

  • Same core, different label: Caucasian and Middle Eastern Êzîdî share religion and language; the difference in self-image follows the recognition offer of the respective state.
  • Caucasus: separate counting 1926 → subsumption as “Kurds” from 1939 → re-separation 1988/1989, statutory recognition 2002 (Tamoyan) → 2022 census about 31,079 Êzîdî vs. 1,663 Kurds, largest minority in Armenia.
  • Middle East: no distinct category; in Iraq coercion to register as “Arabs” (1977/1987), Arabisation of Şingal and Şêxan; Kurdish appropriation as “proto-Kurds,” “Kurd” as a protective umbrella category.
  • Concealment & betrayal: dissimulation and forced conversion are historically attested experiences, situational, not an ethnic collective guilt.
  • Armenian solidarity (1915, Hemoyê Şero, Cangîr Axa/Sardarabad, Aknalich) is a factor why the own-identity could be freely asserted in the Christian-Armenian environment.
  • 2014 acts as a turning point that carries the Caucasian own-identity thesis into the Middle East and diaspora.
  • Research: between “distinct ethnicity” (Asatrian/Arakelova) and “religious group within the Kurdish sphere” (Kreyenbroek/Allison) there is no consensus: the article does not judge.

Sources

Note: Figures and dates are attributed and marked as orders of magnitude where no hard primary statistic is available. Academic outside perspective and community-internal self-statements are shown separately in the text. The article does not judge between the identity positions.

Related articles: Êzîdî Identity and Ethnogenesis · Diaspora worldwide · Êzîdî in Armenia and Georgia · Genocide 2014 · Êzîdî in Germany · How old are the Êzîdî? · Fermane Chronicle · Linguistic Deep Analysis

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