Êzîdî Music + Artists: Tradition, Genres, Diaspora

Êzîdî music comprises sacred hymns (Qewlê), narrative songs (Beyt), folk songs (Stran), sung lament (lawje/şîn) and dances (Govend). It is transmitted orally; writing only plays a role in modern diaspora times.

This article deals with genres, styles, the function of music, singers and artists. The instruments (organology) are covered separately at → /wiki/musikinstrumente. The sacred texts themselves → /wiki/qewl-tradition and /wiki/geistlichkeit.

As of: 2026-06-15 · Sirr taboo observed · ezdixan.de Wiki

1. Overview: three sound worlds

Êzîdî music cannot be described as a single uniform “genre”. Scholarship (Allison, Kreyenbroek, Amy de la Bretèque) distinguishes three fundamentally different sound worlds, each with its own bearers, occasions and taboos:

1. Sacred music: the holy hymns (Qewlê), performed exclusively by the Qewal, only to two instruments (Daf, Şibab). Religious, bound to rites. → /wiki/qewl-tradition
2. “Melodized speech” and lament (kilamê ser, lawje, şîn), an intermediate zone between speaking and singing, carried above all by women and dengbêj, in mourning, exile and heroic commemoration.
3. Profane festive and dance music: wedding, New Year and govend music, loud and convivial, with zurna and davûl. → Instruments: /wiki/musikinstrumente

A central finding of the ethnomusicologist Estelle Amy de la Bretèque is that the Êzîdî encode these sound worlds emotionally: simplified, the lamenting duduk/belban stands for grief and exile, the blaring zurna for joy and dance (“Le pleur du duduk et la danse du zurna”, “The weeping of the duduk and the dance of the zurna”) [Amy de la Bretèque 2010; 2013].

2. Sacred music: the Qewal tradition

2.1 The two holy Qewal groups

The Qewal (Arab./Kurm. qewwal “speaker, reciter”) are the only authorized bearers of sacred Êzîdî music. They come exclusively from two hereditary groups, Dimlî (Kurmancî-speaking) and Tazhî (Arabic-speaking), both resident in Başîqa and Bahzanê (Sheikhan, northern Iraq):

• Pîr Sînî Bahrî: the older line
• Pîr Mam Şivan (also: Pîr Mehmedê Reş), the second line

Only Qewals may publicly recite the holy hymns (Qewlê), and only to two permitted instruments: Daf and Şibab. Lay Êzîdî may listen to Qewlê, but may not perform them publicly [Kreyenbroek 1995, pp. 137–144; Allison 2001, pp. 28–33]. The hymns are composed in the Northern Kurdish dialect, mostly end-rhymed, with typically 20–60 stanzas; the longest known Qewl has 117 stanzas [Encyclopaedia Iranica, “QAWL”].

Instruments Daf & Şibab: construction, dimensions and playing technique are described in detail under → /wiki/musikinstrumente. Here only briefly: Daf = frame drum of the Qewal; Şibab = long flute with 7 finger holes (reference to the 7 angels). Both are sacred in the liturgy and cannot be replaced by other instruments.

2.2 How sacred melodies work: kubrî and maqam

Unlike Western notated music, Qewl melody is not based on fixed pitch intervals. Amy de la Bretèque and Omarkhali describe the concept of kubrî: a melodic-rhythmic “scaffold”, a general musical architecture of recitative patterns, melodic arcs and rhythmic accentuation, “a kubrî is not defined by stable intervals between pitches”. The same hymn can have several melodic variants depending on ritual context. Tonal analyses frequently show the tetrachord uşşak (Re–Mi♭–Fa–Sol), related modes such as kurdî; the Qewal themselves, however, know no conscious maqam theory, the tuning remains consistent even when the intervals vary slightly [Amy de la Bretèque & Omarkhali 2022, Oral Tradition 35/2, pp. 309–330].

Texts are learned stanza by stanza purely from memory; some Qewal learn text and melody simultaneously, others first the text and the melody months later [ibid.].

2.3 Repertoire classes of sacred music

Source: Omarkhali 2017, The Yezidi Religious Textual Tradition, pp. 47–62; for theological classification → /wiki/geistlichkeit.

3. Melodized speech & lament: Amy de la Bretèque’s special field

Between “speaking” (axaftin) and “singing/music” (stran) the Êzîdî have a third, independent performance mode, which the French ethnomusicologist Estelle Amy de la Bretèque (CNRS/LESC Nanterre) investigated as a central topic in her fieldwork among the Êzîdî of Armenia. Her standard work Paroles mélodisées. Récits épiques et lamentations chez les Yézidis d’Arménie (Classiques Garnier, Paris 2013) is regarded as the authoritative book on this subject [Amy de la Bretèque 2013].

3.1 Kilamê ser: “words about / words upon”

The key term is kilamê ser (“words about”, “paroles sur”), neither song/music (stran) nor everyday speech (axaftin), but a form of its own with specific sound shapes and modes of use. Characteristic features:

• Time dilation: the same sentence takes considerably longer when melodized than when spoken.
• Descending melodic line: the usual intonation jumps of speech are replaced by a more or less constant, descending melodic course.
• Body movement: accompanied by horizontal rocking movements of the upper body.
• Sound of the duduk/belban: the voice imitates the lamenting duduk (or vice versa), the duduk “speaks”, as it were, without words; “it is not necessary to articulate them verbally” [Amy de la Bretèque 2012, “Voices of Sorrow”, Yearbook for Traditional Music; Gradhiva review].

3.2 Themes: pain, exile, heroic commemoration

Kilamê ser expresses xem (grief, sorrow) and appears in three large thematic fields:

• Mourning and death: at graves, at funerals, at cemetery meals, but also privately, when painful things are spoken of.
• Exile and absence: the “longing/foreignness” (xerîbî) triggered by distance; an entire “emotional topography” stretches from the intimate parlour to the diaspora destinations (Moscow, Russia, Germany).
• Heroism: kilamê ser mêranîê (“words about heroism”), the epic narratives of the bardic tradition about heroes, battles and the Fermane (persecutions).

Amy de la Bretèque speaks of a shared “space of pain” (un espace de peine partagé) and a regional “culture of pain and exile” [Amy de la Bretèque 2013; Gradhiva review 2014]. The book is accompanied by 65 audiovisual documents with commentaries and subtitles on the platform of the Société Française d’Ethnomusicologie.

3.3 Laments as a women’s genre: Allison & Spät

The sung lament is traditionally an almost exclusively female genre, performed by and for women in gender-segregated mourning spaces, historically with lower social status than the male-dominated song forms. Christine Allison documented in The Yezidi Oral Tradition in Iraqi Kurdistan (2001) how women sang in their houses in memory of the deceased. In the ~two decades after her fieldwork, this art declined sharply among the non-Sinjari Êzîdî; semi-professional female singers became rare [Allison 2001; Spät 2022].

Local terms for the lament vary regionally: xerîbî (exile/foreignness/longing), şîn (“mourning”), stranên şînî / dîlok (“mourning songs”), zêmar (pure women’s lament). There is no single canonical term.

3.4 Revival of the lament after 2014 (Sinjar)

While other parts of the oral tradition were threatened by displacement, the lament revived among the Sinjari refugees after the ISIS attack of August 2014. New laments function as a “psychological safety valve” to process collective and personal trauma. They interweave traditional formulaic language with concrete new content: abducted and enslaved girls, the unburied dead, flight, the defence of the Şerfedîn shrine [Spät 2022, “Singing the Pain”, Oral Tradition].

Documented female singers from this research (Spät 2022):

• Dêy Şîrîn: an older refugee, began singing the lament only after 2014.
• Basê Qasim and Xanif Muho: semi-professional Sinjari singers from Siba Sheikh Khidir, who performed in Lalîş.
• Şîrîn Ibrahim: a singer from Siba Sheikh Khidir, focusing on the experiences of the captive women.
• Sheikha Kamo Reşo Paço: an adani-shaykhly singer whose laments name resistance leaders (e.g. Qasim Şeşo).

At the same time, modern technology (phone recordings, social media) is beginning to soften the genre’s strict gender boundaries.

4. Profane Êzîdî music: Stranbêj, Dengbêj, genres

4.1 Stranbêj vs. Dengbêj vs. Çîrokbêj

The Kurdish-Êzîdî performance tradition knows three classical roles (Encyclopaedia Iranica; Allison 2001):

• Çîrokbêj (“story-speaker”), narrator of prose stories.
• Stranbêj (“song-speaker”), singer of secular stran (songs); during a dance calls out a verse which the dancers repeat in chorus (especially where, for religious reasons, instruments are considered unseemly).
• Dengbêj (“voice-speaker”), epic bardic tradition; long historical narrative songs, often a cappella, called kilam. Dengbêj carry the songs from village to village through the art of memory.

These roles are widespread across the Kurdish world; the Êzîdî, especially the Soviet-Armenian corpus, developed specific repertoires [Allison 2001, pp. 41–58; Christensen 1975; Encyclopaedia Iranica].

4.2 Genres

Sources: Düchting 2021; Amy de la Bretèque 2013; Spät 2022; Yerevan Êzîdî study circle (Şerefxanê Boyik, Wezîrê Eşo) 1965–90; Christensen 1975.

4.3 Secular instruments: briefly

Outside the Qewal liturgy, Êzîdî folk music commonly uses, among others, Tembûr/Saz, Belban/Mey (duduk relatives, lamenting), Zirne/Zurna and Davûl (loud, for dance and wedding), as well as the Kemençe in the Armenian-Êzîdî diaspora. Construction, tuning and playing technique are treated in detail under → /wiki/musikinstrumente. [Allison 2001, pp. 51–58; Amy de la Bretèque 2010]

5. Govend: the Êzîdî line dance

Govend is not only a dance but a social ritual:

• Line/chain form, members link pinkies or shoulders
• Led by the Serçopî (dance leader, at the front with a cloth)
• Accompanied by zirne+davûl or daf
• A central form at Sersal–Çarşemiya Sor, weddings, Eyda Êzîd → /wiki/feste
• Specific forms: Şexanî, Delîlo, Çepîk, Çepik-Sersal, Govenda Sêdaran (in threes)
• The order of the dancers has social meaning (eldest at the front, women on the right of the man on the left, youth in the middle)

Govend is the musical-bodily counterpart to lament: emotionally it stands on the joy side (“dance of the zurna”), while melodized speech forms the mourning side [Açıkyıldız 2010, pp. 154–160; Düchting 2021, pp. 89–97; Amy de la Bretèque 2010]. Connection to custom and festive calendar → /wiki/traditionen, /wiki/feste.

6. Important Êzîdî musicians

6.1 Classical pioneers (Soviet Armenia)

Karapetê Xaço (Karapet Xaço, ~1900/1903 – 15 January 2005)

An ethnically Armenian singer who became the most important dengbêj of the Kurdish-Êzîdî tradition: not an Êzîde by birth, but formative for the Êzîdî-Kurdish song repertoire. Born in the village of Bileyder (today Binatlı, Batman Province, Turkey) in the Ottoman Empire. In 1915 he survived as a child the destruction of his village in the Armenian Genocide, saved, among other things, by his knowledge of Kurmancî and his talent for singing. After years in the French Foreign Legion, in 1946 he answered the Soviet call to return and settled in Armenia via Batum. There he worked until the 2000s in the Kurdish department of Radio Yerevan; his voice and his hundreds of kilam reached all Kurdish regions through this station. Works include: “Lawijê Filîtê Quto”, “Lawiyê Şerefa Şex Bekir”; collection “Kilamê Karapetê Xaço” [Wezîrê Eşo, Karapetê Xaço û Lawijê Wî, Yerevan 1991, ISBN 5-540-00831-3; ermenihaber.am 2019; Düchting 2018].

Egîdê Cimo (1939–2017)

Classical dengbêj, Aparan-Armenia. Main works with tembûr accompaniment. Sound archive: Radio Yerevan, Kurdish department [Bahzani.net artist DB; Pîrbarî 2008].

Reşîdê Lezgîn (1900s–1980s)

Important stranbêj from the Soviet-Armenian Êzîdî community.

Şerifê Biro (1920s–1990s)

Dengbêj, often performed together with Karapetê Xaço.

Hesenê Cangîr: pioneer recordings 1930s–50s.

6.2 Sinjar / Iraq tradition

Sînem Şîrazî

Êzîdî singer from Sinjar, appeared several times on KurdSat (Kurdish TV channel, KRG). Songs on the fate of Sinjar before and after 2014.

Cevahîr Şerîf

Sinjar lament singer after the 2014 genocide.

Dilovan Şingalî

Young Êzîdî singer from Sinjar, known for Sinjar laments.

On the academically documented generation of Sinjari lament singers (Dêy Şîrîn, Basê Qasim, Xanif Muho, Şîrîn Ibrahim, Sheikha Kamo Reşo Paço) see section 3.4 above [Spät 2022].

6.3 Diaspora generation (DE/SE/US)

Aziz Waysi

Êzîdî-American musician, Lincoln (Nebraska, USA). Combines traditional Êzîdî songs with modern arrangements. Concerts for Sinjar commemoration days.

Koma Stark

German-Êzîdî band from Hannover. A mixture of traditional + modern. Active diaspora performances.

Berivan Hesso

Êzîdî singer in Germany, Sinjar commemoration songs.

Young generation (Hannover, Celle, Oldenburg, Stuttgart)

A growing scene since the 2014 genocide, combining traditional stran with pop, rap and electronic elements. Important YouTube channels: Êzîdî Music Archive, Lalish TV Music, Êzdîxan TV Music.

6.4 Armenian-Êzîdî diaspora & researchers

Wezîrê Eşo (1932–2017)

Researcher + collector, Yerevan. Standard editions of Armenian-Êzîdî songs, documented thousands of texts.

Cîhanê Çecan

Êzîdî-Armenian folk singer, Aparan tradition.

[Sources 6.x: Düchting 2021; Pîrbarî 2008; Amy de la Bretèque 2013; YCS Yezidi Cultural Society 2020; ermenihaber.am 2019; Bahzani.net artist database]

7. Music by occasion

7.1 Wedding (Dawet)

• Zurne+davûl in front of the bride’s house
• Govend lines form at the courtyard exit
• Special bridal song: Bûka Ehmedê (regional Sinjar)
• Manual clapping rhythms (Çepîk)
• Heyranok on the henna evening (Şeva Henê)

7.2 Mourning (Şîn)

• Zêmar / kilamê ser (women’s lament), often alternating in twos or threes; melodized speech rather than instrumentally accompanied singing
• 40-day mourning period, singing + narrating at the grave or in the house, also at cemetery meals
• Special Sinjar-2014 songs: “Şingala Min” (My Sinjar), “Pirsa Şingalê” (The Question of Sinjar)

7.3 Sersal / Çarşemiya Sor (Êzîdî New Year)

• Festive stran, especially “Sersal Pîroz”, “Çarşemiya Sor”
• Govend songs as dance accompaniment → /wiki/feste

7.4 Lalîş pilgrimage (Cêjna Cemayîya)

• Sacred Qewlê (Qewal only)
• Folk-communal: songs of praise for Şêx Adî, Şêşims

7.5 Tawûsgêran (peacock procession)

• Accompanying Qewlê by Qewal
• Specific hymns sung only in this ceremony

[Sources 7.x: Açıkyıldız 2010, ch. 6; Spät 2018, pp. 92–108]

8. Music under ISIS: ban and revival

Under the ISIS occupation of Sinjar (Aug 2014 – 2017) Êzîdî music was completely banned. Instruments were confiscated, singers hid or fled. After the liberation of Sinjar a clear revival set in, especially in the sung lament (see section 3.4):

• Concerts and lament sessions in the Sharya camp (Dohuk, IDP camp) and in Lalîş
• New generational songs about slavery, flight and liberation
• Collecting projects of the Yerevan/Aparan diaspora
• “Sinjar Sings”: documentary concert series in the European diaspora (Hannover, Stockholm)

Scholarship regards the laments newly composed after 2014 as a central means of processing trauma and of collective memory [Spät 2022; UN A/HRC/32/CRP.2 2016 “They Came to Destroy”, annex on cultural destruction; Yazda 2019 Cultural Heritage Report]. Historical context of the persecutions → /wiki/traditionen.

9. Recordings + archives

9.1 Freely accessible online sources

9.2 Academic / institutional archives

• Radio Yerevan Kurdish programme (1955–1991), thousands of Êzîdî song recordings
• LESC / CNRS Nanterre: field recordings by Amy de la Bretèque (Êzîdî of Armenia)
• AMAR Foundation (United Kingdom), Êzîdî folklore recording project
• Yazidi Cultural Heritage Project (KRG Duhok), cultural-heritage documentation
• Lalish Cultural Center Duhok: audio library

10. State of research

10.1 Academic standard works

• Amy de la Bretèque, Estelle (2013) Paroles mélodisées. Récits épiques et lamentations chez les Yézidis d’Arménie, Classiques Garnier, Paris, the standard work on lament & melodized speech
• Amy de la Bretèque, Estelle & Omarkhali, Khanna (2022) “The Yezidi Religious Music”, Oral Tradition 35/2, pp. 309–330
• Spät, Eszter (2022) “Singing the Pain: Yezidi Oral Tradition and Sinjari Laments after ISIS”, Oral Tradition
• Allison, Christine (2001) The Yezidi Oral Tradition in Iraqi Kurdistan, Curzon Press, ISBN 0-7007-1397-2
• Kreyenbroek, Philip G. (1995) Yezidism: Its Background, Observances and Textual Tradition, Edwin Mellen Press, ISBN 0-7734-9004-3
• Omarkhali, Khanna (2017) The Yezidi Religious Textual Tradition, Harrassowitz, ISBN 978-3-447-10856-0
• Açıkyıldız, Birgül (2010) The Yazidis: The History of a Community, Culture and Religion, I.B. Tauris, ISBN 978-1-848-85274-7
• Christensen, Dieter (1975) “On Variability in Kurdish Dengbêj Songs”, Yearbook of Inter-American Musical Research 11
• Düchting, Reinhardt (2021) “Êzîdîsche Musik in der Diaspora”, Zeitschrift für Volkskunde 117(2), pp. 245–268

10.2 Collections + editions

• Pîrbarî, Dimitri (2008) Êzîdiyên Sovêtê, Karapetê Xaço û Hevalên Wî, Yerevan
• Wezîrê Eşo (1991) Karapetê Xaço û Lawijê Wî, Yerevan, ISBN 5-540-00831-3
• Şerefxanê Boyik (2005) Folklora Kurdên Êzdiyên Sovyêtê, Erevan

10.3 NGO + community sources

• ÊzîdîPress (Hannover/online since 2014), ongoing reporting on new musicians
• Bahzani.net (Sinjar/online), artist database
• Yazda Cultural Heritage: cultural-heritage reports
• Free Yezidi Foundation: concert documentary Sinjar survivors
• Lalish Cultural Center Duhok: academic-practical

11. Recommendations for getting started

1. Sersal song “Sersal Pîroz”: festive, easily accessible
2. Karapetê Xaço, “Lawijê Filîtê Quto”: classical dengbêj
3. Sînem Şîrazî, Sinjar lament: modern reference
4. Govend accompaniment with zurne + davûl: to be heard on any wedding video
5. “Voices of Sorrow” / Paroles mélodisées AV examples (Amy de la Bretèque), melodized lament to listen to

12. Sirr taboo

• Inner Qewal initiation chants are not quoted in this overview (only structures).
• Sacred Sirran hymns only in academic editions (Omarkhali 2017), no full text here.
• The taboo word is consistently replaced by “[Unspoken]”; Tawûsî Melek is never equated with the devil.

Sources (full-text bibliography)

Trust code: A = academic peer-reviewed; B = institutional, NGO or recognized community; C = online database, community source without formal peer review.

As of: 2026-06-15 · Êzîdî authenticity checked · Consistent spelling: Tawûsî Melek, Lalîş, Sersal, Çarşemiya Sor, Êzdîkî/Kurmancî, Xwedê (never Allah). Instruments → /wiki/musikinstrumente · Sacred texts → /wiki/qewl-tradition · Theology → /wiki/geistlichkeit · Custom → /wiki/traditionen, /wiki/feste