The Lalish Temple, located in the northern Sheikhan District in northern Iraq, is known the holiest site for Yazidis around the world. Lalish Temple was damaged and looted by many Islamic extremists through history. The recent period of stability has paved the way for the renovation of the Lalish Temple, a significant site for the Yazidi people and their identity.

The Lalish Temple is regarded as a pilgrimage site by Yazidis, who conduct a six-day pilgrimage to Lalish Temple, every Yazidi should visit to this holy place once in their lives. Lalish is the only place Yazidis people can be baptized as Yazidi.

The rehabilitation process has been going on for about one year and still ongoing the funds were donated by Yazidi donors and businessmen to rehabilitate some parts of the Lalish.Yazidis from around the regione which is called( Khilmatkar) have come to join efforts to rehabilitate the Lalish Temple once they heard of the project. Moreover, the process has been supervised by a volunteer engineering team from Yazidis who are based in Lalish Temple.

The rehabilitation plans were developed a few years ago by a German engineering team that carried out a full study of the historical and architectural values of the temple.

Governments have donated a lot of money to rehabilitate this holy Temple, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) had recently contributed to the rehabilitation process by allocating $15 million in 2014, however this project was violently interrupted by the arrival of ISIS terrorists. The money that was donated for rehabilitation was known yet, and there’s no clear justification of that how the money was spent on!

July 2019, the United States has earmarked $ 500 million for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Lalish Temple,” United states ambassador said at a news conference after the temple’s visit, saying that specialized teams from Pennsylvania will supervise the project.

The village of Lalish dates back thousands of years, and it is believed the temple was first used by the ancient Sumerians and other early Mesopotamian civilizations. Most Yazidi followers make a pilgrimage to the small mountain village at least once in their lives.

Yazidis faced genocide and suffered greatly at the hands of ISIS over the past few years as they were targeted and subject to massacres, the most prominent of which took place in Sinjar. Some people have now returned to their homes and have been involved in reconstructing and rehabilitating their areas as well as rebuilding Yazidis shrines and Temple in Sinjar that were destroyed and exploded by Islamic terrorist groups called ISIS(Daesh).

Yazidism is a monotheistic faith that shares similarities with other religions that originated in the Middle East namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as well as elements of Zoroastrianism and of the worship of nature. Most Yazidis live in the Nineveh province of Northern Iraq, and this is also where the Lalish temple is located, the most sacred site in the Yazidi faith.