This article examines how Yazidi diaspora communities negotiate marriage across borders, balancing cultural continuity with integration pressures. It draws on recent ethnographic research on Iraqi Yazidi refugees in Germany and broader studies of Yazidi migration.
Since 2006 Iraq has enacted a series of laws and judicial reforms that allow forensic evidence from mass‑grave investigations to serve as primary proof in criminal trials. These statutes and landmark cases have established precedents for admissibility, procedural handling, and victims’ rights in the Iraqi justice system.
The Yazidi calendar, rooted in the ancient Seleucid system, structures a year of twelve months and several sacred days that mark seasonal renewal. Central to this calendar is the New Year, or Red Wednesday, celebrated on the first Wednesday of April, alongside local and movable festivals that bind Yazidi communities across the Middle East and diaspora.
Armenia hosts the world’s largest Yazidi temple and a growing network of shrines and community halls that serve the country’s 31,000‑strong Yazidi minority. This article surveys the major structures, their history, architecture, and cultural significance.
The forced Arabization policies of Iraq’s Ba’ath regime created a legacy of contested land ownership that exploded after 2003. Post‑invasion return, legal gaps, and ongoing seizures continue to fuel disputes, especially in Kurdish‑majority areas such as Kirkuk and Yazidi homelands.
Yazidi Mîrs serve as both religious heads and political representatives, linking the Supreme Yazidi Spiritual Council with diaspora communities throughout Europe. Through official visits, self‑help networks, and collaboration with NGOs, they coordinate humanitarian aid, dispute resolution, and cultural preservation for displaced Yazidis.
The absence of effective administrative authority—known as a governance vacuum—has profoundly shaped Yazidi return migration and resettlement after the 2014‑2017 conflict. Drawing on IOM displacement reports and the Clingendael analysis of Nineveh Plains, this article explains how institutional gaps affect decisions, settlement choices, and long‑term community recovery.
During the Ottoman period (16th–19th c.) Yazidis erected a distinctive network of shrines, mausoleums and later mosque‑type structures that combined indigenous ritual needs with imperial patronage. This article surveys their forms, functions, and the scholarly debates surrounding them.
Yazidi writing has evolved from early Arabic‑script transcriptions to modern Latin and Cyrillic orthographies, culminating in a Unicode proposal in the 2010s. This article traces the historical milestones, scholarly debates, and regional variations that shaped the scriptic landscape of the Yazidi community.
The Ottoman, Safavid, and European colonial powers pursued a series of policies aimed at converting the Yazidi minority from the 16th to the early 20th centuries. These efforts combined military conscription, legal pressure, and missionary activity, often framed as attempts to tame ‘heretical’ communities.