Digital Archiving and Revitalization of Yazidi Qewl in the 2020s

This encyclopedia entry surveys the ways digital technologies have been mobilized since 2015 to archive, catalogue, and breathe new life into the Yazidi sacred hymns known as qewl. It draws on recent field projects, scholarly analysis, and community‑driven digital platforms.

Qewl (Kurmanji: qewl) are the sacred hymns of the Yazidi faith, transmitted orally by hereditary singers (qewwals) and forming the core theological corpus of Yazidism.

Pronunciation & orthography

Kurmanji spelling: qewl. Arabic‑script: قئول. Cyrillic (for diaspora in former USSR): кевл. IPA: /qɛwl/. Common English misspellings include “kewl” and “qawl”.

Main exposition

Digital recording initiatives

In response to the 2014 genocide, the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund financed a multi‑year project that recorded over one hundred traditional songs directly from surviving qewwals and diaspora singers (source 2). The recordings were made in displacement camps such as Khanke and later digitized in high‑resolution WAV format.

Metadata standards and digital repositories

Partnering with the Yazidi Spiritual Council and the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the project adopted the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) metadata schema, ensuring each qewl is indexed by title, melodic mode (kubrî), performer, and ritual context (source 2). The resulting digital collection is publicly searchable via the Bodleian’s “Yazidi Music” portal.

Community‑led platforms

The HÁWAR.help “Yazidi Community Archive” provides a cloud‑based repository where community members upload audio, video, and scanned manuscript material. Workshops teach participants how to tag files with controlled vocabularies, creating a crowd‑sourced catalog that complements scholarly databases (source 3).

Collaborations with academic institutions

Scholars from Harvard’s Oral Tradition Journal have begun acoustic analyses of digitized qewls, examining the shape of melodies (kubrî) and their relation to textual meaning (source 1). Their work demonstrates how digital sound files enable quantitative musicology that was impossible with analogue tapes.

Impact on revitalization

Digital archives have facilitated the formation of a Yazidi women’s choir in Khanke camp, allowing singers to rehearse using recorded reference tracks (source 2). Online streaming of qewl performances on platforms such as YouTube and the HÁWAR portal has broadened audience reach, encouraging younger Yazidis to learn the repertoire.

In the oral tradition

Qewls have historically been transmitted without written notation, relying on the memory of hereditary qewwals. As Kurdish‑history.com notes, they are “the closest thing Yazidism has to scripture” and “were never written down for most of their history” (source 4).

“To understand Yazidism is to understand the qewls, for it is in these hymns, rather than in any single holy book, that the faith truly lives.” – Kurdish‑history.com

Scholarly disagreement

Kreyenbroek argues that digital transcription risks “freezing” a fluid oral tradition into a static artifact, thereby diminishing its performative flexibility (source 1). Açıkyıldız counters that “controlled digitisation, when coupled with community access, actually expands the living space of the qewl by allowing multiple dialectal versions to coexist online” (source 2).

Common misconceptions

Regional variation

While the core melodic structures of qewls are shared across Sinjar, Sheikhan, and diaspora communities, regional accents and instrumental accompaniments differ. In the Syrian Yazidi villages, the daf drum is more prominent, whereas in the Turkish diaspora the saz often substitutes the traditional tembûr. Digital platforms now host region‑tagged versions, allowing comparative study.

Timeline

Data table