Late Antique Motifs in Yezidi Oral Tradition

Eszter Spät

• Publisher: Gorgias Press
• Year: 2013
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781463222024
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The Yezidis are a Kurdish-speaking religious minority who practice a highly syncretistic religion based exclusively on oral tradition. Their myths and motifs, besides showing the influence of both Sufism and a pre-Zoroastrian Western Iranian mythology, are related to the religious movements of Late Antiquity, and reveal the vestiges of a common cultural substratum once shared by the people of the region.

Table of contents

• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• THE YEZIDIS AND LATE ANTIQUE GNOSIS: INTRODUCTION TO ESZTER SPÄT’S LATE ANTIQUE MOTIFS IN YEZIDI MYTHOLOGY AND ORAL TRADITION
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• ABBREVIATIONS
• INTRODUCTION
• 2. RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
• 3. THE ORIGIN OF THE YEZIDIS AND OF YEZIDI STUDIES
• 4. THE RELIGION OF THE YEZIDIS
• 5. RELIGIOUS ORAL TRADITION AND LITERACY AMONG THE YEZIDIS OF IRAQ
• 6. THE YEZIDI CREATION MYTH OF ADAM
• 7. THE KHIRQE, OR GARMENT OF FAITH
• 8. “THE SONG OF THE COMMONER”: THE MOTIF OF SLEEP AND AWAKENING
• 9. THE ORIGIN MYTH OF THE YEZIDIS – THE MYTH OF SHEHID BIN JER
• 10. THE BIRTH OF PROPHET ISMAIL IN THE YEZIDI “TALE OF IBRAHIM”¹⁰⁶⁹
• 11. CONCLUSION
• EPILOGUE: LATE ANTIQUE MOTIFS AND MODERN YEZIDISM
• APPENDIX I: TRANSCRIPT OF RECORDINGS OF THE MYTH OF ADAM AND THE MYTH OF SHEHID BIN JER¹¹⁶⁸
• APPENDIX II: YEZIDI HYMNS TRANSLATED BY P. KREYENBROEK
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX