“Your Son Will Be the Scourge of Islam”

Using analyses of myths and fieldwork material, the article studies the way Yezidis, a small ethno-religious group of the Middle East, appropriated the Muslim figure of Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiya, the second Umayyad caliph. In his Yezidi myth, he appears as a divine being who was incarnated on earth in orde...

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Auteur principal: Spät, Eszter (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
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Publié: Brill 2018
Dans: Numen
Année: 2018, Volume: 65, Numéro: 5/6, Pages: 562-588
Sujets / Chaînes de mots-clés standardisés:B Ḫālid Ibn-Yazīd al-Umawī -704 / Yézidis / Mythologie / Islam / Réforme
Sujets non-standardisés:B Yezidism Islam mythology syncretism oral tradition religious minorities in the Middle East Sufism in Kurdistan religious appropriation scripturalization
Accès en ligne: Volltext (Verlag)
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Résumé:Using analyses of myths and fieldwork material, the article studies the way Yezidis, a small ethno-religious group of the Middle East, appropriated the Muslim figure of Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiya, the second Umayyad caliph. In his Yezidi myth, he appears as a divine being who was incarnated on earth in order to subvert sharia and replace it with a more spiritual form of Islam, equated with the Yezidi religion at the time the myth was composed. The myth is constructed around the historical reputation of Yazīd as an antinomian figure, but interprets it in a way that mocks orthodox Islam and echoes the ethos of Yezidi religion. In their turn, the Prophet Muhammad and Caliph Muʿāwiya appear as inferior figures, representing a religious tradition that is superseded by Yazīd’s arrival. The myth throws light on the historical development of Yezidi religion, as it reflects an earlier stage, when Yezidis considered orthodox Islam a related, albeit rival and inferior, form of religion. However, today, as Yezidis emphasize their distance from anything related with Islam and Arabic culture, the myth may come to be rejected despite its profoundly Yezidi nature.
ISSN:1568-5276
Contient:In: Numen
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341512