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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turn, the Prophet Muhammad and Caliph Muʿāwiya appear as inferior figures, representing a religious tradition that is superseded by Yazīd’s arrival.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. 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turn, the Prophet Muhammad and Caliph Muʿāwiya appear as inferior figures, representing a religious tradition that is superseded by Yazīd’s arrival.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. 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. 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.
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