The Yezidi are an ethno religious group that live primarily in northern Iraq. This community of people united through common heritage, language, and religion are predominantly ethnically Kurdish. Yezidi is a culture, a religion, and a people group that has an urgent need to be evangelized. This research paper seeks to introduce this minority group, the Yezidi, anthropologically in order for contextualized cross-cultural ministry to occur in an appropriate and effective manner. The Yezidi’s geographical location is difficult to precisely determine due to the diaspora that this people group has experienced. Traditionally, the Yezidi people lived near the borders of Syria and Iraq in the southern part of Turkey. According to The Yezidis: The History …show more content…
Birgül Açikyildiz writes in his book “although some sacred texts were first published at the beginning of the twentieth century, and although some Arabic and Syriac sources refer to events at the time when the Yezidi community first emerged, almost nothing is recorded about the history and beliefs of the first Yezidis” (35). The uncertainty with the beginning of the group is due to the lack of reputable and consistent sources. Açikyildiz continues to discuss the beliefs that the Yezidi have on their origins. There is a common belief that the entire Kurdish people group was originally Yezidi. However, due to the constant tyranny of the Muslim regimes and rulers, they were forced to convert to Islam in order to survive. The Yezidi that decided to remain faithful to Melek Taus, the fallen angel that the religion worships, are the Yezidi that we know today. In ‘Who are the Yezidis and why is Isis hunting them?’, an article written for The Guardian by Raya Jalabi, describe the Yezidis as “a historically misunderstood group, [they] are predominantly ethnically Kurdish, and have kept alive their syncretic religion for centuries, despite many years of oppression and threatened extermination.” Knowledge of the oppression brought upon this people group is key knowledge in order to contextual the Gospel and effectively minister to this group. Being aware of the Yezidis history is
“Everything I was dreaming of is gone.” Those are the words of Abdullah Kurdi, whose wife and two children drowned after the small boat that was supposed to take them from Turkey to the Greek island of Kos had capsized. Abdullah Kurdi was ultimately trying to get his family to a better life in Canada when it all went wrong and he lost everything. Since Alan Kurdi’s little body washed up on a Turkish beach on September 3, his photos have taken the world by storm.
Yadira Sosa is a teacher in San Benito Texas. Mrs. Sosa has had the privilege to teaching for 10 years at Dr. Cash Elementary. Mrs.Sosa has been a PK teacher for the past 5 yrs. After interviewing Mrs. Sosa I have learn that being a teacher is a great challenge. Its a profession that requires many skills one must possess. The firsts thing Mrs.Sosa said was you have to love children and have patience in order to be a teacher. Patience is the number one skill a teacher must posses. Children come form different background and have different personality. As a teacher you have to find a way to work with the student to earn their respect. Another skill Mrs. Sosa mention was teamwork with the staff. Working as a team helps the student and helps
There are many countries in the world and every country is unique and individualistic with many exclusive qualities. Everyone in the world has a culture but it is not easy to accept or agree with other people’s culture. The ethnography, “Guests of the Sheik”, written by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea really captures what it is like to live and to be immersed into another culture. Ethnography is “comprised of the writings of the anthropologist, detailing the life ways of a particular culture, investigated by means of direct fieldwork” (Arenson, and Miller-Thayer 1). Elizabeth Fernea lived in a small village of El Nahra in southern Iraq for two years to gather data for her anthropologist husband Bob. In the beginning, she had limited knowledge of Iraq, its religion or culture, but as she started connecting with the women of the society, she came to learn both about this foreign country and about herself. Acculturation is “the process of acceptance resulting for the contact between two cultures, or an individual interacting in at least two cultures” (517). As she builds relationships with the woman’s, she is acculturated.
My Yiayia is a very special person to just about everyone who knows her. She loves to talk about her memories and experiences of when she was younger. During the interview I was able to hear even more wonderful stories from her past. She was in high school during the 1950s, she grew up in a small poor neighborhood with brick streets, one high school, one factory everyone would work out once they graduated highschool, and one drug/grocery store. She remembers there was a soda machine at the drugstore where people from her school went to socialize but she was never allowed to. Her parents were immigrants from Turkey making her cultural background very important in her life, she was very sheltered throughout her school years, and her family's
Amira Arzu, an Afghan teenager, was only 15 years old when she was forced into an arranged marriage. She was kind hearted, intelligent, elated, and humorous until one day this was all taken away. December 15th, 2016 she was on her way to school in Afghanistan not knowing that her parents were driving her to a Mosque, the Shrine of Ali, to get married to her future husband, Ahmed Akmal. A few days later she found herself on the street Taimani in Kabul, Afghanistan. Amira ran past workers ordering from street carts, women with their children, men in trucks honking at one another, and many looked at her uncertainty as she was running through the streets of Kabul. At the time, she was wearing a blue floral hijab, jeans, and a dress as in Afghanistan you cannot wear a dress without covering your legs. Many deduced that she was without her husband on the streets of Kabul, which is not normally the case, but Amira was different from the other wives and arduously wanting to figure out an escape.
Selim I also known as “The Grim” was the third son born to Bayezid II, he came into power by getting rid of his father. Selim began to wage war on other Muslim states because he believed that the other Muslim states were condoning heresy. Selim I first killed thousands of Shia Muslim people before he started a war with the Persian Shia king named Isma’il. Selim I and his army also began to move towards Mesopotamia and finally in 1514 Selim’s army conquered the Safavid army. This was easy for Selim I because his army was equipped with muskets and weapons such as guns, while the Safavid army had older weapons like the bow and arrow, blades, and spears. After defeating the Safavid army he then moved on to start a war with the Mameluk leaders that
At the age of sixteen, Amir Ronaghi bravely decided to come to the United States for more educational and lifestyle opportunities. Like most Iranians, this hard process included living abroad for a few years to get a VISA, for him Austria, later moving to the United States to endure many adversities before success. Despite the obstacles, Amir knows how to balance fun and hard work. For instance, every Sunday, he never fails to play soccer, additionally traveling to play on a medical soccer team. While traveling to foreign places, Amir enjoys photography, especially with his family near a beautiful or significant site. Towering at over 6 feet tall with a smile as bright as the sun, Amir Ronaghi is extremely caring and humble while inspiring others to work hard for a better future.
The ISIS Yazidi Women Abductions are a very important topic to address at this point in time. The Yazidi people have been persecuted based on the beliefs in a benevolent peacock angel (Melek Taus) which contains elements of Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam. ISIL views this peacock angel as a malevolent archangel Lucifer or more commonly known as Satan. Under the Islamic Law observed by ISIS, Yazidis are officially given an opportunity to convert to Sunni Islam or be put to death. This has led to the exile, abduction and unfortunate massacres of at least 5,000 Yazidi men, women, and children. This is a crucial issue to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland because
In addition to Afghan mujahidin, people fro other Muslim countries volunteered and one of the prominent figures was Osama bin Laden who came from Saudi Arabia to join mujahidin and fight against the Soviets. Also, fighters from Chechnya rushed to join the Mujahidin movements, the Soviets were officially atheists and detrimental to the Islam at large. The mountainous terrains of Afghanistan, the ethnic and linguistic differences among the mujahidin faction made it difficult for the groups to cooperate. However, by 1985 the corporation between the resistance groups improved and a network of alliance was created the Seven Party Mujahidin Alliance of Peshware Seven. Some of the prominate of the mujahidin commanders was Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was assassinated by the Taliban in 2001.
1. The Yazidis are a minority religious group from Iraq. They are being forced to flee to Mount Sinjar in order to escape religious persecution from the Isis terrorist group. According to The Times of India, the Yazidis “have often been misconstrued as satanic” which is causing many people to terrorize the group for their beliefs.
Only a month after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 an article appeared in The Guardian that claimed to reveal the identity of “The Man who Inspired bin Laden” (Irwin n.p.) Still reeling from the carnage and destruction, many in the West sought to understand what could have inspired that magnitude of violence. British author Robert Irwin believed he found the answer “not in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan,” or hidden in the biography of Osama bin Laden (Irwin n.p.) but in the works of Egyptian fundamentalist Sayyid Qutb. Generally regarded as one of the most influential Islamic revivalists of the 20th century, and a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood, he has been described in scholarly publications as the “spiritual father of al-Qaeda” (Hansen and Kainz 57) and his seminal work, Milestones, has more than once been compared to Mein Kampf.
Have you ever thought about how to learn about Chaldean culture? This paper will provide you the reader with this knowledge. I will discuss Chaldean traditions and how my family have brought them to the United States. The Chaldean tradition derives from the ancient civilization and though it has little change my family is very fortunate to practice this unique culture. We as a family lived in the Middle East (Iraq “majority”, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Iran …), and nowadays are spread all over the world after the recent wars and challenges in the region that they live, especially those of Iraq. The Chaldean community like myself have migrated to the United States and live in two major Cities (Detroit in Michigan, and San Diego in California. The majority of Chaldeans like my family and I that have lived in USA came from the Northern part of Mesopotamia in a small village called, “Tilkef”. I am a Chaldeans like many of my relatives that are Christian Catholics, and we speak a language of Aramaic (The language that Jesus was speaking), which is also called Chaldean. The Aramaic is one of the oldest, continually spoken languages in the world. People think that Arabic and Chaldean languages are the same thing, actually they are nothing alike, and you will not be able to understand Arabic just because you speak Chaldean. I can speak both of these two different languages, and the use of this language is only because the Chaldean used to live with the Arab people for hundreds of
Losing someone you care about and being strong about it is very hard. Everyone has experienced hardship like this and everyone can relate just like you and Kaguyahime. So, the lesson in my Japanese myth “Kaguyahime” is to learn to appreciate what we have before time makes us appreciate what we had. The myth “Kaguyahime” is a story about an old man who finds a girl that was magically born in a bamboo shoot. The old man and his wife raise her and as she gets older she starts to learn who she really is. This myth relates to my family because when I was a little kid my grandma use to tell me this story. She would say that I’m just like Kaguyahime because I was a beautiful baby girl and that I was also born magically. This myth was originally written in the 10th century in the Tokugawa Period which is between the years 901-1000. Here’s how the story goes.
Becoming a mother is viewed as essential throughout many African cultures, for it is as if you have not fulfilled your duty as a women if you have not been a mother. Strong rooted traditions and superstitions play an important role in this. For example, Hamzawi was told he was infertile because his first wife put a curse on him. When a child showed up on his doorstep Hamzawi called him, "An angel from heaven" (Saadawi, 36). He was eager to take the child in, for he was not able to have one of his own and saw the child as a gift from Allah. Hamzawi's opinion of this child changed rather quickly as soon as misfortune began to occur in the village and people began to blame the child for it was a child of sin. They stopped greeting Hamzawi, and
Everything was fine about a week ago, I wasn’t in deep shit with just my dad and my principal and my professional football career was still a viable option. But everything just seemed to spontaneously blow up in my face and the thing that sucks Is that I had been left to manage with what was left. I’m always hearing how everything happens for a reason, I can’t see a reason other than ruining my life. And to make matters worse I was about to look death right in its eyes, dad was already pissed at me for fighting martin at school although he deserved it teach him to start running his mouth, but that besides the point how will he react knowing that I went to a party go drunk of my head and in the process let a mate almost die.