Kurdish History Journal
Articles filed under Kurdish Art and Culture.
Read seven documented Kurdish sayings with original wording, clear translations and source references. These Kurmanji and Sorani examples show how imagery, exaggeration and context shape a proverb’s meaning.
Read article →Explore ten foods documented in Kurdish kitchens, from yaprax and kifta to Van’s savar and a Newroz salad, with named recipe sources and regional context.
Read article →Turkish is one member of the Turkic language family. The word also has national and cultural meanings. Understanding those contexts—and the difference between ancestry and identity—helps explain both Turkish and Kurdish history without treating DNA as a test of belonging.
Read article →Raa Haqi, the Path of Truth, connects Kurdish Alevi communities with sacred landscapes, hereditary guides and oral traditions. Research in Dersim also records migration, ecological activism and diverse understandings of identity.
Read article →Named trees, cloth offerings and protected groves reveal distinct traditions at Lalish and in Dersim. Sources connect each practice to its community and place.
Read article →Lalish’s White Spring, Munzur’s sacred landscape and Mukriyan folklore show different meanings of water. Named sources distinguish ritual, oral narrative and mineral springs.
Read article →Torches, temple fires and oil lamps appear in different Kurdish cultural and religious settings. Their meanings become clearer through specific Newroz celebrations, Zoroastrian explanations and Yazidi practices at Lalish and other shrines.
Read article →Published studies describe the Pearl, divine manifestation and the world’s emergence in Yarsani tradition. Comparing attributed accounts preserves their differences and distinguishes creation narratives from later cycles.
Read article →Named mountains, caves, springs and shrines carry different meanings in Alevi, Yazidi and Islamic traditions. Düzgün Baba, Munzur, Sinjar and Judi show how pilgrimage, landscape and sacred narratives meet in particular places.
Read article →Yazidi hymns describe creation through Dur, water and the stabilising earth. Scholarship connects these narratives with the Seven Holy Beings and the sacred place of Lalish.
Read article →Xudan is a Yazidi religious term for a lord or protector. Named examples connect nature, household concerns and sacred places. Research and documented shrine practices show how these relationships are expressed in religious life.
Read article →A named storyteller’s tale in Roger Lescot’s 1940 collection and a 2018 Kurdish theatre adaptation show how Keçelok changes between versions.
Read article →Zembilfirosh is a story tradition with different narrators, characters and endings. Recorded versions reveal renunciation, desire, accusation and connections with the Joseph story.
Read article →Pir Shalyar, the ancient saint and mystic of Hawraman: the legendary healer of the Kurdish Zagros whose miraculous cure of a princess is remembered in one of the oldest surviving Kurdish ceremonies.
Read article →Xidir, Xızır and Khidr appear in related but distinct religious settings. Textual traditions, Dersim Alevi calendars and Yazidi Khidr Elias practices show why local names, communities and sources matter.
Read article →The legend of Solomon and the jinn: an old mythic tale, recorded by medieval writers, of the origin of the Kurds in the mountains, told as folklore and legend, not history.
Read article →Yarsani studies discuss divine manifestation, recurring sacred beings and religious lineages. Published accounts also record different lists and debates over interpretation and authority.
Read article →Khandans are religious lineages linked to spiritual authority in Yarsani communities. Scholarship distinguishes hereditary guides from affiliated lay families and records regional differences in counting, initiation and marriage rules.
Read article →Pir Ali, or Pîrê Alî, is honoured in the regional Yazidi festival Batizmî. Community explanations, interviews and field documentation connect his memory with household ritual, migration and sacred places.
Read article →Şerfedîn, or Sharaf al-Din ibn al-Hasan, is a revered Yazidi figure whose name also identifies the faith in religious tradition. His Sinjar shrine connects pilgrimage, history and remembrance.
Read article →Pir Mam Rashan is a Yazidi holy figure associated with rain, agriculture and harvest. Recorded religious poetry and the reconstruction of his Sinjar shrine provide different kinds of evidence about his place in Yazidi life.
Read article →Musa Sor is a Yazidi holy figure associated with wind and air. Recorded invocations, accounts of Sheikh lineages and a firsthand shrine visit show how his veneration connects agriculture, sacred places and household religious life.
Read article →Xatuna Fakhra in Yazidi tradition: the holy female figure venerated as the Xudan of women and children and the patron of childbirth, pregnancy, and fertility.
Read article →Asman names both the sky and its divine guardian. Avestan prayers and Middle Persian creation texts explain its place in creation, its defence against the Evil Spirit and its dedication on the twenty-seventh day.
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