Creation hymns, religious poetry, serpent stories and folktales belong to different kinds of narrative. Sources on Yezidi and Yarsan traditions, Şahmaran variants and northern Iraqi storytelling help explain their meanings without inventing a single pantheon for all Kurds.

Stone buildings and two conical shrine roofs among trees in the valley of Lalish
Lalish, photographed by Lamacchiacosta on 10 March 2018. This is a view of a living religious landscape, not an illustration of a creation event. © Lamacchiacosta · 10 March 2018 · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0.

A collection of traditions, with different settings

Kurdish mythology can introduce community narratives, but a sacred hymn, a folktale and a literary epic have different purposes. The 2022 anthology Neo-Aramaic and Kurdish Folklore from Northern Iraq places Kurdish Muslim storytelling alongside Aramaic-speaking Christian and Jewish traditions. Its editors emphasize shared material and multilingual contact. [1] This comparative setting is more useful than assuming every supernatural character belongs to one ancient national religion. A story’s language, narrator and occasion are part of its meaning.

Yezidi creation narratives and Tawûsî Melek

Philip G. Kreyenbroek’s 2006 paper draws on his work with Khalil Jindy Rashow on Yezidi sacred poems and religious narratives. He describes qewls in which God creates the world from a pearl containing its embryonic form, then entrusts its care to Seven Beings led by Tawûsî Melek, the Peacock Angel. [2] These are accounts within a particular religious tradition. Tawûsî Melek should not be added to a generalized list of gods worshipped by all Kurds, or defined through hostile outsider labels.

Yarsan narratives, kalām and the jam

Kreyenbroek’s 2022 study describes Yarsan creation through a primordial pearl, the Seven Beings or Haft Tan, and a first gathering, the jam. It also explains a cyclical religious history in which divine essences can appear in different forms. The principal sacred poetic corpus is in Literary Gurani, alongside texts in other languages. [3] Long kalām poems, shorter songs used in ritual and spoken explanations have related but distinct functions. Similar pearl imagery in Yezidi and Yarsan accounts invites comparison; it does not make their communities or practices interchangeable.

Şahmaran: follow the particular version

Sultan Sökmen and Zeynep Balkanal’s 2018 article summarizes versions associated with Adana, Tarsus and Mardin. In its Mardin account, a vizier’s son is abandoned in a well, reaches Şahmaran’s hidden domain and gains release by promising secrecy. He later reveals the location for personal advantage when the ruler is ill; Şahmaran is killed and the ruler receives a cure. [4] The emphasis is betrayal and healing within that telling. Mardin Artuklu University also records Cahide Harputlu’s comparative seminar on Kurdish, Turkish and Iranian versions. [5] A shared figure can have locally meaningful forms without an exclusive ethnic origin.

Spirit names need linguistic context

Umîd Demîrhan’s Kurdish dictionary defines cin as beings people cannot see. One entry for perî describes a beautiful female cin; the same written form has several other entries with different meanings. [6] These words provide vocabulary for discussing supernatural figures, not a catalogue of a universally shared theology. When translating a story, identify the meaning that fits its sentences and the narrator’s usage. Calling every being a deity, or treating each local tale as a creation myth, loses distinctions already present in the language.

Shared tales and the importance of an identified text

The northern Iraqi anthology presents folktales, legends, fables and anecdotes in Northern and Central Kurdish and North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic, with English translations. Its contents include several versions of the basket-seller story and the Bridge of Dalal. [1] These paired texts allow comparison across languages and communities. Read the collector’s introduction before treating details as beliefs held by every speaker. For another version, record the narrator, locality, language, date and edition. Differences between tellings are evidence of transmission and interpretation, rather than a reason to combine them into one supposedly original story.

Sources and further reading

  1. Geoffrey Khan, Masoud Mohammadirad, Dorota Molin and Paul M. Noorlander, Neo-Aramaic and Kurdish Folklore from Northern Iraq, vol. 2, Open Book Publishers, 2022, publisher’s introduction and contents.
  2. Philip G. Kreyenbroek, The Traditions of the Yezidis and Ahl-e Haqq as Evidence for Kurdish Cultural History, World Congress of Kurdish Studies, Erbil, 2006; qewls and creation account.
  3. Philip G. Kreyenbroek, The Religious Textual Heritage of the Yārsān (Ahl-e Haqq), Oral Tradition 35/2 (2022), pp. 331–340; languages, religious world and textual categories.
  4. Sultan Sökmen and Zeynep Balkanal, Anadolu’da Önemli Bir Simge Olan Şahmeran’ın Halk İnanışlarındaki Yeri, 2018, pp. 281–296, especially 286–287; DOI 10.29029/busbed.333220.
  5. Mardin Artuklu University, Institute of Living Languages, report of Cahide Harputlu’s 57th Rêzesemîner presentation comparing Şahmaran versions.
  6. Umîd Demîrhan, Ferhenga Destî: kurdî bi kurdî, expanded second edition, Sewad, 2007, printed pp. 60 (cin), 290 (perî). Definitions translated from Kurdish.