The Power of Narratives: Yezidism as Religious Difference in Kurdish Intellectual History

The TISHK Center for Kurdistan Studies is pleased to announce its seventeenth seminar in the 2025 series, entitled: “The Power of Narratives: Yezidism as Religious Difference in Kurdish Intellectual History.”

The seminar will be presented by Prof. Dr. Haidar Lashkry, Associate Professor of History at the University of Koya. Prof. Lashkry holds a PhD in the History of Islamic Sufism, which he completed at the University of Sulaimani in 2010, following his MA degree from Salahaddin University in 2004. Since 2004, he has been teaching at the Department of History at the University of Koya, where he has also held several academic and administrative positions, including Head of the History Department and Director of Postgraduate Studies.

Prof. Lashkry has been actively engaged in Kurdistan studies since 1999 and has published extensively in Kurdish and Arabic on topics related to the history of religions, Sufism, Islamic history, historiography, and Kurdish Studies. He has participated in numerous national and international conferences, presenting research that critically examines religious thought, historical narratives, and intellectual traditions in Kurdistan. He is also a member of several scholarly committees and academic institutions, including the Kurdish Academy and the Encyclopedia of Kurdistan project.

His major scholarly works include The Kurds in Historical Knowledge: A Critical Analytical Study (2004, Arabic), From Sharia to Truth: The Emergence of Sufism in Kurdish Geography (2013), The Kurds and Islam (co-authored, 2018), The Illusions of Sheikhs and the Imaginations of Pilgrims (2021), There Was No One Greater Than Us (2024), and The Tragedy of Hallaj (2025).

The seminar focuses on the marginalization of religious plurality in Kurdish historiography, particularly the representation of religious difference within dominant historical narratives. Religious diversity in Kurdistan, despite its depth and complexity, has often remained invisible or distorted in historical records, frequently subordinated to narrow political, doctrinal, or genealogical frameworks. From Sharafkhan Bidlisi onward, Kurdish historiography has continuously grappled with questions of identity and difference, often reproducing hegemonic political and religious models.

By revisiting Kurdish intellectual history through the lens of Yezidism, this seminar aims not only to revive suppressed historical differences but also to uncover a deeper crisis related to what may be termed the “power of history.” From within a predominantly Muslim Kurdish perspective, Yezidism represents a profound form of internal difference—one that challenges established narratives of collective identity. The presence of Yezidism thus raises critical epistemological and historiographical questions, enabling a rethinking of memory politics, religious difference, and coexistence within Kurdish intellectual history.

The seminar will be moderated and led by Dr. Fateh Saeidi, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin and a member of the Advisory Board of the TISHK Center for Kurdistan Studies.
Scheduled for Sunday, December 28, 2025, at 6 PM (Berlin time), the seminar will be conducted in Kurdish.The session will include a 10-minute introduction, a 30-minute presentation, a 25-minute Q&A session, and a 10-minute panel discussion and concluding remarks.

 Participants can join via Zoom using the provided link.

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