Halk İnanışları-Silopi Üzerine Dinler Tarihi Açısından Bir Araştırma-
Authors: Elçe Delila 
Published: January 2025

Folk beliefs are an important part of the history of religions. These beliefs play a critical role in shaping social structures, in the implementation of religious rituals, and in understanding how religious experiences are lived out in daily life. Particularly, the beliefs prevalent among the people reflect a more personal experience that is distinct from the dogmatic teachings of religion. These beliefs show how the people adopt and apply religious teachings, and how these teachings are adapted to local cultural contexts. Therefore, folk beliefs are crucial for understanding how religion takes shape in a socio-cultural context and the meaning it carries among the people.rnOften, when these kinds of beliefs, thoughts, and practices are studied, they are referred to with subjective terms such as superstitions and folk beliefs, especially in non-normative disciplines like the history of religions. In this context, when folk beliefs are studied from the perspective of the history of religions, using a subjective term like superstition can be misleading. Folk beliefs are belief systems shaped according to the religious, cultural, and historical context of each society, and these beliefs hold significant importance in the history of religions. In this framework, folk beliefs should be considered as elements that shape religious understanding, rituals, and cultural structure in societies, even though they are sometimes independent of the teachings of official religions. Folk beliefs offer a rich source of information regarding religious thoughts, rituals, and the religious experiences of the people. These beliefs are too deep and meaningful to be categorized merely as superstitions or untrue.rnThe history of religions and folklore are two fields that complement each other. Particularly, folk beliefs form the practical dimension of religion as it appears in daily life. Understanding how religion is perceived and lived by people is made possible with the support of folklore studies. However, to understand the place of these beliefs among historical and contemporary religious elements, the perspective of the history of religions is necessary. Folk beliefs are expected to have different practices, backgrounds, and meanings over short geographical distances. Therefore, it is important to focus on a small geographical area for such research, as only this way can an in-depth study be conducted.rnIn this study, which is limited to the district of Silopi, the first section explains how key concepts related to the study are understood in dictionaries and different disciplines. Additionally, various historical, cultural, and economic details about the district of Silopi, the subject of the study, are provided. Silopi is a region rich in folk beliefs due to its historical and cultural diversity. Studies on folk beliefs conducted in this district, when examined from the perspective of the history of religions, will allow a better understanding of the social structures and religious beliefs in the region. Silopi, which has a large Kurdish population, also has people with different beliefs, including folk medicine and ancient animistic beliefs. This diversity offers a fertile ground for understanding the local dynamics of folk beliefs and cultural interactions.rnClassifying data is an important method in phenomenological studies. Therefore, the main topic of the study, folk beliefs, has been divided into various categories. In this context, the first section is divided into categories considered as transitional stages, such as marriage, birth, and death. While folk studies typically follow the sequence of birth, marriage, and death, a methodological difference has been made by prioritizing the category of marriage. The reason for this is that, in the research, some practices related to marriage also include beliefs related to the child expected to be born in the future. Thus, this methodology has been applied for the first time in this study.rnIt is also worth mentioning some of the methods and techniques followed in the continuation of the study. These methods include literature review, scanning and experimental models, participatory observation, content analysis, and discourse analysis. One of the most commonly used methods to study folk beliefs is interviews with the local population. These interviews provide in-depth information about the people's beliefs, rituals, and religious experiences. In this study on Silopi, interviews with older generations are especially important to understand whether traditional beliefs have been preserved. Additionally, efforts have been made to ensure that people from different age groups and educational backgrounds are interviewed to understand whether various sections of the society are aware of these beliefs and practices. Folk beliefs are usually transmitted from generation to generation through oral traditions. Therefore, myths, tales, proverbs, and other oral narratives shared among the people offer valuable information about the community's religious and superstitious beliefs. For this reason, interviews have conducted with individuals thought to be experienced in this area, and the collected data has been written down. Additionally, when certain practices were not encountered during the research process, the experimental model/controlled observation model has been used.