İtaat, İtikat ve Askerlik Üçgeninde Osmanlı’da Devlet-Yezidi İlişkileri
Authors: AKMAN Ekrem 
Published: June 2021

State-Yazidi Relationships in the Ottoman Empire Regarding Obedience, Belief and Military
Abstract
Yazidis or Ezidis are a Kurdish speaking religion group, living in the Sheyhan and Sinjar region around Mosul as well as rural areas of Diyarbakır, Urfa and Mardin. Yazidism is an ethno-religious faith, which is specific to certain families and in which any person out of this belief is not accepted. There are still unresolved debates about when and by whom Yazidism was founded, its origin, and basic belief figures. Islamic scholars argue that the Yezidism was founded by the community known as Adeviye Sect, maintained by the followers of Adi. b. Müsafir,(555/1160) a Sunni sufi, after his death but then deviated from the belief of Islam in time and became an aberrant religion. Some also claim that this belief has survived as a remnant of Iranian religions such as Zarathustra, Mani and Mithraism (Mihrperest). The Ottoman Empire, occupied the surrounding of Mosul and Diyarbekir in 1514, started to have relationships with the Yazidis. Following this date, the state-Yezidi relationships in the Ottoman Empire regarding obedience, belief and military started. When the Yazidis followed the rules specified by the state, they were granted agricultural lands and areas, and they were accepted to be citizens. However, when they did not obey and revolted, they were accused of being disbeliever, not performing prayers and being aberrant, for this reason, they were punished. In this regard, the attitude of the state towards heterodox groups was determined not by religion and belief, but rather by sovereignty and obedience in the classical period of the Ottoman Empire. With the period of Tanzimat, the state-Yazidi relationships, which was centered on obedience, was first transformed into “Ottomanism”, in which all citizens were accepted equal based on belief and military, and then Pan Islamism. Yazidi clergymen and leading figures refused to join the military by urging that their religion did not allow this. Faith and belief were at that time essential for the Ottoman Empire-Yazidi relationships, which was previously based on obedience and revolt. A number of projects were performed for communities and groups which were wanted to be included in the Pan-Islamism and prevent them from being targeted by foreign interventions. In this respect, in addition to the activities of heyet-i tefhimiye, fırka-i ıslahiye, irşad committees, religious education, school and mosque construction activities were initiated.
The offer of the Yazidis to solve military problems by paying a certain amount of money like Christians and Jews was not accepted by the state. After the second constitutional era, the demands of the Yazidis regarding a treatment such as exemption from military service in return for jizya or paid military service as a separate religion like Christians and Jews began to be discussed among the Ottoman bureaucrats and administrators. They stated that the group declaring themselves as Yezidi and believing in this respect had to be accepted as Yazidi in accordance with religious and sect freedom, the State had to recognize the religion of the Yazidis and their spiritual leaders had to benefit from the laws applicable for the spiritual leaders of non-Muslim groups. In this article, it is sought to answer the belief problems of the Yazidis and the question of whether the factor of obedience or belief were more determinant in Ottoman-Yazidi relationships. In this research it is claimed that in the classical period when the Ottoman Empire was powerful, its attitude towards the peripheral belief groups and communities was determined by obedience, not by religion and belief. After the Tanzimat, when the external pressures were dominant, these groups were tried to be included in the center by correcting their beliefs by means of military services.

This article is divided into three parts: In the first part, the founder and naming of the Yazidi belief, which constitute the main problem of their history, will be examined. In this context, this section will discuss their relations with Satan and Yazid figures, which they define with a different physiognomy. The second part will analyse the Ottoman-Yazidi encounter in the classical period. The third part will focus on military service, which became the main problem in the state-Yezidi relations after the Tanzimat era. The contradictions in the beliefs of the Yazidis also an important part of this article. Therefore, the mühimme defters and the other archive documents were also used in this study to understand the Ottoman Empire's approach to Yazidis and the other-similar heretic groups in the classical and the Tanzimat period. This article will fill an important gap by comparing the functioning of the Ottoman state mechanism in the classical and Tanzimat era.

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