Edward Granville Browne
When foreigners began studying Yazidis in the 1850s, they believed that the Yazidis had sacred books and thus tried to find them. While Yazidis do have sacred books as attested in their oral traditions, it was not known whether they were kept secret in a Yazidi home or burned during massacres. Copies of the "Yazidi Book of Revelation" were found in the 1880s and a number of copies purporting to be authentic circulated in Iraq from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. Assyrian Jeremiah Shamir, a former monk and known manuscript dealer from Ankawa was seemingly implicated in this affair. A translation of the "Yazidi Book of Revelation" and "Yazidi Black Book" was translated by Alpheus Andrus in 1891, and later by Edward Granville Browne in 1895. Translations were also made by R. Y. Ebied, M. J. L. Young and Isya Joseph. Joseph claimed that his translation was made from the original Kurdish book which he had discovered. Alphonse Mingana asserted in 1916 that all hitherto translations were based on inauthentic documents. He moreover states that Shamir could have been the author of the "Yazidi Book of Revelation".