Genocidal Campaigns during the Ottoman Era: The Firmān of Mīr-i-Kura against the Yazidi Religious Minority in 1832–1834

Abstract

This article examines books and works of locals and Western travellers in which historical evidence has been used by the current author to construct a narrative of the Yazidi genocides. The sources examined describe what the Ottoman and Kurdish princes were doing to the Yazidis at a time when genocide was not defined in legal terms. The Kurdish princes’ firmāns (genocidal campaigns) stripped the Yazidi people of much of their land and resulted in thousands of deaths. These genocidal campaigns in the mid-nineteenth century had all the features of a modern genocide. This article engages with such military campaigns against Yazidis by focusing on the firmān of Mīr (prince) Muḥammad Pāshā Rawwānduzī (nicknamed Mīr-i-Kura) in 1832–1834, which targeted Yazidi regions from Erbil to Sinjar. The resulting firmāns deeply impacted Yazidi collective memory and identity. Based upon the work of locals and Western travellers, as well as the narratives of contemporary observers and researchers, the firmān, its effects on the Yazidis, and their subsequent reactions to it, are described and analyzed in this study.