ABSTRACT
Yezidism, a unique product of the Near Eastern non-dogmatic milieu, absorbed elements of numerous religious trends of the region. The process of the formation of the Yezidis as a separate ethno-religious group took place in the period from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries in the region of Sinjar in Northern Iraq. The new community was initially shaped on the basis of the Sufi Adawīyya order, which loyal atmosphere inhaled different and often contradictory elements brought by diverse groups of the followers of the Sufi murshid Sheikh ‘Adi (d. 1162), the founder of the Adawīyya. But the coalescences of group cooperation and beliefs produced a fundamentally new syncretic religion that was principally lacking a common dogma, and later totally dissociated itself from Islam (Guest 1987: 15–28; Kreyenbroek 1995: 45–68; Arakelova 2006).
