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Kenneth James Gannon

Follow · January 15 ·

The OTTOMAN EMPIRE and the YAZIDIS:

(Pictured: Ottoman soldiers march through Iraq in 1915, the last time the country was ruled by an organized caliphate.... (Photo: Ottoman Imperial Archives / Flickr))

{
Yezidi Genocide

It has been estimated that 23 million Yezidis have been killed by Moslems and their other self-proclaimed enemies during the past 700 years. And the Yezidi population continues to decrease. Just 200 years ago was 2 million, but it is now estimated to be less than one million worldwide. A current “incentive” to the ongoing slaughter is a belief that states that if a Moslem slays a Yezidi great awards await him or her in Heaven. If a Moslem man slays a Yezidi he is told that he will be rewarded with 72 virgins in the next world. Unless such “incentives” cease and this senseless killing is stopped the Yezidis could face permanent extinction. If this happens, the world will not only loose a very peaceful and unbiased people, but an irreplaceable link to its past. The Yezidis, who originally migrated to Iraq from India, are currently the caretakers of the oldest religious tradition on Earth.

A slaughter of the Yezidis occurred in April, 2007, when 23 of them were murdered by Kurdish Moslems. In August of that year four trucks driven by fanatical Moslems and laden with explosives were driven into the Yezidi town of Sinjar and detonated. Five hundred Yezidis lost their lives in the attack and another 200 were gravely injured. Two hundred Yezidi children lost both parents and became orphans. But this is only the most recent attempt at Yezidi massacre by Moslem extremists. Beginning nearly twenty years ago Saddam Hussein instigated a pogrom of Yezidi extermination by labeling them “Devil Worshippers” and thereby triggered whole scale persecution by the Iraqi Moslems. Throughout the Middle East it was no secret that Saddam Hussein’s goal was systematic cultural genocide of the Yezidis. Under his savage regime the Yezidis were uprooted from their villages, their farmland taken, and they were denied both jobs and medical care. Approximately 250 Yezidi villages near Mosul in the Sinjar Mountains were destroyed, and the river Dejela, which supplies the Yezidi communities with drinking water, was contaminated with poisons. All the sacred sites of the Yezidis were vandalized and threatened. Although this pogrom was lifted briefly following the US invasion and Saddam’s capture, the harsh conditions appear to be returning. Kurdish Moslems are currently blocking food supplies to the Yezidi villages and they continue to prevent the Yezidis from cleaning up the poisons in their water supply. Yezidis can not visit their relatives in many villages which have become Moslem controlled, and those Yezidis moving between villages risk both torture and death. Within the mosques adjacent to the Yezidi villages mullahs continue to speak about the “Devil-worshipping Yezidis” and encourage their conversion to Islam or murder.

The following is a chronology of many of the 72 major attacks on their civilization that the Yezidis have endured since the seventh century A.D.:

630 AD. The Moslems started a series of wars against the Yezidis by killing and abducting many people.

637 AD A major war was instigated against the Yezidis, and then Moslems burned and destroyed much of their territory.

980-81 AD Islamic Kurdish armies surrounded the Yezidis living in the Hakkar region. They promised the Yezidis mercy if they surrendered to them but failed to keep their promise. Instead, most of the Yezidis were massacred. Those who survived were forced to convert to Islam.

1107 AD About 50,000 Yezidi families were destroyed during a period of Moslem expansionism.

1218 AD The Mongols under the leadership of Hulagu Khan reached the Yezidis and slaughtered many of them, but the Mongols met strong resistance from the Yezidi warriors and eventually retreated..

1245-52 AD Hulagu Khan’s armies resumed their battle against the Yezidis and slaughtered thousands of them.

1254 AD A conflict occurred between the Moslem Bader al-Din Lolo, the “Mayor of Mosul,” and a Yezidi leader named Sheikh Hassan. Bader al-Din’s men captured Sheikh Hassan, executed him, and then hung his naked body on a Mosul gate where it could be seen by many other Yezidis. This event led to a war which the Yezidis lost, forcing them to flee to the mountains and leave behind their lands, villages, and temples. Everything the Yezidis left behind was destroyed. Even their most sacred shrine at Lalish was desecrated, with the bones of their greatest saint, Sheikh Adi, being taken from his tomb and burned in front of the unbelieving Yezidis.

1414 AD A Persian leader named Jalal al-Din Mohammed bin izidin yousif al-Halawani led an armed force against the Yezidis who were living in the Hakkar Mountains. His raid was supported by Kurds in the area. Most of the Yezidis descended from Sheikh Adi’s followers were killed, and the remaining bones of Sheikh Adi were taken from his tomb and burned in front of Yezidi hostages.

1585 AD A Kurdish leader named Ali Saidi Beg from Botan province attacked Yezidis living in Sinjar and killed more than 600 of them. The Yezidi women were abducted and raped by the conquerors in front of the Yezidis’ captured soldiers.

1640-41 AD Yezidi villages near Mosul were looted and other Yezidi villages were attacked by Ahmed Pasha, a Turkish Moslem Ottoman governor, along with 70,000 armed soldiers. Hundreds of thousands of Yezidis were killed.

1648 AD The Yezidi Sheikh Merza revolted against the Ottomans controlling Mosul who had previously beheaded his two brothers. The Ottoman general Shamsi Pasha was then summoned from Turkey to attack the Yezidis. Many Yezidis lost their lives and Sheikh Merza was beheaded.

1715 AD Hassan Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Baghdad, attacked the Yezidis with a huge army in order to punish them. Those Yezidis who were not killed were forced to flee into Syria. Pasha made an alliance with the local Arabs and then continued to attack the Yezidi unmercifully.

1733 AD The Ottoman Ahmed Pasha destroyed the Yezidi villages in the Zab river area and committed mass killings. This raid was followed by one under the leadership of Hussein Pasha that completely destroyed the Yezidi villages and forced 3000 Yezidis to convert to Islam.

1743 AD The Persian leader Nadir Shah guided his troops into Yezidi territory near the Zab River, about 30 kms west of Mosul. They looted the villages and captured most of the Yezidis as hostages. Those that refused to obey were instantly killed.

1752 AD An Ottoman pasha named Sulaiman Pasha attacked the Yezidis in Sinjar. His campaign of killing and looting lasted two years. Three thousand Yezidis were killed and 500 women were taken as hostages.

1767 AD An Ottoman pasha and mayor of Mosul, Amin Pasha, had his son lead troops against the Yezidis living in Sinjar. He demanded the Yezidis to bring him 1000 sheep. When they brought only 800 he ordered his men to slay a large number of Yezidis.

1771 AD Bedagh Beg, one of the Yezidi leaders from Sheikhan, revolted against the Ottoman mayor of Mosul because he sought to convert the Yezidis to Islam. The Mosul Mayor allied with Bairam Beg, a Moslem Kurdish leader, to kill Bedagh Beg and most of his men.

1774 AD The Ottoman Mayor of Mosul, Sulaiman Oash, attacked the Yezidis in the Sinjar area. The Yezidi villages were looted and destroyed.

1779 AD The Ottoman Mayor of Mosul sent more military units into Yezidi territory of Sinjar. They looted and destroyed the villages and killed many Yezidi.

1785 AD The Ottoman Mayor of Mosul, Abdel Bagi, attacked the Yezidis in Sinjar to punish them. The Moslem soldiers were at first defeated, but then they allied with some Arab forces and routed the Yezidis.

1786-87 AD Yezidi ruler Cholo Beg and his forces went to war with the Moslem Kurdish leader of Imadiyah. Cholo Beg lost the battle and many Yezidis were killed.

1789-90 AD Ismael Beg, the Prince of Imadiyah, killed Cholo Beg and replaced him on the Yezidi throne with one of his relatives, Khanger Beg. When Khanger Beg retired soon afterwards, Hassan Beg, the son of Cholo Beg, was crowned in his stead. Hassan continued the rebellion of his father by revolting against the Imadiyah Prince Kifbad, during which soldiers from both sides were killed in great numbers.

1792-93 AD The Ottoman Mayor of Mosul, Mohammed Pasha Al-Jalili, destroyed and burned eight Yezidi villages in the Sinjar area.

1794 AD The Ottoman Mayor of Mosul resumed the attack on a village in Sinjar called Mehrcan to punish the Yezidis. But he failed and lost the ensuing battle.

1795 AD The Ottomans sent Sulaiman Pasha to Sinjar’s Yezidi villages. With the help of the Kurd Prince Abdullah Beg Kahin and the Abdulrahman Pasha Prince of the Sulaimania Kurdish government, he looted, incinerated, and completely destroyed the Yezidi villages. He also abducted and kidnapped 60 Yezidi women and 650 domestic animals.

1799-1800 AD The Mayor of Baghdad, Abdul Aziz Beg Al-Shawi, destroyed 25 Yezidi villages in the Sheikhan region. Both women and children were abducted and 45 Yezidis were executed. Their heads were then brought to Baghdad as symbols of victory.

1802-3 AD The Mayor of Mosul, Ali Pasha, brought the administration of the Yezidis in the Sinjar region under his strict control. In doing so he found it necessary to attack some rebellious Yezidis from the north while overseeing an Arab raid on them from the south. The attack lasted for several months, during which several Yezidi villages were razed. The surviving Yezidis agreed to accept the rule of Ali Pasha even though they were forced to convert to Islam. When more Yezidis rebelled in 1807 the battle was resumed and 50 Yezidi villages were destroyed.

1809-10 AD The Ottoman Mayor of Baghda attacked the Yezidis in Sinjar. His army looted Sinjar, Mehrkan, and other Yezidi villages. Many Yezidis lost their lives.

1832 AD Bader Khan Beg, the Moslem Kurdish Prince of Botan, tortured and killed the Yezidi leader Ali Beg. The Moslem Kurds then committed an unprecedented massacre of thousands of Yezidis while destroying their villages. Many Yezidis tried to escape by traveling across the Tigris River. Most of them could not swim and were either drowned or captured. Those that were captured were given the option of converting to Islam or dying as martyrs.

1833 AD The Kurdhis ruler of Rawandez attacked the Yezidis at Aqra in accordance with a religious mandate from Mulla Yahya Al-Muzuri, a Kurdish Moslem leader. Five hundred Yezidis were killed in the upper Zab region. The Sinjar area was also attacked with many Yezidi lives lost.

1838 AD The Otoman Mayor of Diarbeker attacked the Yezidis in the Sinjar region and killed many of them. In the same year, the Ottoman Mayor of Mosul Tayar Pasha attacked the Jaddala area of Sinjar and ordered the Yezidis to pay taxes. When Tayar Pash sent envoys to the Yezidis in Mehrkan village to hear the complaints of the Yezidis, the envoys were killed. Tayar Pasha sought vengeance and invaded the Yezidi villages. In order to protect themselves, the Yezidis withdrew to caves and tried to fight back by ambushing their enemy. Tayar Pasha had lost many men and he eventually retired back to Mosul. Peace was resumed in the Sinjar area.

1892 AD The Yezidis were attacked by the Ottoman leader Omer Wahbi Pasha. He gave the Yezidis the choice of converting to Islam or paying higher taxes, or death. The Yezidis resisted and Omar Pasha, in alliance with the Moslem Kurds, attacked the Yezidis in the Sinjar and Sheikhan regions. About 15,000 Yezidis were either killed or forced to accept Islam. The Pasha then attacked Lalish and the tomb of Sheikh Adi, carrying away to Mosul the sacred relics of the Yezidis. For seven years following this time the Lalish pilgrimage sanctuary was used as a Moslem school.

1906 AD The Mayor of Mezory, Mr. Saddeq Al-Dammalogi, received an order from the Mayor of Mosul to remove all Yezidis from Lalish and use the temple there as a Moslem school. The Yezidis were persuaded to leave Lalish for one year.

1914-17 AD During the First World War the Yezidis assisted more than 20,000 Armenian people who fled from the Ottoman Turks.

All these anti-Yezidi activities – and many more – have been documented by Islamic authors.

With sincere thanks to Ali Seedo Rashi, President – Yezidi Cultural Association in Iraq for his source article: “The Yezidism”.}
[http://www.yeziditruth.org/yezidi_genocide]

{The Ottomans, the Kurds, the Yazidis, and Wikipedia....

Submitted by François Gravel (Canada), Sep 25, 2014 at 04:48

According to the Syrian-Kurdish website [https://rojavareport.wordpress.com/] (August 7, 2014), "the Foreign Minister of Turkey Ahmet Davutoglu [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmet_Davutoğlu] defended the Islamic State of Iraq and Shams [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant] from accusations of terrorism, blaming instead the governments of Iraq and Syria for the current violence in the region."

Now why would Erdogan's Foreign Minister defend ISIS thugs from accusations of committing atrocities against Yazidis [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_Yazidis_by_ISIL], you might ask? One possible answer is to be found in Wikipedia's article on this religious minority: "Treatment of Yazidis was exceptionally harsh during the rule of the Ottoman Empire [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire] during the 18th and the first half of 19th century; Yazidis have suffered 72 massacres, and their numbers dwindled under Ottoman rule both in Syria and Iraq. Massacres at the hand of Ottoman Turks and Muslim Kurdish princes almost wiped out their community in the 19th century. Several punitive expeditions were organized against the Yazidis by the Turkish governors (Wali) of Diyarbakir, Mosul and Baghdad. These operations were legitimized by fatawa from Islamic clerics. The objective of these persecutions was the forced conversion of Yazidis to the Sunni Hanafi Islam of the Turkish Ottoman Empire." So much for Erdogan's argument about the "successful" and "unproblematic" Ottoman administration system....}
[http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/218213]

{Pendant 275 ans (1640 - 1915), les Yézidis ont été massacrés et soumis à des tentatives de génocides dans l'Empire ottoman...

L'Empire ottoman considérait la religion yézidie comme étant hors-la-loi, et cela justifiait leurs actes : les massacres et les conversions forcées à l'islam. Les Yézidis n'avaient aucun droit dans l'Empire ottoman, qui cherchait tout le temps des raisons pour faire la guerre contre les Yézidis. Ils les obligeaient à payer des impôts en double s'ils ne se convertissaient pas.

Vous avez entendu parler du génocide arménien dans l'Empire ottoman. Selon les estimations, cela a duré quelques décennies. Sans aucun doute, le peuple arménien a beaucoup souffert dans l'Empire ottoman. Il est important de préciser que, avant les persécutions, certains arméniens occupaient des postes importants. Politiciens, scientifiques, ministres, ils avez des droits et étaient respectés.

Par contre, les Yézidis n'ont pas eu ces privilèges sociaux. Ils étaient privés de tout cela et n'ont vu que la violence, les persécutions et la destruction en masse pendant plusieurs siècles. On disait d'eux qu'ils étaient des adorateurs du Diable.

Les premières sources indiquent que les Yézidis ont été maltraités depuis 1640. Voici une liste chronologique des dates que nous connaissons....}
[http://www.ezidi.fr/génocide/génocide-yézidi-dans-l-empire-ottoman-pendant-275-ans-
1640-1915/]

{Yazidis: A History of Persecution...

Many nations have been victimized by Islamic supremacism and jihadist campaigns, but Yazidis – an ancient ethno-religious community indigenous to northern Mesopotamia – seem to be one of the main and continued victims of this genocidal ideology.

Even though Yazidis are ethnically Kurdish, they are a distinct religious community with their own unique culture.

The recent invasions of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have finally brought this persecuted people to the world’s attention. But genocidal massacres, ethnic cleansings and forced conversions against Yazidis by Muslims did not start with the advent of the Islamic State. Yazidis, a peaceful community opposed to violence and bloodshed, have for centuries been exposed to these crimes and more − simply for being Yazidis.

Attempted Genocides

Yazidis say they have been subjected to 72 attempts at extermination, or attempted genocide. Today, they are the victims of yet another attempted genocide in Iraq − at the hands of ISIS jihadists.

Yazidi scholar Khanna Omarkhali wrote:

Being Kurds [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurds] and Yazidis, they have suffered greatly from both ethnic and religious persecution throughout history. Yazidi oral history claims that they suffered from 72 massacres [ferman], counting the genocide of Yazidis in Iraq in 2014 as the 73rd one. Partly due to the vast number of religious persecutions, the Yazidis became a closed community, which has led to the many incorrect accounts on them. Their religion was often misunderstood, and Yazidis were described as devil worshipers, both in early Arabic sources and travel notes....}
[https://philosproject.org/yazidis-history-persecution/]

{The Persecution Of Yazidis Goes Beyond Genocide...

“We are sun worshippers. The sun is God. Before, all nations were dependent on the sun and worshipped it, but now they have moved away from this, but we didn’t.”

The Yazidis [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazidis], an ethnically Kurdish [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurds] religious group, and their ancient, syncretic (amalgamated) religion, have suffered violent persecution for generations. Deriving from faiths as diverse as Zoroastrianism [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism], Islam, and Christianity, the Yazidi faith celebrates a deity known as Melek Tawas, or the Peacock Angel [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melek_Taus]. One of the reasons for their marginalization is the fact that Melek Tawas is known in the Koran as “Satan,” leading to the misunderstanding that Yazidis are devil-worshippers.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Ottoman Empire [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire] committed 72 genocidal massacres against Yazidis, forcing many to flee to neighboring Georgia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)] and Armenia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenia]. However, today they face multi-faceted threats to their ancient religion, leading them to fiercely guard their traditions and culture....}
[https://theestablishment.co/the-persecution-of-yazidis-goes-beyond-genocide-caa229d9e716#.330ai3xsh]

{Long Before ISIL: The Chronic Plight of the Yazidis Under Islamic Domination....

World attention has riveted on as many as 40,000 Yazidis (Yezidis), half of whom may be children, trapped on Mount Sinjar, northwestern Iraq, without water or food, after being targeted by the latest jihad rampages of the “Islamic State” (ISIL) butchers. The Yazidis are an indigenous, ancient, pre-Islamic non-Muslim religious minority whose syncretic beliefs derive, in part, from Zoroastrianism.

Reports indicate that as per President Obama’s address last (Thursday, 8/7/14) evening, today (Friday 8/8/14), the U.S. has begun both humanitarian air-drops to those refugees stranded on Mount Sinjar, and bombing runs against ISIL positions outside Erbil, Kurdistan.

Sadly, ISIL’s current bloody attacks on the Yazidis reflect a continuum of religiously-inspired, chronic Islamic oppression of this minority group, interspersed with paroxysms of violence no less brutal than what is now taking place.

Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817-1894) was a British polymath—archaeologist, author, politician, and diplomat—perhaps best known for his the excavations in northern Mesopotamia, contemporary Iraq.

Layard recorded the following, based upon first hand observations, and historical assessments, about the chronic plight of the Yazidis (Yezidis) under Islamic domination in his 1849, Nineveh and Its Remains. His focus, appropriately, given the time frame, was upon the depredations against the Yazidis during the allegedly “tolerant” Ottoman Muslim era: massacre, pillage, and deportation and enslavement of their male and female children, for “service” in the vast Ottoman slave institutions, including harem slavery.

They [the Yazidis] have the choice between conversion and the sword, and its is unlawful even to take tribute [jizya, per Koran 9:29, the deliberately debasing poll-tax, and related regulations imposed upon non-Muslim Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians subjugated by jihad] from them. The Yezidis, not being looked upon as “Masters of a Book,” [i.e., scriptures, “acknowledged,” at least in part, by Islam] have been exposed for centuries to the persecution of the Mohammedans. The harems of the south of Turkey have been recruited from them. Yearly expeditions have been made by the governors of provinces into their districts; and whilst the men and women were slaughtered without mercy, the children of both sexes were carried off, and exposed for sale in the principal towns. These annual hunts were one of the sources of revenue…and its was the custom of the Pashas of Baghdad and Mosul, to let loose the irregular troops upon the ill-fated Yezidis, as an easy method of satisfying their demands for arrears of pay.

This system was still practiced to a certain extent within a very few months of my visit; and gave rise to atrocities scarcely equaled in the better known slave trade.

Layard described a series of specific Muslim depredations against the Yazidis that took place in 1832, near Mosul and Sinjar:

[Mosul] It was in spring; the river had overflowed its banks, and the bridge of boats had been removed. A few succeeded in crossing the stream; but a vast crowd of men, women, and children were left upon the great mound of Kouyunjik. The (Kurdish Muslim) Bey of Rowandiz followed them. An indiscriminate slaughter ensued…

[Sinjar] The inhabitants of the Sinjar were soon subdued after subdued by Mehemet Rashid Pasha, and a second time by Hafiz Pasha. On both occasions there was a massacre, and the population was reduced by three-fourths. The Yezidis took refuge in caves, where they were either suffocated by fires lighted at the mouth, or by the discharges of cannon.

Six decades later, during 1892, Oswald Hutton Parry’s eyewitness travelogue, Six Months in a Syrian Monastery: Being the record of a visit to the head quarters of the Syrian church in Mesopotamia, with some account of the Yazidis or devil worshippers of Mosul and El Jilwah, their sacred book, published in 1895, included an assessment of renewed jihadism against the Yazidis perpetrated under the aegis of Ottoman Lieutenant-General Umar Wahbi Pasha, and his minions, in a chapter entitled (with some irony), “The ‘Conversion’ of the Yazidis.” Those who refused to convert, were tortured, and cast into prison, where some died, and others professed Islam under this coercion. Muslim soldiers were sent to Yazidi villages and the inhabitants were “ordered to accept Islam, or be slain.” Indeed, some 400-500 Yazidi men were slain, the “pretty women and girls” taken captive, and “married” to the killers of their husbands. Surviving Yazidi children were gathered, and forcibly converted to Islam. Parry recorded this eyewitness account:

[W]orst of all was what happened to those who refused to change their faith. The men were cruelly tortured, and killed, the women taken away, outraged, or killed. One [Yazidi] Sheikh was cut into many pieces and thrown over a rock; another ground like corn between two millstones. The women were at the mercy of the soldiers. Some fled, and to escape dishonor cast themselves from a high rock and were slain…[A] number of young girls were hidden near the olive groves, in some long grass; savagely fire [was] set all around, and with screams too fearful to hear, they were all burned to death. A young girl soon to be a mother, was pursued to the Syrian church, where the priest gave her refuge. The soldiers found her, and having committed unspeakable things, killed her near the sanctuary. The Kurds of the mountains, encouraged by these things, came down, and added much cruelty and outrage to what was already done.

Parry also noted how these Ottoman Muslim atrocities were,

perpetrated not only in the name of the government and by a high official claiming direct authority from the [Ottoman] Sultan, but also in direct contravention of the firman [edict] of 1847 granting (allegedly!) the free exercise of their religion to the Yazidis.

He concluded:

The results, too, are far reaching. At least 400 people were killed; hundreds of acres left unsown; a whole province drained of its resources, and crippled for years; and all that happens is an inspector is sent, and the author of all this brutality imprisoned.

C.J. Edmonds 1967, A Pilgrimage to Lalish, includes this rather understated comment about the Yazidis’ ongoing “predicament” vis-à-vis Islam, and Muslims:

They [the Yazidis] tended to be regarded, rather, as apostates and were thus always exposed to the danger that persons in authority, high or low, with a streak of fanaticism in their make-up might think it not only only legitimate but even meritorious to maltreat them.

Sparing “detail,” Edmonds adds, importantly, that in “operations legitimated by fatwas from the ulama and supported as often as not, by the neighboring Arab and Kurdish tribes,” the Yazidis were subjected to “savage persecution” during the Ottoman era,

at the hands of the Turks throughout the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries, marked as they were by a score of punitive expeditions mounted by the Walis [governors] of Diyarbakir, Mosul, or Baghdad…One of the bloodiest was the holy war waged against them in 1832 by the Kurdish Muhammad Pasha ‘Boss-eye’ of Rawandiz, the concluding drama of which is described in Layard’s Nineveh and its Remains…

Despite Layard’s own subsequent diplomatic efforts, and the inchoate Ottoman “reforms,” especially after the Crimean War, which transiently alleviated the Yazidis’ lot, Edmonds observed,

improvement did not last very long, and the calamity that now [circa 1967]looms largest in the communal [Yazidi] memory is the ‘Year of the General’, 1892, when Umar Wahbi Pasha descended on their villages with fire and sword, giving them the choice between adoption of adoption of Islam or death…

Ultimately, the Yazidis withstood the 1892 Ottoman jihad of Umar Wahbi Pasha, repelling his forces at Sinjar....}
[http://www.andrewbostom.org/2014/08/long-before-isil-the-chronic-plight-of-the-yazidis-under-islamic-domination/]

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