'God First and Last'. Religious Traditions and Music of the Yaresan of Guran (eBook)

Cover 1
Abbreviations 8
Preface 10
Acknowledgements 12
Terminology and Transcription 14
Introduction 16
General 16
History of the Study 17
The Gurani Tradition 20
Aspects of the Y?ri World-view 21
Aims and methods 22
The hymns in book form: collections of texts 22
Chapter One: the Religious Background 24
The Indo-Iranian Religion: some relevant aspects 24
Zoroastrianism in Western Iran 28
Roman Mithraism and the ancient Western Iranian religion 31
Hellenistic cults 32
Gnostic Movements of late Antiquity, Manichaeism 33
Christianity 33
Islam 34
Yezidism 40
Alevism 44
Chapter Two: The Y?res?n Community and its SocialOrganisation 46
Languages 46
Geography 48
‘Caste’, ritual functions, social institutions 51
Chapter Three: Mythical and Factual History 58
Mythical History 58
Factual History 73
Chapter Four: The Religious Universe 88
Aspects of the Y?ri Worldview 88
Divine and Great Beings 100
The Dowres 107
Eschatology 111
Chapter Five: Ritual and Observance 112
Music 112
The Jam 112
The Nazr 116
The Niy?z or Shokr?ne 118
Sar Sepordan 118
Feasts and Fasts 124
Funerary observances 128
Other observances 129
Y?ri Observances and Twelver Shi’ite influences 130
Chapter Six: Religious Narratives and Sacred Texts 132
Texts and storylines 132
The Form of the Kal?ms 133
Texts and Performance 134
Texts and Religious Knowledge 136
Collections of Kal?ms 138
The Perdiwari Kal?ms 140
The role of the kal?ms in religious life 145
APPENDIX 1: Extracts from the ‘Exegesis’ of Sayyed Wali 148
[On Creation] 148
[The History of Religions] 150
[The Dowres] 151
APPENDIX 2: Views from Iraqi communities 156
Interview with Sayyed Khalil ?gh?b?b K?ka’i, Iraqi Kurdistan 156
Beliefs of the Perdiwari Community, near Halabja 160
APPENDIX 3: Another View of Y?ri. Sayyed Khalil?linezh?d from Sahne 164
APPENDIX 4: Authoritative Muslim Comments on Y?ri 183
APPENDIX 5: Kal?ms in recent compilations 185
Bibliography 188
Index 196