Abstract
This book offers various engagements with Yari and Yārsānians. It ranges from Yārsān as an “ethnoreligious group” (Saffari), a “mystical community” tied to Ezidis, as another “mystical community” (Rodziewicz), its relation to Hinduism (Mahmoudi), historical speculation and textual references (Heydari), and the literature that constitute Yari (Moghadam). Whether this collection will be available to those who are not invested in the people and issues it addresses is interwoven with whether those who police Yārsān studies will be able to recognize its critical challenge and historical importance. In what follows I rather dwell on the “current” political condition, juridical erasure, and on the conventional studies that have turned Yari and Yārsānians into an ahistorical object of knowledge. In doing so, I hope to point at how to read this book more critically or how not to see it as the ultimate window into Yari and Yārsānians. Studies on the human condition of subaltern/ized people suggest that although the “final” explanation of such a condition never arrives and that it is ongoing and incomplete, their subalternity can never be escaped.
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Notes
- 1.
The English translation of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran is available at: https://en.parliran.ir/eng/en/Constitution#preamble and the Persian version at https://rc.majlis.ir/fa/content/iran_constitution. Accessed on 10 May 2020.
- 2.
This is the name that is used to refer to Iraqi Yārsānians in Iraq.
- 3.
The Iraqi Constitution, available at: https://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/iq/iq004en.pdf. Accessed on 10 May 2020.
- 4.
Hooshmandrad is an ethnomusicologist and producer of the documentary, which is available at: https://youtu.be/g63B8phHxfE, accessed on 3 October 2020.
- 5.
The interviews are available at: https://youtu.be/pvaIRJed5Pk and https://youtu.be/VgdwFA2_VxQ, accessed on 10 October 2020.
- 6.
Hawary Kakayi is available at: https://youtu.be/4G2aa89wsPQ, accessed on 10 October 2020.
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Moradi, F. (2022). The Political and Juridical Erasure of Yari and Yārsānians in Iran and Iraq. In: Hosseini, S.B. (eds) Yari Religion in Iran. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6444-1_1
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