In a ceremony at an ancient, ruined temple in northern Iraq, Faiza Fuad joined a growing number of Kurds who are leaving Islam to embrace the faith of their ancestors — Zoroastrianism.
Years of violence by the Islamic State (IS) group have left many disillusioned with Islam, while a much longer history of state oppression has pushed some in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region to see the millennia-old religion as a way of reasserting their identity.
“After Kurds witnessed the brutality of IS, many started to rethink their faith,” said Asrawan Qadrok, the faith’s top priest in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.
Photo: AFP
During Fuad’s conversion ritual in Darbandikhan, near the Iranian border, a high priest and his assistants wore white clothes representing purity and recited verses from the Zoroastrian holy book, the Avesta.
They knotted a cord three times around Fuad’s waist to symbolize the faith’s core values of good words, good thoughts and good deeds.
The newcomer raised her hand and swore to abide by those three values and to protect nature, respecting water, air, fire, earth, animals and humans.
“I feel very happy and refreshed,” Fuad said, adorned with her Farawahar necklace, a powerful spiritual symbol given to her by the high priest.
She said she had been studying Zoroastrianism for a long time and was drawn to its philosophy, which “makes life easy.”
“It is all about wisdom and philosophy. It serves mankind and nature,” she said.
Zoroastrianism was founded in ancient Iran about 3,500 years ago, gaining followers as far afield as India. It was the official religion of the powerful Persian empire for 1,000 years, but the assassination of the final Zoroastrian king in 650 and the rise of Islam sent it into a long demise.
However, the faith did survive — often in the face of severe persecution — and famous followers include Freddie Mercury, whose Zoroastrian family were originally from Gujarat in western India.
“During [former Iraqi president] Saddam Hussein’s rule, my father practiced Zoroastrianism, but kept it secret from the state, our neighbors and relatives,” said Awat Tayib, who represents the faith at the regional government’s ministry of religious affairs.
In 2014, IS militants captured swathes of northern Iraq, carrying out what might have constituted a genocide against another minority, the Yazidis.
The extremists imposed a violent version of Islamic law, sparking a three-year war that eventually left their self-proclaimed “caliphate” in tatters and the region in ruins.
“Many think IS values are very odd in contrast with Kurdish values and traditions, so some have decided to abandon their faith,” Qadrok said, adding that he performs ceremonies every week to welcome new converts.
The religion only gained official recognition by regional authorities in 2015, but since then, three new temples have opened.
For some in the autonomous region, which overwhelmingly voted for independence in a 2017 referendum bid, turning to Zoroastrianism is a way for a stateless people to assert regional identity in defiance of Baghdad.
Tayib, the only female religious representative in the autonomous government, said Kurdish society is becoming more tolerant toward Zoroastrians.
Reporters accompanied the high priest and his assistants to Muslim Friday prayers organized to condemn a Turkish military incursion into Kurdish parts of northern Syria.
As the Zoroastrian religious men arrived, they were surrounded by Muslims welcoming them and asking for selfies.
Islam is still by far the main religion in the Iraqi Kurdistan, while there are no official figures on Zoroastrians.
“The Zoroastrians are our brothers, not our enemies: our enemies are the ones who are killing us, such as [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan,” said Muslim cleric Mullah Saman, who welcomed the Zoroastrians.
Azad Saeed Mohammad, the head of Yasna, a body which promotes Zoroastrianism in Kurdistan, said Kurds “need to have their own religion just like other nations in the Middle East in order to save themselves from aggression and invaders.”
“We need to use our ancient religion to revive our identity and build the nation,” he said.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS