volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

Turkish Persecution of the Yaztdis. 229
he was firmly convinced that when they wanted to appeal
irresistibly to Malak Ta'us, they resorted to murder and
ceremonial ceinnibalism, and nameless abominable practices
of all kinds. Much has been said about the
persecution of the Yazidis by the Turkish Government,
because they wDl not perform military service, but
there may be faults on both sides. That they have
been shamefully treated by the Turks cannot be denied,
but whenever fate has given them the opportunity they
have mmdered Tvirks, Arabs and Christians alike without
mercy. The Yazidis of Siajar were the terror of caravans
early in the nineteenth century, and they acquired great
wealth by plundering merchants and travellers. In
1828 the Wali Pasha of Mosul murdered and robbed
the Yazidis of Shekhan, and treated them with terrible
cruelty. In 1832 the Beg of Rawandiz, who was a
religious fanatic and coveted their wealth, fell upon
the Yazidis on all the plains about Mosul and burnt
their villages, and slew many thousands of them. Of
this terrible massacre many stories were current when
I was in Mosul. In 1838 Muhammad Pasha of Mosul
crushed the Yazidis of Sinjar, and in 1844 the notorious
Badr Kh^ Beg treated the Yazidis of Jabal Tur as
he treated the Nestorians of Al-Kosh.^ In 1890-91, as
we have seen, Ayub Beg was in the Sinjar " converting "
the Yazidis to Islam by the methods which I have
described. A year later many hundreds of them were
tortured and massacred, and for some time after this
the Yazidis killed every Muslim that fell into their
hands. Excellent accoimts of the Yazidis will be found
' Mr. Parry says that it was in 1844 that " the mounds of Nineveh
opposite Mosul gained the name of ' Kuyunjik ' (the Slaughter of
the Sheep), from the horrible massacre which he {i.e., the Kurdish
Beg) there inflicted on them." (Six Months, p. 358.) Other writers
make the same statement (e.g., Wigram, Cradle, p. 102). The butchered
Yazidis may have been regarded as the " many sheep " which are
supposed to be referred to in the name " Kuyunjik," but as a matter
of fact, the village of Kuyunjik was in existence in the time of Niebuhr,
who says that the village of "Koindsjug" lies on a hill near the
" Castle of Nineveh " (Reisebeschreibung, ii, p. 353).