Beyond ISIS: History and Future of Religious Minorities in Iraq

“The issue of existential threats against the remaining religious minorities in Iraq became dramatically important in June 2014. The so-called ‘Islamic State’ (ISIS) occupied one-third of the territory of present-day Iraq and advanced towards the Kurdistan region through the province of Mosul, the base of most religious minorities. The ISIS undertook systematic ethno-religious cleansing of this borderland between the Kurdistan region and the central government in Baghdad. The area was mainly populated by Christians and Yazidis and had been the last resort for most religious minorities in the country. The United States government and United Nations agencies reported the murders of about 9,000 people, the abduction of 6800 (one-third of them still missing in January 2019), and about 400,000 displaced in the Kurdistan region. Prior to 2005, about 700,000 Yezidis lived in Iraq; after August 2014, less than 500,000 Yezidis remained. In January 2019, most still live in refugee camps. Since 2005, the number of Christians has decreased from an estimated 1.4 million to less than 300,000 in 2017, mostly in refugee camps in the provinces of Kurdistan. Besides the Christians, also Shabak and Kaka’i, also called Yarsan or Ahl-e Haqq, were displaced by the occupation of the Nineveh Plains by the ISIS.”We have to pay attention to the situation of the people in Iraq. Iraq heavily suffered under the aggression of the so-called Islamic state (ISIS) and the war with these jihadi terrorists. In this very area, the worn-out and often misused term ‘free world’ suddenly gains a new elementary meaning, because it is the place where our freedom is vindicated. The henchmen of the ISIS set back Mosul by centuries. As if there had never been a declaration of human rights, a Hague convention, or an abolition of slavery. A group made up of ideologically deluded extremists gone mad disregards every human accomplishment in terms of civilisation. -Josef Weidenholzer, Member of the European Parliament and Vice president of the S&D group in the European Parliament.ContentPREFACE by Josef WeidenholzerINTRODUCTION by Bayar Mustafa Sevdeeen and Thomas SchmidingerCHAPTER 1: Minorities in Iraq: National Legal Framework, Political Participation, and the Future of Citizenship Given the Current Changes by Saad SalloumCHAPTER 2: The Jews of Iraq by Birgit AmmannCHAPTER 3: The Lost Readers of the Scripture: Some notes on the Karaite community of Hīt by Thomas SchmidingerCHAPTER 4: John the Baptist’s Water: Extinction of a Millennial Culture by Saad SalloumCHAPTER 5: The Gurdwara of Baghdad and the Forgotten History of Sikhs in Iraq by Areshpreet WedechCHAPTER 6: Christians in Iraq by Thomas SchmidingerCHAPTER 7: Fleeing ISIS: Aramaic-speaking Christians in the Niniveh Plains after ISIS by Archimandrite Emanuel YoukhanaCHAPTER 8: Armenians of Iraq by Seda D. OhanianCHAPTER 9: The Yazidis: Religion, Society and Resentments by Thomas SchmidingerCHAPTER 10: The Yazidi Quest for Protection in Sinjar in the Post-ISIS Iraq by Arzu Yılmaz and Bayar Mustafa SevdeeenCHAPTER 11: Kakai Internal Displacement in Kirkuk and the Fear of Violence from the So-called Islamic State in Iraq (ISIS) by Seyedehbehnaz HosseiniCHAPTER 12: The Shabak: Between secular nationalisms and sectarian violence by Michiel LeezenbergCHAPTER 13: The Haqqa Movement: from Heterodox Sufism, to Socio-Political Struggle and Back by Lana AskariCHAPTER 14: Bahaism and the Bahai Community in Iraq: A Fateful Past and Fragile Present by Maria Six-HohenbalkenCHAPTER 15: Kurdish Zoroastrians: An Emerging Minority in Iraq by Matthew Travis BarberCHAPTER 16: Migrant Religions in Iraq: Hindus and Buddhists by Ghazwan Yousif Baho