Yazidi

Yazidi religious life centered on Lalish, where the tomb of Sheikh Adi drew pilgrims to the annual Feast of the Assembly. From the fourteenth century, religious reciters carried sacred peacock emblems from Shekhan to Yazidi villages.

In 1414 an alliance of neighboring Kurdish tribes raided Lalish. Under Ottoman rule, Yazidi leaders sometimes held provincial offices, but the community also faced military campaigns. An Ottoman expedition attacked the Yazidis of Sinjar in 1613, and another took the mountain in 1640 after heavy fighting.