Kurds in Armenia

The cultural center of the Kurds living in Armenia has always been Alagyaz

In Armenia only Muslim Kurds are officially considered to be Kurds. There are no more than a thousand of them in the country. The Kurds who practice Yezidism or consider themselves Yezidis by nationality and who are about 40 000 are called Yezidis.

… (مرید). The sheikhs and the piers have always played an essential role in the Yezidi community. It was the clergy that preserved the Yezidi religion for centuries and hindered the assimilation of the Kurd-Yezidis with the other peoples. However, the Alagyaz villagers say that now in Armenia it is the clergy that contributes to the ignorance of the Yezidi Kurds of their religion: the vague answers of the {sheikhs} and {piers} do not satisfy their “flock” any more. Not that they have stopped to respect their clergy, rather their public role has become more of a fiction. Now the clergy does not care even for the preservation of the essential postulates of the Yezidi religion: the inadmissibility of the mixture of the castes and cross-marriages with non-Yezidis. Yezidis often marry Armenians and in such cross-marriages both the Armenian and the Yezidi traditions are preserved. Yezidis are tolerant to Christianity: they go to church, light candles, and worship Christian saints.

Ambassador in Iran dealt with Margaret Thatcher’s hair as revolution began

...National Archives shows that Sir Anthony Parsons was desperate to reassure the British Government that its interests would be safe under the weakening rule of the Shah. He was distracted, however, by Mrs Thatcher, the Leader of the Opposition, who was due to visit Iran in the spring of 1978 and wrote in advance to request a “good local hairdresser” who “should bring Carmen rollers” to prepare her trademark bouffant. Sir Anthony’s priorities should, perhaps, have been elsewhere.

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