From Fatwā to Genocide: Historic and Contemporary Manifestations of the Islamic Genocide against the Yezidis

What is the history and the present-day reality of the Yezidis? Are there enduring patterns of discrimination and persecution by Islamic communities and political authorities? And how did and do they affect women and children? In his research, Qader Saleem Shammo pays particular attention to the enslavement of Yezidi women and children and to the sûq al-sabâyâ, the slave markets established for their sale. He presents detailed eyewitness accounts of the occurrences, thus documenting events which have been so far largely absent from existing scholarship. This includes highly sensitive issues, such as the fate of children born from the rape of Yezidi women or the application of Islamic law by the states in which the Yezidis reside. From Fatwā to Genocide synthesizes dispersed and often hard-to-access material and provides a clear and compelling account of the Yezidis’ lived reality within Muslim communities. The author also situates the ISIS atrocities of 2014 within a broader historical framework and demonstrates how these crimes were committed under the banner of Islam and how fatwās issued by Islamic clerics legitimized them.