Introduction.- Research Overview.- Diaspora and Identity.- Yārsāni Religious Practice and Identity.- Yārsāni Religious Innovation and Transformation.- Yārsāni Community and the Internet.- Conclusion.
S. Behnaz Hosseini is a visiting research fellow at FRSG with Institute of Anthropology at the University of Oxford, UK. Her research interests include religious minorities in Iran and Iraq, forced migration and integration. During her research she has been involved in multiple projects including “Trafficking and slavery under ISIS: Trauma and rehabilitation of Yezidi female survivors”, as well as “Analysis of Forced migration and displacement of Iraqi religious minorities in Austria”.
This book examines how socio-political surroundings have affected the evolution of Yārsāni religious thought and why the Yārsāni religious belief, despite its fundamental disagreement with Islamic tenets, has been affiliated with Islam. It also considers the historical context and socio-religious milieu in which the Yārsāni belief appropriates religious forces to survive their religion, how Yārsānis experience their religion in Islamic society, and what are differences are significant in their lived experiences. The author explores how the experience of worship influences real life for the Yārsānis from the perspectives of sociology, behaviorism, content analysis, cultural studies and ethnography in Iran and diaspora with focus on Sweden. Yārsāni followers became known as those who “don’t tell secrets,” primarily because they were not allowed to promote and advertise their religion in public, but recently have started to reveal their religion, especially in social media. This book discovers the transformation of this religion, and in particular in which context an individual can change the content of religion, and bring about new ideas regarding religion and belief.