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Canonization and sacred text in the Yārsān religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2024

Rahman Veisi Hasar Open the ORCID record for Rahman Veisi Hasar [Opens in a new window]
Rahman Veisi Hasar*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Linguistics, Department of English and Linguistics, Faculty of Language and Literature, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran
*
E-mail: veisirahman@yahoo.com
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Abstract

This paper explains the nature of sacred text and the process of canonization in the Yārsān religion. To this end, we first show how three formative ideas—i.e., the history of divine manifestation, the angelology of scribing, and the scripture of Qabālah—played a major role in the emergence of canonization and sacred text in the Yārsān religion. We then turn to the parallel, heterogeneous processes of canonization in the Yārsān community, showing that factors such as the community's rhizomatic structure, idea of infinite divine manifestation, continuous process of producing holy texts, and the heterogeneous nature of its oral tradition hindered the emergence of an ultimate canon in the Yārsān community. Additionally, the sacred Yārsān texts, as the outputs of canonization procedures, are divided into three categories: narrative, testimony, and ritual. Finally, following scrutiny of the linguistic nature of Gorāni koine, the paper attempts to clarify the relationship between different types of religious texts and the formative idea of Qabālah as the archetypal sacred text in the Yārsān religion.

Keywords

Yārsān traditioncanonizationsacred textkalāmQabālahKurdish language
Type
Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , January 2024 , pp. 47 - 72
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Iranian Studies

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