AMUDA, Syria — "Some years ago I tried to open a bus company and call it Roj, which in Kurdish means sun," said Adnan Ammo, a 50-year-old farmer from Merkeb. "I was summoned by political security for a suspected connection with Roj TV [one of the satellite channels affiliated to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)]. Even after I explained to them that I am Yazidi and we venerate the sun, they forced me to change the name. I proposed Judi, the name of my son, but that was rejected too, as it's a Kurdish name. In the end we had to shut down the activity." 

The followers of the Yazidi religion have been historically discriminated against on both ethnic and religious grounds, being part of a Kurdish pre-Islamic sect. The Yazidi faith is currently exposed to the risk of extinction, as expatriates tend to neglect its traditions and a growing number of Yazidis are leaving Syria to escape radical Islamists. On the other hand, most Kurdish parties seem to bank on the revitalization of the Yazidi identity in order to back historical land claims and belittle the Islamization of Kurds, as part of an opposition to Islamist brigades.

There are no reliable population figures on Syrian Yazidis, as estimates range between 10,000 and 50,000. They live in the areas of Kurd Dagh (Afrin), Ras al-Ain (Serekaniye), Amuda and Qahtaniyya, and trace their history back to at least 3,000 BC, even before Zoroastrianism. There are Yazidi communities in Iraq, Turkey, Armenia and Georgia.

The most widespread Muslim prejudice against Yazidis is the claim that they worship Satan, a misunderstanding originating from their refusal to describe the devil as a fallen angel, which is different from Muslims and Christians.