Mir Ismail Chol Beg

Ismail Chol Beg was born around 1888 or 1889 in the town of Baadre, northern Iraq, into the Yezidi princely family. He was the son of Mir Abdi Beg, who had briefly held the Yazidi emirate of Sheikhan after the death of his brother Mir Hussein Beg but was later imprisoned by the Ottoman authorities in 1875. Through his father, Ismail Chol Beg belonged to the hereditary line of Yazidi emirs of Sheikhan whose authority traditionally extended across Yazidi regions beyond Sheikhan.^[1]

He lost both of his parents at an early age and grew up as an orphan. Despite being closely related to the ruling branch of the princely family as a cousin of the Yazidi prince Ali Beg and the brother of his wife, Mayan Khatun, his early life was marked by hardship. Despite these challenges, Ismail Chol Beg emerged as a determined and ambitious figure. Although he did not receive formal schooling and remained illiterate in the technical sense, he developed a strong interest in political affairs, religion, and the future of his community. Contemporary observers described him as forward-looking and unusually receptive to new ideas for a leader of his background.^[1][2]

From a young age, Ismail Chol Beg travelled extensively among Yazidi communities, including villages far beyond his place of birth. His early journeys, particularly his visit to Yazidis in the South Caucasus in 1908-1909, would later prove significant in shaping his political outlook and engagement with emerging nationalist currents.^[1]

Despite being illiterate himself, Ismail Chol Beg was a strong supporter of learning and communal reform. Already from an early stage in his public life, Ismail Chol Beg advocated the promotion of education within the Yazidi community at a time when literacy was limited and formal schooling was often viewed with suspicion due to long-standing religious taboos. His visit to Yezidi communities in the South Caucasus in 1908–1909 marked a turning point in his educational efforts. During his visit, he raised concerns about the lack of education among Yezidis and sought support for the creation of schools. Plans were subsequently made to establish several schools for Yezidi children in the region under the responsibility of a person from Yerevan named Kabtikos, who was second-in-command to the Armenian Catholicos, Metios II Izmirlian.^[1]

Ismail Beg Chol also issued a religious authorization permitting and encouraging literacy among Yazidis in Armenia, directly challenging the prevailing belief that reading and writing were religiously forbidden. In a letter addressed to Yazidi leaders, he emphasized the need to overcome ignorance and criticized the perception that Yezidis considered reading a sin:^[1]

We must ensure our development; we have endured enough, we have suffered enough through ignorance, and at least the peoples of the world should not revile us by saying that there are a people called the Yezidis who consider reading to be a sin – that is a disgrace for us.

Members of Ismail Chol Beg's family were associated with these educational developments. His eldest son became the first Yezidi schoolteacher in Baghdad, and his eldest daughter became the first Yezidi woman to receive a formal education. Ismail Chol Beg himself authored "The Yezidis, Past and Present", the first ever book on Yazidi history and religion to be published. He also encouraged that Yezidi religious tradition to embrace writing and literacy. Inspired by such efforts, many Yazidis began to pursue education and attend schools in Sinjar and Sheikhan districts, as well as the Bashiqa and Bahzani towns. As such, Ismail Beg is regarded as a significant figure who contributed to the advancement of Yazidi education in Iraq and other Yazidi-populated regions during the early twentieth century.^[1]

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Ismail Chol Beg maintained contact with several nationalist and political movements during the early twentieth century, including Armenian, Assyrian, and Kurdish organizations, particularly during the period surrounding the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the British Mandate in Iraq.^[1]

During his visit to the South Caucasus in 1908–1909, Ismail Chol Beg came into contact with members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun). He made contact with a member of the Dashnak Committee and the Armenian Patriarch, reportedly felt deeply connected to the Armenians and appealed for a Yazidi-Armenian alliance. Rumors circulated in the Armenian press claiming that he intended to align the Yazidis with the Armenian Church, leading Ottoman authorities to arrest him together with several other Yazidis. The rumors were not substantiated and he was later released.^[1]

In February 1909, after leaving Armenia, Ismail Chol Beg travelled to Tbilisi, where he met with the Viceroy of the Caucasus, Illarion Vorontsov-Dashkov. In his memoirs, Ismail Chol Beg recounts a meeting convened by the viceroy, during which Ismail introduced himself as the leader, prince and sheikh of Yazidis. The viceroy admitted limited knowledge of the Yazidis and had previously assumed their beliefs were similar to those of Islam and Kurds before recognizing the distinctiveness of Yazidi doctrine. He reported submitting a memorandum in Russian expressing hope that Russian forces might protect the Yazidis of Sinjar from recurring attacks.^[1]

After arriving in Armenia, Ismail Chol Beg was warmly received by local Yezidi communities and encouraged greater educational participation. Observing that literacy levels were low, he urged families to send their children to school and issued a religious decree permitting and encouraging reading, writing, and formal learning. Local Yazidis also informed him that no Yazidi prince had visited them since the Battle of Kars, and that they had thus become unfamiliar with certain religious customs and laws. In response, Ismail explained the specific purpose of his visit; he had heard that they were deviating from the principles and teachings of the Yazidi faith. He subsequently convened a large gathering of the Yezidis in the area, at which he delivered a sermon outlining dozens of core tenets of Yazidi belief, moral teachings, religious duties, as well as distinctions between what is permitted and forbidden in Yazidism.^[1]

He further proposed administrative reforms, urging the community to organise their religious structure through the appointment of a sheikh or peshimam for every five villages to oversee religious affairs and facilitate relations with local authorities. A written version of these guidelines was reportedly submitted to local officials, who accepted the document and recognized “Yazidi religion” as the formal religious designation in administrative records. Although he was briefly questioned by local authorities on suspicion of organizing secret societies, he denied the accusation and clarified that his purpose was to advise the Yazidi community and help organise their affairs in order to facilitate official dealings with the government; he was subsequently released.^[1]

In the Yazidi villages around Yerevan, concerns were raised about disunity and fragmentation within the community. Ismail Chol Beg visited the senior clerical authority of the Armenian Church in Etchmiadzin and requested protection for Yazidis residing in the districts of Gyumri, Kars, and Erivan, emphasizing the preservation of their religious identity. The Armenian Patriarch agreed to provide protection, and a formal document was prepared and signed by Yazidi leaders. The document recorded 72 Yazidi villages comprising approximately 350 households. The Patriarch also supported the establishment of schools, and Yazidi leaders affirmed that the emir had already issued a decree permitting education.^[1]

Correspondence from this period shows that Ismail Chol Ceg signed at least one letter as “Sheikh Ismail Chol Beg of the Yezidi Nation.” Several of his seals appear on surviving documents. One seal, written in Arabic and Latin script, reads “Ameer Ismael, Rais Mulat al-Yezidia” (“Emir Ismail, Chief of the Yezidi Nation”), while another reads “Emir Sheikh Ismail Beg, Chief of the Yezidis.”^[1]

In letters describing the historical persecution of the Yazidis, he named specific Ottoman-era figures, including Dawud Pasha and the Muslim Kurdish prince Mohammed Pasha of Rawanduz (Kor Pasha), whom he associated with earlier campaigns against Yazidi communities. In this context, he wrote that “from that day on, our people were exterminated.” His letters from this period consistently described the Yazidis as a distinct nation with their own history, leadership, and collective experience.^[1]

After leaving the Caucasus, Ismail Chol Beg travelled via Batumi and Istanbul before returning to Iraq. Internal rivalries within the Yazidi princely family, particularly with Said Beg, prevented him from securing unified leadership of all Yazidis. He instead settled in Sinjar, where he gained significant support among local tribes, who acknowledged him as their Mir.^[1]

In 1919, after the independence of Georgia, the Yazidis founded the first officially state-recognised Yazidi organisation, named "National Council of Yazidis" and recognized by the Georgian government. It was founded at the suggestion of Ismail Chol Beg and the constituent general assembly in July 1919 was convened in his name. Around this period, approximately a decade after his 1908–1909 visit to the South Caucasus, Ismail Chol Beg maintained correspondence with Yazidi leaders in the region. A document issued at the time records:^[1]

A general assembly of the Yezidis was held in the community shelter in Ortachala to discuss their fate and to organise a special national council to liaise with the Armenian National Council in order to develop mutual peaceful activities for the common good.

In the same year, Ismail Chol Beg sent several letters in Armenian to Yazidi leaders in Armenia, bearing the seals of multiple Yazidi representatives. In these letters, he described the Yazidi struggles in Sinjar against the Ottomans, noting "they [the Turks] have destroyed our nation", as well as their situation, and their role in sheltering and rescuing a large number of Armenian refugees during the First World War, adding that "the Armenians spoke words of praise about the Yazidi nation".^[1]

From the 1920s onward, Ismail Chol Beg developed a close relationship with Assyrian nationalist figures, including the military commander Agha Petros and the British-Chaldean activist Hormuzd Rassam. Together with influential Yazidi leaders from Sinjar, including Hamo Sharo, he supported efforts to establish an Assyrian autonomous region or state in the Mosul province that would include Yazidi territories. He consistently maintained the view that the Yazidis were of ancient Assyrian origin.^[1] The project ultimately failed due to opposition from the British Mandate authorities.^[1]

From 1928 onward, Ismail Chol Beg came into contact with the Kurdish nationalist organisation Khoybun, and corresponded with its leading figures, the brothers Jeladet and Kamuran Bedirkhan. Scholars have noted that his engagement with Khoybun appears to have been largely pragmatic, motivated by the desire to strengthen his position in an ongoing rivalry with his nephew Said Beg rather than genuine Kurdish nationalist sympathy.^[1] Although in a Khoybun correspondence he described himself as a Kurd, in his other writings and statements, he consistently distinguished the Yazidis from Kurds and regarded them as a separate people. A founding member of Khoybun who visited Sinjar reported: "I did not observe any [Kurdish] national consciousness among the Yezidis."^[1] In 1932, when questioned by the League of Nations Boundary Commission, Ismail Chol Beg acknowledged friendly relations with Kurds but differentiated the two groups, stating that Kurds who had converted to Islam were historically distinct from the Yazidis.^[1]

After the British conquest of Mosul in 1918, Yazidi leaders in Sinjar drafted a declaration, signed by more than fifty prominent figures including Ismail Chol Beg, stating their desire to live under British rule. The declaration was signed by Ismail Chol Beg in his capacity as secular leader of the Yazidis.^[1] At the end of 1918, British Political Officer Colonel G. Leachman issued a formal decree recognising Ismail Chol Beg as Emir of the Yazidis, designating him Mîrê Mîran ("Prince of Princes"). The decree read in part:

WHEREAS Great Britain has recognised, and acknowledges the Amir Miran Ismail Beg bin Abdi as the Amir of the Yezidis Nation, we have given him this Firman [Decree] for the information of his tribes.^[1]

Leachman offered Ismail Chol Beg the position of deputy political governor of Sinjar, which he declined, recommending Hamo Sharo for the post instead. He requested instead the restoration of his hereditary rights within the Yazidi emirate, including revenues from and custodianship over the Lalish Temple and other sacred shrines.^[1]

In 1919, following Georgian independence, Yazidis in Georgia founded the first officially state-recognised Yazidi organisation, the "National Council of Yazidis," approved by the Georgian government. The organisation was founded on the initiative of Ismail Chol Beg, and its constituent general assembly was convened in his name.^[1] A document from the assembly records its aim as organising a council to liaise with the Armenian National Council "in order to develop mutual peaceful activities for the common good."^[1]