Kiteba Cilwe (Book of Revelation, sometimes translated Book of Illumination) is, alongside the Mishefa Res (Black Book), one of the two traditionally named written scriptures of Yazidism, a short text concerning the god Melek Taus and creation, whose authenticity and age are themselves a matter of active scholarly debate rather than settled fact.
Modern Yazidi studies scholarship, beginning with Kreyenbroek, holds that both surviving manuscripts of the Kiteba Cilwe and the Mishefa Res are most likely nineteenth century compositions or reconstructions rather than transmissions of an ancient text, produced in response to outside demand for Yazidism to have written scripture; the Yazidi tradition's own primary living scriptural medium is oral, the qewls (sacred hymns). This is recorded as a genuine scholarly dispute rather than resolved either way.
Facts
Disputed
Attributed Author / CompilerThe prevailing scholarly view holds the manuscript itself to be a production made for the manuscript trade, though its content faithfully reflects genuine Yazidi oral tradition (critical) 1 Philip G. Kreyenbroek's Yezidism: Its Background, Observances and Textual Tradition, Edwin Mellen Press, 1995, examines both the Kiteba Cilwe and the Mishefa Res against the fact that Yazidism's own authoritative religious content is primarily oral, transmitted by qewwals, religious singers and reciters, rather than fixed in written scripture. Kreyenbroek's method is comparative and ethnographic: checking each written text's own transmission history, who copied, compiled or published it, and how it relates to the community's oral practice, against the oral tradition itself, and that examination does not clearly establish either document as an authentic internal scripture rather than an external compilation. Its own text states the resulting position directly, that authenticity is genuinely disputed and that the dispute itself, not the existence of the book, is the one settled fact. Attributed Author / CompilerTraditionally reputed to be an authentic ancient Yazidi scripture (traditional) 1 Philip G. Kreyenbroek's Yezidism: Its Background, Observances and Textual Tradition, Edwin Mellen Press, 1995, examines both the Kiteba Cilwe and the Mishefa Res against the fact that Yazidism's own authoritative religious content is primarily oral, transmitted by qewwals, religious singers and reciters, rather than fixed in written scripture. Kreyenbroek's method is comparative and ethnographic: checking each written text's own transmission history, who copied, compiled or published it, and how it relates to the community's oral practice, against the oral tradition itself, and that examination does not clearly establish either document as an authentic internal scripture rather than an external compilation. Its own text states the resulting position directly, that authenticity is genuinely disputed and that the dispute itself, not the existence of the book, is the one settled fact. Structure
StructureA short text concerning the god Melek Taus and creation; alongside the Mishefa Res (Black Book) one of the two traditionally named written scriptures of Yazidism, though its authenticity and age remain a matter of active scholarly debate. 1 Status
Canonical StatusIts own record calls it one of "the two traditionally named written scriptures of Yazidism"; the separate, disputed question is the age and authenticity of the surviving manuscripts, not its traditional scriptural status. Text
Literary FormCosmogony / creation myth 1 Kiteba Cilwe (Book of Revelation)
Filter Results1 entry
Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Source Yezidism: Its Background, Observances and Textual TraditionPhilip G. Kreyenbroek
In Language
Originates in Language
Source Yezidism: Its Background, Observances and Textual TraditionPhilip G. Kreyenbroek
Related To
Sources
1. Yezidism: Its Background, Observances and Textual Tradition
Philip G. Kreyenbroek, Edwin Mellen Press, 1995- on the Kiteba Cilwe and the authenticity debate
- Originates in Language: Kurmanji Kurdish, Stored language property on this entity, cited to this source: kurmanji-kurdish
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