Mir Ismail Chol Beg (, b. c. 1888/1889 in Baadre, d. 1933) was a Yazidi prince (Mîr), political leader, and reform advocate active during the late Ottoman Empire and the early British Mandate in Iraq. A member of the hereditary Yazidi princely family of Sheikhan, he became one of the most influential Yazidi figures of the early twentieth century. Ismail Chol Beg played a significant role in efforts to define and defend Yazidi communal identity during a period of rapid political transformation in the Middle East. He is noted for promoting education within the Yazidi community, for advocating recognition of the Yazidis as a distinct religious group, articulating one of the earliest modern formulations of Yazidi identity and for authoring the first published book on Yazidi history and religion.Majid Hassan Ali and Diar Al Omar, "The Pioneer of Change at the Crossroads from Sinjar to the Caucasus: Prince (Mîr) Ismail Chol-beg and the Struggle for Modern Yezidi Identity", International Journal of Yezidi Studies, Vol. 2 (2025), pp. 9–53. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1555/yezidistudies/2/1/2025/9-53
Early Life & Family 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.
He lost both of his parents at an early age, his father dying six months after his birth and his mother dying when he was three, leaving him an orphan who was raised by his sisters. 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 considerable 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. The Presbyterian missionary Roger Craig Cumberland wrote of him:
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.
Dispute within the Princely Family Tensions within the Yazidi princely family emerged in part from Ismail Chol Beg's political activism. Following his visit to the Caucasus, Ismail Chol Beg travelled to Istanbul after the Young Turk coup of 1908, where he met with Ottoman Grand Vizier Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha. Acting without the authorisation of the reigning prince, Mir Ali Beg, he demanded the restitution of Yazidi temples and sacred standards (sanjaqs) confiscated by the Ottoman state following a military campaign in 1892. The Grand Vizier agreed, and the Lalish temple and the sanjaqs were returned to the Yazidis that same year, an outcome facilitated by the Young Turks' official rhetoric of freedom and equality. When news of Ismail's independent diplomatic success reached Mir Ali Beg, the prince grew alarmed that his cousin was positioning himself as a rival claimant to leadership. A dispute broke out within the princely family, and Ali Beg confiscated a portion of Ismail's property. Ismail subsequently filed a lawsuit in Mosul, demanding restitution of his property, that of his father Mir Abdi Beg, and a share in the revenues of the Lalish temple. pp. 93-95
Following the death of Mir Ali Beg in 1913, the princely family agreed that Ali Beg's twelve-year-old son Said should succeed him, with his mother Mayan Khatun serving as regent. The dispute over property and succession rights continued under the British Mandate and into the Iraqi state period, but Ismail Chol Beg's claims went unresolved. Princely authority over the Yazidi community was ultimately consolidated within the line of Ali Beg; after Said Beg's death in 1944, his son Tahsin Beg succeeded him. Ismail Chol Beg's sons, including Bayezid and Muawiya, continued to press their father's claims during the Republican Era and took on significant political roles of their own.
Educational Advocacy & Reform
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. The journey took him first to Sinjar, then through the Tur Abdin region to Diyarbakır and Erzurum, before crossing into Russian-controlled territory.
The route through the Kurdish villages on the Turkey-Russia border was dangerous for Yazidis, as the local Kurdish population were described as fanatical Muslims deeply hostile towards Yazidis. To navigate this safely, Ismail posed as a dervish of the Qadiriyya order, a credible disguise, as the order's founder, Sheikh Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani, had been revered by Yazidis a close friend of Sheikh Adi. This earned him a warm welcome among Muslim Kurds living on the Russian-Turkish border.
The Muslim Kurdish villagers welcomed them as honoured guests and feasted in their homour. Ismail led the villagers in prayer; realizing that they knew little Arabic, he mixed into the ritual a number of curses and an appeal to Tawûsî Melek and Sheikh Adi to wipe out the entire tribe. Sick and disabled villagers came to receive his blessing; women seeking to end their barrenness brought cups of water for him to spit into; and the parents of a dying child requested soil from al-Gilani's shrine to tie to the child's wrist, which Ismail substituted with dust from Sheikh Adi's sanctuary. When the village elders asked whether it was permissible to kill Armenians and Yazidis, Ismail Beg pulled out his pocket diary, thumbed through the pages and declared that Sheikh Abd al-Qadir's book only justified killing in cases of self-defence or unprovoked aggression.
After several days of comparable receptions across successive villages, the travellers reached Alexandropol (present-day Gyumri, in north-western Armenia), where Ismail was no longer required to conceal his Yezidi identity. Having satisfied the Russian authorities of his peaceful intentions, he was permitted to travel among the Yazidi villages of the region.
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.
In his discussions with the Catholicos, Ismail elaborated on his reasoning for setting aside this centuries-old prohibition on reading and writing. He argued that the ban had originally been instituted in regions under Muslim rule as a safeguard against forced conversion to Islam, but that no such threat existed within a Christian state; he therefore supported the establishment of schools for Yezidis in Russian Transcaucasia.
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: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 Yazidi schoolteacher in Baghdad, and his eldest daughter became the first Yazidi 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.
Political activities 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.
Activities in the Southern Caucasus 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.
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.
After arriving in Armenia, Ismail Chol Beg was warmly received by local Yazidi 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 Mîr 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.