Gurani, Sarli

The Sarli are a Kaka'i (Yarsan) community of a handful of villages on the Great Zab and Khazir rivers south-east of Mosul, in the Nineveh Plains of northern Iraq. 'Sarli' or 'Sarliya' is a name given by outsiders, of uncertain origin; the villagers call themselves Ibrahimi Kaka'i, after the Ibrahimi branch of the Yarsan faith, and consider themselves Kurds of the Kaka'i tribe. Their speech, Sarli (ISO sdf), is a Gorani dialect, a Northwestern Iranian language closest to Bajelani and also similar to Shabaki, with Kurdish, Turkish and Persian loanwords; most also speak Sorani Kurdish and Arabic. Older writers grouped them with the Shabak, the Bajalan and the Kaka'i of Kirkuk as heterodox Shi'ite-leaning sects of the Mosul region. In the 1990s Turkish nationalist groups tried without success to claim them as Turkmen.

The Sarli are village farmers of the Great Zab plain, growing wheat and barley and keeping sheep, with orchards along the river. Kaka'i men traditionally leave their moustaches uncut. Hospitality and the brotherhood implied by their name, from Kurdish 'kaka', brother, are central values. Their great communal occasion is an annual feast of love (Aklat al-Mahabba) at which a boiled rooster with rice or wheat is shared. Weddings and feasts are held in the village with Kurdish dance and music, and sacred hymns are sung to the long-necked tanbur.

The Sarli follow the Ibrahimi branch of Yarsan (Ahl-e Haqq). They believe in one God manifested in successive incarnations, revere Imam Ali and the 14th-century founder Sultan Sahak, and hold that souls are reborn on the path to purity. They do not keep the Islamic daily prayers or the Ramadan fast; instead initiates meet in the jam with hymns and shared offerings, and the community keeps a short winter fast. Religious authority belongs to hereditary sayyid families, and early observers recorded that leaders claimed the power to grant a place in paradise. Shrines of saints near the villages, such as those of Baba Haidar and Sayyid Qambar, were places of pilgrimage until the Islamic State destroyed them in 2014. Faith is kept discreet and passed on by birth; outsiders are not taught its texts.

No Scripture, Jesus Film or audio recordings exist in Sarli. Most Sarli also speak Sorani Kurdish and Arabic, both of which have full Bibles, the Jesus Film and Christian media. Their villages lie close to the Assyrian and Syriac Christian towns of the Nineveh Plains, such as Bakhdida (Qaraqosh) and Bartella.