Tayrahi

The Taïrahites, or Tayrahids, Tirahaye, or Tayrahi were a nomadic Kurdish tribe originally from the region of Maddaï near Hulwan, who migrated westward toward the northern Mosul area in 1205–1206. They are notable for maintaining pre-Islamic Iranian religious practices, including Zoroastrianism and local forms of idolatry, at a time when most Kurds in the region had adopted Islam. Historical sources, including Gregorius Bar Hebraeus’s Chronicon Syriacum, describe the Taïrahites as a sizable and militarily active group, numbering over 1,000 tents, who engaged in raids and conflicts with neighboring Muslim and Christian communities. They were implicated in regional disputes, such as the destruction of the Christian monastery of Mar-Yunanan, and were recognized by contemporary chroniclers as distinct from both Muslim Kurdish factions and emerging Adawi Yazidi communities.

Later records

The medieval historian Ibn Kathīr refers to a Kurdish tribe he calls Tirhiye living in the region corresponding to modern-day Lalish. He describes them as Magians whose descendants “forgot their ancestral religion and adopted a hybrid faith incorporating elements of Islam.”