14 ғасырда пайда болған Ярсани діні және Сұлтан Сахак ілімі

Religion founded by Sultan Sahak in the late 14th century

Yarsanism , Ahl e Haqq (ئەهلی حەق, Ehl e Heq; اهل حق), or Kaka'i, The total number of followers of Yarsanism is estimated to be over half a million to one million in Iran. The numbers in Iraq are unknown. Followers are mostly Kurds from the Guran, Sanjâbi, Kalhor, Zangana and Jalalvand tribes. Turkic speaking Yarsan enclaves also exist in Iran. Some Yarsanis in Iraq are called Kaka'i. The Yarsanis have a distinct religious literature primarily written in the Gorani language. However, few modern Yarsani can read or write Gorani, as their mother tongue is Southern Kurdish or Sorani. Their central religious book is called the Kalâm e Saranjâm, written in the 15th century and based on the teachings of Sultan Sahak.

The majority of Yarsan followers live in Kermanshah Province and adjacent areas of Lorestan Province and Ilam Province in Iran. They are the predominant religious population in Mahidasht, Bivanij and Zohab districts of Kermanshah, and populate rural areas of Delfan, Holeylan and Posht e Kuh in Ilam and Lorestan. The main urban centers of the religion are Sahneh, Kerend e Gharb and Gahvareh, and other important cities include Kermanshah, Sarpol e Zahab and Qasr e Shirin. Other areas in Iran with a significant Yarsan population include Hashtgerd and Varamin near Tehran and Maragheh, and Tabriz in Iranian Azerbaijan, where important Turkic speaking Yarsan communities live and use Turkic for many of their religious texts. The Yarsani tradition claims that all early communities used Gorani as their religious language, but that over time, some groups were forced to adopt a Turkic language closely akin to Azeri for all purposes, including religion. In Iraq, Yarsan followers mainly live in Iraqi Kurdistan, around Mosul, Kirkuk, Kalar, Khanaqin, Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, and Halabja.

The Yarsani follow the mystical teachings of Sultan Sahak ( 14th–15th century). From the Yarsani point of view, the universe is composed of two distinct yet interrelated worlds: the internal (bātinī) and the external (zāhirī), each having its own order and rules. Although humans are only aware of the outer world, their lives are governed according to the rules of the inner world. This aspect of the Yarsani faith can be identified as Kurdish esoterism which emerged under the intense influence of Bātinī Sufism. Among other important pillars of their belief system are that the Divine Essence has successive manifestations in human form (mazhariyyat) and the belief in transmigration of the soul (dunaduni in Kurdish). Yarasani believe that every man needs to do what is written within their holy book, the Kalâm e Saranjâm, otherwise they are not part of Yarsan. There is no compulsion or exclusion in Yarsan – anyone who chooses to follow its precepts is welcome. The Yarsani faith's features include millenarism, innatism, egalitarianism, metempsychosis, angelology, divine manifestation and dualism.

The Yarsani are emanationists and incarnationists, believing that the Divine Essence has successive incarnations known as mazhariyyats (similar to the Hindu avatars). They believe God manifests one primary and seven secondary manifestations in each epoch of the world, in either angel or human form. These seven persons are known as "Heft tan, which means "The Seven Persons". The primary mazhariyyat of the First Epoch was the Divine Essence known as Khawandagar, who created the world. The primary mazhariyyat of the Second Epoch was Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth caliph and first imam of Shia Islam. This explains the alternative name for Yarsanis Ali Allahi, "Believers in the divinity of Ali". The primary mazhariyyat of the Third Epoch was Shah Khoshin. In the Fourth Epoch, the primary mazhariyyat is held to be Sultan Sahak. It is said that his mother was Dayerak Rezbar or Khatun e Rezbar, a Kurdish virgin of the Caf tribe. While sleeping under a pomegranate tree a kernel of fruit fell into her mouth when a bird pecked the fruit directly over her. Sources vary on Rezbar’s marital life, some state that she lived her entire life celibate and unmarried while most state that she had married. Sources that claim she had married either contest her husband as being a Kurdish man named "Şêx Îsa" from a priestly line of the Berzencî tribe or an Arab Sayyid man. Whether either of these men even fathered Sahak is also contested among Yarsanis who believe she had married either one of them, as the virgin birth of Sahak is contested by Yarsani scholars though the presumed father or stepfather of Sahak is not regarded as a significant religious figure in Yarsanism.

Yarsanism is organised into spiritual houses or Khandans, seven of which were established at the time of Sultan Sahak, and four afterwards, making eleven Khandans in all. The Khandans were established when, along with the Haft Tan, Sultan Sahak also formed the Haft Tawane, a group of seven holy persons charged with the affairs of the outer world. Every Yarsani therefore belongs to one specific khandan, which is led by a spiritual leader called a say yed, to whom each member must swear obedience. The say yed is the spiritual leader of the community and is normally present during the ceremonies attended by the followers. Say yeds are the only ones allowed to have full access to the religious texts of Yarsanism, and have traditionally competed with each other to have the largest number of followers. The position of Say yed is hereditary, being passed down through the generations from the original founders. As the say yed are considered spiritual 'parents', it is the tradition for them not to marry their followers.

An excerpt from the French Review of the Muslim World describes the difficulty in nomenclature for Yarsanism and related Shi'ite mysticism. The English translation reads:

Ahl e Haqq view Islam as a product of a cycle of divine essence, which was made manifest in Ali, and established the stage of shai'at (Islamic law). This was followed by the cycle of tariqat (Sufi teachings), then ma'rifat (Sufi gnosis), and finally the current cycle of haqiqat (Ultimate Truth), which was made manifest in Sultan Sahak. The final stage supersedes the previous ones, which frees Ahl e Haqq from observing the shari'a rules incumbent on Muslims. Ahl i Haqq class other Muslims as either Ahl i Tashayyu (followers of Shi'ism) or Ahl i Tasannun (followers of Sunnism). The Ahl i Haqq neither observe Muslim rites, such as daily prayers and fasting during the month of Ramadan, nor share Islamic theology and sacred space, such as belief in the day of resurrection and sanctity of the mosque. Extremist Sunni Islamic groups, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and al Qaeda, regard the followers of Yarsanism as unbelievers who have to convert to Islam or die. These militants have persecuted Yarsanis during the Iraq conflict, possibly prompting some Iraqi Yarsan community leaders to declare in 2013 that their people were actually Muslims to avoid sectarian attacks.