Soltan Sahak
Soltan Sahak is the pivotal figure of the Yarsani (Ahl-e Haqq) religion of the Kurds. Doctrine teaches that the one Divine Essence reveals itself in a sequence of manifestations, and that in the dispensation centred on the Guran district of western Iran the Essence appeared as Soltan Sahak, who gave the faith its enduring institutions: the assembly of the jam, the sacrament of the consecrated offering, the heptad of holy companions, and the spiritual lineages descended from them. Birth-legend holds that his mother, the virgin Dayerak (Khatun Dayrak) of the Jaff people, conceived him when a pomegranate seed fell into her mouth as she slept beneath the tree; she is herself understood as an earthly manifestation of the mother-angel Razbar. His teachings are preserved in the Gurani sacred poetry of the Kalam-e Saranjam and are chanted to the sacred lute, the tanbur.
Parentage
Domains
- divine manifestation
- revealed truth
Powers
- to embody the supreme essence of God in a human manifestation
- to establish the law and ritual community of the faithful
Epithets
- Soltan
- Padishah-e Yari
Relations
- companion: Pir Benyamin
- companion: Pir Dawud
- companion: Pir Musi
- companion: Mostafa Dawan
- companion: Khatun-e Razbar
Sources
- Hamzeh'ee, M. Reza. The Yaresan: A Sociological, Historical and Religio-Historical Study of a Kurdish Community. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1990.
- Kreyenbroek, Philip G. & Yiannis Kanakis. "God First and Last": Religious Traditions and Music of the Yaresan of Guran. Volume I: Religious Traditions. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2024.
- Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. "Ahl-e Ḥaqq."