With thousands of Yezidi refugees currently besieged by forces from the Islamic State (Isis) in Iraq, we have decided to bring forward the publication of Birgül Açikyildiz’s The Yezidis.

Accused of being devil worshippers and now threatened with extinction at the hands of Islamic State militants, the Yezidis (or ‘Yazidis’ as in much of the Western media) are one of the most mysterious and little known minorities in the Middle East.

Based on years of research, Birgül Açikyildiz’s The Yezidis: The History of a Community and Culture is an accessible and essential guide to the religion, history and culture of the Yezidis of Iraq, complete with many remarkable photographs of their way of life, which is now under such dire threat.

I.B.Tauris Executive Editor Alex Wright says: ‘Everyone is scrambling around for information on these remarkable people and there is nothing available. This book is to be urgently read, the Middle East and the world would be tremendously poorer for the loss of the Yezidis.’

The Yezidis: The History of a Community and Culture is published 20th August 2014. ■