Considerations about the religions of the Zaza people - Powerpoint

Religion is one of the main expressions of a people’s worldview. The question of identity as well as the inclination towards other ethnicities is mirrored in the practices, beliefs and myths of religion. The term “religions” (plural) indicates the variety of different attitudes. The heterogeneous Zaza people are split by a religious and a linguistic gap. The depth of such a split is closely related to the differentiation of an Alevism-practicing Northern Dialect Group, a Sunnism-following Southern Dialect Group and a partly the Shafi’i rite-following Eastern Group. Remainders Zoroastrianism (Parsiism in East Asia) practices and beliefs tend toward the assumption that the religions of West Persia performed a heterogeneous common religious ground before the Islamic invasions, which also influenced Christianity as a widespread religion. Many theories about the origin of the Zaza people are dependent on assumptions. If they settled long ago in their recent homeland area the influence of Judaism (since the 8th and increasingly the 3rd century BC in the Diaspora) and Christianity (Byzantine, Syriac and Armenian Churches) would be much stronger than thought before. Following the Daylam-Thesis that states that they came from the southern shores of the Caspian Sea in the 11th century the Persian religions would be more influential. On the other hand the recent supposed Judaist and Christian practices are few and not distinct which supports the latter thesis.