Southern Zaza in Turkey

Overview

The Challenge

Every day 20 Sunni Zazas die—all having heard of Jesus but with confused, inaccurate, or wrong knowledge of the Messiah or what he came to do for them. For centuries, Orthodox Christians lived simple yet faithful lives next to the Zazas. However, instead of being a force for reconciliation, the Gospel became an ethnic barrier.  Result: Insulated Witness—no believers—no church.

In the 19th Century, Protestant and Catholic missionaries came to the region but reached out to Christians not Sunni Zazas. They built schools and hospitals, and a great Christian renewal ensued. Unfortunately,   these acts of Christian mercy were interpreted as signs of an impending invasion of Western, Christian nations, who indeed did invade as the Ottoman Empire collapsed in World War One. The gospel became associated with enemy espionage and in the 1920’s indigenous Christians and foreign missionaries were driven from Aram Naharayim. Result: No witness—no believers—no church.

 

Facts

  • Population:  1 million Dimli Kurds (Southern Zaza); 115,000 Northern Zaza.
  • Alternative Name(s) for UPG:  Southern Zaza.
  • Percent Christian adherents: Almost none, perhaps a handful of secret Christians.
  • Percent Unevangelized: Almost 100%.
  • Percent different religions: 100% Sunni Muslims.
  • Language(s): Dimli in Southern Zaza; Another distinctly different dialect among the Northern Zaza.
  • Primary Development Concerns:  Turkey has tried to assimilate all different peoples groups, so that research of the Dimli Southern Zaza’s own history and culture with its own history has been systematically banned.  Therefore, the Dimli Zaza are an unknown people.
  • Population in other countries:  possibily 2-4 million live all over the world, including North America.
Population: 
1145000
Religion: 
Sunni Muslim
Unevangelized: 
88.0%
Southern Zaza

Evangelization

Outreach

  • There may be only a few believers among the Dimli Kurds.  There is no Christian broadcasting, no known baptized Christians.
  • The first 15 chapters of Luke have been translated for the Southern Dimli Zaza.  More Southern Dimli Zaza are needed to continue the work.
  • In the literal sense, this group is very difficult to reach because hundreds of their villages are inaccessible by road and may only be reached by goat trails.

Success Stories:

  • There are very few success stories.  David Barrett’s World Christian Trends considers this group to be the second least evangelized peoples group in the world.
  • There are, however, a number of Dimli who have immigrated to other countries. For example, there is a family who fled the homeland and experienced many negatives in Europe: inability to work, child abuse by a foster family; and possible deportation.  The mother prayed, “God, if you are real, perform a miracle, and I will believe and follow you.” They were not deported, and the family became witness for Christ.  They are still in danger of being deported, but they believe that if they were deported, their fears would be replaced with joy as being sent as messengers of God.

Poverty

Table 2: Selected indicators of human poverty for Turkey

Probability of not surviving to age 40

(%)

Adult illiteracy rate

(% > age 14)

People not using an improved water source

(%)

Children underweight for age

(%  < age 5)

1. Hong Kong, China (1.4)

1. Georgia
(0.0)

1. Barbados
(0)

1. Croatia
(1)

50. Turkey
(5.7)

77. Turkey
(11.3)

35. Turkey
(3)

18. Turkey
(4)

153. Lesotho
(47.4)

151. Mali
(73.8)

150. Afghanistan
(78)

138. Bangladesh
(48)

Source:  UNDP Human Development Report 2009 - Turkey

Harsh measures to suppress the Southern Dimli Kurds by successive Turkish governments include the banning the their language, schools, publications, associations, names and music. Illiteracy and unemployment are major problems. Rates of illiteracy, life expectancy and infant mortality are not known, unless one interpolates them from geographically-based data in Turkey.

Links/Resources

Pray4Zaza
Transforming Eden
Joshua Project
Zazaki Language (Ethnologue)
Sorry, you need to install flash to see this content.
Image of Kurdish Culture and Identity
Author:
Publisher: Zed Books (1996)
Binding: Paperback, 192 pages
Image of A Modern History of the Kurds: Third Edition
Author: David McDowall
Publisher: I. B. Tauris (2004)
Binding: Paperback, 504 pages