The story of Sunpadh

Dear Robert
So would you say that this socialist tradition within Middle Eastern culture has Zoroastrian origin?
Did not this movement after all begin with Mazdak and all followers since are proto-Mazdakists in one form or the other? Would Baathism in Syria and Iraq and the strength of Iranian Marxism in the 1950s and 1960s be related to this movement?
Ushta
Alexander

2009/3/28
- Dölj citerad text -

Dear Alexander,

it is sometimes Abu-Muslim (among many other social revolutionaries /
'heretics') which Alevis refer to as their--at least
ideological--ancestors. But this is no evidence that there is a direct
line of transmission. This line of charismatic persons referred to
follows all such historical personage from Mazdak to Babak,
Abu-Muslim, Ali, Hoseyn, the twelve Emams or people connected to them,
Mansur-e Hallaj, Baba Ishaq, Shah Esmail up to Pir Sultan Abdal (16th
c Anatolia) (in concrete form I encountered in Qizilbash-Alevi
Anatolian houses portrait galleries which even included modern
20th-century Turkish/Kurdish revolutionaries and even Che Guevara).

Shortly said, it is not easy (if not impossible) to decide whether
there is an 'authentic' conncetion. For example, Soviet Aserbaidschan
made use of historiography of such figures (even including Zoroaster
himself) to construct a history of socialist revolution from early
times on in the region. This historiographies were recepted by people
on the other side of the 'Iron Curtain' (e. g. Turkish Kurds listening
to Soviet Kurdish radio programmes; books etc.).

Best wishes,

Robert

Zitat von Alexander Bard :

> Dear Friends
>
> The story of Sunpadh and his attempt to merge Islam with Zoroastrianism in
> the 9th century is quite stunning:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunpadh
> Do we know what happened with the followers of Sunpadh, and how have they
> influenced both Islam and Zoroastrianism?
>
> Ushta
> Alexander