Persian people

This article is about Persians. For the usage of Persianpeople as a pan-ethnic group designating the people ofmodern Iran (Persia), see Iran.

The Persian people[21] are an Iranian people who speakthe modern Persian language[22] and closely akin Iraniandialects and languages.[23][24] Their origins are traced tothe ancient Iranian peoples, themselves part of the Indo-Iranian branch of the greater Indo-European peoples.The term Persian translates to from Persis" which is aregion north of the Persian Gulf located in Pars, Iran. Itwas from this region that Cyrus the Great, the founder ofthe Achaemenid empire, united all other Iranian empires(such as the Medes), and expanded the Persian culturaland social inuences by incorporating the Babylonian em-pire, and the Lydian empire. Although not the rst Ira-nian empire, the Achaemenid empire is the rst Persianempire well recognized by Greek and Persian historiansfor its massive cultural, military and social inuences go-ing as far as Athens, Egypt, and Libya.[25]

Persians have generally been a pan-national group oftencomprising regional people who often refer to themselvesas Persians and have also often used the term Iranian(in the ethnic-cultural sense). Some scholars, mechani-cally identifying the speakers of Persian as a distinct eth-nic unit (the Persians), exclude those Iranians who speakdialects of Persian. However, this approach can be mis-leading, as historically all ethnic groups in Iran, were al-ways referred to, collectively, as Iranians (Irani).[26]

1 TerminologyThe term Persia was adopted by all western languagesthrough the Greeks and was used as an ocial name forIran by theWest until 1935. Due to that label, all Iranianswere considered Persian. People who embraced the Per-sian language and culture are also often referred as Per-sian (as a part of the Persian civilization culturally and/orlinguistically).

1.1 Ancient history and originMain articles: Ancient Iranian peoples, Indo-Iranians,ProtoIndo-Europeans, Medes, Avesta, AchaemenidEmpire, Parthian Empire, Sassanian Empire andZoroastrianismThe origin of the ethnic Persian peoples are traced

Costumes of an ancient Persian noblemen and soldiers.

Geographic distribution of modern Iranian languages: ModernPersian (green) and other related Persian (some descendant ofMiddle Persian like Luri[27] in Red) also shown in the map

to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of theancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of the greaterIndo-European language family. The Ancient Iranianpeoples emerged in parts of the Iranian plateau circa1000 BCE.[28] Important Iranian tribes such as OldPersians, Medes, Parthians, Bactrians, Scythians, andthe Avesta people used the name Arya (Iranian), whichwas a collective denition, denoting peoples who wereaware of belonging to a generally common ethnic stock,speaking very closely related languages, and mainly

1

2 1 TERMINOLOGY

sharing a religious tradition that centered on the worshipof Ahura Mazda.[29]

The Old Persians, who were one of these ethnic Iraniangroups, were originally nomadic, pastoral people in thewestern Iranian plateau and by 850 BCE were callingthemselves the Parsa and their constantly shifting ter-ritory Parsua for the most part localized around Persis(Pars), bounded on the west by Tigris river and on thesouth by the Persian Gulf.[30] The rst known writtenrecord of the term Persian is from Assyrian inscriptionsof the 9th century BCE, which mention both Parsuashand Parsua .[31][32] The Iranian Persians and Medes wereinitially dominated by the Assyrian Empire for much ofthe rst three centuries after arriving in the region. How-ever, the Medes and Persians played a major role in thedownfall of Assyria, after it had been riven by internalcivil war.[33] These cognate words were taken from oldIranian Parsava and presumably meant border, border-land and were geographical designations for Iranian pop-ulations (who referred to themselves as Aryans as an eth-nic designation or showing the nobility). Nonetheless,Parsua and Parsuash were two dierent geographical lo-cations, the latter referring to southwestern Iran, knownin Old Persian as Prsa (Modern Fars). The Greeks (whotended earlier to use names related to Median) beganin the 5th century to use adjectives such as Perses, Per-sica or Persis for Cyrus the Great's empire,[34] which iswhere the word Persian in English comes from. In thelater parts of the Bible, where this kingdom is frequentlymentioned (Books of Esther, Daniel, Ezra andNehemya),it is called Paras (Hebrew ), or sometimes Parasve Madai ( ) i.e. Persia and Media". As theOld Persians gained power, they developed the infras-tructure to support their growing inuence, including cre-ation of a capital named Pasargadae, and an opulent citynamed Persepolis.[35] Starting around 550 BCE, fromthe region of Persis in southern Iran, encompassing thepresent Fars province, the ancient Persians spread theirlanguage and culture to other parts of the Iranian plateauand assimilated and intermingled with local Iranian and'indigenous non-Iranian' groups including the Elamites,Gutians and Manneans over time.[36] Persians also in-teracted with other ancient civilizations in Europe andAfrica. The rst Persian empire extended as far as thelimits of the Greek city states, where Persians and Athe-nians inuenced each other in what is essentially a recip-rocal cultural exchange.[37]

At the same time, the Old Persians were part of the widerAriya (Iranian nation);[29] Darius and Xerxes boast of be-longing to a stock which they call Iranian: they pro-claim themselves Iranian and of Iranian stock, ariyaand ariya ia respectively, in inscriptions in which theIranian countries come rst in a list that is arranged in anew hierarchical and ethno-geographical order.[29] Untilthe Parthian era, Iranian identity had an ethnic, linguistic,and religious value, however it did not yet have a politicalimport.[29] The Parthian language, an important Iranian

language, was spoken by the Parthians and is mutuallyintelligble with the Middle Persian language[38] becamean ocial language of the Parthian empire. The Parthianlanguage had an important inuence in the modern Per-sian language[39] as well as other Iranian languages.[40][41]In the 1st century BCE, Strabo (c. 64 BCE24 CE) wouldnote a relationship between the various Iranian peo-ples and their languages: "[From] beyond the Indus [...]Ariana is extended so as to include some part of Persia,Media, and the north of Bactria and Sogdiana; for thesenations speak nearly the same language. (Geography,15.2.115.2.8[42]) He mentions the Cyrtians, the plausi-ble ancestors of the modern Kurds as one of the Persiantribes. Cyrtians, the generally accepted progenitors ofthe Kurds and Lurs might already have been signicantlyscattered in the Zagros from Persis into Media.[43][44]

During Sassanian Iran, a national culture, fully awareof being Iranian took shape and was partially moti-vated by the restoration and the revival of the wisdomof the sages of old, dngn pngn.[29] Other as-pects of this national culture included the glorication ofa great heroic past and an archaizing spirit.[29] Through-out the period, the pre-Islamic Iranian identity reachedits height in every aspect: political, religious, culturaland even linguistic.[29] In terms of linguistic, MiddlePersian, which is the immediate ancestor of ModernPersian[39][45][46] and variety of other Iranian dialects,became the ocial language of the empire[47] and wasgreatly diused amongst Iranians.[29] The interminglingof Persians, Medes, Parthians, Bactrians and indige-nous people of Iran, including the Elamites gained moreground and a homogeneous Iranian identity was createdto the extent that all were just called Iranians/Persians ir-respective of clannish aliations and regional linguisticor dialectical alterities. The Elamite language may havesurvived as late as the early Islamic period. Ibn al-Nadimamong other medieval historians, for instance, wrotethat The Iranian languages are Fahlavi (Pahlavi), Dari,Khuzi, Persian and Suryani, and Ibn Moqaa noted thatKhuzi was the unocial language of the royalty of Persia,Khuz being the corrupted name for Elam. However theElamite identity might have vanished already. Further-more, the process of incomers assimilation which hadbeen started with the Greeks, continued in the face ofArab, Mongol and Turkic invasions and proceeded rightup to Islamic times.[36][48]

1.2 Islamic eraThe term Persian continued to refer to various Iranianpeople including speakers of Chorasmian Language,[49]old Tabari language,[50] Old Azari language ,[51] Laki andKurdish speakers.[52]

The Iraqi historian Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn Al-Masudi (896956) also refers to various Persian dialectsand the speakers of these various Persian dialects as Per-sian. While considering modern Persian (Dari) to be one

3of these dialects, he also mentions Pahlavi and Old Azari,as well as other Persian languages. Al-Masudi states:[53]

The Persians are a people whose borders are the MahatMountains and Azarbaijan up to Armenia and Arran,and Bayleqan and Darband, and Ray and Tabaristan andMasqat and Shabaran and Jorjan and Abarshahr, and thatis Nishabur, and Herat and Marv and other places inland of Khorasan, and Sejistan and Kerman and Fars andAhvaz... All these lands were once one kingdom withone sovereign and one language...although the languagediered slightly. The language, however, is one, in thatits letters are written the same way and used the sameway in composition. There are, then, dierent languagessuch as Pahlavi, Dari, Azari, as well as other Persianlanguages.[54]

1.3 Modern era

The name Persia was the ocial name of Iran inthe Western world before 1935, but Persian people in-side their country since the Sassanid period (226651CE) have called it Iran. Accordingly the term Per-sian was used in the Western world as the people in-habiting Iran; for instance, Ramsay MacDonald (18661937), the Prime-Minister of the United Kingdom, andthe British ambassador in Iran, Percy Loraine, used Per-sian and Persian people to talk about the Iranian peo-ple and government.[55] On 21 March 1935, the ruler ofthe country, Reza Shah Pahlavi, issued a decree askingforeign delegates to use the term Iran in formal corre-spondence. From then on Iranian and Persian wasapplied interchangeably to the population of Iran. Itis still historically being used to designate predominantpopulation[56] of the Iranian people living in Iranian cul-tural continent.[57][58][59]

2 EthnicityWhile a categorization of a Persian ethnic group per-sists in the West, Persians have generally been a pan-national group often comprising regional people who of-ten refer to themselves as 'Persians and have also of-ten used the term Iranian (in the ethnic-cultural sense).As a pan-national group, dening Persians as an ethnicgroup, at least in terms used in the West, is not inclu-sive since the ethnonym Persian includes several Iranianpeople including the speakers of Modern Persian. Somescholars, classify the speakers of Persian language as asingle ethnic unit (the Persians) and exclude those Ira-nians who speak dialects of Persian, or other Iranian di-alects closely related to Persian;[26] however this approachto ethnicity in Iran is erroneous, since the designation Ira-nian (Irani) as an ethnic term has been used by all theseethnic group in Iran, including the Persians irrespectiveof their origin, language and religion.[26]

3 Sub-groups

Main articles: Iranian languages, Tjik people, Qizilbash,Ajam of Bahrain and Hola (ethnic group)Main articles: Lari people (Iran), Hazara people,Farsiwan, Tat people (Iran) and Tat people (Caucasus)

Iran is the homeland of ethnic-Persians. Persians (in-cluding Persian sub-groups) and Persian-speakers (otherethnic groups that have adopted Persian language) canalso be found in Tajikstan, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait,UAE,[60] Iraq, Georgia, Turkey, Armenia, Oman, theCaucasus, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan. Like the Persiansof Iran (Western Persians), the Tajiks (Eastern Persians)are descendants of various Iranian peoples, including Per-sians from Iran, as well as numerous invaders.[61] Tajiksand Farsiwan have a particular anity with Persians inneighboring Khorasan due to historical interaction somestemming from the Islamic period. Scholars also in-clude Iranian language speakers such as Lurs,[23] Talysh,Gilak, Mazandaranis and speakers of Central Iranian lan-guages in Iran under the term Persian.[62][63] Specically,the Lurs speak an Archaic Persian language.[23] In addi-tion, the Hazara and Aimaq of Afghanistan are Persian-speaking communities of mixed Mongol,[64] Turkic andTajik origins.Other smaller ethnic groups of Persians includes the Laripeople of Larestan (who are mostly Sunni Muslims) andthe Qizilbash of Afghanistan who are related to the Farsi-wan and Azerbaijanis. In the Caucasus, the Tats are con-centrated in Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russian Dagestanand their origins are traced to Sassanid merchants whosettled in the region. In the Indian subcontinent theParsis are a distinct ethno-religious community that aredescended fromPersian (largely Khorasani) Zoroastrians.They are a Zoroastrian sect settled mainly in western In-dia, centered around Gujarat and Mumbai. The Iranis,another small community in India, are descended frommore recent Persian Zoroastrian immigrants.

4 History

See also: Persian Empire, History of Iran, History ofTajikistan, History of Uzbekistan and History of CentralAsiaThe Persians are believed to be descendents of the Aryan(Indo-Europeans) tribes that began migrating from Cen-tral Asia into what is now Iran in the second millenniumBCE[65][66][67] The Persian language and other Iraniantongues emerged as these Aryan tribes split up into twomajor groups, the Persians and the Medes, and inter-married with minority peoples indigenous to the Iranianplateau such as the Elamites.[68][69] The rst mention ofthe Persians dates to the 9th century BCE, when they ap-pear as the Parsu in Assyrian sources, as a people living

4 6 RELIGION

Achaemenid Empire at its greatest extent.

at the southeastern shores of Lake Urmia.The ancient Persians from the province of Pars becamethe rulers of a large empire under the Achaemenid dy-nasty (Hakhamaneshiyan) in the 6th century BCE, re-uniting with the tribes and other provinces of the an-cient Iranian plateau and forming the Persian Empire.Over the centuries Persia was ruled by various dynas-ties; some of them were ethnic Iranians including theAchaemenids, Parthians (Ashkanian), Sassanids (Sassa-nian), Buwayhids and Samanids, and some of them werenot, such as the Seleucids, Ummayyads, Abbasids, andSeljuk Turks.The founding dynasty of the empire, the Achaemenids,and later the Sassanids, were from the southwestern re-gion of Iran, Pars. The latter Parthian dynasty arose fromthe north. However, according to archaeological evi-dence found inmodern day Iran in the form of cuneiformsthat go back to the Achaemenid era, it is evident that thenative name of Parsa (Persia) had been applied to Iranfrom its birth.[70][71]

5 LanguageMain articles: Persian language and Iranian languages

The Persian language is one of the worlds oldest lan-guages still in use today, and is known to have one of themost powerful literary traditions, with formidable Per-sian poets like Ferdowsi, Haz, Khayyam, Attar, Saadi,Nizami, Roudaki, Rumi and Sanai. By native speakersit eventually came to be known as Frs, which was theArabic form of Parsi as there is no P sound in Arabic.Additionally, Persian was constitutionally renamed fromFarsi to Dari in Afghanistan during the 1960s. The di-alect of Persian spoken in Tajikistan is called Tajiki.Persian has historically referred to some Iranian lan-guages, however what today is referred to as the Per-sian language is part of the Western group of the Ira-nian languages branch of the Indo-European languagefamily. Today, speakers of the western dialect of Per-sian form the majority in Iran. The eastern dialect,also called Dari or Tajiki, forms majorities in Tajikistan,

and Afghanistan,[72] and a large minority in Uzbekistan.Smaller groups of Persian-speakers are found in Iraq,Russia, Pakistan (by Hazaras in Balochistan), west-ern China (Xinjiang), as well as in the UAE, Bahrain,Sweden, Kuwait, Oman, Georgia and Azerbaijan.

6 ReligionMain articles: Religion in Iran, Islam in Iran, Islam inAfghanistan, Islam in Tajikistan and Islam in Uzbekistan

The Persian civilization spawned three major religions:Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, which heavily inuencedSaint Augustine before he turned to Christianity, and theBah' Faith. Another religion that arose from ancientIran is Mazdakism, which has been dubbed the rst com-munistic ideology. Both Mazdakism and Manichaeismwere sub-branches of Zoroastrianism that is said to bethe rst monotheistic religion.Sunni was the dominant form of Islam in most of Iranuntil rise of Safavid Empire. There were however someexceptions to this general domination of the Sunni creedwhich emerged in the form of the Zayds of Tabaristan,the Buwayhid, the rule of Sultan Muhammad Khudaban-dah (13041316 CE), the Hashashin and the Sarbedaran.Nevertheless, apart from this domination there existed,rstly, throughout these nine centuries, Shia inclinationsamong many Sunnis of this land and, secondly, all threesurviving branches of Shi'a Islam, Twelver, Ismaili, aswell as Zaidiyyah had prevalence in some parts of Iran.During this period, Shia in Iran were nourished fromKufa, Baghdad and later from Najaf and Hillah.[73] Shi-ism were dominant sect in Tabaristan, Qom, Kashan,Avaj and Sabzevar. In many other areas the populationof Shia and Sunni was mixed. In recent centuries Ismailishave also largely been an Indo-Iranian community.[74]

Many scholars and scientists in Persia who lived be-fore the Safavid era such as Ferdowsi, Jbir ibn Hayyn,Al-Farabi and Nasr al-Dn al-Ts, were Shi'a Mus-lims, as was most of Irans elite, while other renownedSunni Muslim scientists, scholars and personaliries werePersian or had Persian descent, including Abu Da-wood, Hakim al-Nishaburi, Al-Tabarani, Ghazali, ImamBukhari, Tirmidhi, Al-Nasa'i and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi,amongst many others. Abu Hanifa, the founder of theSunni Hana school of Islamic jurisprudence is alsowidely accepted of Persian ancestry.The rst ocially Shia empire, the Safavid dynasty inIran, advocated the Twelver faith, made Twelver law thelaw of the land, and supported Twelver scholarship. Forthis, Twelver ulama crafted a new theory of governmentwhich held that while not truly legitimate, the Safavidmonarchywould be blessed as themost desirable form ofgovernment during the period of waiting for the twelfthimam.[74]

7.1 Pre-Islamic Persian culture 5

Today, most Persians are Twelver Shia succeeded byHana Sunni Muslims. There is also a sizeable numberof Sha`i Sunni Muslims in southern Iran and amongstKurds. Small Ismaili Shia minorities also exist in scat-tered pockets. Some communities practice Shi'a Susm.There are also smaller communities of Zoroastrians,Christians, Jews, and Bah's. Bah's are the largest non-Muslim religious minority in Iran.[75] There exist Persianswho are atheist and agnostic.

7 CultureMain article: Persian cultureFurther information: List of festivals in Iran

Culture by one denition is the collective programmingof the human mind that distinguishes the members ofone human group from those of another.[76] Persian cul-ture therefore reects the collective mindset of the Per-sian people throughout time, whether Persian is meant inan ethnic sense or a culturally inclusive pan-ethnic sense.From the early inhabitants of Persis, to the Achaemenid,Parthian, and Sassanid Empires, to the neighbouringGreek city states,[77] to the Caliphate and the Islamicworld,[78][79] all the way to the modern day Iran andsuch far places as those found in India,[80] Asia,[81] andIndonesia, Persian culture, has been either recognized, in-corporated, adopted, or celebrated.[78][82] The unique as-pect of Persian culture is its geo-political context and itsintricate relationship with the ever changing Persian polit-ical arena once as dominant as the Achaemenids stretch-ing from India in east to Libya in west, and now limited toIran stretching fromAfghanistan, and Pakistan in the eastto Iraq and Turkey in the west. It is this ever-changingreach within the Iranian plateau that brought Persians faceto face with Babylonians, Greeks, Egyptians, Scythians,Arabs, Turks, Mughals, Hindus, North Africans, andeven the Chinese, allowing them to inuence these popu-lations with their cultural norms all the while being inu-enced by them in what can best be described as a recip-rocal cultural receptivity.[82]

Some reciprocal cultural exchange was achieved throughcommerce and foreign relations, some through victory ordefeat through military conquests, and some as a functionof geopolitical proximity with neighbouring states. Cyrusthe Great, and his son Cambyses II would bring Per-sians face to face with the Elamites, Babylonians, Hittites,Lydians, Egyptians, and Libyans through conquest, andGreeks and Scythians through border contact whetherin form of military conicts, employment, or even po-litical and military cooperation.[83] From a chronolog-ical perspective, and also weighing political and socialforces accordingly, Persian culture can be divided intopre-Islamic era with major contact with theWestern pow-ers of the time, the Macedonians/Greeks, and the laterRomans and the post-Islamic era, with major contact

with emerging Eastern powers such as Arabs, OttomanTurks, and Mughals and in recent years imperalist pow-ers such as the Russians, and the British empire. TheAchaemenids, Parthians, and Sassanids would representthe Persian cultural globe in the pre-Islamic era while anarray of emerging Persian empires namely the Safavids,Samanids, Qajar, Pahlavi and countless others would rep-resent the post-Islamic era.Persian cultural contributions include artistic (Persiancarpets, Persian artworks and crafts, miniature paintings,calligraphy), linguistic (Persian literature and poetry),Societal (Architectural inuences, customs & cloth-ing, Gardening, music, social norms and standards),culinary, political and ceremonial (Nowruz festivity,Chaharshanbe Suri festival) contributions.

7.1 Pre-Islamic Persian culture

7.1.1 Achaemenids

Relief of Cyrus the Great.

History The Persian culture and its inuence dur-ing the Achaemenid Persian empire has been tradition-ally described by a center-periphery model.[82] Center-Periphery model is a model of cultural inuence com-posed of a dominant center with greater power and eco-nomic resources and often some form of overt controland a subordinate periphery; in this cultural model, theperiphery strives to incorporate prestige via adoption ofcultural and value systems of the center, a process termedemulation while the center is an engine for genera-

6 7 CULTURE

tion of new cultural standards.[82] The cultural interac-tion between the Achaemenid center and the peripherywas through a system of states, called the "satrapy. Theinuence of the Persian center was such that places suchas Anatolia, Lydia, and the Lykian dynasty completelyadopted the Persian culture acting as a full peripheryto the central inuence.[82] The Greeks also were inu-enced by the Persians, since originally they were a logicalnext step in the cultural expansion of the Achaemenids,and in fact such places as Cyprus, and Ionia were for aconsiderable time within the sphere of Persian culturalinuences.[82] As Greeks gained power, Athens devel-oped into a central power in its own right and devel-oped its own cultural periphery and inevitably came toclash with the Persians. The contact was most prominentthrough the Ionian coast, where the periphery regions ofboth entities overlapped in what can be thought of as aninteraction zone between Persian and Greek inuences.The interaction between Greeks and Persians howeveris not entirely a center-periphery model with inevitableclashes, but is in fact a reciprocal cultural interactionin which Persians were inuenced by the Greek cultureand its architectural, philosophical elements, while theGreeks were inuenced by the Persian culture and its so-ciopolitical, artistic, and ceremonial elements.[82]

Exchange between ancient Persians and their neighboursmust have been diverse including such areas as sci-ences, art, philosophy, architecture, cuisine, governance,marriage, military technology, clothing, and symbols ofelitism. For instance, the use of parasol fan or ywhisk-bearing was a marker of status in Persia, and this wasadopted by the Greeks, mainly women, who depictedtheir aristocratic status by the use of fans, whereas useof statues as a symbol of power and wealth by the Greekmen inuenced the Persian monarchs use of statue intheir reliefes for depiction of wealth and power.[82]

Traditions Further information: Nowruz andChaharshanbe Suri

One of the most well known cultural traditions dat-ing back to the Achaemenid era is the tradition ofNowruz or the celebration of the new year by theAchaemenids.[84] Nowruz has Zoroastrian roots, but hassince the time of Islam beenmostly stripped of its Zoroas-trian references.[84] Nowruz is recognized by UNESCOas an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.[85]

Nowruz rst appeared in Persian records in the 2nd cen-tury CE, but its origin traces back to the Achaemenid erawhere satraps (or governors) from dierent nations underthe control of the Persian king would bring gifts to honorthe king on the rst day of the spring. The word Nowruzin New Persian is composed of Now which means newand rouz which means day to translate into new day.Its Old Persian word navarYznah is composed of navameaning new and rYzanh meaning day or daylight to

also indicate a new day or a new light.

7.1.2 Parthians and Sassanids

Roman emperor Valerian and Philip the Arab accepting defeatby the Sassanid emperor Shapur I. Contact between Romans andPersians is well recognized, as in some accounts they referred toeach other as brothers.[86]

Parthians and the Sassanids would also interact with theRomans culturally as well as come into contact with themthrough their cultural periphery. Persian culture wouldbe best represented by the achievements of the Parthiansand Sassanids both through their royal customs and theirsocial hierarchy. Territorial disputes and battles betweenSassanid Empire and the Roman and later Byzantine em-pires would shape the landspace of Middleast, NorthAfrica, and the Mediterrania. Byzantine invasion of theSassanids and subsequent defeat of Khusrau II is a den-ing moment for the Sasanids, as it destabilized the royalstructure, leading to inability to mount an eective de-fence against the Arab invasion of Persia.

7.2 Post-Islamic Persian cultureThrough the long centuries of Islamic his-

tory, one of the major foci of Islamic civiliza-tion and especially art has been Persia...Persianart, at once deeply Persian and Islamic, repre-sents a culmination of Islamic art and one of itsindisputable peaks.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr[87]

The inuence of the Persian people, and Persian cul-ture in the post-Islamic world can hardly be exaggerated.From inuences in India and Asia, to those in Arabia andGreece, Persian presence has left a lasting impression.Examples of Persian inuence are far too many to men-tion here but are mostly cultural, linguistic, scientic, andsocial. For instance the presence of vast amount of Per-sian literature produced in India after Islam, led to theeventual creation and modernization of the language of

7.4 Architecture 7

Urdu.[88] Similarly, Persian inuences, carried by the Is-lamic wave of conquest, went as far east as Indonesia,where Indonesians took on adopting Persian names andcustoms.[89] Scientic advances led by Persia are variousbut include some of the Islamic gures such as Avicenna,whose work on Medicine was utilized in Europe for hun-dreds of years.Persian inuence in Islam can be viewed from a pre andpost-Islamic perspective. In the era prior to the inva-sion of Persia by the Arab army, the Sassanids playeda key political role in Arabia and in fate of Islam; In575 CE Sassanid Persians actually protected the Arabiancity of Mecca from invasion by a neighbouring ChristianKingdom at the request of the southern tribes of Ara-bia from then Persian emperor Khosrau I. In responseKhosrau came south to Arabia with both foot-soldiersand a eet of ships preventing Christianity from spread-ing easterward into Arabia, andMecca and protecting theIslamic prophet Muhammad who was at the time a sixyear boy in the Quraysh tribe.[90] There are a few schol-ars who consider that Zoroastrianism, began the wholeWestern or Judaeo-Christian-Muslim concept of progres-sive time.[91] If this assumption is true, then role of Per-sian inuence is that much more signicant. Addition-ally, Persia became an important center for disseminationof Islam, as newly converted Persians, adopted Islam astheir own and spread it to the periphery of the Persianempire.Persia also had a great inuence on the Mughals, as theyutilized Persians as advisors. Mughals were also inu-enced by Persians in architecture, military, gardening,politics, and social cutoms. It is important to note thatalong with their great inuence that Persians had on theArabs, Turks, Mugals, and Indians, they were also inu-enced by them in return, however, the Persian inuencestemming from the earlier achievements of the Sassanids,and the Achaemenids and the grand scale of their geo-political inuence, made Persian inuence during the Is-lamic era, a recognizable one.

7.3 ArtsMain articles: Persian art and Persian miniatureThe artistic heritage of Persia is eclectic and includesmajor contributions from both east and west. Persian artborrowed heavily from the indigenous Elamite civiliza-tion and Mesopotamia and later from Hellenism (as canbe seen with statues from the Greek period). In addition,due to Persias somewhat central location, it has servedas a fusion point between eastern and western arts andarchitecture as Greco-Roman inuence was often fusedwith ideas and techniques from India and China. Whentalking of the creative Persian arts one has to include ageographic area that actually extends into Central Asia,the Caucasus, Asia Minor, and Iraq as well as modernIran. This vast geographic region has been pivotal in thedevelopment of the Persian arts as a whole. Persian art

An example of a Persian miniature, by Kaml ud-Dn Behzd (c.14941495), a painter from Herat

includes painting, calligraphy, miniature-painting, illus-trated manuscripts, glasswork, lacquer work, a uniqueand native form of marquetry called "Khatam work,metal work, pottery, textile and fabric design, and mod-ern arts.[92]

7.4 Architecture

Main article: Persian architectureFurther information: Achaemenid architecture andSassanid architectureArchitecture is one of the areas where Persians havemade outstanding contributions. The most prominentancient examples some of which are still extant to-day, are the work of the Achaemenids hailing fromPersis. The quintessential feature of Persian Achaemenidarchitecture was its eclectic nature with elements ofMedian, Assyrian, and Asiatic Greek all incorporated.[93]Achaemenid architectural heritage, beginning with theexpansion of the empire around 550 BCE, was a periodof artistic growth that left an extraordinary architecturallegacy ranging from Cyrus the Great's solemn tomb inPasargadae to the splendid structures of the opulent cityof Persepolis, and such historical sites as Naqsh-e Rus-tam.[30]

With the advent of the second Persian Empire, theSassanid dynasty (224624 CE), revived Achaemenidtradition by construction of temples dedicated to re,

8 7 CULTURE

The ruins of Persepolis known as the Takht-e Jamshid or throneof Jamshid is part of the ancient architectural tradition of Persia.

and monumental palaces.[30] During the Sassanid PersianEra, multiple architectural projects took place some ofwhich are still existing including Palace of Ardashir, andSarvestan Palace in Sarvestan to name a few. Certainancient architectural sites have existed to date and somehave even been in use till recent times; one such exampleis the Arg- Bam a massive structure at 1,940,000 squarefeet (180,000 m2) constructed on the Silk road, in Bamaround 500 BCE and was in use till 1850 CE Bam is nowa UNESCO World Heritage Site.[94]

Ancient examples can be seen throughout Persia and itsterritories, while in modern times monuments such as theTomb of Omar Khayyam in Nishapur are displays of thevaried traditions in Persia that have progressed throughtime. Various cities in Iran are historical displays of adistinctive Persian style that can be seen in the Kharaghantwin towers of Qazvin province, the Shah Mosque foundin Isfahan, tomb of Baba Taher in Hamedan and countlessother works. Persian architecture streams the vast area ofthe Persian empires and is also seen throughout CentralAsia as with the Bibi Khanum Mosque in Samarkand aswell as Samanids mausoleum in Bukhara and the Minaretof Jam in western Afghanistan. Islamic architecture wasfounded on the bases established by the Persians. Persiantechniques can also be clearly seen in the structures of theTaj Mahal at Agra and the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.Modern contemporary architectural projects by Persiansinclude the mausoleum of Ferdowsi in Tus erected byReza Shah, KingMemorial Tower (Azadi Tower) erectedin 1971 in Tehran by a Persian architect, projects suchas the Dariush Grand Hotel, a hundred and twenty vemillion dollar hotel complex created in the Achaemenidarchitectural style, located on Kish Island, in the PersianGulf, and Milad Tower, Irans tallest telecommunicationtower, and worlds fourth tallest tower (as of 2008), stand-

ing 435meters high, hosting a rotating restaurant, TV andradio stations as well as trac control centers, to name afew.[92]

Persian Sassanid oor mosaic detail from the palaceof Shapur I

The Archer frieze" from the Palace of Darius,Louvre, France

Decorative wall details of Palace ofDarius (owers),Louvre, France

Decorative wall details of Palace of Darius (waves),Louvre, France

Ahmad Shah Qajar's Pavilion Golestan Palace, Tehran

7.5 CinemaPersian culture can be dened through its lms, as Persiancinema has attained a substantial amount of internationaland critical acclaim through such lms as Children ofHeaven and Taste of Cherry, which give both insights intothe current state of Persian culture and profound depic-tions of the general human condition.

7.6 GardensMain article: Persian Gardens

Taj Mahal's garden is in the style of Persian gardens with a slen-der waterway (Old Persian jub[95]), and an essentially quadri-partite plan

The Great King [Cyrus the Great]...in all thedistricts he resides in and visits, takes care thatthere are 'paradises as they [Persians] callthem, full of the good and beautiful things that

7.7 Music 9

the soil will produce_Xenophon, The Oeconomicus, 339 B.C.E.[95]

On the plains of Marvdasht, east of the Zagros moun-tains still exist today, remains of the earliest historicallyrecorded gardens. These remains are associated withremnants of the structures that once surrounded them,including white columns that still remain to date. Thesegardens were created by the Achaemenids at the time ofCyrus the Great. For the early Persian monarchs, gardensassumed an important place in their cultural lives.[95]

Persian gardens utilized the Achaemenid knowledge ofwater technologies[96] as they utilized aqueducts, earliesthistorically recorded gravity-fed water rills, and basinsarranged in a geometric system. The enclosure of thissymmetrically arranged planting and irrigation, by an in-frastructure such as a building or a palace created theimpression of paradise.[97] When the Spartan generalLysander reported back to Xenophon, he described howPersians have created Paradeisos (paradises) where theycollected all manners of plants specially fruit trees, andexotic animals they encountered on their military cam-paigns. Xenophon would translate the Old Persian termPairidaeza (a combination of pairimeaning around anddaeza meaning wall) into the Greek term Paradeisos.Cyrus the Greats quadripartite garden plan, incorporatedarchitectural elements, as well as planting, water rills, andshade-giving pavilions, producing the background to alllater garden developments in Persia. These Persian gar-dens had a reach far greater than their immediate civilaza-tion and were vital in the development of spiritual Muslimgardens, and the Indian gardens of the Mughal empire asthey have been inuential in the gardens of RenaissanceEurope and the Western civilization.[95]

The quadripartite (New Persian term: Chahar bagh) de-sign would be reinterpreted by the Muslim Arabs aftertheir 7th century conquest of Persia, in creation of theirgardens. Arab rulers cultivated Persian techniques to cre-ate gardens of Persian design including such examples asAl-Andalus, and Kashgar.[95] This quadripartite designwas still the dominant design in the 14th century dur-ing the time of Timur, the Mughal emperor. In the 17thcentury, the Anglo-French jeweler Sir John Chardin, de-scribes the Persian garden in his, "Voyages en Perse"where he stresses the quadripartite structure of the gar-dens. Chardin also stresses that unlike westerners, Per-sians do not walk much in the gardens as they often useit for a period of time, often seated, and then retire.[95]

Parthians and Sassanids would later add their own modi-cations to the original Achaemenid design. They wouldcreate specially recessed, platforms, often connected tothe main building with an open porticoes overlooking thegarden, while providing a cool, shaded area in which tosit or loiter. This structure came to be known as "ayvans"or "ivan" in Old Persian.[95] Persian gardens are also im-mortalized in the One Thousand and One Nights and theworks of Omar Khayyam.

Today some of the best examples of the traditional Per-sian gardens can be seen in such places as the BorujerdisHouse, and the Tabataba'i House, as well as such gar-dens as Bagh-e Mostou near the village of Vanak,Tehran, Bagh-e Shahzadeh in Mahan, Bagh-e Gol-shan or "Karim Khan's beautiful garden in Tabas,"Qavam House" or Naranjestan-e Ghavam in Shiraz,Bagh-e Fin outside of Kashan, Haz's tomb garden inShiraz, and the Eram Garden or Bagh-e Eram in Fars.

Persian style garden (QavamHouse) in Shiraz. Notethe stereotypical quadripartite structure with thenarrow axis ending in the pavilion.

This Isfahan carpet depics the quadripartite struc-ture of a Persian garden. Note the central water fea-ture, followed by accessory ducts (jubs) leading toit

A depiction of a Persian garden. Thought not a tech-nical drawing note the presence of fruit trees aroundthe narrow walkways, a common feature of earlyPersian gardens

A schematic diagram of a Persian garden. Note thequadripartite structure with focal water feature, con-necting aqueducts, and surrounding trees, as well asthe placement of the palace

Eram Garden Af-Abad Garden

7.7 MusicMain article: Persian traditional musicThe music of Persia goes back to the days of Barbad

This is a carved relief from Taq-e Bostan in Kermanshah depict-ing Persian Sassanid women playing the harp like device calleda Chang, that operates by ve strings that vibrate under tensionto create musical tones. Strings are held in varying tension levelsby two metallic or wooden axises connected together in an acutetriangular fashion

in the royal Sassanid courts, and even earlier. Sassanid

10 7 CULTURE

music was inuential and was later adopted by theAbbasids.[98] In traditional Sassanid music, the octaveis divided into seventeen tones, while by the end of the13th century some music from Persia also maintaineda twelve interval octave, which resembled the westerncounterpart.[99] In terms of comparison between the ba-sic style of the Persian music, employment of smallerintervals, and the transition from one key to another byprogressions that are minute compared to their Europeancounterparts, is what gives Persian music its unique qual-ity. The dierent keys or modes that result from thissmall interval system are written in circles. Also in themusic of Persia only spaces are taken into account, andthey have a value and are called Kah or place; thusYek-Kah signies rst space, Dow-Kah second spaceand so forth. Persian spaces are also assigned color as-signments, with rst space green, second rose-coloredand following spaces having their own assigned coloringsystem.[99]

Unlike European music, Persian music has no notes.Their music is composed of modes or harmoniousphrases, which take their name from persons or placesand which serve as stereotypical models for the produc-tion of the imagination of the composers. These mod-els are either fundamental to the number four, or de-rived eight in number or compounded, which vary to in-nity. Each musical mode has its special use. For in-stance, the Zenkeleh mode is the most melodious, theEcchac appropriate for war and love, Rast unique forwhen Shahnameh is sung, and the Buzurg and Rahavimodes for funerals.[99] Originally, there were no morethan seven modes in the Persian music but Saadi, an in-tellectual poet and musician, extended it to twelve.[99]

Persian music utilizes a variety of musical instrumentsthat are unique to the region, and the time period in whichthey are utilized often constantly being modied or rein-vented. During Sassanid era, Chang, a musical instru-ment utilizing ve strings under tension was used as aroyal musical tool.[100]

Persian music has evolved since its ancient and medievaltimes and is now almost indistinguishable from the mod-ern music of Europe and America, owing to a modern-ization of the musical process as well as an ever presentglobalization trend. This has led to such genre as Persianrap for instance. Persian music is also aected by restric-tions locally on performance of certain genres which hasled to its development at times overseas in Europe andAmerica.

Qamar-ol-Moluk Vaziri, the rst female singer ofIran to appear without hejab in 1924, after RezaShah's reforms[1]

Viguen, known as the king of Persian pop and jazz

Googoosh, one of the most popular Persian popsingers

Faramarz Aslani, another popular Persian popsinger

Darya Dadvar, a famous Persian classical singer Rana Farhan, a famous Persian jazz singer in Poletikcomedy show

1. ^ErikNakjavani (December 15, 2008). QAMAR-AL-MOLUK VAZIRI. Encyclopaedia Iranica.

7.8 CarpetsMain article: Persian carpetPersia was in many sense the rst permanent home of

Persian women weaving a carpet in Hamadan in 1922

carpet weaving, and while robbed of much of her politicalpower, and only a shadow of her former self, still holdsup to the ideals of textile art, well worth a comprehensivestudy.[101] Worlds oldest existing carpet, Pazyryk carpet,a pile-carpet dating back to 400300 BCE discovered in1949, depicts clear elements of Assyrian andAchaemeniddesign, including stylistic references to stone slab designsfound in the palaces of the Persian empire. This has mademany scholar consider it to be woven, and made in thePersian Achaemenid empire.[102]

Rug and carpet artistry is well recognized in Persia, asXenophon describes carpet production in the city ofSardis, then a province of theAchaemenid empire, statingthat the locals take pride in their carpet production. Spe-cial mention of Persian carpets are made by Athenaeus ofNaucratis (around 200 CE) in his Deipnosophists whenhe describes a delightfully embroidered Persian carpet,having some Persian gures, and preposterous shapes ofPersian grins, and such like beasts incorporated in itsdesign.[102]

When the Byzantine emperor Heraclius pillaged thepalace of Khusrau II of the Sassanid Persia, he found

7.9 Statues 11

various luxurious textiles including carpets that were em-broidered with needles, most likely a pile carpet. A 7thcentury Sassanid stone carving at Taq-i-Bustan depics afabric draped over the side of the boat, most likely a pilecarpet. One of the most famous Sassanid era, Persianrugs was a carpet known as Spring of Kusrau depictinga pleasure garden, worked with gold, and silver, and emo-broidered with jewels and colored stones. Unfortunately,this carpet did not survive the Arab invasion as the Arabscut it up distributing it among themselves as spoils afterthey sacked the capital of Ctesiphon in 642 CE[102]

Islamic geographers record Mazandaran, one of theprovinces of Persia as important carpet weaving centerin third to the 9th century, while in fourth and 10th cen-tury Bukhara, as well as Khuzistan and Pars in southernPersia are also cited as notable production centers.[102]

Many foreigners and foreign scholars have described theiraccounts of Persian carpets. Ruy Gonzlez de Clavijo aCastilian traveller, (around 1400 CE) described the won-derful textile work he observed in Samarqand, court ofTimur remarking that everywhere was covered with car-petry and reed matting.[102]

Persian carpets also acted as vessels for art, design, andliterature to be disseminated. One such example is the16th century, Ardabil Carpet containing an inscriptionfrom the 14th century Persian poet, Haz:[102]

I have no refuge in the world other than thythresholdThere is no place of protection for my headother than this porchwayThe work of the slave of the holy place MaqsudKashani in the year 946 (1540 C.E.)

German architect and art enthusiast, Gottfried Sempercalled rugs the original means of separating space. Rugweaving was thus developed by ancient civilizations as abasis of architecture. Persian rugs are said to be the mostdetailed hand-made works of art. Also known as the sta-tus rugs, Persian rugs are very important in Persian cul-ture. Interworking of bers to produce cloth was knownin Iran as early as the 5th millennium BCE[103]

When the famous Greek commander Themistocles wasasking for asylum from Persia, the Persian carpet wasmentioned in his speech:

He [Artaxerxes I of Persia] commandedhim to speak freely what he would concerningthe aairs of Greece. Themistocles replied,that a mans discourse was like to a rich Persiancarpet, the beautiful gures and patterns ofwhich can only be shown by spreading andextending it out; when it is contracted andfolded up, they are obscured and lost; and,therefore, he desired time.Plutarch (Plutarchs Lives, Chapter 49,

Themistocles[104])

In general Persian carpets are classied based ontheir region of production including Feraghan (Kashan),Hamedan, Herat (Afghani), Herez (Azeri), Isfahan,Kerman & Kermanshah, Khorasan, Mashhad, Shiraz,Senna, Saraband (southwest of Arak), Saruk (Markazi),Sultanabad, and Tabriz.[101]

Persian carpet in the Louvre Museum Antique Mashhad rug details Persian carpet from Kerman An Isfahan rug made by Mohammad Seiraan Antique Kerman rug details Carpet shops in the Bazaar of Tehran

7.9 Statues

Persians artistic expression can be seen as far back as theAchaemenid period as numerous statues depicting vari-ous important gures, usually of political signicance aswell as religious, such as the Immortals (elite troops of theemperor) are indicative of the inuence of Mesopotamiaand ancient Babylon. What is perhaps most representa-tive of a more indigenous artistic expression are Persianminiatures. Although the inuence of Chinese art is ap-parent, local Persian artists used the art form in var-ious ways including portraits that could be seen fromthe Ottoman Empire to the courts of the Safavids andMughals.

8 WomenMain articles: Iranian women, Gender roles inAfghanistan and Women in TajikistanFrom the Achaemenid days, Persian women have hadgreat inuence and presence. One such Persian gurewas Cassandane, queen consort of Cyrus the Great andmother of Cambyses II, Atossa, and Bardiya. Cyrusthe Great had a special dearly love for Cassandane.Cassandane also loved Cyrus to the point that upon herdeath bed she is noted as having found it more bitter toleave Cyrus, than to depart her life.[105] According to thechronicle of Nabonidus, when Cassandane died, all thenations of Cyruss empire observed a great mourning,and, particularly in Babylonia, there was probably even apublic mourning lasting for six days (identied as 2126March 538 BC).[106]

Atossa was the daughter of Cyrus the Great and Cassan-dane, and the queen consort of Darius the Great; she

12 10 REFERENCES

Bust of the head of the Persian Achaemenid queen Atossa

would play a critical role in solidifying Dariuss legiti-macy to the throne after the overthrow of the magus im-personator of Bardiya. Achaemenids also allowed womenhigh positions including military and royal positions, bestexemplied byArtemisia I of Caria, a Halicarnassian whowas an Achaemenid Navy admiral, serving Xerxes I ofPersia.[107]

During the Sassanid era, women also practiced power al-though in a limited scale. One such example was the Sas-sanid queen Borandukht, who rose to power after death ofher 7-year-old nephew Ardashir III at the hands of a Sas-sanid general Shahrbaraz who was himself killed by thePersian army. Borandukht would inherit Persia at its mostunstable and disorganised hour; she started to amend thesituation by rst making peace with the Byzantine em-pire and then attempting to amend the civil disturbancesof the empire. She would however be murdered soon inthe chaos only after a year of rule. It is this chaos that ledto election of Yazdegerd III and contributed to the subse-quent Arab victories after their invasion of Persia.[108]

Scheherazade, though ctional, is an important gure offemale wit and intelligence, while the beauty of MumtazMahal inspired the building of the Taj Mahal itself andthe poet Thirih had a great inuence onmodern womensmovements throughout the Middle East. Persian womenhave also achieved national and international recognitionin such diverse areas as sciences, politics, and entertain-ment. Such individuals include Shirin Ebadi, the Per-sian lawyer and activist who won a Nobel Peace Prize in2003 for her eorts in human rights,[109] as well as Iraniansinger Googoosh, who was a well known national singerin the 1960s in Iran and abroad.

Although in ancient times, aristocratic females possessednumerous rights sometimes on par with men, Persianwomen did not attain greater parity until the 20th cen-tury. Universal surage was constitutionally approvedfor all women in January 26, 1963, under the Pahlaviregime.[110] Persian women can be seen working in a vari-ety of areas such as politics, law enforcement, transporta-tion industries, health industry, military, universities, andin the Iranian parliament.

9 See also

10 References[1] United States Central Intelligence Agency(CIA) (April

28, 2011). TheWorld Fact Book Iran. CIA. RetrievedMay 15, 2011.

[2] Library of Congress, Library of Congress Federal Re-search Division. Ethnic Groups and Languages of Iran.http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles/Iran.pdf. Retrieved2009-12-02.

[3] Afghanistan. United States Central IntelligenceAgency.July 2011. Retrieved 2011-07-23.

[4] Tajikistan. United States Central Intelligence Agency.December 13, 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-26.

[5] Uzbekistan. United States Central Intelligence Agency.December 13, 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-26.

[6] Richard Foltz, The Tajiks of Uzbekistan, Central AsianSurvey, 15(2), 213216 (1996).

[7] Persian in Turkey. Joshua Project. Retrieved 26 August2014.

[8] Iraq People Groups. Joshua Project. Retrieved 21September 2011.

[9] The Persian Diaspora, List of Persians and PersianSpeaking Peoples living outside of Iran, Worldwide Out-reach to Persians, Outreach to Muslims around theGlobe. Farsinet.com. Retrieved 2012-06-10.

[10] Iranian-American stats, Phyllis McIntosh. The Iranian.Retrieved 2012-06-10.

[11] This gure only includes Tajiks from Afghanistan. Thepopulation of people from Afghanistan in the UnitedStates is estimated as 80,414 (2005), Of which 65% areestimated to be Tajiks. United States Census Bureau. USdemographic census. Retrieved 2008-01-23. Robson,Barbara and Lipson, Juliene (2002) Chapter 5(B)- ThePeople: The Tajiks andOther Dari-SpeakingGroupsTheAfghans their history and culture Cultural OrientationResource Center, Center for Applied Linguistics, Wash-ington, D.C., OCLC 56081073.

[12] Why are people going to Iran?". The Jerusalem Post.Retrieved 2013-08-19.

13

[13] United Arab Emirates: Demography. EncyclopdiaBritannica World Data. Encyclopdia Britannica Online.Retrieved 2008-03-15.

[14] Persian World Outreach ''Persian-speaking people out-side of Iran''". Persianwo.org. Retrieved 2012-06-10.

[15] GTZ: Migration and development Afghans in Germany:estimate for Tajiks based on total of 100,000 Afghans inGermany.

[16] "''2006 Canadian Census'". 2.statcan.ca. Retrieved2012-06-10.

[17] This gure only includes Tajiks from Afghanistan. Thepopulation of people with descent from Afghanistan inCanada is 48,090 according to Canadas 2006 Census.Tajiks make up an estimated 33% of the population ofAfghanistan. The Tajik population in Canada is estimatedfrom these two gures. Ethnic origins, 2006 counts, forCanada.

[18] Bahrain People Groups. Joshua Project. Retrieved 21September 2011.

[19] 2002 Russian census. Perepis2002.ru. Retrieved 2012-06-10.

[20] Ethnologue report for language code:pes". Ethno-logue.com. Retrieved 2012-06-10.

[21] Library of Congress, Library of Congress Federal Re-search Division. Ethnic Groups and Languages of Iran.Retrieved 2009-12-02.

[22] R. N. Fyre, IRAN v. PEOPLESOF IRAN in Encycloa-pedia Iranica, The largest group of people in present-dayIran are Persians (*q.v.) who speak dialects of the lan-guage called Frsi in Persian, since it was primarily thetongue of the people of Frs.

[23] C.S. Coon, "Iran:Demography and Ethnography in En-cycloapedia of Islam, Volme IV, E.J. Brill, pp 10,8. Ex-cerpt: The Lurs speak an aberrant form of Archaic Per-sian See maps also on page 10 for distribution of Persianlanguages and dialect

[24] Kathryn M. Coughlin, Muslim cultures today: a refer-ence guide, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006. pg 89:"...Iranians speak Persian or a Persian dialect such as Gi-laki or Mazandarani

[25] Edward Farr (1850). History of the Persians. RobertCarter. pp. 1247.

[26] Amanolahi, Sekandar (2005), A Note on Ethnicity andEthnic Groups in Iran, Iran and the Caucasus, vol. 9/1:3742. Quote:"Furthermore, some scholars, mechani-cally identifying the speakers of Persian as a distinct ethnicunit (the Persians), exclude those Iranians who speak di-alects of Persian, or other Iranian dialects closely relatedto Persian.3 On the other hand, the Persian-speaking non-Iranian ethnic groups (such as, for instance, Arabs) arenumbered as Persians. However, it is obvious that this ap-proach to ethnicity in Iran is misleading, as historically allethnic groups in Iran, including the Persians, irrespectiveof their origin, language, or religion were always referredto, collectively, as Iranians (Irani).

[27] Don Stillo, Isfahan-Provincial Dialetcs in EncyclopediaIranica, Excerpt: While the modern SWI languages, forinstance, Persian, Lori-Batiri and others, are derived di-rectly from Old Persian through Middle Persian/Pahlavi

[28] a b Mallory 1989

[29] GHERARDO GNOLI, IRANIAN IDENTITY in En-cyclopaedia Iranica. Excerpt 1: " All this evidence showsthat the name arya Iranian was a collective denition,denoting peoples (Geiger, pp. 167 f.; Schmitt, 1978, p.31) who were aware of belonging to the one ethnic stock,speaking a common language, and having a religious tradi-tion that centered on the cult of Ahura Mazd.. Excerpt2: The inscriptions of Darius I (see DARIUS iii) andXerxes, in which the dierent provinces of the empire arelisted, make it clear that, between the end of the 6th cen-tury and themiddle of the 5th century B.C.E., the Persianswere already aware of belonging to the ariya Iranian na-tion (see ARYA and ARYANS). Darius and Xerxes boastof belonging to a stock which they call Iranian: they pro-claim themselves Iranian and of Iranian stock, ariyaand ariya ia respectively, in inscriptions in which theIranian countries come rst in a list that is arranged in anew hierarchical and ethno-geographical order, comparedfor instance with the list of countries in Dariuss inscrip-tion at Behistun Excerpt 3: Although, up until the endof the Parthian period, Iranian identity had an ethnic, lin-guistic, and religious value, it did not yet have a politicalimport. The idea of an Iranian empire or kingdom is apurely Sasanian one. Excerpt 4:"It was in the Sasanianperiod, then, that the pre-Islamic Iranian identity reachedthe height of its fullment in every aspect: political, reli-gious, cultural, and linguistic (with the growing diusionof Middle Persian). Its main ingredients were the appealto a heroic past that was identied or confused with little-known Achaemenid origins (Yarshater, 1971; Daryaee,1995), and the religious tradition, for which the Avestawas the chief source.. Also accessed online at: in May,2011

[30] David Sacks, Oswyn Murray, Lisa R. Brody (2005).Encyclopedia of the ancient Greek world. Infobase Pub-lishing. pp. 256 (at the right portion of the page).

[31] Abdolhossein Zarinkoob "Ruzgaran : tarikh-e Iran az ag-haz ta soqut-e saltnat-e Pahlevi" pp. 37

[32] Bahman Firuzmandi "Mad, Hakhamaneshi, Ashkani,Sasani" pp. 155

[33] F Leo Oppenheim Ancient Mesopotamia

[34] Liddell and Scott, Lexicon of the Greek Language, Ox-ford, 1882, p 1205

[35] Charles Gates (2003). Ancient cities: the archaeology ofurban life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece andRome. Psychology Press. p. 186.

[36] Lands of Iran Encyclopedia Iranica (July 25, 2005) (re-trieved 3 March 2008)

[37] Margaret Christina Miller (2004). Athens and Persiain the Fifth Century BC: A Study in Cultural Receptivity.Cambridge University Press. p. 243.

14 10 REFERENCES

[38] Encyclopdia Britannica: ""Middle Persian [SassanianPahlava] and Parthian were doubtlessly similar enough tobe mutually intelligible. (Enc.Brit.vol.22,2003, p.627)

[39] Ulrich Ammon, Norbert Dittmar, Klaus J. Mattheier, Pe-ter Trudgill, Sociolinguistics Hsk 3/3 Series Volume 3 ofSociolinguistics: An International Handbook of the Sci-ence of Language and Society, Walter de Gruyter, 2006.2nd edition. pg 1912. Excerpt: Middle Persian, alsocalled Pahlavi is a direct continuation of old Persian, andwas used as the written ocial language of the country.However, after the Moslem conquest and the collapse ofthe Sassanids, Arabic became the dominant language ofthe country and Pahlavi lost its importance, and was grad-ually replaced by Dari, a variety of Middle Persian, withconsiderable loan elements from Arabic and Parthian.

[40] Windfuhr, G. (1989), New West Iranian, R. Schmitt(ed.), Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, Wiesbaden:251-62.

[41] Asatrian, G. (1995), Dimli, Encyclopaedia Iranica,Online Edition.

[42] Hamilton, H. C.&W. Falconer (1903). TheGeography ofStrabo. Literally translated, with notes 3. London: GeorgeBell & Sons. p. 125. (Geography 15.2)

[43] BRUNNER, C. J. (May 2006). IRAN, v(2). Pre-IslamicPeriod. Center for Iranian Studies, Encyclopdia Iranica.New York: Columbia University. Retrieved 2009-05-09.

[44] Schmitt, Rdiger. CYRTIANS. Center for IranianStudies, Encyclopdia Iranica. NewYork: Columbia Uni-versity. Retrieved 2009-05-09.

[45] Skjrv, Prods Oktor (2006). Encyclopedia Iran-ica,"Iran, vi. Iranian languages and scripts, new Persian,is the descendant of Middle Persian and has been o-cial language of Iranian states for centuries, whereas forother non-Persian Iranian languages close genetic rela-tionships are dicult to establish between their dierent(Middle and Modern) stages. Modern Yanbi belongsto the same dialect group as Sogdian, but is not a directdescendant; Bactrian may be closely related to modernYida and Munji (Munjni); and Wakhi (Wi) belongswith Khotanese.

[46] Gilbert Lazard: The language known as New Persian,which usually is called at this period (early Islamic times)by the name of Dari or Farsi-Dari, can be classied lin-guistically as a continuation of Middle Persian, the o-cial religious and literary language of Sassanian Iran, it-self a continuation of Old Persian, the language of theAchaemenids. Unlike the other languages and dialects,ancient and modern, of the Iranian group such as Aves-tan, Parthian, Soghdian, Kurdish, Balochi, Pashto, etc.,Old Middle and New Persian represent one and the samelanguage at three states of its history. It had its origin inFars (the true Persian country from the historical pointof view) and is dierentiated by dialectical features, stilleasily recognizable from the dialect prevailing in north-western and eastern Iran. In Lazard, Gilbert 1975, TheRise of the New Persian Language in Frye, R. N., TheCambridge History of Iran, Vol. 4, pp. 595632, Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press.

[47] Benjamin W. Fortson, Indo-European Language andCulture: An Introduction, John Wiley and Sons, 2009.pg 242: " Middle Persian was the ocial language of theSassanian dynasty

[48] History of Iran. Iranologie.com. Retrieved 2012-06-10.

[49] For example, Abu Rayhan Biruni, a native speaker of theEastern Iranian language Khwarezmian mentions in histhr al-bqiyah an al-qurn al-xliyah that: the peo-ple of Khwarizm, they are a branch of the Persian tree.See: Abu Rahyan Biruni, Athar al-Baqqiya 'an al-Qurunal-Xaliyyah (Vestiges of the past: chronology of ancientnations), Tehran, Miras-e-Maktub, 2001. Original Ara-bic of the quote: " "(pg 56)

[50] The language used in the ancient Marzbnnma was,in the words of the 13th-century historian Sa'ad ad-Din Warawini, the language of abaristan and old,original Persian (frs-yi adm-i bstn)See: Kramers,J.H. Marzban-nma. Encyclopaedia of Islam. Editedby: P. Bearman , Th. Bianquis , C.E. Bosworth , E.van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2007. BrillOnline. 18 November 2007

[51] The language of Tabriz, being an Iranian languageduring the time of Qatran Tabrizi, was not the stan-dard Khurasani Parsi-ye Dari. Qatran Tabrizi(11thcentury) has an interesting couplet mentioning thisfact: Mohammad-Amin Riahi. Molehaazi darbaareyehZabaan-I Kohan Azerbaijan(Some comments on the an-cient language of Azerbaijan), Itiliaat Siyasi Magazine,volume 181182. Also available at: Translation:The nightingale is on top of the ower like a minstrel whohas lost her heart It bemoans sometimes in Parsi (Persian)and sometimes in Dari (Khurasani Persian)

[52] Lady (Mary) Shiel in her observation of Persia during theQajar describes the Persian tribes and Koords/Laks iden-tied themselves and were identied commonly as OldPersians. See: Shiel, Lady (Mary). Glimpses of Life andManners in Persia. London: John Murray, 1856. See:,excerpt:The PERSIAN TRIBES. The tribes are divided into threeraces-Toorks, Leks, rst are the invaders from Toorkistan,who, from time 'immemorial, have established themselvesin Persia, and who still preserve their language. The Leksform the clans of genuine Persian blood, such as the Loors,BekhtiaTees, &c. To them might be added the Koords,as members of the Persian family; but their numbers inthe dominions of the Shah are comparatively few, thegreater part of that widely-spread people being attachedto Turkey. Collectively the Koords are so numerous thatthey might be regarded as a nation divided into distincttribes. Who are the Leks, and who are the Koords? Thisin- quiry I cannot solve. I never met any one in Persia, ei-ther eel or moolla, who could give the least elucidation ofthis question. All they could say was, that both these races

15

were Foors e kadeem,-old Persians. They both speak di-alects the greater part of which is Persian, bearing a strongresemblance to the colloquial language of the present day,divested of its large Arabic mixture. These dialects arenot perfectly alike, though it is said that Leks and Koordsare able to comprehend each other. One would be dis-posed to consider them as belonging to the same stock,.did they not both disavow the connection. A Lek will- ad-mit that a Koord, like himself, is an 11 old Persian, but hedenies that the families are identical, and a Koord viewsthe question in the same light.

[53] (Al Masudi, Kitab al-Tanbih wa-l-Ishraf, De Goeje,M.J. (ed.), Leiden, Brill, 1894, pp. 778). Orig-inal Arabic from www.alwaraq.net: .

[54] Al Masudi (1894). De Goeje, M.J., ed. Kitab al-Tanbihwa-l-Ishraf (in Arabic). Brill. pp. 7778.

[55] Ghani, Cyrus. Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah: From Qa-jar Collapse to Pahlavi Power, 2001, p. 310, I.B.Tauris.ISBN 1-86064-629-8

[56] Persian. Encyclopdia Britannica. Retrieved Feb 6,2011.

[57] Persian entry in theMerriam-Webster online dictionary.Merriam-webster.com. 2010-08-13. Retrieved 2012-06-10.

[58] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Lan-guage: Fourth Edition (2000).

[59] Bausani, Alessandro. The Persians, from the earliest daysto the twentieth century. 1971, Elek. ISBN 978-0-236-17760-8

[60] SociolinguistEssex X 2005. Essex University. 2005.p. 10.

[61] Mayhew, Bradley (August 2007). Central Asia: Kaza-khstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan.Lonely Planet. p. 60. Retrieved 17 December 2011.

[62] Both Mazanderanis and Gilakis are of Persian origin andthe dierences between them and the Farsis are due totheir isolation, behind the Elburz, and to climatic ratherthan racial conditions.

[63] Although physically isolated from the Persian heartlandby the high ranges of the Alborz Mountains, the Gilakisand the Mazanderanis are closely integrated into the over-all Iranian mosaic.

[64] [url=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1181978 Where West Meets East: The Com-plex mtDNA Landscape of the Southwest and CentralAsian Corridor]

[65] Iran :: Ethnic groups Britannica Online Encyclopedia..britannica.com. Retrieved 2012-06-10.

[66] The Medes and the Persians, c.1500-559 from TheEncyclopedia of World History Sixth Edition, Peter N.Stearns (general editor), 2001 The Houghton MiinCompany, at Bartleby.com.

[67] Bahman Firuzmandi "Mad, Hakhamanishi, Ashkani,Sasani" pp. 20

[68] Iran. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 200105

[69] Bahman Firuzmandi "Mad, Hakhamanishi, Ashkani,Sasani" pp. 1219

[70] Persia Britannica Concise Encyclopedia

[71] The Splendor of Persia: The Land and the People byRobert Payne

[72] BBC News Afghan polls ethnic battleground

[73] Four Centuries of Inuence of Iraqi Shiism on Pre-SafavidIran

[74] Nasr, Vali, The Shia Revival, Norton, (2006), p.74-76

[75] Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits deL'Homme (August 2003). Discrimination against re-ligious minorities in IRAN (PDF). dh.org. Archivedfrom the original on 2006-06-14. Retrieved 2006-10-04.

[76] Thomas Wagner (2009). Foreign Market Entry and Cul-ture. GRIN Verlag. p. 2.

[77] George Grote (1899). Greece: I. Legendary Greece: II.Grecian history to the reign of Peisistratus at Athens, Vol-ume 12. P. F. Collier. p. 106.

[78] Ira Marvin Lapidus (2002). A history of Islamic societies.Cambridge University Press. p. 127.

[79] Richard G. Hovannisian (1998). The Persian presence inthe Islamic world. Cambridge University Press. pp. 8083.

[80] Krishna Chandra Sagar (1992). Foreign inuence on an-cient India. Northern Book Centre. p. 17.

[81] Bertold Spuler, M. Ismail Marcinkowski (2003). Persianhistoriography and geography: Bertold Spuler on majorworks produced in Iran, the Caucasus, Central Asia, India,and early Ottoman Turkey. Pustaka Nasional Pte Ltd. pp.multiple pages & Back cover.

[82] Margaret Christina Miller (2004). Athens and Persiain the Fifth Century BC: A Study in Cultural Receptivity.Cambridge University Press. pp. 243251.

[83] Emmet John Sweeney (2008). The Ramessides, Medes,and Persians. Algora Publishing. p. 120.

16 11 EXTERNAL LINKS

[84] Lindsay Jones (2005). Encyclopedia of religion, Volume10. Macmillan Reference USA. pp. 67312.

[85] UNCESCO (2009). Intangible Heritage List. RetrievedMarch 9, 2011.

[86] Beate Dignas, Engelbert Winter (2007). Rome and Persiain late antiquity: neighbours and rivals. Cambridge Uni-versity Press. p. 232.

[87] Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1987). Islamic art and spirituality.SUNY Press. p. 64.

[88] Mohammad Shujaat (2004). Islam and Indian culture.Anmol Publications PVT. LTD.

[89] Ahmad Ibrahim, Sharon Siddique, Yasmin Hussain(1985). Readings on Islam in Southeast Asia. Institute ofSoutheast Asian Studies.

[90] S. Wise Bauer (2010). The history of the medieval world:from the conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade.W. W. Norton & Company. p. 243.

[91] Nikki R. Keddie (2002). Iran and the surrounding world:interactions in culture and cultural politics. University ofWashington Press. p. 6.

[92] Andrew Burke, Mark Elliot (2008). Iran. Lonely Planet.pp. 295 & 1145 (for architecture) and pp. 6872 (forarts).

[93] Charles Henry Can (1917). How to study architecture.Dodd, Mead and Company. p. 80.

[94] Rae Hamidpour PhD D E Dabfe, Rae Hamidpour(2010). Land of Lion, Land of Sun. AuthorHouse. p.54.

[95] Penelope Hobhouse, Erica Hunningher, Jerry Harpur(2004). Gardens of Persia. Kales Press. pp. 713.

[96] L. Mays (2010). Ancient Water Technologies. Springer.pp. 95100.

[97] Mehdi Khansari, M. Reza Moghtader, Minouch Yavari(2004). Persian Garden: Echoes Of Paradise. Mage Pub-lishers.

[98] Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1987). Islamic art and spirituality.SUNY Press. pp. 34.

[99] Janet M. Green, Josephine Thrall (1908). The Americanhistory and encyclopedia of music. I. Squire. pp. 5558.

[100] Sibyl Marcuse (1975). A survey of musical instruments.Harper & Row. pp. 398401.

[101] Mary Beach Langton (1904). How to know oriental rugs,a handbook. D. Appleton and Company. pp. 5759.

[102] Ronald W. Ferrier (1989). The Arts of Persia. Yale Uni-versity Press. pp. 118120.

[103] Rubinson, Karen S. carpets :vi.pre-Islamic carpets (pages858 861)". Encyclopedia Iranica. Retrieved 2008-05-11.

[104] Themistocles. Plutarch. 190914. Plutarchs Lives. TheHarvard Classics

[105] Benjamin G. Kohl, Ronald G. Witt, Elizabeth B. Welles(1978). The Earthly republic: Italian humanists on gov-ernment and society. Manchester University Press ND. p.198.

[106] Dandamaev, M.A. (1992). Cassandane. EncyclopaediaIranica. Vol. 5. Encyclopedia Iranica Foundation. ISBN0933273673.

[107] Joyce E. Salisbury (2001). Women in the ancient world.ABC-CLIO. pp. 2021.

[108] William Ainger Wigram (1910). An introduction to thehistory of the Assyrian Church or the church of the Sas-sanid Persian Empire, 100640 A.D.. Society for promot-ing Christian knowledge. pp. 307309.

[109] Kylie Baxter, Rebecca Barlow. Islam and the Question ofReform: Critical Voices from Muslim Communities. Aca-demic Monographs. pp. 301.

[110] Hamideh Sedghi (2007). Women and politics in Iran: veil-ing, unveiling, and reveiling. Cambridge University Press.p. 155.

11 External links Ethnologues entry forWestern Persian Persian People, Lifestyle, History and Religion Iranian/Persian Inventions and contribution to hu-man civilization

17

12 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

12.1 Text

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File:Flag_of_Russia.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f3/Flag_of_Russia.svg License: ? Contributors: ? Originalartist: ?

File:Flag_of_Tajikistan.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Flag_of_Tajikistan.svg License: Public do-main Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

File:Flag_of_Turkey.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Flag_of_Turkey.svg License: Public domainContributors: Turkish Flag Law (Trk Bayra Kanunu), Law nr. 2893 of 22 September 1983. Text (in Turkish) at the website of theTurkish Historical Society (Trk Tarih Kurumu) Original artist: David Benbennick (original author)

12.2 Images 19

File:Flag_of_Uzbekistan.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Flag_of_Uzbekistan.svg License: Publicdomain Contributors: Own work Original artist: Ozbekiston Respublikasining Davlat bayrogi. The ocially dened colours are Pantone313C for blue and 361C for green (source: [1], [2]). Drawn by User:Zscout370.

File:Flag_of_the_United_Arab_Emirates.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Flag_of_the_United_Arab_Emirates.svg License: Public domain Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

File:Flag_of_the_United_States.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a4/Flag_of_the_United_States.svg License: ?Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

File:Harp-Sassanid.png Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Harp-Sassanid.png License: Attribution Con-tributors: Transferred from en.wikipedia Original artist: photographer: Amir85 at en.wikipedia

File:Iran-Ethnic_map.PNG Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Iran-Ethnic_map.PNG License: Public do-main Contributors: Based on http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/iran_ethnoreligious_distribution_2004.jpg Perry-Castaeda Library Map Collection at The University of Texas at Austin http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east.html and usingFile:Blank-Map-Iran-With-Water-Bodies.PNG Original artist: Atila Kagan

File:Iranian_queen.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Iranian_queen.jpg License: CC BY 3.0 Contrib-utors: Perspolis rock reliefs Original artist: Unknown

File:Jalil_Zandi.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Jalil_Zandi.jpg License: CC0 Contributors: Ownwork Original artist: Diako Zandi

File:Kermanshah-bisotoun_inscription.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Kermanshah-bisotoun_inscription.jpg License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Vahidarbab

File:Kiarostami-1940.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Kiarostami-1940.jpg License: Public do-main Contributors: http://www.dilap.com/cinema-arabe/cinema-arabe-iranien/realisateurs-iraniens/abbas-kiarostami.htm Original artist:

File:Leila_Hatami_Cannes_2013.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Leila_Hatami_Cannes_2013.jpgLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Georges Biard

File:Map_achaemenid_empire_en.png Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Map_achaemenid_empire_en.png License: CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

File:Moderniranianlanguagesmap.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Moderniranianlanguagesmap.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: From en:Image:Moderniranianlanguagesmap.jpg Original artist: Imperial78

File:Mohammad_Shams_al-Din_Hafez.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Mohammad_Shams_al-Din_Hafez.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: British Museum Original artist: ?

File:Molana.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Molana.jpg License: Public domain Contributors