Was Iran part of the Persian empire?
List of ancient great powers
The Sassanid Empire is the name used for the fourth Iranian dynasty, and the second Persian Empire (226–651). The empire's territory encompassed all of today's Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Afghanistan, eastern parts of Turkey, and parts of Syria, Pakistan, and large parts of Caucasia, Central Asia and Arabia. During Khosrow II's rule in 590–628 Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon were also briefly annexed to the Empire, as well as far west as western Asia Minor. The Sassanid era, encompassing the length of the Late Antiquity period, is considered to be one of the most important and influential historical periods in Iran. In many ways the Sassanid period witnessed the highest achievement of Persian civilization. The empire is furthermore known for being the arch-rival of the neighboring Roman–Byzantine Empire for a period of over 400 years. As the Parthians were replaced by the Sassanids, they carried on the already century long lasting Roman–Persian Wars, which would eventually become the longest conflict in human history.
Iranian peoples
During the 1st centuries of the 1st millennium BCE, the ancient Persians established themselves in the western portion of the Iranian plateau and appear to have interacted considerably with the Elamites and Babylonians, while the Medes also entered in contact with the Assyrians. Remnants of the Median language and Old Persian show their common Proto-Iranian roots, emphasized in Strabo and Herodotus' description of their languages as very similar to the languages spoken by the Bactrians and Sogdians in the east. Following the establishment of the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian language (referred to as ""Farsi"" in Persian) spread from Pars or Fars Province to various regions of the Empire, with the modern dialects of Iran, Afghanistan (also known as Dari) and Central-Asia (known as Tajiki) descending from Old Persian.
Name of Iran
The exonym "Persia" was the official name of Iran in the Western world before March 1935, but the Iranian people inside their country since the time of Zoroaster (probably circa 1000 BC), or even before, have called their country "Arya", "Iran", "Iranshahr", "Iranzamin" (Land of Iran), "Aryānām" (the equivalent of "Iran" in the proto-Iranian language) or its equivalents. The term "Arya" has been used by the Iranian people, as well as by the rulers and emperors of Iran, from the time of the Avesta. Evidently from the time of the Sassanids (226–651 CE) Iranians have called it "Iran", meaning "the land of Aryans" and "Iranshahr". In Middle Persian sources, the name "Arya" and "Iran" is used for the pre-Sassanid Iranian empires as well as the Sassanid empire. As an example, the use of the name "Iran" for Achaemenids in the Middle Persian book of Arda Viraf refers to the invasion of Iran by Alexander the Great in 330 BC. The Proto-Iranian term for Iran is reconstructed as *Aryānām (the genitive plural of the word *Arya); the Avestan equivalent is "Airyanem" (as in Airyanem Vaejah). The internal preference for "Iran" was noted in some Western reference books (e.g. the Harmsworth Encyclopaedia, "circa" 1907, entry for Iran: "The name is now the official designation of Persia.") but for international purposes, "Persia" was the norm.
History of Iran
Most of the Sassanian Empire's lifespan it was overshadowed by the frequent Byzantine–Sasanian wars, a continuation of the Roman–Parthian Wars and the all-comprising Roman–Persian Wars; the last was the longest-lasting conflict in human history. Started in the first century BC by their predecessors, the Parthians and Romans, the last Roman–Persian War was fought in the seventh century. The Persians defeated the Romans at the Battle of Edessa in 260 and took emperor Valerian prisoner for the remainder of his life.
List of medieval and pre-modern Persian doctors
By "Iranian", all the peoples of historic Persia are meant, i.e., what is today Iran, Afghanistan, and all the countries of Central Asia ("common modern definition") that were historically part of the Persian empire, whether or not such people were ethnic Persians or Iranians. In some cases, their exact ancestry is unclear. They may have emigrated or immigrated, and thus may appear in other "Lists of", but nevertheless their names and work are somehow linked to the words "Iranian" and/or "Persian".
Military history of Iran
The Achaemenid Empire (559 BC–330 BC) was the first of the Persian Empires to rule over significant portions of Greater Iran. The empire possessed a “national army” of roughly 120.000-150.000 troops, plus several tens of thousands of troops from their allies.
Persianate society
The Safavid dynasty ascended to predominance in Iran in the 16th century—the first native Iranian dynasty since the Buyyids. The Safavids, who were of mixed Kurdish, Turkic, Georgian, Circassian and Pontic Greek ancestry, moved to the Ardabil region in the 11th century. They re-asserted the Persian identity over many parts of West Asia and Central Asia, establishing an independent Persian state, and patronizing Persian culture They made Iran the spiritual bastion of Shi’ism against the onslaughts of orthodox Sunni Islam, and a repository of Persian cultural traditions and self-awareness of Persian identity.
Persian art
Sasanian art, or Sasanian art, was produced under the Sasanian Empire which ruled from the 3rd to 7th centuries AD, before the Muslim conquest of Persia was completed around 651. In 224 AD, the last Parthian king was defeated by Ardashir I. The resulting Sasanian dynasty would last for four hundred years, ruling modern Iran, Iraq, and much territory to the east and north of modern Iran. At times the Levant, much of Anatolia and parts of Egypt and Arabia were under its control. It began a new era in Iran and Mesopotamia, which in many ways was built on Achaemenid traditions, including the art of the period. Nevertheless, there were also other influences on art of the period that came from as far as China and the Mediterranean.
History of Iran
The first shah of the Sasanian Empire, Ardashir I, started reforming the country economically and militarily. For a period of more than 400 years, Iran was once again one of the leading powers in the world, alongside its neighboring rival, the Roman and then Byzantine Empires. The empire's territory, at its height, encompassed all of today's Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Abkhazia, Dagestan, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, parts of Afghanistan, Turkey, Syria, parts of Pakistan, Central Asia, Eastern Arabia, and parts of Egypt.
Persian Empire
From 247 BC to 224 AD, Persia was ruled by the Parthian Empire, which supplanted the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire, and then by the Sassanian Empire, which ruled up until the mid-7th century.
Ancient history
The Medes were an ancient Iranian people. They had established their own empire by the 6th century BC, having defeated the Neo-Assyrian Empire with the Chaldeans. They overthrew Urartu later on as well. The Medes are credited with the foundation of the first Iranian empire, the largest of its day until Cyrus the Great established a unified Iranian empire of the Medes and Persian, often referred to as the Achaemenid Persian Empire, by defeating his grandfather and overlord, Astyages the king of Media.
Iranian peoples
The Greco-Persian Wars resulted in the Persians being forced to withdraw from their European territories, setting the direct further course of history of Greece and the rest of Europe. More than a century later, a prince of Macedon (which itself was a subject to Persia from the late 6th century BCE up to the First Persian invasion of Greece) later known by the name of Alexander the Great, overthrew the incumbent Persian king, by which the Achaemenid Empire was ended.
Greater Iran
While up until the end of the Parthian period in the 3rd century CE, the idea of "Irān" had an ethnic, linguistic, and religious value, it did not yet have a political import. The idea of an "Iranian" empire or kingdom in a political sense is a purely Sasanian one. It was the result of a convergence of interests between the new dynasty and the Zoroastrian clergy, as we can deduce from the available evidence. This convergence gave rise to the idea of an Ērān-šahr "Kingdom of the Iranians", which was "ēr" (Middle Persian equivalent of Old Persian "ariya" and Avestan "airya").
Iran–Poland relations
In 1474 Venetian merchant Ambrogio Contarini, delivered a letter to the Polish King Casimir IV Jagiellon from Shah Uzun Hasan. As early as the 1500s, Persian merchants and trading caravans entered into Europe, made contact and exchanged goods with Polish merchants. In 1795, Persia was one of two countries (the other being the Ottoman Empire) to not recognize the Partition of Poland by the Austrian Empire, Prussia and the Russian Empire.
Afghanistan–Iran relations
Afghanistan shares a relatively long history with Iran (called Persia in the West before 1935). When the Safavid dynasty was founded in Persia, part of what is now Afghanistan was ruled by the Khanate of Bukhara and Babur from Kabulistan. The first Iranian Safavid Shah Shah Ismail I quickly expanded his empire in all directions, in which he also conquered large parts of nowadays Afghanistan. For centuries they ruled the region and the Safavids didn't have any problems at first ruling the eastern most territories of their empire, but their policy towards non-Shia subjects became worse and worse over time. Wars began between the Shia Safavids and the larger Sunnis, particularly in the Old Kandahar region. By the late 17th century, the Safavids were heavily declining. They had appointed their Georgian subject Gurgin Khan as governor of Kandahar in order to forcefully convert the Afghans from Sunni Islam to Shia Islam. This went with much oppression and violence.
History of Iran
Iran is home to one of the world's oldest continuous major civilizations, with historical and urban settlements dating back to 7000 BC. The southwestern and western part of the Iranian Plateau participated in the traditional Ancient Near East with Elam, from the Early Bronze Age, and later with various other peoples, such as the Kassites, Mannaeans, and Gutians. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel calls the Persians the "first Historical People". The Medes unified Iran as a nation and empire in 625 BC. The Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC), founded by Cyrus the Great, was the first Persian empire and it ruled from the Balkans to North Africa and also Central Asia, spanning three continents, from their seat of power in Persis (Persepolis). It was the largest empire yet seen and the first world empire. The First Persian Empire was the only civilization in all of history to connect over 40% of the global population, accounting for approximately 49.4 million of the world's 112.4 million people in around 480 BC. They were succeeded by the Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanian Empires, who successively governed Iran for almost 1,000 years and made Iran once again as a leading power in the world. Persia's arch-rival was the Roman Empire and its successor, the Byzantine Empire.
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire is noted in Western history as the antagonist of the Greek city-states during the Greco-Persian Wars and for the emancipation of the Jewish exiles in Babylon. The historical mark of the empire went far beyond its territorial and military influences and included cultural, social, technological and religious influences as well. Despite the lasting conflict between the two states, many Athenians adopted Achaemenid customs in their daily lives in a reciprocal cultural exchange, some being employed by or allied to the Persian kings. The impact of Cyrus's edict is mentioned in Judeo-Christian texts, and the empire was instrumental in the spread of Zoroastrianism as far east as China. The empire also set the tone for the politics, heritage and history of Iran (also officially known as Persia).
Borders of the Roman Empire
The eastern borders changed many times, as the Roman Empire was facing two major powers, The Parthian Empire and the Sasanian Empire. The Parthians were a group of Iranian peoples ruling most of Greater Iran that is in modern-day Iran, western Iraq, Armenia and the Caucasus. The Sasanians succeeded the Parthians in 224–226 and were recognised as one of the leading world powers alongside its neighbouring arch-rival the Roman (Byzantine) Empire for a period of more than 400 years.
Greater Iran
Throughout history, Iran always had strong cultural ties with the region of nowadays Iraq. Mesopotamia is considered as the cradle of civilization and the place where the first empires in history were established. These empires, namely the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian, dominated the ancient middle east for millennia, which explains the great influence of the Mesopotamia on the Iranian culture and history, and it is also the reason why the later Iranian and Greek dynasties chose Mesopotamia to be the political centre of their rule. For a period of around 500 years, what is now Iraq formed the core of Iran, with the Iranian Parthian and Sasanian empire having their capital in what is modern-day Iraq for the same centuries long time span. (Ctesiphon)
Azerbaijan–Iran relations
For almost all of her history, the territory of the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan was a part of the various Iranian/Persian empires or Persianate empires, specifically during the reign of dynasties such as Median, Achaemenid, Parthians, Sassanid, the Shirvanshah, various dynasties of the Iranian Intermezzo, the Kara Koyunlu, the Ak Koyunlu, the Safavids, the Afsharids, the Zands, and the Qajars. The South Caucasus, in general, has been influenced by Iranian culture for thousands of years. In the course of the 19th century, following the occupation of the Caucasus by Russian troops during the Russo-Persian War (1804-1813) and Russo-Persian War (1826-1828), Qajar Iran was forced to cede what is now Azerbaijan, alongside Georgia, Dagestan, and Armenia to Imperial Russia under the terms of the treaties of Gulistan and Turkmenchay. Due to historical, cultural, ethnical, and religious ties, the Republic of Azerbaijan is considered as a part of Greater Iran.
Iranian nationalism
Iran regained its political unity and was given a new distinct religious identity under the Safavids. Shia became the official state religion and henceforth played an important role in the reconstruction of a new ethno-religious identity for the Iranian people. Furthermore, the rise of the Safavid empire coincided with the rise of the neighbouring Ottoman empire in West Asia and North Africa (and most importantly, for centuries Iran's geo-political as well as ideological arch rival), the Mughal empire in India, and the Uzbek empire in Central Asia, all adhering to Sunni Islam. The formation of these political entities helped create a distinct Iranian-Shia political identity among these polities. It also helped to expand the hegemony of Persian language in much of the Islamic world. Persian literature was, apart from Iran and its territories stretching from the North Caucasus to the Persian Gulf, produced from Anatolia to Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent.
Persian Corridor
Following Germany's invasion of the USSR in June 1941, Britain and the Soviet Union became allies. Britain and the USSR saw the newly opened Trans-Iranian Railway as an attractive route to transport supplies from the Persian Gulf to the Soviet Union. Britain and the USSR used concessions extracted in previous interventions to pressure Iran (and, in Britain's case, Iraq) into allowing the use of their territory for military and logistical purposes. Increased tensions with Britain led to pro-German rallies in Tehran. In August 1941, because Reza Shah refused to expel all German nationals and come down clearly on the Allied side, Britain and the USSR invaded Iran, arrested the monarch and sent him into exile to South Africa, taking control of Iran's communications and the coveted railway.
Iranian peoples
Later on, in 550 BCE, Cyrus the Great, would overthrow the leading Median rule, and conquer Kingdom of Lydia and the Babylonian Empire after which he established the Achaemenid Empire (or the First Persian Empire), while his successors would dramatically extend its borders. At its greatest extent, the Achaemenid Empire would encompass swaths of territory across three continents, namely Europe, Africa and Asia, stretching from the Balkans and Eastern Europe proper in the west, to the Indus Valley in the east. The largest empire of ancient history, with their base in Persis (although the main capital was located in Babylon) the Achaemenids would rule much of the known ancient world for centuries. This First Persian Empire was equally notable for its successful model of a centralised, bureaucratic administration (through satraps under a king) and a government working to the profit of its subjects, for building infrastructure such as a postal system and road systems and the use of an official language across its territories and a large professional army and civil services (inspiring similar systems in later empires), and for emancipation of slaves including the Jewish exiles in Babylon, and is noted in Western history as the antagonist of the Greek city states during the Greco-Persian Wars. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was built in the empire as well.
History of the Kurds
The Kurdish region of Iran has been a part of the country since ancient times. Nearly all of Kurdistan was part of the Iranian Empire until its western part was lost during the wars against the Ottoman Empire. Following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, at the Paris Conferences in 1919, Tehran demanded various territories including Turkish Kurdistan, Mosul, and even Diyarbakır, but these demands were quickly rejected by Western powers. Instead, the Kurdish area was divided by modern Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Today, the Kurds inhabit mostly north western Iran known as Iranian Kurdistan but also parts of Khorasan, and constitute approximately 7–10% of Iran's overall population (6.5–7.9 million), compared to 10.6% (2 million) in 1956 or 8% (800 thousand) in 1850.
Iranians in Russia
People from the former and contemporary boundaries of Iran have a long history in the territory of what is modern-day Russia, stretching back thousands of years. Throughout history, the Caucasus region was usually incorporated into the Iranian world, and large parts of it were ruled by empires based in modern-day Iran for a time span encompassing many centuries, or were under its direct influence. From the early 16th century up to including the early 19th century, Transcaucasia and a part of the North Caucasus (namely Dagestan), were ruled by the successive Safavid, Afsharid, and Qajar dynasties of Iran, and made up part of the latters concept for centuries. In the course of the 19th century, by the Treaty of Gulistan of 1813 and the Treaty of Turkmenchay of 1828, Iran ceded the region to Russia. Ever since, the Dagestan region still makes up part of Russia.
Women's rights in Iran
Iran's history is commonly divided into three segments: Pre-Islamic, post-Islamic, and the modern era. Though little is known about Iran's pre-Islamic time, the recorded history starts with the Achaemenid Empire in 530 B.C. During the rule of the Achaemenid Empire, Greek historical accounts include that women were able to participate in civic affairs; however, this participation was still limited and considered unusual to the general population. Greek historian, Herodotus, after his visit to the Achaemenian Empire, recounted that Persian men and women worked together in managing the affairs of the states and participated in public ceremony together. Royal women had access to education, were trained horse riders, and participated in official ceremonies, such as the King's birthday and Naw-ruz, the annual Persian New Year.
Islam in Iran
The Islamic conquest of Persia (637–651) led to the end of the Sasanian Empire and the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion in Persia. However, the achievements of the previous Persian civilizations were not lost, but were to a great extent absorbed by the new Islamic polity. Islam has been the official religion of Iran since then, except for a short duration after the Mongol raids and establishment of Ilkhanate. Iran became an Islamic republic after the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Persian people
The ancient Persians were a nomadic branch of the ancient Iranian population that entered the territory of modern-day Iran by the early 10th century BC. Together with their compatriot allies, they established and ruled some of the world's most powerful empires, well-recognized for their massive cultural, political, and social influence covering much of the territory and population of the ancient world. Throughout history, the Persians have contributed greatly to various forms of art and science, and own one of the world's most prominent literatures.
Armenia
In the next centuries, Armenia was in the Persian Empire's sphere of influence during the reign of Tiridates I, the founder of the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia, which itself was a branch of the Parthian Empire. Throughout its history, the kingdom of Armenia enjoyed both periods of independence and periods of autonomy subject to contemporary empires. Its strategic location between two continents has subjected it to invasions by many peoples, including Assyria (under Ashurbanipal, at around 669–627 BC, the boundaries of Assyria reached as far as Armenia and the Caucasus Mountains), Medes, Achaemenid Empire, Greeks, Parthians, Romans, Sasanian Empire, Byzantine Empire, Arabs, Seljuk Empire, Mongols, Ottoman Empire, the successive Safavid, Afsharid, and Qajar dynasties of Iran, and the Russians.
History of Iran
Records become more tangible with the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and its records of incursions from the Iranian plateau.
As early as the 20th century BC, tribes came to the Iranian Plateau from the Pontic–Caspian steppe. The arrival of Iranians on the Iranian plateau forced the Elamites to relinquish one area of their empire after another and to take refuge in Elam, Khuzestan and the nearby area, which only then became coterminous with Elam. Bahman Firuzmandi say that the southern Iranians might be intermixed with the Elamite peoples living in the plateau.
By the mid-first millennium BC, Medes, Persians, and Parthians populated the Iranian plateau. Until the rise of the Medes, they all remained under Assyrian domination, like the rest of the Near East. In the first half of the first millennium BC, parts of what is now Iranian Azerbaijan were incorporated into Urartu.
Sino-Persian relations
Sino-Persian relations (Chinese: 中国－波斯关系, Pinyin: Zhōngguó-Buōsī guānxì, Persian: روابط ایران و چین) refers to the historic diplomatic, cultural and economic relations between the cultures of China proper and Greater Iran, dating back to ancient times, since at least 200 B.C. The Parthians and Sassanid empires (occupying much of present Iran and Central Asia) had various contacts with the Han and Tang Dynasty empires occupying what is now the People's Republic of China. The two ancient civilizations of Asia were further connected, both economically and culturally, via the Silk Road, for many centuries.
Rais Ali Delvari
In World War I, Iran was neutral . In reality, Persian forces were affected by the rivalry between the Allied Powers and the Central Powers and took sides based on the conditions. Western interest in Persia was based on its significant oil reserve and its strategic situation between Afghanistan and the warring Ottoman, Russian, and British Empires. Persia was divided into northern and southern spheres of influence under the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907. The treaty defined their respective spheres of influence in Iran and Afghanistan and provided a counterweight to German influence. This treaty was widely viewed by Iranians as having made the nation into nothing more than a British and Russian protectorate, so during the World War I, many local rebellions occurred in Iran against the British and Russian forces participating in war against Central powers of World War I. In Northern Iran, Jangal movement of Gilan, was the main operating local force against the British and Russians forces, and in Southern Iran, Qashqai, Tangistani and Laristani tribes were the main resisting power against the British empire. In both Southern and Northern movements, Persian Central Government Gendarmerie supported the rebels (See Persian Campaign ).
Iranian peoples
Later, during the 2nd millennium CE, the Iranian peoples would play a prominent role during the age of Islamic expansion and empire. Saladin, a noted adversary of the Crusaders, was an ethnic Kurd, while various empires centered in Iran (including the Safavids) re-established a modern dialect of Persian as the official language spoken throughout much of what is today Iran and the Caucasus. Iranian influence spread to the neighbouring Ottoman Empire, where Persian was often spoken at court (though a heavy Turko-Persian basis there was set already by the predecessors of the Ottomans in Anatolia, namely the Seljuks and the Sultanate of Rum amongst others) as well to the court of the Mughal Empire. All of the major Iranian peoples reasserted their use of Iranian languages following the decline of Arab rule, but would not begin to form modern national identities until the 19th and early 20th centuries (just as Germans and Italians were beginning to formulate national identities of their own).
France–Iran relations
A Franco-Persian alliance was formed for a short period between the French Empire of Napoleon I and the Persian Empire of Fath Ali Shah against Russia and Great Britain between 1807 and 1809. The alliance was part of Napoleon's plan to create another front on Russia's southern borders, as Iran and Russia were directly bordering each other there in the Caucasus region. Furthermore, the Iranian king was involved in a territorial dispute with the Russian tsar following its annexation of Georgia, which had been intermittently part of Iran since the mid 16th century. The alliance unravelled when France finally allied with Russia and turned its focus to European campaigns, and dropped its support during the Russo-Persian War (1804-1813), which eventually turned out into an Iranian defeat and huge irrevocable territorial losses, comprising modern-day Georgia, Dagestan, and most of the contemporary Republic of Azerbaijan.
Tajiks
The dialects of modern Persian spoken throughout Greater Iran have a common origin. This is due to the fact that one of Greater Iran's historical cultural capitals, called Greater Khorasan, which included parts of modern Central Asia and much of Afghanistan and constitutes as the Tajik's ancestral homeland, played a key role in the development and propagation of Persian language and culture throughout much of Greater Iran after the Muslim conquest. Furthermore, early manuscripts of the historical Persian spoken in Mashhad during the development of Middle to New Persian show that their origins came from Sistan, in present-day Afghanistan.
Persian studies
During the Qajar dynasty, Iranians first encountered Europeans in the context of the rise of the West. Napoleon's expedition to Egypt in 1798 CE was the first European intrusion into the Muslim Middle East and prefigured many more disruptions for the peoples of this region, especially Iran. Iran lost territory in several wars with Russia and Britain. Iran's economy suffered greatly as European sea lanes bypassed the legendary Silk Road which had always been a pillar of Iran's economy. New industrial processes of production made traditional ways of living impossible for Iranians. As in many other countries during this time like Japan, China, and Turkey, a nationalist reaction occurred in Iran as Iranians realized the importance of modernizing as quickly as possible to fight off the encroachment of the Western powers. It was at this point that modern educational institutions in Western tradition were first opened in Iran. Iran would never be the same, and the study of language there merged with the tradition in Europe.Library guides:
Samanid Empire
The Samanid Empire is part of the Iranian Intermezzo, which saw the creation of a Persianate culture and identity that brought Iranian speech and traditions into the fold of the Islamic world. This would lead to the formation of the Turko-Persian culture.
Timurid Empire
The Timurid Empire (, "Timuriyān"), self-designated as Gurkani (, "Gurkāniyān"), was a Persianate Turco-Mongol empire comprising modern-day Uzbekistan, Iran, the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, Afghanistan, much of Central Asia, as well as parts of contemporary India, Pakistan, Syria and Turkey.
Khorasan Province
The name "Khorāsān" (lit. "sunrise"; "East"; or "land of the rising sun") was originally given to the eastern province of Persia during the Sassanian period. The old Iranian province of Khorasan roughly formed the western half of the historical Greater Khorasan, a region which included parts that are today in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Some of the main historical cities of Persia are located in the older Khorasan: Nishapur and Tus (now in Iran); Merv and Sanjan (now in Turkmenistan); Samarkand and Bukhara (both now in Uzbekistan); Herat and Balkh (now in Afghanistan); and Khujand and Panjakent (now in Tajikistan). The term was also used from the late middle ages–especially in post-Mongol (Chagatai and Timurid) times–to distinguish the region from neighbouring Transoxiana. The modern Iranian boundaries of the province of Khorasan were defined and formalised in the late nineteenth century.
Literary criticism in Iran
During the nineteenth century, Iranians for the first time felt the impact of the industrializing European powers. Russia incurred the first serious defeat against Iran by a European power during the Russo-Persian War. The Treaty of Gulistan ceded large parts of Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Russian Empire. In Central Asia, Russia and Great Britain were waging a contest for influence and concessions. British interests in India compelled them to create the buffer state of Afghanistan. Iranian ambitions to recapture Herat, were constantly frustrated during the Anglo-Persian War and the city has remained a part of Afghanistan ever since. At the same time, European sea-traffic had bypassed the ancient Silk Road, which had been the backbone of Iran's economy since time immemorial. Traditional craftsmen could no longer compete with a flood of cheap, industrially produced goods from Europe. The nineteenth century was a traumatic period for much of the world as European imperial powers stretched their possessions over the globe, and Iran was no exception.
Fars Province
Pars Province (; , "Ostān-e Pārs", ) also known as Fars (, "Fārs") or Persia in the Greek sources in historical context, is one of the thirty-one provinces of Iran and known as the cultural capital of the country. It is in the south of the country, in Iran's Region 2, and its administrative center is Shiraz. It has an area of 122,400 km². In 2011, this province had a population of 4.6 million people, of which 67.6% were registered as urban dwellers (urban/suburbs), 32.1% villagers (small town/rural), and 0.3% nomad tribes. The etymology of the word "Persian" (From Latin "Persia", from Ancient Greek , "Persís"), found in many ancient names associated with Iran, is derived from the historical importance of this region. Fars Province is the original homeland of the Persian people.
Military history of Iran
The Timurids were a Central Asian Sunni Muslim dynasty of originally Turko-Mongol descent whose empire included the whole of Central Asia, Iran, modern Afghanistan, as well as large parts of Pakistan, India, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the Caucasus. It was founded by the militant conqueror Timur ("Tamerlane") in the 14th century.
Azerbaijan (Iran)
Following military defeats at the hands of the Russian Empire, Qajar Persia ceded all of its territories in the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia to Russia via the Treaty of Gulistan of 1813 and the Treaty of Turkmenchay of 1828. The territories south of the Aras River, which comprised the region historically known as Azerbaijan, became the new north-west frontier of the Persian Empire and later Iran. The territories north of the Aras River, which were not known by the name Azerbaijan at the time of their capture by Russia, were absorbed into the Russian Empire, renamed the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic during the country's short-lived independence from 1918 to 1920, incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, and finally became the independent Republic of Azerbaijan when the Soviet Union dissolved.
Fall of the Sasanian Empire
The Sasanian era is one of the most influential periods in Iran's history. It also marks the third rise of a great Iranian empire, a dynasty that rivaled its predecessor, the Achaemenids, who too, like the Sassanids, were native to the province of Pars, and in some instances the Parthians, in glory and power. Although it fought many campaigns against the Romans/Byzantines in the west and the nomadic people in the east and north, the Sasanian Empire met its demise not by the Byzantine-Roman Empire, but by emerging Arab Muslims from across its southern borders. However, the conflict with the Byzantines greatly contributed to its weakness, by draining Sassanid resources, leaving it a prime target for the Muslims.
Eastern Europe
Ancient kingdoms of the region included Orontid Armenia, Caucasian Albania, Colchis and Iberia (not to be confused with the people of Iberian Peninsula in Western Europe). These kingdoms were either from the start, or later on incorporated into various Iranian empires, including the Achaemenid Persian, Parthian, and Sassanid Persian Empires. Parts of the Balkans and more northern areas were ruled by the Achaemenid Persians as well, including Thrace, Paeonia, Macedon, and most of the Black Sea coastal regions of Romania, Ukraine, and Russia. Owing to the rivalry between Parthian Iran and Rome, and later Byzantium and the Sassanid Persians, the former would invade the region several times, although it was never able to hold the region, unlike the Sassanids who ruled over most of the Caucasus during their entire rule.
The earliest known distinctions between east and west in Europe originate in the history of the Roman Republic. As the Roman domain expanded, a cultural and linguistic division appeared between the mainly Greek-speaking eastern provinces which had formed the highly urbanized Hellenistic civilization. In contrast, the western territories largely adopted the Latin language. This cultural and linguistic division was eventually reinforced by the later political east-west division of the Roman Empire.
The division between these two spheres was enhanced during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages by a number of events. The Western Roman Empire collapsed starting the Early Middle Ages. By contrast, the Eastern Roman Empire, mostly known as the Byzantine Empire, managed to survive and even to thrive for another 1,000 years. The rise of the Frankish Empire in the west, and in particular the Great Schism that formally divided Eastern and Western Christianity, enhanced the cultural and religious distinctiveness between Eastern and Western Europe. Much of Eastern Europe was invaded and occupied by the Mongols.
The conquest of the Byzantine Empire, center of the Eastern Orthodox Church, by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, and the gradual fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire (which had replaced the Frankish empire) led to a change of the importance of Roman Catholic/Protestant vs. Eastern Orthodox concept in Europe. Armour points out that the Cyrillic alphabet use is not a strict determinant for Eastern Europe, where from Croatia to Poland and everywhere in between, the Latin alphabet is used. Greece's status as the cradle of Western civilization and an integral part of the Western world in the political, cultural and economic spheres has led to it being nearly always classified as belonging not to Eastern, but to Southern or Western Europe.
During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries Eastern Europe enjoyed a relatively high standard of living. This period is also called the east-central European golden age of around 1600.
History of Iran
Although initially the masters of Azerbaijan and southern Dagestan only, the Safavids had, in fact, won the struggle for power in Persia which had been going on for nearly a century between various dynasties and political forces following the fragmentation of the Kara Koyunlu and the Aq Qoyunlu. A year after his victory in Tabriz, Ismāil proclaimed most of Persia as his domain, and quickly conquered and unified Iran under his rule. Soon afterwards, the new Safavid Empire rapidly conquered regions, nations, and peoples in all directions, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, parts of Georgia, Mesopotamia (Iraq), Kuwait, Syria, Dagestan, large parts of what is now Afghanistan, parts of Turkmenistan, and large chunks of Anatolia, laying the foundation of its multi-ethnic character which would heavily influence the empire itself (most notably the Caucasus and its peoples).
Achaemenid Empire
By the 7th century BC, the Persians had settled in the south-western portion of the Iranian Plateau in the region of Persis, which came to be their . From this region, Cyrus the Great advanced to defeat the Medes, Lydia, and the Neo-Babylonian Empire, establishing the Achaemenid Empire. Alexander the Great, an avid admirer of Cyrus the Great, conquered most of the empire by 330 BC. Upon Alexander's death, most of the empire's former territory came under the rule of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire, in addition to other minor territories which gained independence at that time. The Iranian elites of the central plateau reclaimed power by the second century BC under the Parthian Empire.
Greater Iran
Because the Achaemenid Empire or "First Persian Empire" was the successor state to the empires of Assyria and Babylonia based in Iraq, and because Elam is part of Iran, the ancient people of Iran were ruled by ancient Mesopotamians, which explains the close proximity between the people of south western Iran and the Iraqis even in modern days, in fact, the people of that part of Iran speak Mesopotamian Arabic and were put under the rule of modern Iran by the British. The ancient Persians adopted the Babylonian cuneiform script and modified it to write their language, along with adopting many other facets of ancient Iraqi culture, including the Aramaic language which became the official language of the Persian Empire.
History of Tajikistan
They created a powerful empire that succeeded in making Iran a tributary state around 483–485. Shah of Persia Peroz fought three wars with Hephthalites. During the first war he was captured by Hephthalite army and later was released after Byzantine emperor paid a ransom for him. During the second war Peroz was captured again and was released after paying a huge contribution to the Hephthalite king. During the third war Peroz was killed. The Hephthalites were subjugated in 565 by a combination of Sassanid and Kök-Turk forces. Subsequently, present Tajikistan was ruled by Göktürks and Sassanids, however when the Sassanid Empire fell the Turks kept control of Tajikistan but they later lost it to the Chinese people, however, they later managed to take control of Tajikistan once again, only to lose it to the Arabs in 710.
History of Iran
The declining country was repeatedly raided on its frontiers. Finally, Ghilzai Pashtun chieftain named Mir Wais Khan began a rebellion in Kandahar and defeated the Safavid army under the Iranian Georgian governor over the region, Gurgin Khan. In 1722, Peter the Great of neighbouring Imperial Russia launched the Russo-Persian War (1722–1723), capturing many of Iran's Caucasian territories, including Derbent, Shaki, Baku, but also Gilan, Mazandaran and Astrabad. At the mids of all chaos, in the same year 1722 an Afghan army led by Mir Wais' son Mahmud marched across eastern Iran, besieged and took Isfahan. Mahmud proclaimed himself 'Shah' of Persia. Meanwhile, Persia's imperial rivals, the Ottomans and the Russians, took advantage of the chaos in the country to seize more territory for themselves. By these events, the Safavid dynasty had effectively ended. In 1724, conform the Treaty of Constantinople, the Ottomans and the Russians agreed to divide the newly conquered territories of Iran amongst themselves.
Muzaffarids (Iran)
The Muzaffarid dynasty () was a Persian dynasty of Arab origin which came to power in Iran following the breakup of the Ilkhanate in the 14th century. At their zenith, they ruled a kingdom comprising Iranian Azerbaijan, Central Persia, and Persian Iraq.
Greater Khorasan
Khorasan (Middle Persian: ; "Xorāsān", ), sometimes called Greater Khorasan, is a historical region lying in northeast of Greater Persia, including part of Central Asia and Afghanistan. The name simply means "East, Orient" (literally "sunrise") and loosely includes the territory of the Sasanian Empire north-east of Persia proper. Early Islamic usage often regarded everywhere east of so-called Jibal or what was subsequently termed 'Iraq Ajami' (Persian Iraq), as being included in a vast and loosely-defined region of Khorasan, which might even extend to the Indus Valley and Sindh. During the Islamic period, Khorasan along with Persian Iraq were two important territories. The boundary between these two was the region surrounding the cities of Gurgan and Qumis (modern Damghan). In particular, the Ghaznavids, Seljuqs and Timurids divided their empires into Iraqi and Khorasani regions.
Early modern period
The Safavid Empire was a great Shia Persianate empire after the Islamic conquest of Persia and established of Islam, marking an important point in the history of Islam in the east. The Safavid dynasty was founded about 1501. From their base in Ardabil, the Safavids established control over all of Persia and reasserted the Iranian identity of the region, thus becoming the first native dynasty since the Sassanids to establish a unified Iranian state. Problematic for the Safavids was the powerful Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans, a Sunni dynasty, fought several campaigns against the Safavids.
Iran–Russia relations
In his later years of rule, Peter the Great found himself in a strong enough position to increase Russian influence more southwards in the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea at the cost of the two declining empires; the Safavid Empire and the Ottoman Empire. He made the city of Astrakhan his base for his hostilities against Persia, created a shipyard, and attacked the weakened Safavids in the Russo-Persian War (1722-1723), capturing many of its territories in the Caucasus and northern mainland Iran for several years. After several minor years of political chaos in Persia following the abolishment of the Safavids, a new mighty Persian empire was born under the military genius of fortune, Nader Shah. Fearing a costly war which would most likely be lost against Nader and also being flanked by the Turks in the west, the Russians were forced to give back all territories and retreat from the entire Caucasus and northern mainland Iran as according to the Treaty of Resht (1732) and Treaty of Ganja (1735) during the reign of Anna of Russia. The term of the treaty also included the first fact of close Russo-Iranian collaboration against a common enemy, in this case the Ottoman Turks.
Sasanian Empire
The Sasanian Empire (), also known as the Sassanian, Sasanid, Sassanid or Neo-Persian Empire (known to its inhabitants as "Ērānshahr", or Iran, in Middle Persian), was the last kingdom of the Persian Empire before the rise of Islam. Named after the House of Sasan, it ruled from 224 to 651 AD. The Sasanian Empire succeeded the Parthian Empire and was recognised as one of the leading world powers alongside its neighbouring arch-rival the Roman-Byzantine Empire for a period of more than 400 years.
Iran
Historically, Iran has been referred to as "Persia" by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who referred to all of Iran as (; from Old Persian ), meaning "land of the Persians", while Persis itself was one of the provinces of ancient Iran that is today defined as Fars. As the most extensive interaction the Ancient Greeks had with any outsider was with the Persians, the term persisted, even long after the Greco-Persian Wars (499–449 BC).
Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran
The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran, also known as the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Persia, was the joint invasion of Iran in 1941 during the Second World War by the British Commonwealth and the Soviet Union. The invasion lasted from 25 August to 17 September 1941 and was codenamed Operation Countenance. Its purpose was to secure Iranian oil fields and ensure Allied supply lines (see the Persian Corridor) for the USSR, fighting against Axis forces on the Eastern Front. Though Iran was neutral, the Allies considered Reza Shah to be friendly to Germany, deposed him during the subsequent occupation and replaced him with his young son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Persian literature
Despite that Asia Minor (or Anatolia) had been ruled various times prior to the Middle Ages by various Persian-speaking dynasties originating in Iran, the language lost its traditional foothold there with the demise of the Sassanian Empire. Centuries later however, the practise and usage in the region would be strongly revived. A branch of the Seljuks, the Sultanate of Rum, took Persian language, art and letters to Anatolia. They adopted Persian language as the official language of the empire. The Ottomans, which can "roughly" be seen as their eventual successors, took this tradition over. Persian was the official court language of the empire, and for some time, the official language of the empire. The educated and noble class of the Ottoman Empire all spoke Persian, such as sultan Selim I, despite being Safavid Iran's archrival and a staunch opposer of Shia Islam. It was a major literary language in the empire. Some of the noted earlier Persian literature works during the Ottoman rule are Idris Bidlisi's "Hasht Bihisht", which begun in 1502 and covered the reign of the first eight Ottoman rulers, and the "Salim-Namah", a glorification of Selim I. After a period of several centuries, Ottoman Turkish (which was highly Persianised itself) had developed towards a fully accepted language of literature, which was even able to satisfy the demands of a scientific presentation. However, the number of Persian and Arabic loanwords contained in those works increased at times up to 88%. The Ottomans produced thousands of Persian literary works throughout their century long lifespan.
Iranian Azerbaijanis
Following the Russo-Persian Wars of 1804–13 and 1826–28, the territories of the Iranian Qajar dynasty in the Caucasus were forcefully ceded to the Russian Empire and the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813 and the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828 finalized the borders between the Russian Empire and Qajar Iran. The areas to the north of the river Aras, including the territory of the contemporary Republic of Azerbaijan, were Iranian territory until they were occupied by Russia over the course of the 19th century. The Russo-Persian Wars of the 19th century settled the modern-day boundary of Iran, stripping it of all its Caucasian territories and incorporating them into the Russian Empire. The eventual formation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 established the territory of modern Azerbaijan.
History of Iran
Persia underwent a revival under the Safavid dynasty (1502–1736), the most prominent figure of which was Shah Abbas I. Some historians credit the Safavid dynasty for founding the modern nation-state of Iran. Iran's contemporary Shia character, and significant segments of Iran's current borders take their origin from this era ("e.g. Treaty of Zuhab").
Iranian Plateau
In classical antiquity the region was known as Persia, due to the Persian Achaemenid dynasty, originating in Persia proper, or Fars.
Iran
From the late 10th to the late seventh century BC, the Iranian peoples, together with the "pre-Iranian" kingdoms, fell under the domination of the Assyrian Empire, based in northern Mesopotamia. Under king Cyaxares, the Medes and Persians entered into an alliance with Babylonian ruler Nabopolassar, as well as the fellow Iranian Scythians and Cimmerians, and together they attacked the Assyrian Empire. The civil war ravaged the Assyrian Empire between 616 and 605 BC, thus freeing their respective peoples from three centuries of Assyrian rule. The unification of the Median tribes under king Deioces in 728 BC led to the foundation of the Median Empire which, by 612 BC, controlled almost the entire territory of present-day Iran and eastern Anatolia. This marked the end of the Kingdom of Urartu as well, which was subsequently conquered and dissolved.
In 550 BC, Cyrus the Great, the son of Mandane and Cambyses I, took over the Median Empire, and founded the Achaemenid Empire by unifying other city-states. The conquest of Media was a result of what is called the "Persian Revolt". The brouhaha was initially triggered by the actions of the Median ruler Astyages, and was quickly spread to other provinces, as they allied with the Persians. Later conquests under Cyrus and his successors expanded the empire to include Lydia, Babylon, Egypt, parts of the Balkans and Eastern Europe proper, as well as the lands to the west of the Indus and Oxus rivers.
Prehistory of Iran
Records become more tangible with the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and its records of incursions from the Iranian plateau.
As early as the 20th century BC, tribes came to the Iranian Plateau from the Pontic–Caspian steppe. The arrival of Iranians on the Iranian plateau forced the Elamites to relinquish one area of their empire after another and to take refuge in Elam, Khuzestan and the nearby area, which only then became coterminous with Elam. Bahman Firuzmandi say that the southern Iranians might be intermixed with the Elamite peoples living in the plateau.
By the mid-first millennium BC, Medes, Persians, and Parthians populated the Iranian plateau. Until the rise of the Medes, they all remained under Assyrian domination, like the rest of the Near East. In the first half of the first millennium BC, parts of what is now Iranian Azerbaijan were incorporated into Urartu.
Military history of Iran
The Ilkhanate was a Mongol khanate established in Persia in the 13th century, considered a part of the Mongol Empire. The Ilkhanate was based, originally, on Genghis Khan's campaigns in the Khwarezmid Empire in 1219–1224, and founded by Genghis's grandson, Hulagu, in what territories which today comprise most of Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, and western Pakistan. The Ilkhanate initially embraced many religions, but was particularly sympathetic to Buddhism and Christianity, and sought a Franco-Mongol alliance with the Crusaders in order to conquer Palestine. Later Ilkhanate rulers, beginning with Ghazan in 1295, embraced Islam.
Military history of Iran
The reigns of both Mohammad Shah and Nasser al-Din Shah also saw attempts by Persia to bring the city of Herat, occupied by the Afghans, again under Persian rule. In this, though the Afghans were no match for the Persian Army, the Persians were not successful, this time because of British Intervention as part of The Great Game "(See papers by Waibel and Esandari Qajar within the Qajar Studies source)". Russia backed the Persian attacks, using Persia as a 'cat's paw' for expansion of its own interests. Britain feared the seizure of Herat would leave a route to attack India controlled by a power friendly to Russia, and threatened Persia with closure of the trade of the Persian Gulf. When Persia abandoned its designs on Herat, the British no longer felt India was threatened. This, combined with growing Persian fears about Russian designs on their own country, led to the later period of Anglo-Persian military co-operation.
Armenia–Iran relations
Armenia was conquered by the Persian Empire numerous times throughout history, particularly by the Median, Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sassanid empires, and the Safavid, Afsharid, and Qajar dynasties. Due to the large cultural and historical ties, Armenia is often considered part of Greater Iran. Armenia and Iran enjoy cultural and historical ties that go back thousands of years.
History of Iran
From 334 BCE to 331 BCE, Alexander the Great, also known in Avestan as "Arda Wiraz Nâmag" ("the accursed Alexander"), defeated Darius III in the battles of Granicus, Issus and Gaugamela, swiftly conquering the Persian Empire by 331 BCE. Alexander's empire broke up shortly after his death, and Alexander's general, Seleucus I Nicator, tried to take control of Iran, Mesopotamia, and later Syria and Anatolia. His empire was the Seleucid Empire. He was killed in 281 BCE by Ptolemy Keraunos.
Khuzestan Province
In fact, in the words of Elton L. Daniel, the Elamites were "the founders of the first 'Iranian' empire in the geographic sense." Hence the central geopolitical significance of Khuzestan, the seat of Iran's first empire.
Georgia–Persia relations
The consequences of these events came a few years later, when a new dynasty, the Qajars, emerged victorious in the protracted power struggle in Persia. Their head, Agha Mohammad Khan, as his first objective, resolved to bring the Caucasus again fully under the Persian orbit.
For Agha Mohammah Khan, the resubjugation and reintegration of Georgia into the Iranian Empire was part of the same process that had brought Shiraz, Isfahan, and Tabriz under his rule. He viewed, like the Safavids and Nader Shah before him, the territories no different than the territories in mainland Iran. Georgia was a province of Iran the same way Khorasan was. As the "Cambridge History of Iran" states, its permanent secession was inconceivable and had to be resisted in the same way as one would resist an attempt at the separation of Fars or Gilan. It was therefore natural for Agha Mohammad Khan to perform whatever necessary means in the Caucasus in order to subdue and reincorporate the recently lost regions following Nader Shah's death and the demise of the Zands, including putting down what in Iranian eyes was seen as treason on the part of the "wali" of Georgia.
2,500 year celebration of the Persian Empire
The 2,500 year celebration of the Persian Empire (), officially known as The 2,500th year of Foundation of Imperial State of Iran (), consisted of an elaborate set of festivities that took place on 12–16 October 1971 to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of the Imperial State of Iran and the Achaemenid Empire by Cyrus the Great. The intent of the celebration was to demonstrate Iran's ancient civilization and history and to showcase its contemporary advances under His Imperial Majesty Mohammad Reza Shah, the last Shah of Iran.
Iran–Turkey relations
Numerous times throughout the millennia-long history shared by the two neighboring nations, parts of the territory of Anatolia were conquered by the various empires based in modern-day Iran, including the Median Empire, the Achaemenid Empire, the Parthian Empire, the Sassanian Empire, the Safavid Empire, and the Afsharid Empire, amongst others. In ancient times, the Asia Minor formed one of the core regions of the Achaemenid Empire, with most notably the cities of Sardis and Smyrna in western Anatolia. Igdir Province in what is Eastern Anatolia formed in fact part of Qajar Iran up to the outcome of the Russo-Persian War (1826-1828) and the ratified Treaty of Turkmenchay.
Monarch
In modern history, between 1925 and 1979, Iran was ruled by two Emperors from the Pahlavi dynasty that used the title of "Shahanshah" (or "King of Kings"). The last Iranian Shahanshah was King Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was forced to abdicate the throne as a result of a revolution in Iran. In fact Persian (Iranian) kingdom goes back to about 2,700 BC (see List of Kings of Persia), but reached its ultimate height and glory when King Cyrus the Great (Known as "The Great Kourosh" in Iran) started the Achaemenid dynasty, and under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Southwest Asia and much of Central Asia and the Caucasus. From the Mediterranean sea and Hellespont in the west to the Indus River in the east, Cyrus the Great created the largest empire the world had yet seen.
Irredentism
The ideology of pan-Iranism is most often used in conjunction with the idea of forming a Greater Iran, which refers to the regions of the Caucasus, West Asia, Central Asia, and parts of South Asia that have significant Iranian cultural influence due to having been either long historically ruled by the various Iranian (Persian) empires (such as those of the Medes, Achaemenids, Parthians, Sassanians, Samanids, Timurids, Safavids, and Afsharids and the Qajar Empire), having considerable aspects of Persian culture in their own culture due to extensive contact with the various Empires based in Persia (e.g., those regions and peoples in the North Caucasus that were not under direct Iranian rule), or are simply nowadays still inhabited by a significant amount of Iranic-speaking people who patronize their respective cultures (as it goes for the western parts of South Asia, Bahrain and China). It roughly corresponds to the territory on the Iranian plateau and its bordering plains. It is also referred to as "Greater Persia", while the Encyclopædia Iranica uses the term "Iranian Cultural Continent".
Safavid dynasty
It was the Safavids who made Iran the spiritual bastion of Shiʻism, and the repository of Persian cultural traditions and self-awareness of Iranianhood, acting as a bridge to modern Iran. The founder of the dynasty, Shah Isma'il, adopted the title of "Persian Emperor" "Pādišah-ī Īrān", with its implicit notion of an Iranian state stretching from Khorasan as far as Euphrates, and from the Oxus to the southern Territories of the Persian Gulf. According to Professor Roger Savory:
Greater Iran
The term Greater Iran is not limited to the modern state of Iran, but includes all the territory ruled by the Iranians throughout the history, including Mesopotamia, Eastern Anatolia, all of the Caucasus and Central Asia. The concept of Greater Iran has its source in the history of the Achaemenid Empire in Persis (modern day Pars region), and overlaps to a certain extent with the history of Iran.
Persian people
Although Persis was originally one of the provinces of ancient Iran, varieties of this term (e.g. "Persia") were adopted through Greek sources and used as an official name for all of Iran for many years. Thus, in the Western world, the term "Persian" came to refer to all inhabitants of the country.
Persian Campaign
The Persian Campaign or Invasion of Persia also known as Invasion of Iran () was a series of engagements in Iranian Azerbaijan and western Iran (Persia) involving the forces of the Ottoman Empire against those of the British Empire and Russian Empire, and also involving local population elements, beginning in December 1914 and ending with the Armistice of Mudros on October 30, 1918 as part of Middle Eastern theatre of World War I.
Aryan
The name for the Sassanian Empire in Middle Persian is "Eran Shahr" which means "Aryan Empire". In the aftermath of the Islamic conquest in Iran, racialist rhetoric became a literary idiom during the 7th century, i.e., when the Arabs became the primary "Other" – the "anarya"s – and the antithesis of everything Iranian (i.e. Aryan) and Zoroastrian. But "the antecedents of [present-day] Iranian ultra-nationalism can be traced back to the writings of late nineteenth-century figures such as Mirza Fatali Akhundov and Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani. Demonstrating affinity with Orientalist views of the supremacy of the "Aryan peoples" and the mediocrity of the "Semitic peoples", Iranian nationalist discourse idealized pre-Islamic [Achaemenid and Sassanid] empires, whilst negating the 'Islamization' of Persia by Muslim forces." In the 20th century, different aspects of this idealization of a distant past would be instrumentalized by both the Pahlavi monarchy (In 1967, Iran's Pahlavi dynasty [overthrown in the 1979 Iranian Revolution] added the title Āryāmehr "Light of the Aryans" to the other styles of the Iranian monarch, the Shah of Iran being already known at that time as the Shahanshah ("King of Kings")), and by the Islamic republic that followed it; the Pahlavis used it as a foundation for anticlerical monarchism, and the clerics used it to exalt Iranian values vis-á-vis westernization.
Greater Iran
Home of the Parthian Empire (Nysa). Merv is also where the half-Persian caliph al-Mamun moved his capital to. The city of Eshgh Abad (some claim that the word is actually the transformed form of "Ashk Abad" literally meaning "built by Ashk", the head of Arsacid dynasty) is yet another Persian word meaning "city of love", and like Iran, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan, it was once part of Airyanem Vaejah.
Shatt al-Arab clashes
Since the Ottoman–Persian Wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, Iran (known as "Persia" prior to 1935) and the Ottomans fought over Iraq (then known as Mesopotamia) and full control of the Shatt al-Arab until the signing of the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639 which established the final borders between the two countries. The Shatt al-Arab was considered an important channel for both states' oil exports, and in 1937, Iran and the newly independent Iraq signed a treaty to settle the dispute. In the same year, Iran and Iraq both joined the Treaty of Saadabad, and relations between the two states remained good for decades afterwards. In April 1969, Iran abrogated the 1937 treaty over the Shatt al-Arab, and as such, ceased paying tolls to Iraq when its ships used the waterway. Iran's abrogation of the treaty marked the beginning of a period of acute Iraqi-Iranian tension that was to last until the 1975 Algiers Agreement. In 1969, Saddam Hussein, Iraq's deputy prime minister, stated: "Iraq's dispute with Iran is in connection with Khuzestan, which is part of Iraq's soil and was annexed to Iran during foreign rule."
Campaigns of Nader Shah
The Afsharid Conquest of the Persian Gulf was an imperial venture by the Iranian Empire, ruled by Nader Shah, to establish Iran as the hegemon of the Persian gulf and its surroundings. The numerous campaigns that were undertaken were initially very successful and achieved a great many objectives however the rebellion of Nader's appointed Darya Salar (Admiral), Mohammad Taqi Khan, wreaked havoc amongst the plethora of polities across the Persian gulf that had been brought under Iranian control and even after the defeat and capture of Mohammad Taqi Khan the Iranian empire was going through a tumultuous period of unrelenting civil strife and internal war due to Nader's increasingly brutal rule which made the empire collapse in the immediate aftermath of his assassination, leading to many of the conquests in the region to be lost.
Greater Iran
In the 8th century, Iran was conquered by the Abbassids who ruled from Baghdad, and the territory of Iran at that time was known to be composed of two portions: "Persian Iraq" (western portion) and "Khorasan" (eastern portion). The dividing region was mostly along with Gurgan and Damaghan cities. Especially the Ghaznavids, Seljuqs and Timurids divided their Empire to Iraqi and Khorasani regions. This point can be observed in many books such as ""Tārīkhi Baïhaqī"" of Abul Fazl Bayhqi, "Faza'ilul al-anam min rasa'ili hujjat al-Islam" (a collection of letters of Al-Ghazali) and other books. Transoxiana and Chorasmia were mostly included in the Khorasanian region.
Iran–Iraq relations
Since the Ottoman–Persian Wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, Iran (known as "Persia" prior to 1935) and the Ottomans fought over Iraq (then known as Mesopotamia) and full control of the Shatt al-Arab until the signing of the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639 which established the final borders between the two countries. The Shatt al-Arab was considered an important channel for both states' oil exports, and in 1937, Iran and the newly independent Iraq signed a treaty to settle the dispute. In the same year, Iran and Iraq both joined the Treaty of Saadabad, and relations between the two states remained good for decades afterwards.
Parthia
Parthia ( "Parθava"; "Parθaw"; "Pahlaw") is a historical region located in north-eastern Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Medes during the 7th century BC, was incorporated into the subsequent Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BC, and formed part of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire following the 4th-century-BC conquests of Alexander the Great. The region later served as the political and cultural base of the Eastern-Iranian Parni people and Arsacid dynasty, rulers of the Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD). The Sasanian Empire, the last state of pre-Islamic Persia, also held the region and maintained the Seven Parthian clans as part of their feudal aristocracy.
Persian carpet
In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Persia had become a battleground. In 1917, Britain used Iran as the springboard for an attack into Russia in an unsuccessful attempt to reverse the Revolution. The Soviet Union responded by annexing portions of northern Persia, creating the Persian Soviet Socialist Republic. By 1920, the Iranian government had lost virtually all power outside its capital: British and Soviet forces exercised control over most of the Iranian mainland.
List of ancient great powers
The Parthian Empire was the third Iranian Empire. At the height of its power, the empire ruled most of Greater Iran, Mesopotamia and Armenia. But unlike most other Iranian monarchies, the Parthian followed a vassalary system, which they adopted from the Seleucids. The Arsacid culture was not a single coherent state, but instead made up of numerous tributary (but otherwise independent) kingdoms.
History of Iran
The discovery of petroleum in 1908 by the British in Khuzestan spawned intense renewed interest in Persia by the British Empire (see William Knox D'Arcy and Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, now BP). Control of Persia remained contested between the United Kingdom and Russia, in what became known as The Great Game, and codified in the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, which divided Persia into spheres of influence, regardless of her national sovereignty.
Name of Iran
The Greeks (who had previously tended to use names related to "Median") began to use adjectives such as (), () or () in the fifth century BC to refer to Cyrus the Great's empire (a word understood to mean "country"). Such words were taken from the Old Persian "Pārsa" – the name of the people from whom Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty stemmed and over whom he first ruled (before he inherited or conquered other Iranian Kingdoms). Thus, the term "Persian" is an exonym and Iranians never historically referred to Iran by that exonym. The Pars tribe gave its name to the region where they lived (the modern day province is called Fars/Pars) but the province in ancient times was smaller than its current area. In Latin, the name for the whole empire was "Persia", while the Iranians knew it as "Iran" or "Iranshahr".
Ancient history
The Achaemenid Empire was the largest and most significant of the Persian Empires, and followed the Median Empire as the second great empire of the Iranians. It is noted in western history as the foe of the Greek city states in the Greco-Persian Wars, for freeing the Israelites from their Babylonian captivity, for its successful model of a centralized bureaucratic administration, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World), and for instituting Aramaic as the empire's official language. Because of the Empire's vast extent and long endurance, Persian influence upon the language, religion, architecture, philosophy, law and government of nations around the world lasts to this day. At the height of its power, the Achaemenid dynasty encompassed approximately 8.0 million square kilometers, held the greatest percentage of world population to date, stretched three continents (Europe, Asia and Africa) and was territorially the largest empire of classical antiquity.
Parthia was an Iranian civilization situated in the northeastern part of modern Iran. Their power was based on a combination of the guerrilla warfare of a mounted nomadic tribe, with organizational skills to build and administer a vast empire – even though it never matched in power and extent the Persian empires that preceded and followed it. The Parthian Empire was led by the Arsacid dynasty, which reunited and ruled over significant portions of the Near East and beyond, after defeating and disposing the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire, beginning in the late 3rd century BC. It was the third native dynasty of ancient Iran (after the Median and the Achaemenid dynasties). Parthia had many wars with the Roman Republic (and subsequently the Roman Empire), which marked the start of what would be over 700 years of frequent Roman-Persian Wars.
Iran
Iran is home to one of the world's oldest civilizations, beginning with the formation of the Elamite kingdoms in the fourth millennium BCE. It was first unified by the Iranian Medes in the seventh century BCE, reaching its greatest territorial size in the sixth century BCE, when Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Empire, which stretched from Eastern Europe to the Indus Valley, becoming one of the largest empires in history. The Iranian realm fell to Alexander the Great in the fourth century BCE and was divided into several Hellenistic states. An Iranian rebellion culminated in the establishment of the Parthian Empire, which was succeeded in the third century CE by the Sasanian Empire, a leading world power for the next four centuries.
Iran (word)
During the Safavid era (1501–1736), most of the territory of the Sasanian empire regained its political unity, and Safavid kings were assuming the title of ""Šāhanšāh-e Irān"" (Iran's king of kings). An example is Mofid Bafqi (d. 1679), who makes numerous references to Iran, describing its border and the nostalgia of Iranians who had migrated to India in that era. Even Ottoman sultans, when addressing the Aq Qoyunlu and Safavid kings, used such titles as the “king of Iranian lands” or the “sultan of the lands of Iran” or “the king of kings of Iran, the lord of the Persians”. This title, as well as the title of ""Šāh-e Irān"", was later used by Nader Shah Afshar and Qajar and Pahlavi kings. Since 1935, the name "Iran" has replaced other names of Iran in the western world. Jean Chardin, who travelled in the region between 1673 and 1677, observed that "the Persians, in naming their country, make use of one word, which they indifferently pronounce "Iroun", and "Iran". [...] These names of Iran and Touran, are frequently to be met with in the ancient histories of Persia; [...] and even to this very day, the king of Persia is call'd "Padsha Iran" ["padshah"='king'], and the great vizier, "Iran Medary" [i.e. "medari"='facilitator'], the Pole of Persia"".
Persian Empire
The first dynasty of the Persian Empire was created by Achaemenids, established by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC with the conquest of Median, Lydian and Babylonian empires. It covered much of the Ancient world when it was conquered by Alexander the Great. Persepolis is the most famous historical site related to Persian Empire in the Achaemenid era and it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979.
Persian people
The ancient Persians were a nomadic branch of the Iranian population that, in the early 10th century BC, settled to the northwest of modern-day Iran. They were initially dominated by the Assyrians for much of the first three centuries after arriving in the region. However, they played a major role in the downfall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Medes, another branch of this population, founded the unified empire of Media as the region's dominant cultural and political power in c. 625 BC. Meanwhile, the Persian dynasty of the Achaemenids formed a vassal state to the central Median power. In c. 552 BC, the Achaemenids began a revolution which eventually led to the conquest of the empire by Cyrus II in c. 550 BC. They spread their influence to the rest of what is called the Iranian Plateau, and assimilated with the non-Iranian indigenous groups of the region, including the Elamites and the Mannaeans.
At its greatest extent, the Achaemenid Empire stretched from parts of Eastern Europe in the west, to the Indus Valley in the east, making it the largest empire the world had yet seen. The Achaemenids developed the infrastructure to support their growing influence, including the creation of Pasargadae and the opulent city of Persepolis. The empire extended as far as the limits of the Greek city states in modern-day mainland Greece, where the Persians and Athenians influenced each other in what is essentially a reciprocal cultural exchange. Its legacy and impact on the kingdom of Macedon was also notably huge, even for centuries after the withdrawal of the Persians from Europe following the Greco-Persian Wars. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, but reemerged shortly after as the Parthian Empire.
Erivan Khanate
Together with the Nakchivan Khanate, the area made up part of Iranian Armenia (also known as Persian Armenia). The Erivan Khanate made up the bulk of Iranian Armenia. The remaining fringes of historic Armenia under Iranian rule were part of the Karabakh Khanate, Ganja Khanate, and Kartli-Kakheti.
Iranian Intermezzo
Buyid dynasty, also known as the Buyid Empire or the Buyids ( "Āl-e Buye", Caspian: Bowyiyün), also known as "Buwaihids" or "Buyyids", were a Shī‘ah Persian dynasty that originated from Daylaman. They founded a confederation that controlled most of modern-day Iran and Iraq in the 10th and 11th centuries.
Indeed, as Dailamite Iranians the Būyids consciously revived symbols and practices of Persia's Sassānid dynasty. In fact, beginning with 'Adud al-Daula they used the ancient Sassānid title Shāhanshāh (Persian: شاهنشاه), literally meaning king of kings.
Georgia–Iran relations
Eastern Georgia, throughout its history, has been several times been annexed by the Persian Empire, specifically under the Achaemenid, Parthian, Sassanid, Safavid, Afsharid and Qajar dynasties. Western Georgia, throughout its history had been annexed by the Persian Achaemenids, Sassanids and Afsharids. Due to this, there has been a lot of political, cultural and ethnic exchange between the two nations for thousands of years, and thus Georgia was and is often considered a part of Greater Iran.
Markazi Province
Markazi province was part of the Median Empire in the first millennium BC, which included all of the central and western parts of modern-day Iran. The region is considered to be one of the ancient settlements on the Iranian plateau. Numerous remaining ruins testify to the antiquity of this area.
Iranian peoples
Scythian tribes, along with Cimmerians, Sarmatians and Alans populated the steppes north of the Black Sea. The Scythian and Sarmatian tribes were spread across Great Hungarian Plain, South-Eastern Ukraine, Russias Siberian, Southern, Volga, Uralic regions and the Balkans, while other Scythian tribes, such as the Saka, spread as far east as Xinjiang, China. Scythians as well formed the Indo-Scythian Empire, and Bactrians formed a Greco-Bactrian Kingdom founded by Diodotus I, the satrap of Bactria. The Kushan Empire, with Bactrian roots/connections, once controlled much of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. The Kushan elite (who the Chinese called the Yuezhi) were an Eastern Iranian language-speaking people.
Kings of Persis
The Kings of Persis are a series of Persian kings, who ruled the region of Persis in southwestern Iran, from the 2nd century BCE to the 3rd century CE (c. 230 BCE – c. 210 CE). They ruled as sub-kings of the Parthian Empire, until they toppled the Parthians and established the Sassanid Empire. They effectively form some Persian dynastic continuity between the Achaemenid Empire (6th century BCE-4th century BCE) and the Sasanian Empire (3rd century CE-7th century CE).
Greater Iran
Greater Iran (, ) is a term used to refer to the regions of the Caucasus, West Asia, Central Asia, and parts of South Asia that have significant Iranian cultural influence due to having been either long historically ruled by the various imperial dynasties of Persian Empire (such as those of the Medes, Achaemenids, Parthians, Sassanians, Samanids, Safavids, and Afsharids and the Qajars), having considerable aspects of Persian culture due to extensive contact with the various imperial dynasties of Iran (e.g., those regions and peoples in the North Caucasus that were not under direct Iranian rule), or are simply nowadays still inhabited by a significant amount of Iranic peoples who patronize their respective cultures (as it goes for the western parts of South Asia, Bahrain and Tajikistan). It roughly corresponds to the territory on the Iranian plateau and its bordering plains. The Encyclopædia Iranica uses the term "Iranian Cultural Continent" for this region.
History of Iran
Eastern Arabia was conquered early on. During Khosrow II's rule in 590–628, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon were also annexed to the Empire. The Sassanians called their empire "Erânshahr" ("Dominion of the Aryans", i.e., of Iranians).