120-528: Ghiyas-ud-din Balban ( Persian : غیاث الدین بلبن ; 1216–1287) was the ninth Sultan of Delhi . He had been the regent of the last Shamsi sultan, Mahmud until the latter's death in 1266, following which, he declared himself sultan of Delhi. His original name was Baha-ud-Din. He was an Ilbari Turk. When he was young he was captured by the Mongols , taken to Ghazni and sold to Khawaja Jamal-ud-din of Basra,
240-510: A Sufi . The latter then brought him to Delhi in 1232 along with other slaves, and all of them were purchased by Iltutmish . Balban belonged to the famous group of 40 Turkic slaves of Iltutmish . Ghiyas made several conquests, some of them as wazir. He routed the people of Mewat that harassed Delhi and reconquered Bengal , all while successfully facing the Mongol threat, during which his son died. After his death in 1287, his grandson Qaiqabad
360-655: A Dari dialect. In the 19th century, under the Qajar dynasty , the dialect that is spoken in Tehran rose to prominence. There was still substantial Arabic vocabulary, but many of these words have been integrated into Persian phonology and grammar. In addition, under the Qajar rule, numerous Russian , French , and English terms entered the Persian language, especially vocabulary related to technology. The first official attentions to
480-418: A dictionary called Words of Scientific Association ( لغت انجمن علمی ), which was completed in the future and renamed Katouzian Dictionary ( فرهنگ کاتوزیان ). The first academy for the Persian language was founded on 20 May 1935, under the name Academy of Iran . It was established by the initiative of Reza Shah Pahlavi , and mainly by Hekmat e Shirazi and Mohammad Ali Foroughi , all prominent names in
600-505: A language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Farsi , which is the Persian word for the Persian language, has also been used widely in English in recent decades, more often to refer to Iran's standard Persian. However, the name Persian is still more widely used. The Academy of Persian Language and Literature has maintained that the endonym Farsi is to be avoided in foreign languages, and that Persian
720-417: A literary language considerably different from the spoken Persian of the time. This became the basis of what is now known as "Contemporary Standard Persian". There are three standard varieties of modern Persian: All these three varieties are based on the classic Persian literature and its literary tradition. There are also several local dialects from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan which slightly differ from
840-578: A nobleman, Sheik Abdul Rahim, who had won his favour. Sheik Abdul Rahim later built Machchi Bhawan in this estate; this later became the seat of power from where his descendants, the Sheikhzades, controlled the region. Until 1719, the Subah of Awadh (bordering (Old) Delhi, Agra, Illahabad and Bihar) was a province of the Mughal Empire , administered by a Nazim or Subah Nawab (governor) appointed by
960-473: A pension of forty to fifty tankas. The younger Muqtas had been taxed for the surplus revenue (which was not taken from them as it should have) and the children and women who took possession of the Iqta of their forebears, were to be deprived of their Iqtas and compensated with the money required to sustain them. However, he was partially dissuaded from this ruling due to the advice of the old Kotwal, Fakhr ud-din, and
1080-536: A period of several centuries, Ottoman Turkish (which was highly Persianised itself) had developed toward a fully accepted language of literature, and which was even able to lexically 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%. In the Ottoman Empire, Persian was used at the royal court, for diplomacy, poetry, historiographical works, literary works, and
1200-630: A puppet king, who in the treaty of 1801 ceded half of Awadh to the British East India Company and also agreed to disband his troops in favour of a hugely expensive, British-run army. This treaty effectively made part of the state of Awadh a vassal to the British East India Company , though they continued to be part of the Mughal Empire in name till 1819. Coins were struck under the nawab's control for
1320-599: A speaker of Persian. Persian is a member of the Western Iranian group of the Iranian languages , which make up a branch of the Indo-European languages in their Indo-Iranian subdivision . The Western Iranian languages themselves are divided into two subgroups: Southwestern Iranian languages, of which Persian is the most widely spoken, and Northwestern Iranian languages, of which Kurdish and Balochi are
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#17327649826541440-580: A wall, approachable through two large gateways. These buildings are particularly interesting for their assimilative architectural styles. Shuja-ud-daula's wife was the well known Bahu Begum, who married the Nawab in 1743 and continued to reside in Faizabad, her residence being the Moti-Mahal. Close by at Jawaharbagh lies her Maqbara, where she was buried after her death in 1816. It is considered to be one of
1560-664: Is a continuation of Middle Persian , an official language of the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), itself a continuation of Old Persian , which was used in the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE). It originated in the region of Fars ( Persia ) in southwestern Iran. Its grammar is similar to that of many European languages. Throughout history, Persian was considered prestigious by various empires centered in West Asia , Central Asia , and South Asia . Old Persian
1680-628: Is a direct descendant of Middle and Old Persian. Gernot Windfuhr considers new Persian as an evolution of the Old Persian language and the Middle Persian language but also states that none of the known Middle Persian dialects is the direct predecessor of Modern Persian. Ludwig Paul states: "The language of the Shahnameh should be seen as one instance of continuous historical development from Middle to New Persian." The known history of
1800-485: Is a popularised term referring to the "glorious evenings" in the Awadh capitals of Faizabad and later (and even today and to a greater extent) Lucknow. Awadh was established in 1722. with Faizabad as its capital. Nawab Shuja-ud-Daula 's son Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula , the fourth Nawab of Awadh , shifted the capital from Faizabad to Lucknow; this led to the decline of Faizabad and rise of Lucknow. Just as Banares ( Varanasi )
1920-850: Is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan , as well as within other regions with a Persianate history in the cultural sphere of Greater Iran . It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet , a derivative of the Arabic script , and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet , a derivative of the Cyrillic script . Modern Persian
2040-675: Is attested in Old Persian cuneiform on inscriptions from between the 6th and 4th century BC. Middle Persian is attested in Aramaic -derived scripts ( Pahlavi and Manichaean ) on inscriptions and in Zoroastrian and Manichaean scriptures from between the third to the tenth centuries (see Middle Persian literature ). New Persian literature was first recorded in the ninth century, after the Muslim conquest of Persia , since then adopting
2160-425: Is conventionally divided into three stages: Early New Persian remains largely intelligible to speakers of Contemporary Persian, as the morphology and, to a lesser extent, the lexicon of the language have remained relatively stable. New Persian texts written in the Arabic script first appear in the 9th-century. The language is a direct descendant of Middle Persian, the official, religious, and literary language of
2280-460: Is known for its mornings, so Lucknow is for its evenings. Many of its well-known buildings were erected on the banks of the Gomti River in the time of Nawabs. The Nawabs used to take in a view of the river Gomti and its architecture in the evening hours, giving rise to Sham-e-Awadh's romantic reputation. There is a saying:'Subah-e-Benares', 'Sham-e-Awadh', 'Shab-e-Malwa' meaning mornings of
2400-460: Is not actually attested until 600 years later when it appears in the Sassanid era (224–651 AD) inscriptions, so any form of the language before this date cannot be described with any degree of certainty. Moreover, as a literary language, Middle Persian is not attested until much later, in the 6th or 7th century. From the 8th century onward, Middle Persian gradually began yielding to New Persian, with
2520-475: Is one of Afghanistan's two official languages, together with Pashto . The term Dari , meaning "of the court", originally referred to the variety of Persian used in the court of the Sasanian Empire in capital Ctesiphon , which was spread to the northeast of the empire and gradually replaced the former Iranian dialects of Parthia ( Parthian ). Tajik Persian ( форси́и тоҷикӣ́ , forsi-i tojikī ),
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#17327649826542640-585: Is one of the earliest attested Indo-European languages. According to certain historical assumptions about the early history and origin of ancient Persians in Southwestern Iran (where Achaemenids hailed from), Old Persian was originally spoken by a tribe called Parsuwash , who arrived in the Iranian Plateau early in the 1st millennium BCE and finally migrated down into the area of present-day Fārs province. Their language, Old Persian, became
2760-495: Is the appropriate designation of the language in English, as it has the longer tradition in western languages and better expresses the role of the language as a mark of cultural and national continuity. Iranian historian and linguist Ehsan Yarshater , founder of the Encyclopædia Iranica and Columbia University 's Center for Iranian Studies, mentions the same concern in an academic journal on Iranology , rejecting
2880-491: The Encyclopædia Iranica notes that the Iranian, Afghan, and Tajiki varieties comprise distinct branches of the Persian language, and within each branch a wide variety of local dialects exist. The following are some languages closely related to Persian, or in some cases are considered dialects: More distantly related branches of the Iranian language family include Kurdish and Balochi . The Glottolog database proposes
3000-506: The Kalila wa Dimna . The language spread geographically from the 11th century on and was the medium through which, among others, Central Asian Turks became familiar with Islam and urban culture. New Persian was widely used as a trans-regional lingua franca , a task aided due to its relatively simple morphology, and this situation persisted until at least the 19th century. In the late Middle Ages, new Islamic literary languages were created on
3120-594: The British Raj . Kanpur was one of the major centres of Indian rebellion of 1857 , participated actively in India's Independence movement , and emerged as an important city of North India . For about eighty-four years (from 1394 to 1478), Awadh was part of the Sharqi Sultanate of Jaunpur ; emperor Humayun made it a part of the Mughal Empire around 1555. Emperor Jehangir granted an estate in Awadh to
3240-668: The British colonization , Persian was widely used as a second language in the Indian subcontinent . It took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts on the subcontinent and became the sole "official language" under the Mughal emperors . The Bengal Sultanate witnessed an influx of Persian scholars, lawyers, teachers, and clerics. Thousands of Persian books and manuscripts were published in Bengal. The period of
3360-546: The Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages . Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran , Afghanistan , and Tajikistan in three mutually intelligible standard varieties , respectively Iranian Persian (officially known as Persian ), Dari Persian (officially known as Dari since 1964), and Tajiki Persian (officially known as Tajik since 1999). It
3480-627: The Ram Janmabhoomi , an important pilgrimage site in Hinduism that marks where the deity Rama was born. The Muslim community has a strong presence in the urban areas of Awadh, such as Prayagraj and the capital city of Lucknow , which has a large Shia Muslim population. Other than that they are mostly concentrated in the Devipatan division . The region of Awadh is considered to be the center of Ganga-Jamuni culture . Sham-e-Awadh
3600-674: The Sultanate of Rum , Turkmen beyliks of Anatolia , Delhi Sultanate , the Shirvanshahs , Safavids , Afsharids , Zands , Qajars , Khanate of Bukhara , Khanate of Kokand , Emirate of Bukhara , Khanate of Khiva , Ottomans , and also many Mughal successors such as the Nizam of Hyderabad . Persian was the only non-European language known and used by Marco Polo at the Court of Kublai Khan and in his journeys through China. A branch of
3720-713: The Turkic , Armenian , Georgian , & Indo-Aryan languages . It also exerted some influence on Arabic, while borrowing a lot of vocabulary from it in the Middle Ages. Some of the world's most famous pieces of literature from the Middle Ages, such as the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi , the works of Rumi , the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám , the Panj Ganj of Nizami Ganjavi , The Divān of Hafez , The Conference of
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3840-491: The ezāfe construction, expressed through ī (modern e/ye ), to indicate some of the relations between words that have been lost with the simplification of the earlier grammatical system. Although the "middle period" of the Iranian languages formally begins with the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the transition from Old to Middle Persian had probably already begun before the 4th century BC. However, Middle Persian
3960-535: The " Persianized " Turko-Mongol dynasties during the 12th to 15th centuries, and under restored Persian rule during the 16th to 19th centuries. Persian during this time served as lingua franca of Greater Persia and of much of the Indian subcontinent . It was also the official and cultural language of many Islamic dynasties, including the Samanids, Buyids , Tahirids , Ziyarids , the Mughal Empire , Timurids , Ghaznavids , Karakhanids , Seljuqs , Khwarazmians ,
4080-595: The Benares, evenings of the Awadh and nights of Malwa. Awadhi Cuisine is primarily from the city of Lucknow and its environs. The cooking patterns of the city are similar to those of Central Asia, the Middle East, and Northern India as well. The cuisine consists of both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. Awadh has been greatly influenced by Mughal cooking techniques , and the cuisine of Lucknow bears similarities to those of Kashmir , Punjab and Hyderabad ; and
4200-681: The Birds by Attar of Nishapur , and the miscellanea of Gulistan and Bustan by Saadi Shirazi , are written in Persian. Some of the prominent modern Persian poets were Nima Yooshij , Ahmad Shamlou , Simin Behbahani , Sohrab Sepehri , Rahi Mo'ayyeri , Mehdi Akhavan-Sales , and Forugh Farrokhzad . There are approximately 130 million Persian speakers worldwide, including Persians , Lurs , Tajiks , Hazaras , Iranian Azeris , Iranian Kurds , Balochs , Tats , Afghan Pashtuns , and Aimaqs . The term Persophone might also be used to refer to
4320-576: The British after aiding Mir Qasim the fugitive Nawab of Bengal . He was comprehensively defeated in the Battle of Buxar by the British East India Company , after which he was forced to pay heavy penalties and cede parts of his territory. The British appointed a resident at Lucknow in 1773, and over time gained control of more territory and authority in the state. They were disinclined to capture Awadh outright, because that would bring them face to face with
4440-538: The British had grown impatient with the arrangement and wanted direct control. They started looking about for an excuse, which the powerless Nawabs had to provide. On 1 May 1816, a British protectorate was signed. In 1856 the East India Company annexed the state under the Doctrine of Lapse , which was placed under a Chief Commissioner . Wajid Ali Shah , the then Nawab, was imprisoned, and then exiled by
4560-592: The Chowk and Tir-paulia and subsequently laid out the Angoori Bagh and Motibagh to the south of it, Asafbagh and Bulandbagh to the west of the city. During the reign of Shuja-Ud-Daula, Faizabad attained such a prosperity which it never saw again. The Nawabs graced Faizabad with several notable buildings, including the Gulab Bari , Moti Mahal and the tomb of Bahu Begum . Gulab Bari stands in a garden surrounded by
4680-585: The Emperor. Nawab –the plural of the Arabic word ' Naib ', meaning 'assistant'– was the term given to subahdars (provincial governors) appointed by the Mughal emperor all over India to assist him in managing the empire. In the absence of expeditious transport and communication facilities, they were practically independent rulers of their territory and wielded the power of life and death over their subjects. Persian adventurer Saadat Khan , also called Burhan-ul-Mulk,
4800-679: The Jagirdar (lord) of Hansi , which was an important fief. Balban was instrumental in the overthrow of Ala ud din Masud , installing Nasiruddin Mahmud as Sultan and himself as his Vizier from 1246 to 1265. Mahmud married one of Balban's daughters. Balban also installed Kishlu Khan, his younger brother, as lord chamberlain (Amir-i Hajib) and appointed his cousin, Sher Khan, to the Jagir of Lahore and Bhatinda . Balban's position did not go unnoticed by
4920-553: The Marathas and the remnants of the Mughal Empire. Asaf-ud-Daula , the fourth Nawab and son of Shuja-ud-Daula, moved the capital from Faizabad to Lucknow in 1775 and laid the foundation of a great city. His rule saw the building of the Asafi Imambara and Rumi Darwaza , built by Raja Tikait Rai Nawab Wazir (Diwan) of Awadh, which till date are the biggest architectural marvels in the city. Asaf-ud-Daula made Lucknow one of
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5040-565: The Middle Ages, and is because of the lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The standard Persian of Iran has been called, apart from Persian and Farsi , by names such as Iranian Persian and Western Persian , exclusively. Officially, the official language of Iran is designated simply as Persian ( فارسی , fārsi ). The standard Persian of Afghanistan has been officially named Dari ( دری , dari ) since 1958. Also referred to as Afghan Persian in English, it
5160-566: The Mongols' problem in India, as the quotation from Juvaini indicates. Their incursions seem to have been brief, even when not defeated by the forces of Delhi, and to have taken place in winter, because only then was it cool enough for the comfort of the Mongols' horses Since Sultan Nasiruddin did not have a male heir, after his death, Balban declared himself the Sultan of Delhi . Balban ascended
5280-543: 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 works during the Ottoman rule are Idris Bidlisi 's Hasht Bihisht , which began in 1502 and covered the reign of the first eight Ottoman rulers, and the Salim-Namah , a glorification of Selim I. After
5400-775: The Persian festival Nowruz (meaning New year). He himself called the Niyabat-i-Khudai. Ghiyas ud din Balban ruled as the Sultan from 1265 until his death in 1287. Balban's heir was his older son, Muhammad Khan, but he perished in a battle against the Mongols on 9 March 1285. His other son, Bughra Khan, was reluctant to assume the throne, and sought to remain the ruler of Bengal instead. Balban, therefore, chose his grandson, Kaikhasrau, son of Muhammad, as heir apparent. However, after his death his nobles nominated Qaiqubad as Sultan. Qaiqubad reign (1287–1290), while his father, Bughra Khan , asserted independence in Bengal. Qaiqubad
5520-530: The Persian language can be divided into the following three distinct periods: As a written language , Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscription , dating to the time of King Darius I (reigned 522–486 BC). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran , Romania ( Gherla ), Armenia , Bahrain , Iraq , Turkey, and Egypt . Old Persian
5640-425: The Persian language, a language historically called Dari, emerged in present-day Afghanistan. The first significant Persian poet was Rudaki . He flourished in the 10th century, when the Samanids were at the height of their power. His reputation as a court poet and as an accomplished musician and singer has survived, although little of his poetry has been preserved. Among his lost works are versified fables collected in
5760-401: The Persian model: Ottoman Turkish , Chagatai Turkic , Dobhashi Bengali , and Urdu, which are regarded as "structural daughter languages" of Persian. "Classical Persian" loosely refers to the standardized language of medieval Persia used in literature and poetry . This is the language of the 10th to 12th centuries, which continued to be used as literary language and lingua franca under
5880-487: The Perso-Arabic script. Persian was the first language to break through the monopoly of Arabic on writing in the Muslim world , with Persian poetry becoming a tradition in many eastern courts. It was used officially as a language of bureaucracy even by non-native speakers, such as the Ottomans in Anatolia , the Mughals in South Asia, and the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. It influenced languages spoken in neighboring regions and beyond, including other Iranian languages,
6000-428: The Sasanian Empire (224–651). However, it is not descended from the literary form of Middle Persian (known as pārsīk , commonly called Pahlavi), which was spoken by the people of Fars and used in Zoroastrian religious writings. Instead, it is descended from the dialect spoken by the court of the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon and the northeastern Iranian region of Khorasan , known as Dari. The region, which comprised
6120-427: The Sassanids (who were Persians, i.e. from the southwest) from the preceding Arsacids (who were Parthians, i.e. from the northeast). While Ibn al-Muqaffa' (eighth century) still distinguished between Pahlavi (i.e. Parthian) and Persian (in Arabic text: al-Farisiyah) (i.e. Middle Persian), this distinction is not evident in Arab commentaries written after that date. "New Persian" (also referred to as Modern Persian)
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#17327649826546240-407: The Seljuks, the Sultanate of Rum , took Persian language, art, and letters to Anatolia. They adopted the Persian language as the official language of the empire. The Ottomans , who can roughly be seen as their eventual successors, inherited this tradition. 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
6360-448: The Sultan led to the dismissal of Imad ud din at 1254, and Balban was reinstated. Balban's reign, according to Ziauddin Barani , was to install 'Fear of the governing power, which is the basis of all good government.' Furthermore, he "maintained that the Sultan was the 'shadow of God' and introduced rigorous court discipline." He depended upon Turkish nobility but formed an army of 2 lakh made up of all castes . A portion of this army
6480-412: The Sultan. He became one of the most notable of the forty Turkic nobles of Delhi, or the Chalissa . During the reign of Razia Sultan , he was the amir-i-shikar or lord of the hunt, a position of some importance at the time, having military and political responsibilities. After her overthrow, he made rapid strides in the subsequent reigns, earning the fief of Rewari under Bahram Shah , and later became
6600-441: The area of Lake Urmia in the records of Shalmaneser III . The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain, but from a linguistic viewpoint the word matches Old Persian pārsa itself coming directly from the older word * pārćwa . Also, as Old Persian contains many words from another extinct Iranian language, Median , according to P. O. Skjærvø it is probable that Old Persian had already been spoken before
6720-404: The arts. Under them music and dance flourished, and many monuments were erected. Of the monuments standing today, the Bara Imambara , the Chhota Imambara and the Rumi Darwaza are notable examples. One of the more lasting contributions by the Nawabs is the syncretic composite culture that has come to be known as the Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb . From the pre-historic period to the time of Akbar ,
6840-408: The capital was relocated to Lucknow , which is now the capital of Uttar Pradesh . The British conquered Awadh in 1856, which infuriated Indians and was recognised as a factor causing the Indian Mutiny (1857-58) , the biggest Indian uprising against British rule. The word Awadh is inherited from the Sanskrit word Ayodhya meaning "not to be warred against, irresistible". Awadh, known as
6960-456: The city is famous for its Nawabi foods. The bawarchis and rakabdars of Awadh gave birth to the dum style of cooking or the art of cooking over a slow fire, which has become synonymous with Lucknow today. Their spread would consist of elaborate dishes like kebabs , kormas , biryani , kaliya, nahari-kulchas , zarda, sheermal, Taftan, roomali rotis and warqi parathas . The richness of Awadh cuisine lies not only in
7080-475: The city of Faizabad gradually fell into decay. The glory of Faizabad finally eclipsed with the shifting of capital from Faizabad to Lucknow by Nawab Asaf-ud-daula . The Nawabs of Awadh were a Persian Shia Muslim dynasty from Nishapur , who not only encouraged the existing Persian-language belle-lettrist activity to shift from Delhi, but also invited, and received, a steady stream of scholars, poets, jurists, architects, and painters from Iran . Thus Persian
7200-457: The code fas for the dialects spoken across Iran and Afghanistan. This consists of the individual languages Dari ( prs ) and Iranian Persian ( pes ). It uses tgk for Tajik, separately. In general, the Iranian languages are known from three periods: namely Old, Middle, and New (Modern). These correspond to three historical eras of Iranian history ; Old era being sometime around the Achaemenid Empire (i.e., 400–300 BC), Middle era being
7320-512: The collapse of the Sassanid state, Parsik came to be applied exclusively to (either Middle or New) Persian that was written in the Arabic script . From about the 9th century onward, as Middle Persian was on the threshold of becoming New Persian, the older form of the language came to be erroneously called Pahlavi , which was actually but one of the writing systems used to render both Middle Persian as well as various other Middle Iranian languages. That writing system had previously been adopted by
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#17327649826547440-402: The company to Calcutta (Bengal). In the subsequent Revolt of 1857 , his 14-year-old son Birjis Qadra son of Begum Hazrat Mahal was crowned ruler, and Sir Henry Lawrence killed in the hostilities. In the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (also known as the First War of Indian Independence and the Indian Mutiny ), the rebels took control of Awadh, and it took the British 18 months to reconquer
7560-421: The countryside, killing Tughral and his followers. His son, Nasiruddin Bughra Khan , assisted him in this mission. Balban then placed his second son, Bughra Khan , as governor. However, Bughra declared independence after Balban's death, which he maintained for 40 years. One of the famous military campaigns of Balban was against Meo , or Mayo, the people of Mewat who used to plunder the people of Delhi even in
7680-453: The daylight. The distress caused by the Meo is well described in Barani's words: He has killed many Meos in his military campaign. Balban took upon himself the exterminating the turbulent tribes of Mewat and Awadh , destroying strongholds and villages. He then built military outposts, gave land to soldiers and Afghans to settle. He garrisoned forts at key locations, cleared forests and ensured safe roads. He also unsuccessfully laid siege to
7800-430: The extent of its influence on certain languages of the Indian subcontinent. Words borrowed from Persian are still quite commonly used in certain Indo-Aryan languages, especially Hindi - Urdu (also historically known as Hindustani ), Punjabi , Kashmiri , and Sindhi . There is also a small population of Zoroastrian Iranis in India, who migrated in the 19th century to escape religious execution in Qajar Iran and speak
7920-405: The finest buildings of its kind in Awadh, which was built at the cost of three lakh rupees by her chief advisor Darab Ali Khan. A fine view of the city is obtainable from top of the begum's tomb. Bahu Begum was a woman of great distinction and rank, bearing dignity. Most of the Muslim buildings of Faizabad are attributed to her. From the date of Bahu Begum's death in 1815 till the annexation of Avadh,
8040-506: The first time in 1737, at a new mint opened in Banaras , although the coins named the Mughal emperor, not the Nawab. After the Battle of Buxar, the British seized Banaras, and so the mint was moved in 1776 to Lucknow. From there, coins in the name of the Mughal emperor continued to be struck, and they continued to name Muhammadabad Banaras as the mint. It was only in 1819 that Nawab Ghaziuddin Haidar finally started to strike coins in his own name. Soon thereafter, Awadhi coins started to feature
8160-405: The following phylogenetic classification: Awadh Awadh ( Hindi: [əˈʋədʱ] ), known in British historical texts as Avadh or Oudh , is a historical region in northern India, now constituting the northeastern portion of Uttar Pradesh . It is roughly synonymous with the ancient Kosala region of Hindu , Buddhist , and Jain scriptures . It was a province of all
8280-444: The formation of many modern languages in West Asia, Europe, Central Asia , and South Asia . Following the Turko-Persian Ghaznavid conquest of South Asia , Persian was firstly introduced in the region by Turkic Central Asians. The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties. For five centuries prior to
8400-421: The formation of the Achaemenid Empire and was spoken during most of the first half of the first millennium BCE. Xenophon , a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BCE, which is when Old Persian was still spoken and extensively used. He relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like
8520-415: The fortress of Ranthambore , but did recapture Gwalior from the Rajputs . In 1247, Balban suppressed a rising of the Chandela Chief of Kalinjar . Balban's military reign also distinguished with his success in repelling Mongol army. This could be achieved because his cavalry horses were better suited to Indian climate and naturally bred larger than Mongol's horses. The extreme heat of summer constituted
8640-405: The governor of Budaun , was punished for ordering one of his slaves to be beaten to death, apparently when being drunk. Another governor, Haibat Khan, was handed over to the slave's widow for punishment. About his justice Dr. Ishwari Prasad remarked "So great was the dread of Sultan's inexorable justice that no one dared to ill-treat his servant and slaves." Balban re-organised the military against
8760-810: The granary of India, was important strategically for the control of the Doab , a fertile plain between the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers. It was a wealthy kingdom, able to maintain its independence against threats from the Marathas , the British and the Afghans . Awadh's political unity can be traced back to the ancient Hindu kingdom of Kosala , with Ayodhya as its early capital in traditional history, though in Buddhist times (6th–5th century BCE ) Shravasti became
8880-520: The great Hindi-Urdu novelist writer Munshi Premchand . The 1961 film Gunga Jumna is portrayed in Awadh and was noted for its use of the Awadhi dialect in mainstream Hindi cinema . The novel Umrao Jaan Ada as well as the subsequent films are based on two cultural cities of Awadh, Lucknow and Faizabad . The region has been in the center of various period films of Bollywood and modern films like Main, Meri Patni Aur Woh and Paa to name
9000-464: The king and kissing his feet." Nevertheless, Ghiyas-ud-din Balban still went on hunting expeditions, though these were more frequently used as a form of military training. There were large scale conversions to Islam in Punjab under his reign. Balban was the first who introduced the famous Persian Festival of Nauroz. He started Iranian method Sijda and Paibos to the sultan in India. He also introduced
9120-489: The kingdom's European style coat of arms. The wars and transactions in which Shuja-ud-Daula was engaged, both with and against the British East India Company , led to the addition of Karra , Allahabad , Fatehgarh , Kanpur , Etawah , Mainpuri , Farrukhabad and Rohilkhand , to the Oudh dimensions, and thus they remained until the treaty of 1801 with Saadat Ali Khan, by which province was reduced considerably as half of Oudh
9240-468: The kingdom's capital city. Modern Awadh finds historical mention only in the Mughal time of Akbar , in the late 16th century. In prehistoric times, Awadh, reputedly the kingdom of Bikukshi, contained five main divisions : Since AD 1350 different parts of the Awadh region were ruled by the Delhi Sultanate , Sharqi Sultanate , Mughal Empire , Nawabs of Awadh , East India Company and
9360-466: The language of the Persians. Related to Old Persian, but from a different branch of the Iranian language family, was Avestan , the language of the Zoroastrian liturgical texts. The complex grammatical conjugation and declension of Old Persian yielded to the structure of Middle Persian in which the dual number disappeared, leaving only singular and plural, as did gender. Middle Persian developed
9480-400: The limits of the subah (imperial top-level province) and its internal divisions seem to have been constantly changing, and the name of Oudh, or Awadh, seems to have been applicable to only one of the ancient divisions or Sarkars , nearly corresponding to old Pachhimrath . The title of Subehdar (governor) of Awadh is mentioned as early as 1280 AD, but it can only have denoted the governor of
9600-403: The major Islamic dynasties in India including the Mughal Empire . With the decline of late Mughal Delhi , Awadh became a major source of literary, artistic, religious, and architectural patronage in northern India under the rule of its eleven rulers, called Nawabs . From 1720 to 1856, the nawabs presided over Awadh, with Ayodhya and Faizabad serving as the region's initial capitals. Later,
9720-432: The middle-period form only continuing in the texts of Zoroastrianism . Middle Persian is considered to be a later form of the same dialect as Old Persian. The native name of Middle Persian was Parsig or Parsik , after the name of the ethnic group of the southwest, that is, "of Pars ", Old Persian Parsa , New Persian Fars . This is the origin of the name Farsi as it is today used to signify New Persian. Following
9840-400: The most prosperous and glittering cities in all India. It is said, he moved because he wanted to get away from the control of a dominant mother. On such a thread did the fate of the city of Lucknow depend. In 1798, the fifth Nawab Wazir Ali Khan alienated both his people and the British, and was forced to abdicate. The British then helped Saadat Ali Khan to the throne. Saadat Ali Khan was
9960-536: The most widely spoken. The term Persian is an English derivation of Latin Persiānus , the adjectival form of Persia , itself deriving from Greek Persís ( Περσίς ), a Hellenized form of Old Persian Pārsa ( 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 ), which means " Persia " (a region in southwestern Iran, corresponding to modern-day Fars ). According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the term Persian as
10080-466: The nationalist movement of the time. The academy was a key institution in the struggle to re-build Iran as a nation-state after the collapse of the Qajar dynasty. During the 1930s and 1940s, the academy led massive campaigns to replace the many Arabic , Russian , French , and Greek loanwords whose widespread use in Persian during the centuries preceding the foundation of the Pahlavi dynasty had created
10200-499: The necessity of protecting the Persian language against foreign words, and to the standardization of Persian orthography , were under the reign of Naser ed Din Shah of the Qajar dynasty in 1871. After Naser ed Din Shah, Mozaffar ed Din Shah ordered the establishment of the first Persian association in 1903. This association officially declared that it used Persian and Arabic as acceptable sources for coining words. The ultimate goal
10320-414: The next period most officially around the Sasanian Empire , and New era being the period afterward down to present day. According to available documents, the Persian language is "the only Iranian language" for which close philological relationships between all of its three stages are established and so that Old, Middle, and New Persian represent one and the same language of Persian; that is, New Persian
10440-732: The northern part of Greece). Vardar Yenicesi differed from other localities in the Balkans insofar as that it was a town where Persian was also widely spoken. However, the Persian of Vardar Yenicesi and throughout the rest of the Ottoman-held Balkans was different from formal Persian both in accent and vocabulary. The difference was apparent to such a degree that the Ottomans referred to it as "Rumelian Persian" ( Rumili Farsisi ). As learned people such as students, scholars and literati often frequented Vardar Yenicesi, it soon became
10560-481: The offices of lieutenant-governor of the North-Western Provinces and chief commissioner of Oudh were combined in the same person; and in 1902, when the new name of United Provinces of Agra and Oudh was introduced, the title of chief commissioner was dropped, though Oudh still retained some marks of its former independence. A vast majority of the population practices Hinduism . It is also home to
10680-542: The official language of the Achaemenid kings. Assyrian records, which in fact appear to provide the earliest evidence for ancient Iranian (Persian and Median) presence on the Iranian Plateau, give a good chronology but only an approximate geographical indication of what seem to be ancient Persians. In these records of the 9th century BCE, Parsuwash (along with Matai , presumably Medians) are first mentioned in
10800-487: The old nobles retained their lands. Balban's steps against the nobility were so extreme as to raise suspicion from his brother, Sher Khan, who is said to have never visited Delhi. It appears that resentment between the brothers had to come to a degree that made the Sultan poison his brother. "Balban's court was an austere assembly where zest and laughter were unknown and where wine and gambling were banished." He "introduced rigorous court discipline such as prostration before
10920-478: The other nobles and there was some resentment. His main antagonist was Imad ud-din Raihan, who in works written after Balban's time, is characterized as a Hindu Murtad (who revoked Islam), although some claim him to be of Turkic origin as well. Imad ud-din managed to persuade the Sultan that Balban was an usurper. Balban and his kin were dismissed and even challenged in combat. However, negotiations between Balban and
11040-694: The present territories of northwestern Afghanistan as well as parts of Central Asia, played a leading role in the rise of New Persian. Khorasan, which was the homeland of the Parthians, was Persianized under the Sasanians. Dari Persian thus supplanted Parthian language , which by the end of the Sasanian era had fallen out of use. New Persian has incorporated many foreign words, including from eastern northern and northern Iranian languages such as Sogdian and especially Parthian. The transition to New Persian
11160-595: The region during the following centuries. Persian continued to act as a courtly language for various empires in Punjab through the early 19th century serving finally as the official state language of the Sikh Empire , preceding British conquest and the decline of Persian in South Asia. Beginning in 1843, though, English and Hindustani gradually replaced Persian in importance on the subcontinent. Evidence of Persian's historical influence there can be seen in
11280-538: The region, months which included the famous Siege of Lucknow . The Tarai to the north of Bahraich including large quantity of valuable forest and grazing ground, was made over to the Nepal Darbar in 1860, in recognition of their services during the Revolt of 1857 , and in 1874 some further cessions, on a much smaller scale, but without any apparent reason, were made in favour of the same Government. In 1877
11400-549: The reign of Sultan Ghiyathuddin Azam Shah is described as the "golden age of Persian literature in Bengal". Its stature was illustrated by the Sultan's own correspondence and collaboration with the Persian poet Hafez ; a poem which can be found in the Divan of Hafez today. A Bengali dialect emerged among the common Bengali Muslim folk, based on a Persian model and known as Dobhashi ; meaning mixed language . Dobhashi Bengali
11520-613: The site of a flourishing Persianate linguistic and literary culture. The 16th-century Ottoman Aşık Çelebi (died 1572), who hailed from Prizren in modern-day Kosovo , was galvanized by the abundant Persian-speaking and Persian-writing communities of Vardar Yenicesi, and he referred to the city as a "hotbed of Persian". Many Ottoman Persianists who established a career in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul ) pursued early Persian training in Saraybosna, amongst them Ahmed Sudi . The Persian language influenced
11640-537: The son of a Central Asian Turkic noble. As a child, he was captured by the Mongols and sold as a slave to Khwaja Jamal ud-din Basri. Khwaja brought him to Delhi where he and the other slaves were bought by Sultan Shams-ud-din Iltutmish , himself a captured Ilbari Turk in origin in 1232. Balban was first appointed as a simple water carrier, but quickly rose to the position of Khasdar (king's personal attendant) by
11760-573: The standard Persian of Tajikistan, has been officially designated as Tajik ( тоҷикӣ , tojikī ) since the time of the Soviet Union . It is the name given to the varieties of Persian spoken in Central Asia in general. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa for the Persian language, as its coding system is mostly based on the native-language designations. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses
11880-777: The standard Persian. The Hazaragi dialect (in Central Afghanistan and Pakistan), Herati (in Western Afghanistan), Darwazi (in Afghanistan and Tajikistan), Basseri (in Southern Iran), and the Tehrani accent (in Iran, the basis of standard Iranian Persian) are examples of these dialects. Persian-speaking peoples of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan can understand one another with a relatively high degree of mutual intelligibility . Nevertheless,
12000-456: The threat of the Mongols. He re-organised the revenues of the Iqtadars, which have been passed on to the children of their original holders from the time of Shams ud-din , or maintained their hold of the Iqta even after they ceased to serve in the military. The old Muqta's, who could not serve as military commanders (emirs) for their revenue, were to be dismissed from their fief and settled with
12120-859: The throne in 1266 at the age of fifty with the title of Sultan Ghiyas-ud-din-Balban . During his reign, Balban ruled with an iron fist. He broke up the ' Chahalgani ', a group of the forty most important nobles in the court. Balban wanted to make sure everyone was loyal to the crown by establishing an efficient espionage system, in the style of the Umayyad Barid . Sultan Balban had a strong and well-organized intelligence system. Balban employed spies, barids , to inform on his officials. He placed secret reporters and news-writers in every department. The spies were independent authority who were only answerable to Sultan. Furthermore, Balban had his nobles punished most harshly for any mishap, including severe treatment of their own slaves. One of his nobles, Malik Baqbaq,
12240-485: The time of annexation to British India in 1858, and to have differed only in including Gorakhpur, Basti , and Azamgarh , and in excluding Tanda, Aldemau, Rajesultanpur and Manikpur, or the territory to the east and South of Faizabad, Sultanpur and Pratapgarh . As the Mughal power declined and the emperors lost their paramountcy and they became first the puppets and then the prisoners of their feudatories, so Awadh grew stronger and more independent. Its capital city
12360-416: The tombs have collapsed and the structures were mostly ruined until restored in recent years when the conservation work began in the park. Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of
12480-485: The tract of the country above defined. The Awadh of Mughal Badshah (emperor) Akbar was one of the twelve (or fifteen) subahs into which he divided the Mughal Empire as it stood in 1590. As constituted at the end of the sixteenth century, the Subah contained five sarkars , viz. Awadh, Lucknow, Bahraich , Khairabad and Gorakhpur , which in turn were divided in numerous mahals and dasturs (districts). Khan Zaman Khan Ali Asghar son of Qazi Ghulam Mustafa
12600-485: The use of Farsi in foreign languages. Etymologically, the Persian term Farsi derives from its earlier form Pārsi ( Pārsik in Middle Persian ), which in turn comes from the same root as the English term Persian . In the same process, the Middle Persian toponym Pārs ("Persia") evolved into the modern name Fars. The phonemic shift from /p/ to /f/ is due to the influence of Arabic in
12720-405: The variety of cuisine but also in the ingredients used like mutton , paneer , and rich spices including cardamom and saffron . The events surrounding the 1856 overthrow of Wajid Ali Shah and the annexation of Awadh by the British are depicted in the 1977 film The Chess Players by the acclaimed Indian director Satyajit Ray . This film is based on famous Urdu story Shatranj Ke Khilari by
12840-463: Was Faizabad. Saadat Khan , the first Nawab of Awadh, laid the foundation of Faizabad at the outskirt of ancient city of Ayodhya . Faizabad developed as a township during the reign of Safdar Jang, the second nawab of Avadh (1739–54), who made it his military headquarters while his successor Shuja-ud-daula made it a full-fledged capital city. Shuja-ud-Daula, the third Nawab of Awadh, built a fort known as "Chhota Calcutta", now in ruins. In 1765 he built
12960-409: Was a province of the Mughal Empire administered by a Nawab . Awadh was known as the granary of India and was important strategically for the control of the Doab , the fertile plain between the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers. It was a wealthy kingdom, able to maintain its independence against threats from the Marathas , the British and the Afghans . The third Nawab, Shuja-ud-Daula fell out with
13080-597: Was already complete by the era of the three princely dynasties of Iranian origin, the Tahirid dynasty (820–872), Saffarid dynasty (860–903), and Samanid Empire (874–999). Abbas of Merv is mentioned as being the earliest minstrel to chant verse in the New Persian tongue and after him the poems of Hanzala Badghisi were among the most famous between the Persian-speakers of the time. The first poems of
13200-470: Was appointed as Subahdar of Awadh during the reign of Farrukhsiyar . This appointment was made in place of 'Aziz Khan Chughtai'. Later on, Mahabat Khan was appointed as Subahdar of Awadh in place of Khan Zaman Khan Ali Asghar, who was all over again transferred to Azimabad (Patna) as Subahdar in place of 'Sar Buland Khan'. It seems to have been of nearly the same extent as the Province of Oudh at
13320-646: Was appointed the Nazim of Awadh in 1722 and he established his court in Faizabad near Lucknow . The Nawabs of Lucknow were in fact the Nawabs of Awadh, but were so referred to because after the reign of the third Nawab, Lucknow became the capital of their realm, where the British station Residents ('diplomatic' colonial Agents) from 1773. The city was "North India's cultural capital"; its nawabs, best remembered for their refined and extravagant lifestyles, were patrons of
13440-552: Was ceded to the British East India Company . Khairigarh, Kanchanpur, and what is now the Nepal Terai, were ceded in 1816, in liquidation of Ghazi ud din Haider 's loan of a million sterling towards the expense of Nepal War ; and at the same time pargana of Nawabganj was added to Gonda district in exchange for Handia, or Kawai, which was transferred from Pratapgarh to Allahabad. The treaty of 1801 formed an arrangement that
13560-405: Was made up of commandos . Balban had several military achievements during his vizierhood, first raising the Mongol siege of Uch under Masud Shah in 1246. When the governor of Bengal, Tughral Tughan Khan , revoked the authority of Delhi in 1275, Balban first sent the governor of Awadh and then a second army, both of which met with failure. Balban then accompanied a third army which reconquered
13680-455: Was nominated sultan, though his rule undermined the success made under his grandfather's reign. In spite of having only a few military achievements, Balban reformed civil and military lines that earned him a stable and prosperous government granting him the position, along with Shams ud-din Iltutmish and the later Alauddin Khalji , one of the most powerful rulers of Delhi Sultanate . He was
13800-597: Was patronised and given official status under the Sultans of Bengal , and was a popular literary form used by Bengalis during the pre-colonial period, irrespective of their religion. Following the defeat of the Hindu Shahi dynasty, classical Persian was established as a courtly language in the region during the late 10th century under Ghaznavid rule over the northwestern frontier of the subcontinent . Employed by Punjabis in literature, Persian achieved prominence in
13920-613: Was taught in state schools, and was also offered as an elective course or recommended for study in some madrasas . Persian learning was also widespread in the Ottoman-held Balkans ( Rumelia ), with a range of cities being famed for their long-standing traditions in the study of Persian and its classics, amongst them Saraybosna (modern Sarajevo , Bosnia and Herzegovina), Mostar (also in Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Vardar Yenicesi (or Yenice-i Vardar, now Giannitsa , in
14040-492: Was to prevent books from being printed with wrong use of words. According to the executive guarantee of this association, the government was responsible for wrongfully printed books. Words coined by this association, such as rāh-āhan ( راهآهن ) for "railway", were printed in Soltani Newspaper ; but the association was eventually closed due to inattention. A scientific association was founded in 1911, resulting in
14160-506: Was used in government, in academic instruction, in high culture, and in court. Saadat Khan Burhanul Mulk was appointed Nawab in 1722 and established his court in Faizabad near Lucknow. He took advantage of a weakening Mughal Empire in Delhi to lay the foundation of the Awadh dynasty. His successor was Safdarjung the very influential noble at the Mughal court in Delhi. Until 1819, Awadh
14280-406: Was very beneficial to the company. They were able to use Awadh's vast treasuries, repeatedly digging into them for loans at reduced rates. In addition, the revenues from running Awadh's armed forces brought them useful revenues while it acted as a buffer state . The Nawabs were ceremonial kings, limited to pomp and show but with little influence over matters of state. By the mid-19th century, however,
14400-682: Was very weak and incompetent and eventually fell to stroke and had to pass the rule to his three years old son, Shamsuddin Kayumars , who was eventually dethroned by his guardian, Jalal ud din Firuz Khalji in 1290, bringing an end to the Slave dynasty. Today, Tomb of Balban lies within the Mehrauli Archaeological Park in Delhi, adjacent to which stands that of his son Khan Shahid and a walled mosque. The domes of both
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