148-590: Bamyan Province , also spelled Bamiyan , Bāmīān or Bāmyān ( Persian : ولایت بامیان ), is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan with the city of Bamyan as its center, located in central parts of Afghanistan. The terrain in Bamyan is mountainous or semi-mountainous, at the western end of the Hindu Kush mountains concurrent with the Himalayas . The province is divided into eight districts , with
296-768: A Macedonian princess, a gift from Seleucus to formalize an alliance. In a return gesture, Chandragupta sent 500 war elephants , a military asset which would play a decisive role at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC. In addition to this treaty, Seleucus dispatched an ambassador, Megasthenes , to Chandragupta, and later Deimakos to his son Bindusara , at the Mauryan court at Pataliputra (modern Patna in Bihar state ). Megasthenes wrote detailed descriptions of India and Chandragupta's reign, which have been partly preserved to us through Diodorus Siculus . Later Ptolemy II Philadelphus ,
444-655: 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
592-418: 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
740-505: 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
888-417: 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
1036-541: A marriage contract, and received in return five hundred elephants. Other territories ceded before Seleucus' death were Gedrosia in the south-east of the Iranian plateau, and, to the north of this, Arachosia on the west bank of the Indus River . Following his and Lysimachus ' decisive victory over Antigonus at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC, Seleucus took control over eastern Anatolia and northern Syria . In
1184-536: 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
1332-550: A regular basis, with occasional intervention from Ptolemaic Egypt and other outside powers. The Seleucids existed solely because no other nation wished to absorb them—seeing as they constituted a useful buffer between their other neighbours. In the wars in Anatolia between Mithridates VI of Pontus and Sulla of Rome, the Seleucids were largely left alone by both major combatants. Mithridates' ambitious son-in-law, Tigranes
1480-466: A reply to lay before the senate." For a few moments he hesitated, astounded at such a peremptory order, and at last replied, "I will do what the senate thinks right." He then chose to withdraw rather than set the empire to war with Rome again. On his return journey, according to Josephus , he made an expedition to Judea , took Jerusalem by force, slew a great many who had favored Ptolemy , sent his soldiers to plunder them without mercy. He also spoiled
1628-560: A rump Seleucid kingdom was restored under Antiochus XIII . Even so, civil wars could not be prevented, as another Seleucid, Philip II , contested rule with Antiochus. After the Roman conquest of Pontus, the Romans became increasingly alarmed at the constant source of instability in Syria under the Seleucids. Once Mithridates was defeated by Pompey in 63 BC, Pompey set about the task of remaking
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#17327722930231776-519: A series of religious persecutions. This cumulated in a localized revolt in Jerusalem. Antiochus IV's violent retaking of the city and the banning of traditional Judean practices led to the eventual loss of control of Judea by the Seleucid government, paving the way for the rise of an independent Hasmonean kingdom . As with the other major Hellenistic armies , the Seleucid army fought primarily in
1924-599: 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
2072-624: A successful war against the old enemy, Ptolemaic Egypt , which met with initial success as the Seleucids defeated and drove the Egyptian army back to Alexandria itself. As the king planned on how to conclude the war, he was informed that Roman commissioners, led by the Proconsul Gaius Popillius Laenas , were near and requesting a meeting with the Seleucid king. Antiochus agreed, but when they met and Antiochus held out his hand in friendship, Popilius placed in his hand
2220-468: A tiny minority of the overall population, these Greeks were the backbone of the empire: loyal and committed to a cause that gave them vast territory to rule, they overwhelmingly served in the military and government. Unlike Ptolemaic Egypt , Greeks in the Seleucid Empire seem to rarely have engaged in mixed marriages with non-Greeks; they kept to their own cities. The various non-Greek peoples of
2368-664: 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
2516-628: 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
2664-631: Is also known for a "shuttle system" of planting, wherein seed potatoes are grown in winter in Jalalabad , a warm area of eastern Afghanistan, and then transferred to Bamyan for spring re-planting. Prior to the Soviet invasion of 1979, the province attracted many tourists. Although this number is considerably fewer now, Bamyan is the first province in Afghanistan to have set up a tourist board, Bamyan Tourism. A feature of this developing tourist industry
2812-850: 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
2960-488: Is around 495,557. The following is a list of the districts with the 2021–22 estimates of their settled population: 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 the Indo-Iranian subdivision of
3108-675: 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
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#17327722930233256-591: Is based on skiing. The province is said to have 'some of the best "outback skiing" in the world and in 2008 an $ 1.2 million project to encourage skiing was launched by the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) with the help of NZAID , New Zealand government's international aid agency. The province hosts the Afghan Ski Challenge, a 7 km downhill race over ungroomed and powdered snow, founded by Swiss journalist and skier Christoph Zurcher. Tissot ,
3404-425: 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
3552-460: 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
3700-485: Is now Afghanistan and Pakistan , therefore including a diverse array of cultures and ethnic groups. Greeks , Assyrians , Armenians , Georgians , Persians , Medes , Mesopotamians, Jews , and more all lived within its bounds. The immense size of the empire gave the Seleucid rulers a difficult balancing act to maintain order, resulting in a mixture of concessions to local cultures to maintain their own practices while also firmly controlling and unifying local elites under
3848-464: Is now Iran, and towards Europe via the area north of the Caspian Sea . The region as a whole was called Ariana . The people shared similar culture with other Indo-Iranians . The ancient religion of Kafiristan survived here until the 19th century. Another religion, Zoroastrianism is believed by some to have originated in what is now Afghanistan between 1800 and 800 BC, as its founder Zoroaster
3996-475: 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 ),
4144-585: 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
4292-495: 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
4440-577: Is thought to have lived and died in Balkh . Ancient Eastern Iranian languages may have been spoken in the region around the time of the rise of Zoroastrianism. By the middle of the 6th century BC, the Achaemenid Persians overthrew the Medes and incorporated Arachosia , Aria , and Bactria within its eastern boundaries. An inscription on the tombstone of King Darius I of Persia mentions
4588-436: 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
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4736-506: 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
4884-648: The Battle of Mount Labus and Battle of the Arius and besieged the Bactrian capital . He even emulated Seleucus with an expedition into India where he met with King Sophagasenus ( Sanskrit : Subhagasena ) receiving war elephants, perhaps in accordance of the existing treaty and alliance set after the Seleucid-Mauryan War. Actual translation of Polybius 11.34 (No other source except Polybius makes any reference to Sophagasenus): He [Antiochus] crossed
5032-668: 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
5180-593: The Buddhas of Bamyan , measuring 53 and 40 meters high respectively, which were the largest examples of standing Buddha carvings in the world. They were probably erected in the 4th or 5th century A.D. They were cultural landmarks for many years and are listed among UNESCO 's World Heritage Sites . By the 7th century, when the Arabs first arrived, it was under the control of the Turk Shahis before being conquered in
5328-619: The Fifth Syrian War , the Seleucids ousted Ptolemy V from control of Coele-Syria . The Battle of Panium (200 BC) definitively transferred these holdings from the Ptolemies to the Seleucids. Antiochus appeared, at the least, to have restored the Seleucid Kingdom to glory. Following the defeat of his erstwhile ally Philip by Rome in 197 BC, Antiochus saw the opportunity for expansion into Greece itself. Encouraged by
5476-452: 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
5624-585: The Kabul Valley in a list of the 29 countries that he had conquered. In 330 BC, Alexander the Great seized the area but left it to the Seleucids to rule. Afghanistan's significant ancient tangible and intangible Buddhist heritage is recorded through wide-ranging archeological finds, including religious and artistic remnants. Buddhist doctrines are reported to have reached as far as Balkh even during
5772-587: The Roman Republic under Pompey in 63 BC. After receiving the Mesopotamian regions of Babylonia and Assyria in 321 BC, Seleucus I began expanding his dominions to include the Near Eastern territories that encompass modern-day Iraq , Iran , Afghanistan , Syria , and Lebanon , all of which had been under Macedonian control after the fall of the former Persian Achaemenid Empire . At
5920-672: The Soviet-Afghan War , the Hazara rebel leader Abdul Ali Mazari began a resistance movement against the Soviets in the region, Shura-e-Itifaq-e-Islami. In the early 1990s, there was an agreement to run Bamyan under a council of "local ethnic and political groups". Later in the 1990s, the Taliban took control of the region and made their own government; one notable figure of this group was Mohammed Akbari, who effectively worked with
6068-674: 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
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6216-713: 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
6364-491: 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
6512-463: The temple , and interrupted the constant practice of offering a daily sacrifice of expiation, for three years and six months. The latter part of his reign saw a further disintegration of the Empire despite his best efforts. Weakened economically, militarily and by loss of prestige, the Empire became vulnerable to rebels in the eastern areas of the empire, who began to further undermine the empire while
6660-597: 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 ,
6808-588: The 2nd century BC, ancient writers referred to them as the Syrian kings, the kings of Syria or of the Syrians, the kings descended from Seleucus Nicator, the kings of Asia, and other designations. Alexander , who quickly conquered the Persian Empire under its last Achaemenid dynast, Darius III , died young in 323 BC, leaving an expansive empire of partly Hellenised culture without an adult heir. The empire
6956-452: The Afghanistan government believed could be the start of a turnaround for their military in the region. In August 2021, Ashraf Ghani 's government collapsed, and the Taliban took Bamyan on August 15. Initially, there was a conflict between different Taliban members in the area of whether or not policies put in place in the province to show the new Taliban government would be more liberal or moderate in its ideology. Other Taliban members resented
7104-572: 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
7252-447: The Buddhas of Bamiyan, claiming they were symbols of idolatry. UNESCO called it a "crime against culture". Later in 2001, the U.S. and NATO invaded Afghanistan , and local militias in Bamyan sided with them to fight against the Taliban. There was evidence that Taliban fighters started massacring many Hazaras there in October. The Taliban fled the region in December. NATO eventually created a new government in Afghanistan. In 2003, Bamyan
7400-453: The Caucasus Indicus (Paropamisus) ( Hindu Kush ) and descended into India; renewed his friendship with Sophagasenus the king of the Indians; received more elephants, until he had a hundred and fifty altogether; and having once more provisioned his troops, set out again personally with his army: leaving Androsthenes of Cyzicus the duty of taking home the treasure which this king had agreed to hand over to him. Having traversed Arachosia and crossed
7548-412: The Great attempted to project Seleucid power and authority into Hellenistic Greece , but his attempts were thwarted by the Roman Republic and its Greek allies. The Seleucids were forced to pay costly war reparations and had to relinquish territorial claims west of the Taurus Mountains in southern Anatolia , marking the gradual decline of their empire. Mithridates I of Parthia conquered much of
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#17327722930237696-447: The Great , king of Armenia , however, saw opportunity for expansion in the constant civil strife to the south. In 83 BC, at the invitation of one of the factions in the interminable civil wars, he invaded Syria and soon established himself as ruler of Syria, putting the Seleucid Empire virtually at an end. Seleucid rule was not entirely over, however. Following the Roman general Lucullus ' defeat of both Mithridates and Tigranes in 69 BC,
7844-466: The Greco-Macedonian style, with its main body being the phalanx . The phalanx was a large, dense formation of men armed with small shields and a long pike called the sarissa . This form of fighting had been developed by the Macedonian army in the reign of Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great. Alongside the phalanx, the Seleucid armies used numerous native and mercenary troops to supplement their Greek forces, which were limited due to
7992-468: The Greek language, wrote in Greek, absorbed Greek philosophical ideas, and took on Greek names; some of these practices then slowly filtered down to the lower classes. Hellenic ideas began an almost 250-year expansion into the Near East, Middle East, and Central Asian cultures. Synthesizing Hellenic and indigenous cultural, religious, and philosophical ideas – an ethnic unity framework established by Alexander – met with varying degrees of success. The result
8140-416: The Hellenistic East , by creating new client kingdoms and establishing provinces. While client nations like Armenia and Judea were allowed to continue with some degree of autonomy under local kings, Pompey saw the Seleucids as too troublesome to continue; doing away with both rival Seleucid princes, he made Syria into a Roman province . The domain of the Seleucids stretched from the Aegean Sea to what
8288-420: The Indus was subject to Seleucus. Chandragupta Maurya ( Sandrokottos ) founded the Maurya Empire in 321 BC after the conquest of the Nanda Empire and their capital Pataliputra in Magadha . Chandragupta then redirected his attention to the Indus River region, and by 317 BC, he conquered the remaining Greek satraps left by Alexander. Expecting a confrontation, Seleucus gathered his army and marched to
8436-404: The Indus. It is said that Chandragupta could have fielded a conscript army of 600,000 men and 9,000 war elephants. Chandragupta received, formalized through a treaty, territory west of the Indus, including the Hindu Kush , modern day Afghanistan , and the eastern part Balochistan province of Pakistan , bordering on the Indus. Archaeologically, concrete indications of Mauryan rule, such as
8584-500: 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
8732-429: 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
8880-533: The Parthians moved into the power vacuum to take over the old Persian lands. Antiochus' aggressive Hellenizing (or de-Judaizing) activities provoked a full scale armed rebellion in Judea —the Maccabean Revolt . Efforts to deal with both the Parthians and the Jews as well as retain control of the provinces at the same time proved beyond the weakened empire's power. Antiochus orchestrated a military campaign, capturing Artaxias I , King of Armenia, and reoccupying Armenia. His offensive ventured as far as Persepolis, but he
9028-459: 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
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#17327722930239176-425: 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
9324-401: 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
9472-487: 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,
9620-425: The Roman general Pompey in 63 BC. Contemporary sources, such as a loyalist decree honoring Antiochus I from Ilium , in Greek language define the Seleucid state both as an empire ( ἀρχή , archḗ ) and as a kingdom ( βασιλεία , basileía ). Similarly, Seleucid rulers were described as kings in Babylonia. The rulers did not describe themselves as being of any particular territory or people, but starting from
9768-428: 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
9916-427: 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)
10064-419: The Seleucid Empire's height, it had consisted of territory that covered Anatolia , Persia , the Levant , Mesopotamia , and what are now modern Kuwait , Afghanistan , and parts of Turkmenistan . The Seleucid Empire was a major center of Hellenistic culture . Greek customs and language were privileged; the wide variety of local traditions had been generally tolerated, while an urban Greek elite had formed
10212-404: The Seleucid banner. The government established Greek cities and settlements throughout the empire via a program of colonization that encouraged immigration from Greece; both city settlements as well as rural ones were created that were inhabited by ethnic Greeks. These Greeks were given good land and privileges, and in exchange were expected to serve in military service for the state. Despite being
10360-407: 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
10508-424: The Swiss watch manufacturer, is the principal sponsor. Bamyan Province is home to the region's only university, Bamiyan University in the city of Bamyan. The school was founded in the mid-1990s, and largely destroyed under the Taliban and by US airstrikes. It was later refurbished by New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Teams following the fall of the Taliban. As of 2020, the total population of Bamyan province
10656-526: The Taliban after meeting with one of their delegations in 1998 (and would later serve as an Afghan Parliament member in the 2000s). Some Hazaras allied with them. Bamyan was the main location for a rebellion against the Taliban, an alliance of armed Shiite groups named the Hizb-e Wahdat . This led to a struggle in the western province of Bamyan, Yakawlang , which was regarded by both sides as being key to control northern and central Afghanistan. In 2000,
10804-408: The Taliban lost control of the district to local militias, but quickly took it back. To curb future rebellions, in early 2001 the Taliban arrested 300 civilian adult men and executed them publicly. The Supreme Leader of the Taliban at the time, Mullah Mohammad Omar , allegedly stopped more retribution acts in the area, but he did not forgive the rebellion. In March, Omar ordered the Taliban to destroy
10952-519: The U.S.' new government, was secretly a Taliban intelligence officer who participated in the 2001 massacre. He would be arrested and jailed, but was released in 2020 as a part of the Doha Agreement between the U.S. and Taliban. A small number of troops from New Zealand would be stationed there, and the Taliban insurgency started targeting them in 2008. The U.S. made a "protective belt" around
11100-498: 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
11248-701: The area was ruled by Arghun Khan of Ilkhanate , later by the Timurids and Mughals . In 1709, when the Hotaki dynasty rose to power in Kandahar and defeated the Persian Safavids , Bamyan was under the Mughal Empire influence until Ahmad Shah Durrani made it become part of the Afghan Durrani Empire , which became what is now the modern state of Afghanistan. In the 1980s, during
11396-514: The city of Pergamum in the west was asserting its independence under the Attalid dynasty . The Seleucid economy started to show the first signs of weakness, as Galatians gained independence and Pergamum took control of coastal cities in Anatolia. Consequently, they managed to partially block contact with the West. A revival would begin when Seleucus II's younger son, Antiochus III the Great , took
11544-457: 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
11692-512: 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
11840-455: The distance from the Seleucid rulers' Macedonian homeland. The size of the Seleucid army usually varied between 70,000 and 200,000 in manpower. The distance from Greece put a strain on the Seleucid military system, as it was primarily based around the recruitment of Greeks as the key segment of the army. In order to increase the population of Greeks in their kingdom, the Seleucid rulers created military settlements. There were two main periods in
11988-540: The dominant political class and was reinforced by steady immigration from Greece . The empire's western territories were repeatedly contested with Ptolemaic Egypt —a rival Hellenistic state. To the east, conflict with the Indian ruler Chandragupta of the Maurya Empire in 305 BC led to the cession of vast territory west of the Indus and a political alliance. In the early second century BC, Antiochus III
12136-660: The east, west, and north. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic , Mesolithic , Neolithic , Bronze , and Iron Ages have been found in Afghanistan. Urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BC, and the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar in the south of the country) may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley civilization . After 2000 BC, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan; among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians . These tribes later migrated further south to India, west to what
12284-403: The east, where he sought to extract money to pay the indemnity. The reign of his son and successor Seleucus IV Philopator (187–175 BC) was largely spent in attempts to pay the large indemnity, and Seleucus was ultimately assassinated by his minister Heliodorus . Seleucus' younger brother, Antiochus IV Epiphanes , now seized the throne. He attempted to restore Seleucid power and prestige with
12432-451: The empire were still influenced by the spread of Greek thought and culture, a phenomenon referred to as Hellenization . Historically significant towns and cities, such as Antioch , were created or renamed with Greek names, and hundreds of new cities were established for trade purposes and built in Greek style from the start. Local educated elites who needed to work with the government learned
12580-410: The establishment of settlements, firstly under Seleucus I Nicator and Antiochus I Soter and then under Antiochus IV Epiphanes . The military settlers were given land, "varying in size according to rank and arm of service'. They were settled in 'colonies of an urban character, which at some point could acquire the status of a polis". The settler-soldiers were called katoikoi ; they would maintain
12728-691: The exiled Carthaginian general Hannibal , and making an alliance with the disgruntled Aetolian League , Antiochus launched an invasion across the Hellespont . With his huge army he aimed to establish the Seleucid empire as the foremost power in the Hellenic world, but these plans put the empire on a collision course with the new rising power of the Mediterranean, the Roman Republic . At the battles of Thermopylae (191 BC) and Magnesia (190 BC), Antiochus's forces suffered resounding defeats, and he
12876-652: 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
13024-761: The famed Nisean horse herd); and Roman intervention was an ever-present threat. Sidetes managed to bring the Maccabees to heel and frighten the Anatolian dynasts into a temporary submission; then, in 133, he turned east with the full might of the Royal Army (supported by a body of Jews under the Hasmonean prince, John Hyrcanus ) to drive back the Parthians. Sidetes' campaign initially met with spectacular success, recapturing Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and Media. In
13172-663: The following phylogenetic classification: Seleucid Empire The Seleucid Empire ( / s ɪ ˈ lj uː s ɪ d / ) was a Greek state in West Asia during the Hellenistic period . It was founded in 312 BC by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator , following the division of the Macedonian Empire founded by Alexander the Great , and ruled by the Seleucid dynasty until its annexation by
13320-577: 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
13468-476: 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
13616-526: The historian Appian : Always lying in wait for the neighboring nations, strong in arms and persuasive in council, he [Seleucus] acquired Mesopotamia, Armenia, 'Seleucid' Cappadocia, Persis, Parthia, Bactria, Arabia, Tapouria, Sogdia, Arachosia, Hyrcania, and other adjacent peoples that had been subdued by Alexander, as far as the river Indus, so that the boundaries of his empire were the most extensive in Asia after that of Alexander. The whole region from Phrygia to
13764-533: The inscriptions of the Edicts of Ashoka , are known as far as Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. According to Appian: He [Seleucus] crossed the Indus and waged war with Sandrocottus [Maurya], king of the Indians, who dwelt on the banks of that stream, until they came to an understanding with each other and contracted a marriage relationship. It is generally thought that Chandragupta married Seleucus's daughter, or
13912-499: The kingdom's guards' regiments. The rest of the Seleucid army would consist of native and mercenary troops, who would serve as light auxiliary troops. While the Seleucids were happy to recruit from less populated and outlying parts of the Empire such as the Arabs and Jews, Iranian peoples in the east, and inhabitants of Asia Minor to the north, they generally eschewed recruiting native Syrians and native Mesopotamians ( Babylonians ). This
14060-513: The land as their own and in return, they would serve in the Seleucid army when called. The majority of settlements were concentrated in Lydia , northern Syria , the upper Euphrates and Media . Antiochus III brought Greeks from Euboea , Crete and Aetolia and settled them in Antioch . These Greek settlers would be used to form the Seleucid phalanx and cavalry units, with picked men put into
14208-466: 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
14356-652: The last was defeated and killed by the invading Parni of Arsaces —the region would then become the core of the Parthian Empire . Diodotus , the Seleucid governor for the Bactrian territory, asserted independence in around 245 BC, although the exact date is far from certain, to form the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom . This kingdom was characterized by a rich Hellenistic culture and was to continue its domination of Bactria until around 125 BC when it
14504-672: The latter area, he founded a new capital at Antioch on the Orontes , a city he named after his father. An alternative capital was established at Seleucia on the Tigris , north of Babylon. Seleucus's empire reached its greatest extent following his defeat of his erstwhile ally, Lysimachus, at Corupedion in 281 BC, after which Seleucus expanded his control to encompass western Anatolia. He hoped further to take control of Lysimachus's lands in Europe – primarily Thrace and even Macedonia itself, but
14652-595: The life of the Buddha (563 BC to 483 BC), as recorded by Husang Tsang . It became the site of an early Buddhist monastery. Buddhism was by this time in "an expansionist mode, offering religious practices that spoke to the masses and an appealing style of illustrative art, backed by the subtle philosophy of the Mahayana sect". Many statues of Buddha were carved into the sides of cliffs facing Bamyan city. The two most prominent of these statues were standing Buddhas, now known as
14800-401: The locals who embraced those ideals in the prior 20 years. In July 2022, the Taliban forbid humanitarian aid into the province. In August 2023, they banned women from entering Band-e-Amir National Park. As of May 2014, the province was served by Bamyan Airport in Bamyan which had regularly scheduled direct flights to Kabul . Bamiyan has been particularly famous for its potatoes. The region
14948-432: 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
15096-536: 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
15244-680: The name of Islam by the Saffarids in the 9th century. The Tang dynasty of China controlled large parts of the region during the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang and Emperor Gaozong of Tang . The Tibetan Empire also extended its influence into the region. The region fell to the Ghaznavids followed by the Ghurids before the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. After the Mongol invasion,
15392-466: 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
15540-499: 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
15688-767: The new system, which eventually led to the demise of Perdiccas. Ptolemy's revolt created a new subdivision of the empire with the Partition of Triparadisus in 320 BC. Seleucus , who had been "Commander-in-Chief of the Companion cavalry " ( hetairoi ) and appointed first or court chiliarch (which made him the senior officer in the Royal Army after the regent and commander-in-chief Perdiccas since 323 BC, though he helped to assassinate him later) received Babylonia and, from that point, continued to expand his dominions ruthlessly. Seleucus established himself in Babylon in 312 BC,
15836-526: The newly formed Parthian Empire . The Seleucid satrap of Parthia, named Andragoras , first claimed independence, in a parallel to the secession of his Bactrian neighbour. Soon after, however, a Parthian tribal chief called Arsaces invaded the Parthian territory around 238 BC to form the Arsacid dynasty , from which the Parthian Empire originated. Antiochus II's son Seleucus II Callinicus came to
15984-414: 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
16132-732: 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
16280-550: The now-destroyed Buddhas of Bamiyan , around which are more than 3,000 caves, the Band-e Amir National Park , Dara-e Ajhdar, Gholghola and Zuhak ancient towns, the Feroz Bahar, Astopa, Klegan, Gaohargin, Kaferan and Cheldukhtaran. Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the geographical area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to
16428-542: 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
16576-637: 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
16724-424: The province that stopped anyone outside, including other Afghanis, from coming into Bamyan. Control of the belt was given to local militias, which caused conflict between various ethnic groups. By 2009, the regional Afghan National Police , who fought against insurgents, started running out of money, and had to be aided by U.S. and New Zealand troops. By 2011, the Taliban in Bamyan started gaining strength, and there
16872-497: The recovered eastern territories were recaptured by the Parthians. The Maccabees again rebelled, civil war soon tore the empire to pieces, and the Armenians began to encroach on Syria from the north. By 100 BC, the once-formidable Seleucid Empire encompassed little more than Antioch and some Syrian cities. Despite the clear collapse of their power, and the decline of their kingdom around them, nobles continued to play kingmakers on
17020-647: 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
17168-602: 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
17316-402: The remaining eastern lands of the Seleucid Empire in the mid-second century BC including Assyria and what had been Babylonia , while the independent Greco-Bactrian Kingdom continued to flourish in the northeast. The Seleucid kings were thereafter reduced to a rump state in Syria after a civil war, until their conquest by Tigranes the Great of Armenia in 83 BC, and ultimate overthrow by
17464-460: The river Enymanthus, he came through Drangene to Carmania; and as it was now winter, he put his men into winter quarters there. When he returned to the west in 205 BC, Antiochus found that with the death of Ptolemy IV , the situation now looked propitious for another western campaign. Antiochus and Philip V of Macedon then made a pact to divide the Ptolemaic possessions outside of Egypt, and in
17612-541: The rule of Antiochus IV introduced significant changes. Antiochus IV instigated a bidding process for the High Priest position—this led to Menelaus , a radical Hellenist, outbidding Jason , a moderate Hellenist who upheld many traditional Judean practices. The shift from Jason to Menelaus unsettled the Jewish populace due to Menelaus's more extreme Hellenistic leanings. Aggravating the situation, Antiochus IV initiated
17760-651: The ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt and contemporary of Ashoka the Great , is also recorded by Pliny the Elder as having sent an ambassador named Dionysius to the Mauryan court. The Indians occupy [in part] some of the countries situated along the Indus, which formerly belonged to the Persians: Alexander deprived the Ariani of them, and established there settlements of his own. But Seleucus Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus (Chandragupta Maurya) in consequence of
17908-668: 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
18056-573: 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
18204-717: 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,
18352-436: The tablets on which was written the decree of the senate and told him to read it. The decree demanded that he should abort his attack on Alexandria and immediately stop waging the war on Ptolemy. When the king said that he would call his friends into council and consider what he ought to do, Popilius drew a circle in the sand around the king's feet with the stick he was carrying and said, "Before you step out of that circle give me
18500-558: The throne after his brother's capture. He faced the enormous task of restoring a rapidly crumbling empire, one facing threats on multiple fronts. Hard-won control of Coele-Syria was threatened by the Jewish Maccabee rebels. Once-vassal dynasties in Armenia, Cappadocia, and Pontus were threatening Syria and northern Mesopotamia ; the nomadic Parthians, brilliantly led by Mithridates I of Parthia , had overrun upland Media (home of
18648-742: The throne around 246 BC. Seleucus II was soon dramatically defeated in the Third Syrian War against Ptolemy III of Egypt and then had to fight a civil war against his own brother Antiochus Hierax . Taking advantage of this distraction, Bactria and Parthia seceded from the empire. In Asia Minor too, the Seleucid dynasty seemed to be losing control: the Gauls had fully established themselves in Galatia , semi-independent semi-Hellenized kingdoms had sprung up in Bithynia , Pontus , and Cappadocia , and
18796-544: The throne in 223 BC. Although initially unsuccessful in the Fourth Syrian War against Egypt, which led to a defeat at the Battle of Raphia (217 BC), Antiochus would prove himself to be the greatest of the Seleucid rulers after Seleucus I himself. He spent the next ten years on his anabasis (journey) through the eastern parts of his domain and restoring rebellious vassals like Parthia and Greco-Bactria to at least nominal obedience. He gained many victories such as
18944-429: The town of Bamyan serving as its capital. The province has a population of about 495,557 and borders Samangan to the north, Baghlan , Parwan and Wardak to the east, Ghazni and Daykundi to the south, and Ghor and Sar-e Pol to the west. It is the largest province in the Central region of Afghanistan . It was a center of commerce and Buddhism in the 4th and 5th centuries. In antiquity, central Afghanistan
19092-422: 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
19240-494: The usurping general Diodotus Tryphon —held out in Antioch . Meanwhile, the decay of the Empire's territorial possessions continued apace. By 143 BC, the Jews in the form of the Maccabees had fully established their independence. Parthian expansion continued as well. In 139 BC, Demetrius II was defeated in battle by the Parthians and was captured. By this time, the entire Iranian Plateau had been lost to Parthian control. Demetrius Nicator's brother, Antiochus VII Sidetes , took
19388-415: The west, including repeated wars with Ptolemy II and a Celtic invasion of Asia Minor —distracting attention from holding the eastern portions of the Empire together. Towards the end of Antiochus II's reign, various provinces simultaneously asserted their independence, such as Bactria and Sogdiana under Diodotus , Cappadocia under Ariarathes III , and Parthia under Andragoras . A few years later,
19536-419: The winter of 130/129 BC, his army was scattered in winter quarters throughout Media and Persis when the Parthian king, Phraates II , counter-attacked. Moving to intercept the Parthians with only the troops at his immediate disposal, he was ambushed and killed at the Battle of Ecbatana in 129 BC. Antiochus Sidetes is sometimes called the last great Seleucid king. After the death of Antiochus VII Sidetes, all of
19684-468: The year later used as the foundation date of the Seleucid Empire. The rise of Seleucus in Babylon threatened the eastern extent of the territory of Antigonus I Monophthalmus in Asia. Antigonus, along with his son Demetrius I Poliorcetes , unsuccessfully led a campaign to annex Babylon. The victory of Seleucus ensured his claim of Babylon and legitimacy. He ruled not only Babylonia, but the entire enormous eastern part of Alexander's empire, as described by
19832-416: 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
19980-543: Was assassinated by Ptolemy Ceraunus on landing in Europe. His son and successor, Antiochus I Soter , was left with an enormous realm consisting of nearly all of the Asian portions of the Empire, but faced with Antigonus II Gonatas in Macedonia and Ptolemy II Philadelphus in Egypt, he proved unable to pick up where his father had left off in conquering the European portions of Alexander's empire. Antiochus I (reigned 281–261 BC) and his son and successor Antiochus II Theos (reigned 261–246 BC) were faced with challenges in
20128-437: Was compelled to make peace and sign the Treaty of Apamea (188 BC), the main clause of which saw the Seleucids agree to pay a large indemnity, to retreat from Anatolia and to never again attempt to expand Seleucid territory west of the Taurus Mountains . The Kingdom of Pergamum and the Republic of Rhodes , Rome's allies in the war, gained the former Seleucid lands in Anatolia. Antiochus died in 187 BC on another expedition to
20276-439: Was concern over their future plans as NATO began their phased withdrawal from the country . The U.S. and NATO's combat mission in Afghanistan formally ended in 2014. In 2021, the Taliban started an offensive to retake Afghanistan . They made significant advances by July, and two districts, Saighan and Kahmard, had been taken. There was an effort by police and local militias to keep the Taliban 60 miles away from Bamyan city, which
20424-455: Was forced from the city by the populace. On his return home, Antiochus died in Isfahan in 164 BC. After the death of Antiochus IV Epiphanes , the Seleucid Empire became increasingly unstable. Frequent civil wars made central authority tenuous at best. Epiphanes' young son, Antiochus V Eupator , was first overthrown by Seleucus IV's son, Demetrius I Soter in 161 BC. Demetrius I attempted to restore Seleucid power in Judea particularly, but
20572-447: Was overrun by the invasion of northern nomads. One of the Greco-Bactrian kings, Demetrius I of Bactria , invaded India around 180 BC to form the Indo-Greek Kingdoms . The rulers of Persis , called Fratarakas , also seem to have established some level of independence from the Seleucids during the 3rd century BC, especially from the time of Vahbarz . They would later overtly take the title of Kings of Persis , before becoming vassals to
20720-447: Was overthrown in 150 BC by Alexander Balas —an impostor who (with Egyptian backing) claimed to be the son of Epiphanes. Alexander Balas reigned until 145 BC when he was overthrown by Demetrius I's son, Demetrius II Nicator . Demetrius II proved unable to control the whole of the kingdom, however. While he ruled Babylonia and eastern Syria from Damascus , the remnants of Balas' supporters—first supporting Balas' son Antiochus VI , then
20868-484: 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
21016-417: Was presumably mostly from a desire not to train and arm the people who were an overwhelming majority in the trade and governmental centers of the Empire in Antioch and Babylon, risking revolt. While a revolt in a remote place could be put down by resolute action from the center, an uprising in Syria-Coele would have undermined the kingdom's very existence. Following losses of territory in Asia Minor during
21164-419: Was put under the authority of a regent, Perdiccas , and the vast territories were divided among Alexander's generals, who thereby became satraps at the Partition of Babylon , all in that same year. Alexander's generals, known as diadochi , jostled for supremacy over parts of his empire following his death. Ptolemy I Soter , a former general and then current satrap of Egypt , was the first to challenge
21312-417: Was recognized as one of the safest provinces in the country, which allowed for civil rebuilding. Over the next few decades, women's rights would be restored. It became the area of the country most visited by tourists, and it elected Afghanistan's first female governor of a province, Habiba Sarabi , who created the Band-e-Amir National Park . A local Hazara named Haji Hekmat Hussein, a parliamentary candidate in
21460-416: Was strategically placed to thrive from the Silk Road caravans that crisscrossed the region, trading between the Roman Empire, Han dynasty, Central Asia , and South Asia . Bamyan was a stopping-off point for many travelers. It was here that elements of Greek and Buddhist art were combined into a unique classical style known as Greco-Buddhist art. The province has several famous historical sites, including
21608-488: 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
21756-444: Was times of simultaneous peace and rebellion in various parts of the empire. In general, the Seleucids allowed local religions to operate undisturbed, such as incorporating Babylonian religious tenets , to gain support. Tensions around the integration of Judaism were present during the reign of the Seleucid governments. Though previous governments had managed a relatively seamless integration of Judean religious and cultural practices,
21904-425: 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
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