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120-573: The Ghurid dynasty (also spelled Ghorids ; Persian : دودمان غوریان , romanized :  Dudmân-e Ğurīyân ; self-designation: شنسبانی , Šansabānī ) was a Persianate dynasty of eastern Iranian Tajik origin, which ruled from the 8th-century in the region of Ghor , and became an Empire from 1175 to 1215. The Ghurids were centered in the hills of the Ghor region in the present-day central Afghanistan , where they initially started out as local chiefs. They gradually converted to Sunni Islam after

240-655: 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

360-507: A coalition of Rajput chiefs, which forced him to change his route for further incursions into India. Afterwards, Muhammad pressed upon the Ghanzavids, whose domain was considerably truncated, though they were still controlling parts of Punjab and Pakistan down to the valley of Kabul which were of strategic importance in the pathway to northern India. Thus by the turn of next decade, Muhammad conquered Sindh , Peshawar , Sialkot and annexed

480-562: A decisive victory against Sayf, who was shortly captured and crucified at Pul-i Yak Taq. Baha al-Din Sam I , another brother of Sayf, set out to avenge the death of his two brothers, but died of natural causes before he could reach Ghazni. Ala al-Din Husayn (1149–61), one of the youngest of Sayf's brothers and newly crowned Ghurid king, also set out to avenge the death of his two brothers. He managed to defeat Bahram-Shah, and then had Ghazni sacked;

600-418: 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

720-629: A fictive genealogy which connected the Ghurids with the Iranian past. They traced the Ghurid family back to the mythical Arab tyrant Zahhak , mentioned in the medieval Persian epic Shahnameh ("The Book of Kings"), whose family had reportedly settled in Ghur after the Iranian hero Fereydun had ended Zahhak's thousand-year tyranny. Additionally, nothing is known of the pre-Islamic religious beliefs of

840-647: A heavy ransom to the Seljuqs and was allowed to reclaim his principality in Ghor. However, Sanjar was soon captured and imprisoned by the Ghuzz nomads in 1153, which allowed the Ghurids to expand their polity again. Meanwhile, a rival of Ala al-Din named Husayn ibn Nasir al-Din Muhammad al-Madini had seized Firozkoh , but was murdered at the right moment when Ala al-Din returned to reclaim his ancestral domain. Ala al-Din spent

960-505: 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

1080-417: 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

1200-542: A necessity for Iranists [but] of inestimable value for everyone concerned with the history and culture of the Middle East". Ali Banuazizi, though, notes that its focus is on Iran "as perceived, analyzed, and described by its most distinguished, mainly Western, students". In 1998, the journal Iranian Studies devoted a double issue (vol. 31, no. 3/4) to reviews of the encyclopædia, coming to 700 pages by 29 authors on as many subjects. Professor A. Banuazizi, praised that

1320-536: 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

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1440-513: A power vacuum in eastern Afghanistan and Panjab which the Ghurids took advantage of and began their territorial expansion. Ala al-Din Husayn ended the Ghurid subordination to the Ghaznavids, ruthlessly sacking their capital, although he was soon defeated by the Seljuks after he stopped paying tribute to them. The Seljuk imperial power, however, was itself swept away in eastern Iran with

1560-599: 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

1680-801: A thousand temples" were destroyed. It is generally thought that the Buddhist city of Sarnath was also ravaged at that time. In 1196, Qutb ud-Din Aibak vanquished Sulakshanapala, the ruler of the Kachchhapaghata dynasty of Gwalior , capturing Gwalior fort . Also in 1196, Qutb ud-Din Aibak vanquished a coalition of the Rajputs of Ajmer and the Chaulukyas under king Bhima II at Mount Abu , thereafter sacking Anhilwara . In 1202–1203 CE, Qutbu l-Din Aibak, now Ghurid governor of Delhi , invaded

1800-523: A vast army and build bridge across the Oxus to launch a full-scale invasion of  Transoxiana  to avenge his defeat. However, he was forced to move towards Punjab to crush a Khokhar rebellion whom he defeated and massacred in large number. On his way back, Muhammad of Ghor was assassinated near the Indus on March 15, 1206. After the death of Muhammad Ghori in 1206, a confused struggle then ensued among

1920-615: Is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of 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

2040-664: 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

2160-628: 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

2280-850: 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

2400-675: 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

2520-631: Is attributed to this Herat school of metalwork at the time of Ghurid rule, during the 1180–1200 period. One of them, now in the Georgian National Museum , is marked with a poem in Persian which specifically records its manufacture in Herat in 1181–1182, and permits the attribution and dating of this group of ewers to 1180–1200 in Herat, at the time of Ghurid rule. My ewer is the most beautiful ewer of all time. Who in this world has anything like this today? Everyone who has seen it has said it

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2640-425: 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

2760-584: Is made in Herat . Who else could product anything like it (in the world)? Although the seven stars the Planets of the celestial sphere lift their heads high, May they look favorably upon him who produces such a ewer Mercy be on him who makes such a ewer. May he be given silver and gold for making it. May good fortune come to him and caress him in friendship. May affliction be removed and given to his enemies The practice of inlaying "required relatively few tools" and

2880-460: 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

3000-475: 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 ),

3120-585: 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

3240-495: 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

3360-450: Is very beautiful. No one has seen its equal, for it is unparalleled Look at the ewer from which spirit is born. It is the water of life that flows from it. Any stream that comes from it into the hand. Creates a new pleasure every moment Look at the ewer that is praised by everyone. It would be worthy of service to an honored person like you Every eye that sees it opens wide. And says that nothing could be better than this This water vessel

3480-436: 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

3600-506: 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

3720-684: The Associated Press released a news report about Encyclopædia Iranica , claiming that it is "U.S.-backed". Encyclopædia Iranica published an official response, saying the report was "inaccurate and libelous", that while the National Endowment for the Humanities supports the encyclopedia, the Endowment is "an independent federal agency whose many projects are reviewed and decided upon by independent panels of scholars", not

Ghurid dynasty - Misplaced Pages Continue

3840-668: 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

3960-572: The Carmathians , and also took Uch by 1176. In 1178, he turned south and again marched through the Gomal Pass , marching by the way of Multan and Uch to enter into the present-day Gujarat via Thar desert , where his armies got exhausted in their long march from Ghazna and were routed in the Battle of Kasahrada fought near Mount Abu at Kasahrada in the southern Aravalli Hills by

4080-609: The Chandela kingdom in the Ganges Valley . The Ghurids toppled local dynasties and destroyed Hindu temples during their advance across northern India, in place constructing mosques on the same sites. The revenue and booty gained after sacking the Hindu temples fuelled the efforts of Muhammad to finance his imperial aspirations in the west. Around 1203, Bakhtiyar Khalji , another Turkic general of Muhammad of Ghor, swept down

4200-672: The Indus Valley as far as Bengal and eventually succeeded in conquering wide swaths of the Gangetic Plain , while in the west under Ghiyath al-Din, engaging in a protracted duel with the Shahs of Khwarazm , the Ghurids, reached as far as Gorgan (present-day Iran ) on the shoreline of the Caspian Sea , albeit for a short time. Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad died in 1203 of illness caused due to rheumatic disorders and soon after

4320-746: The Qara Khitai , for the lordship of Khorasan . Seljuk power in Khorasan had collapsed since the defeat of Ahmad Sanjar against the Ghuzz Turks in 1153, which left the region at the hands of the Turkmen. In 1181, Sultan Shah , a pretendent to the Khwarezmian throne, managed to take control of Khorasan, until 1192 when he was defeated near Merv by the Ghurids, who captured his territories. The Ghurids then took control of all Khorasan following

4440-588: The Qara-Khitai , who dispatched a large contingent led by Yelü Zhilugu . In the ensuing Battle of Andkhud (1204), fought near the river Oxus, the Ghurid troops were completely routed by the combined forces of the Qara-Khitai and the Khwarizmians . The defeat at Andkhud was a watershed for the Ghurids who lost their control over most of the Khurasan . Notwithstanding, Muhammad within a year or so raised

4560-484: The Samanids and Ghaznavids, the Ghurids were great patrons of Persian literature , poetry , and culture , and promoted these in their courts as their own. Modern-day authors refer to them as the " Persianized Ghurids". Wink describes the tongue of the Ghurids as a "distinct Persian dialect". There is nothing to confirm the recent conclusion that the inhabitants of Ghor were originally Pashto-speaking , and claims of

4680-674: 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

4800-713: 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

4920-491: 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

Ghurid dynasty - Misplaced Pages Continue

5040-597: 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 ,

5160-425: The 19th century. There was a strong Turkic presence among the Ghurids, since Turk slave-soldiers formed the vanguard of the Ghurid armies. There was intense amalgamation between these various ethnic groups: "a notable admixture of Tajik, Persian, Turkish and indigenous Afghan ethnicities therefore characterized the Shansabanis". At least until the end of the 13th century when they ruled the Mamluk Sultanate in India,

5280-572: 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

5400-430: The EIF, seeking, among other things, a finding that the EIF owns neither a copyright nor an exclusive trademark right in the encyclopedia. EIF countersued alleging that Columbia, as well as Brill and Elton Daniel, breached EIF's copyright in the encyclopedia, infringed, diluted, and counterfeited its trademarks, converted EIF property, and committed various acts of unjust enrichment and unfair competition. On July 31, 2020,

5520-425: The Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation (EIF), which serves to promote the cause of the Encyclopædia Iranica and to ensure its continuation. Over the years, Columbia University's Center for Iranian Studies (also founded by Yarshater) continued to coordinate and edit the Encyclopædia , while the EIF substantially sponsored the work. The foundation provides the full text of many entries (up to fascicle XVI/3) for free on

5640-506: The Ghaznavids in the second half of the twelfth century. This dynasty was not of Turkish , nor even Afghan , but of eastern Persian or Tājīk origin, speaking a distinct Persian dialect of its own, like the rest of the inhabitants of the remote and isolated mountain region of Ghūr and its capital of Fīrūzkūh (in what is now central Afghanistan). When the Ghurids started to distinguish themselves through their conquests, courtiers and genealogists (such as Fakhr-i Mudabbir and al-Juzjani ) forged

5760-466: The Ghurids suffered a crushing defeat against the Khwrezmians aided by timely reinforcements from the Qara Khitais in the Battle of Andkhud in 1204. Muhammad was assassinated soon after in March 1206 which ended the Ghurid influence in Khurasan . The dynasty became extinguished all together within a decade when Shah Muhammad II uprooted the Ghurids in 1215. Their conquests in the Indian Subcontinent nevertheless survived for several centuries under

5880-457: The Ghurids took control of Herat from the Seljuks, and the city became one of their main power bases and centers of cultural development, together with Firozkoh and Ghazni. They also took control of the areas of Nīmrūz and Sīstān , and extended their suzerainty as far as the Seljuks of Kerman . Afterwards, Muhammad assisted his brother Ghiyath in his contest with the Khwarezmian Empire , who were at times supported by their "pagan" suzerains

6000-408: The Ghurids. The Ghurids' native language was apparently different from their court language, Persian. Abu'l-Fadl Bayhaqi , the famous historian of the Ghaznavid era, wrote on page 117 in his book Tarikh-i Bayhaqi : "Sultan Mas'ud I of Ghazni left for Ghoristan and sent his learned companion with two people from Ghor as interpreters between this person and the people of that region." However, like

6120-434: The Ghūrids' empire was short-lived, Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad's conquests strengthened the foundations of Muslim rule in India. The Ghurids positioned themselves as defenders of Sunnism . They had good relations with the Abbasids in Baghdad , who urged them to repel the advances of the Kwarizmians into western Persia. Their conquests in India were also presented as a battle between the armies of Islam ( lashkar-i Islam ) and

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6240-419: The Harīrūd Valley by Sultan Ahmed Sanjar after his forces defected to the Seljuqs. During the battle, 6000 nomads from Ala al-Din's forces went over to the Seljuk army. Despite relatively smaller size of both armies, the defection of nomads at critical point of the battle eventually decided the issue in favour of the Seljuks. Ala al-Din Husayn remained a prisoner for two years, until he was released in return for

6360-400: The Indians learned Persian because of the influence of the "Ghurids and Turks." The notion of Persian kingship served as the basis for the imperial formation, political and cultural unity of the Ghurids. Out of the Ghurid state grew the Delhi Sultanate which established the Persian language as the official court language of the region – a status it retained until the late Mughal era in

6480-436: The Islamic world, inlaid metalworking , consisting of patterned silver inlays in a brass background, was first developed in the region of Khurasan in the 12th century, by silversmiths facing a shortage of silver. By the mid-12th century, Herat in particular had already gained a reputation for its high-quality inlaid metalwork, with works such as the Bobrinski Bucket (dated inscription of 1163). A series of remarkable ewers

6600-500: 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

6720-429: 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

6840-459: 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

6960-425: 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

7080-401: 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

7200-487: 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,

7320-401: The Rajput forces in the Second Battle of Tarain , and executed Prithviraja shortly afterwards. Govindaraja IV , son of Prithviraj Chauhan, submitted to the Ghurids the region of Ajmer , which became a vassal state. In 1193, Delhi was conquered by Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad's general Qutbu l-Din Aibak . The newly conquered territories were then put under the governorship of Qutb ud-Din Aibak, who

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7440-428: 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

7560-427: 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)

7680-407: 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

7800-411: The Turks in the Ghurid realm maintained their ethnical characteristics, continuing to use Turkish as their main language, rather than Persian, and persisting in their rude and bellicose ways as "men of the sword", in opposition to the Persian "men of the pen". An important metalwork school was located in Herat during the Ghurid period, following the conquest of the Seljuk city by the Ghurids in 1175. In

7920-416: The U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York granted a temporary restraining order against Columbia, Brill and Daniel, enjoining them through October 8, 2020 from publishing additional fascicles. EIF also sought a preliminary injunction against the defendants, but such relief was not entered by the court. Columbia and Brill subsequently published fascicle XVI/6 on October 19, 2020. As part of

8040-403: The U.S. Government, and that only a third of the encyclopedia's budget is supplied by the Endowment, not half, as the Associated Press had claimed. As of July 2015, the online version of the Encyclopædia Iranica has almost 7,300 entries, of which about 1,100 entries are only available on the Internet. The following is a list of printed volumes, current as of October 2020 . In addition,

8160-414: The advent of the Mughal Empire in 1526. Ghiyath died on 13 March 1203 due to gout and was succeeded by Muhammad of Ghor as the sole ruler of the vast Ghurid Empire. Soon after, Alauddin Khwarazm Shah besieged and captured some of the strongholds of the Ghurids around Merv , although Muhammad drove him back and further besieged their capital Gurgānj . Alauddin then appealed to his nominal suzerain

8280-442: The aid of his loyal brother Muhammad of Ghor (later known as "Shihabuddin Ghuri"), killed a rival Ghurid chief named Abu'l Abbas. Ghiyath then defeated his uncle Fakhr al-Din Masud who claimed the Ghurid throne and had allied with the Seljuq governor of Herat and Balkh. In 1173, Muhammad of Ghor after multiple attempts reconquered the city of Ghazni from the Ghuzz Turks , who had deposed the Ghaznavids from there earlier. In 1175,

8400-441: 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

8520-451: The armies of the unbelievers ( lashkar-i kuffar ), and gave them great prestige in the Islamic world as defenders of the orthodoxy. The Ghurids were great patrons of Persian culture and literature and lay the basis for a Persianized state in the Indian subcontinent . However, most of the literature produced during the Ghurid era has been lost. They also transferred Persian architecture to India. According to Amir Khusrau (died 1325),

8640-486: The city burned for seven days and seven nights. He also sacked the Ghaznavid fortresses and palaces of Bost . These actions earned him the title of Jahānsūz , meaning " the world burner" . The Ghaznavids retook the city with Seljuq help, but later lost it to Oghuz Turks . In 1152, Ala al-Din Husayn refused to pay tribute to the Seljuks and instead marched an army from Firozkoh but was defeated and captured at Nab in

8760-457: 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

8880-512: 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

9000-623: The conquered Indian lands. After the assassination of Muhammad in March 1206, his territories fragmented into smaller Sultanates led by his former Mamluk generals. Tajuddin Elduz became the ruler of Ghazni , Nasir-ud-Din Qabacha became Sultan of Multan , Bahauddin Tughril became Sultan of Bayana and Qutb al-Din Aibak became Sultan of Delhi . Bakhtiyar Khilji became Sultan of Bengal , but

9120-584: The conquest of Ghor by the Ghaznavid ruler Mahmud of Ghazni in 1011. The Ghurids eventually overran the Ghaznavids when Muhammad of Ghor seized Lahore and expelled the Ghaznavids from their last stronghold. The Ghurids initially ruled as vassals of the Ghaznavids and later of the Seljuks . However, during the early twelfth century the long-standing rivalry between the Seljuks and Ghaznavids created

9240-535: The contemporaneous advent of the Khwarazmian Empire . During the dyarchy of Ala al-Din Husayn nephews - Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad and Muhammad of Ghor , the Ghurid empire reached its greatest territorial extent, holding encompassed territory from eastern Iran through easternmost India . While Ghiyath al-Din was occupied with the Ghurid expansion in the west, his junior partner in the dyarchy , Muhammad of Ghor and his lieutenants were active east of

9360-424: The death of his successor Tekish in 1200, capturing Nishapur in 1200, and reaching as far as Besṭām in the ancient region of Qūmes. After the death of his brother Ghiyath on 13 March 1203, Muhammad became the successor of his empire and ruled until his assassination in 1206 near Jhelum by Ismāʿīlīs whom he persecuted during his lifetime. On the eve of the Ghurid invasion of the subcontinent, northern India

9480-539: The dispute, there are now conflicting accounts as to the current state of the Encyclopædia Iranica. While Columbia has published fascicle XVI/4 through XVI/6, covering topics between "Kešaʾi Dialect" and "Khorasan XIV", by EIF's count volume XVI only covers topics falling alphabetically between KA and KE. EIF considers fascicles XVI/4 through XVI/6 "counterfeit fascicles". In a review of Volume III, Richard W. Bulliet calls Encyclopædia Iranica "not just

9600-694: The encyclopaedia "will be judged as the most significant contribution of our century to the advancement of Iranian studies as a scholarly enterprise". Many foundations, organizations, and individuals have supported Encyclopædia Iranica . The encyclopaedia has been sponsored since 1979 by the National Endowment for the Humanities , as well as the American Council of Learned Societies , Union Académique Internationale , Iran Heritage Foundation , and many other charitable foundations , philanthropic families and individuals. On March 25, 2007,

9720-842: The entire Iranian cultural sphere , and far beyond. Relations of the Iranian world with other cultures (China, European countries, etc.) are also covered. The project is planning on publishing a total of up to 45 volumes. Ehsan Yarshater was the founding editor of Encyclopædia Iranica from 1973 through 2017. The current editor-in-chief is Elton Daniel. The editorial board includes Mohsen Ashtiany, Mahnaz Moazami, and over 40 consulting editors from major international institutions doing research in Iranian studies. Former long tenured editors include Ahmad Ashraf, Christopher Brunner, Habib Borjian, Kioumars Ghereghlou, Manuchehr Kasheff, Dagmar Riedel and Houra Yavari. A growing number (over 1,300 in 2016) of scholars worldwide have contributed articles to Encyclopædia Iranica . In 1990, Ehsan Yarshater established

9840-571: The ethnic stock of the Ḡūrīs in general and the Šansabānīs in particular; we can only assume that they were eastern Iranian Tajiks". Bosworth further points out that the actual name of the Ghurid family, Āl-e Šansab (Persianized: Šansabānī ), is the Arabic pronunciation of the originally Middle Persian name Wišnasp . Historian André Wink explains in The New Cambridge History of Islam : The Shansabānī dynasty superseded

9960-570: The evolving Delhi Sultanate established by Qutb ud-Din Aibak . In the 19th century some European scholars, such as Mountstuart Elphinstone , favoured the idea that the Ghurid dynasty was related to today's Pashtun people but this is generally rejected by modern scholarship. Most scholars state that the dynasty was of Tajik origin. Later, due to intermarrying, the Ghurid princes were distinguished by their significant blending of Tajik, Persian , Turkic , and native Afghan ethnicities. Encyclopædia Iranica states: "Nor do we know anything about

10080-462: The existence of " Pashto poetry ", such as Pata Khazana , from the Ghurid period are unsubstantiated. A certain Ghurid prince named Amir Banji was the ruler of Ghor and ancestor of the medieval Ghurid rulers. His rule was legitimized by the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid . Before the mid-12th century, the Ghurids had been bound to the Ghaznavids and Seljuks for about 150 years. Beginning in

10200-652: 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

10320-489: The following phylogenetic classification: Encyclop%C3%A6dia Iranica The Encyclopædia Iranica is dedicated to the study of Iranian civilization in the wider Middle East , the Caucasus , Southeastern Europe , Central Asia , and the Indian subcontinent . The academic reference work will eventually cover all aspects of Iranian history and culture as well as all Iranian languages and literatures , facilitating

10440-577: 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

10560-476: 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

10680-525: The iranicaonline.org website. Following Yarshater's retirement as director of the Center for Iranian Studies in 2016, a dispute began to emerge between Columbia University and the EIF as Columbia unilaterally decided to enter into a contract with Brill , an academic publisher, which subsequently published fascicles 4 and 5 of volume XVI in 2018 and 2019; the EIF protested the move. In 2019, Columbia University sued

10800-466: 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

10920-705: The last Ghaznavid principality in Punjab , with their capital in Lahore , in 1186 through stratagem after three incursions. In 1191, the Ghurids seized Bathinda and marched towards Delhi , but were defeated in the First Battle of Tarain by the Rajput confederacy led by the Ajmer-Chahamana king Prithviraja III . Nevertheless, Muhammad returned a year later with an army of Turkish mounted archers and routed

11040-522: The lower Gangetic Plain and into Bengal . In Bihar, he is said to have destroyed Buddhist centers of learning such as Nalanda University , greatly contributing to the decline of pre-Islamic Indic scholarship. In Bengal, he sacked the ancient city of Nudiya in central Bengal, and established an Islamic government in the former Sena capital of Lakhnauti in 1205. Muhammad placed his faithful Turkic generals, rather than his own Ghurid brethens, in position of authority over local tributary kings, throughout

11160-624: The mid-12th century, Ghor expressed its independence from the Ghaznavid Empire. The early Ghurids followed Paganism before being converted to Islam by Abu Ali ibn Muhammad . In 1149 the Ghaznavid ruler Bahram-Shah of Ghazna poisoned a local Ghurid leader, Qutb al-Din Muhammad, who had taken refuge in the city of Ghazni after having a quarrel with his brother Sayf al-Din Suri . In revenge, Sayf marched towards Ghazni and defeated Bahram-Shah. However, one year later, Bahram returned and scored

11280-432: 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

11400-536: 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

11520-466: 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

11640-499: 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

11760-414: 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

11880-732: 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

12000-542: 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

12120-607: The period from 1175 to 1205, just before his death in 1206. His capital was in Ghazni , while his elder brother Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad with whom Muhammad ruled in a diarchy , governed the western part of the empire from his capital at Fīrōzkōh . In 1175, Muhammad crossed the Indus River , approaching it through the Gomal Pass instead of Khyber Pass , in order to outflank the Ghaznavids in Panjab . Muhammad captured Multan from

12240-694: 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

12360-595: 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

12480-602: 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

12600-584: The remaining Ghūrid leaders and the Khwarezmians . The Khwarezmians under Ala al-Din Muhammad captured Herat and Ghor in 1206, and finally Ghazni in 1215, completing the takeover of the western part of the Ghūrid empire. The Ghurid capital was transferred to Delhi , recognizing Khwarazmian rule on north and central Afghanistan . The Ghurids continued their rule on much of the Indian subcontinent , Sisitan region of Iran and south of Afghanistan . Though

12720-499: The rest of his reign expanding the domains of his kingdom; he managed to conquer Garchistan, Tukharistan , Zamindawar , Bust, Bamiyan and other parts of Khurasan. Ala al-Din died in 1161, and was succeeded by his son Sayf al-Din Muhammad , who died two years later in a battle against the Oghuz Turks of Balkh . During the reign of Ala ad-Din, the Ghurids firmly established themselves at Firuzkuh and made it their capital, at

12840-518: The same time, the minor branches of the family who were the offshoot of concubinage with Turkish slave girls whom chronicler Juzjani called "Kanizak-i-turki" established themselves in Bamiyan and elsewhere. Sayf al-Din Muhammad was succeeded by his cousin Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad , who was the son of Baha al-Din Sam I, and proved himself to be a capable king. Right after Ghiyath's ascension, he, with

12960-668: 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

13080-573: 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

13200-777: 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,

13320-501: The technique spread westward, perhaps by Khurasani artisans moving to other cities. By the turn of the 13th century, the silver-inlaid-brass technique had reached Mosul under the Turkic Zengid dynasty (area of modern Iraq ). Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -⁠shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ),

13440-485: 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

13560-409: The whole range of Iranian studies research from archeology to political sciences. It is a project founded by Ehsan Yarshater in 1973 and currently carried out at Columbia University 's Center for Iranian Studies. It is considered the standard encyclopedia of the academic discipline of Iranistics . The scope of the encyclopedia goes beyond modern Iran (also known as "Persia" ) and encompasses

13680-597: 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

13800-594: Was now Viceroy in Delhi. In 1194, Muhammad returned to India and crossed the Yamuna River with an army of 50,000 horses and at the Battle of Chandawar defeated the forces of the Gahadavala king Jayachandra , who was killed in action. After the battle, Muhammad continued his advance to the east, with his general Qutb ud-Din Aibak in the vanguard. The city of Benares (Kashi) was taken and razed, and "idols in

13920-597: 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

14040-828: Was ruled by many independent Rajput kings, often fighting with each other, such as the Chahamana ruler Prithviraja III in Delhi and Ajmer , the Chaulukya ruler Mularaja II in Gujarat , the Gahadavala ruler Jayachandra in Kanauj , further in the east of Ganges Plain there were other independent Hindu powers such as the Sena 's under Lakshmana in Bengal etc. Northern India and Bengal were conquered by Muhammad of Ghor during

14160-647: Was soon assassinated and succeeded by several Khalji rulers , until Bengal was incorporated into the Delhi Sultanate in 1227. Between 1206 and 1228 the various Turkic rulers and their successors rivaled for preeminence until the Sultan of Delhi Iltutmish prevailed, marking the advent of the Mamluk dynasty . This was the first dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate , which in total had five dynasties and would rule most of India for more than three centuries until

14280-613: 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

14400-492: 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

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