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116-416: It is defined by having long been ruled by the dynasties of various Iranian empires , under whom the local populaces gradually incorporated some degree of Iranian influence into their cultural and/or linguistic traditions; or alternatively as where a considerable number of Iranians settled to still maintain communities who patronize their respective cultures, geographically corresponding to the areas surrounding

232-730: A casus belli to attack the Empire. After many gains, the Sassanians were defeated at Issus, Constantinople, and finally Nineveh, resulting in peace. With the conclusion of the over 700 years lasting Roman–Persian Wars through the climactic Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 , which included the very siege of the Byzantine capital of Constantinople , the war-exhausted Persians lost the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah (632) in Hilla (present-day Iraq ) to

348-787: A Neanderthal radius was discovered by Carleton S. Coon in Bisitun Cave. Evidence for Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic periods are known mainly from the Zagros Mountains in the caves of Kermanshah and Khorramabad and a few number of sites in Piranshahr , Alborz and Central Iran . During this time, people began creating rock art . Early agricultural communities such as Chogha Golan in 10,000 BC along with settlements such as Chogha Bonut (the earliest village in Elam) in 8000 BC, began to flourish in and around

464-577: A canal between the Nile and the Red Sea , a forerunner of the modern Suez Canal . He improved the extensive road system, and it is during his reign that mentions are first made of the Royal Road (shown on map), a great highway stretching all the way from Susa to Sardis with posting stations at regular intervals. Major reforms took place under Darius. Coinage , in the form of the daric (gold coin) and

580-597: A distinct political and cultural entity. The Muslim conquest of Persia (632–654) ended the Sasanian Empire and marked a turning point in Iranian history, leading to the Islamization of Iran from the eighth to tenth centuries and the decline of Zoroastrianism . However, the achievements of prior Persian civilizations were absorbed into the new Islamic polity. Iran suffered invasions by nomadic tribes during

696-612: A number of historians who see the rule of the Umayyads as setting up the "dhimmah" to increase taxes from the dhimmis to benefit the Muslim Arab community financially and by discouraging conversion. Governors lodged complaints with the caliph when he enacted laws that made conversion easier, depriving the provinces of revenues. In the 7th century, when many non-Arabs such as Persians entered Islam, they were recognized as mawali ("clients") and treated as second-class citizens by

812-535: A period of more than 400 years, Iran was once again one of the leading powers in the world, alongside its neighbouring rival, the Roman and then Byzantine Empires . The empire's territory, at its height, encompassed all of today's Iran, Iraq , Azerbaijan , Armenia , Georgia , Abkhazia , Dagestan , Lebanon , Jordan , Palestine , Israel , parts of Afghanistan , Turkey , Syria , parts of Pakistan , Central Asia , Eastern Arabia , and parts of Egypt . Most of

928-575: A propagandist and then to revolt on their behalf. He took Merv defeating the Umayyad governor there Nasr ibn Sayyar . He became the de facto Abbasid governor of Khurasan. During the same period, the Dabuyid ruler Khurshid declared independence from the Umayyads but was shortly forced to recognize Abbasid authority. In 750, Abu Muslim became the leader of the Abbasid army and defeated the Umayyads at

1044-574: A quick succession of outside rulers took power with consequent destruction. According to a contemporary account by theologian, Sheikh Yusuf Al Bahrani, in an unsuccessful attempt by the Persians and their Bedouin allies to take back Bahrain from the Kharijite Omanis, much of the country was burnt to the ground. Bahrain was eventually sold back to the Persians by the Omanis, but the weakness of

1160-608: A settlement was first founded possibly as early as 4395 cal BC) and settlements such as Chogha Mish , dating back to 6800 BC; there are 7,000-year-old jars of wine excavated in the Zagros Mountains (now on display at the University of Pennsylvania ) and ruins of 7000-year-old settlements such as Tepe Sialk are further testament to that. The two main Neolithic Iranian settlements were Ganj Dareh and

1276-465: A time right after the establishment of the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk in 4500 BC. The general perception among archaeologists is that Susa was an extension of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk , hence incorporating many aspects of Mesopotamian culture. In its later history, Susa became the capital of Elam, which emerged as a state founded 4000 BC. There are also dozens of prehistoric sites across

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1392-686: A unified empire of the Medes and Persians, leading to the Achaemenid Empire (c.550–330 BC). Cyrus the Great overthrew, in turn, the Median , Lydian , and Neo-Babylonian empires, creating an empire far larger than Assyria. He was better able, through more benign policies, to reconcile his subjects to Persian rule; the longevity of his empire was one result. The Persian king, like the Assyrian ,

1508-598: A vital role to play in ecosystems. Foltz has been deeply critical of global capitalism , seconding scholars such as David Loy and Harvey Cox who argue that the dominant faith system in the world today should properly be referred to as the "Religion of the Market". Foltz has also published ground-breaking work in the related field of religion and animal rights . He is the author of the first scholarly book on Muslim attitudes towards animals , in which he re-assesses traditional Muslim views on such topics as vegetarianism and

1624-763: Is a full professor in the Department of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University in Montreal , Quebec , and an affiliate professor at the Centre d'études du religieux contemporain, Université de Sherbrooke . He holds a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern History from Harvard University and degrees in Persian literature and applied linguistics from the University of Utah . He has taught at Kuwait University , Brown University , Columbia University , and

1740-499: Is almost certainly overstated ." He argues that " While the various Iranian peoples did indeed share a common pantheon and pool of religious myths and symbols , in actuality a variety of deities were worshipped—particularly Mitra , the god of covenants, and Anahita , the goddess of the waters, but also many others—depending on the time, place, and particular group concerned ". To the Ancient Greeks , Greater Iran ended at

1856-508: Is called Iranzamin ( ایران‌زمین ) which means "Iranland" or "The Land of Iran". Iranzamin was in the mythical times as opposed to the Turanzamin the Land of Turan , which was located in the upper part of Central Asia. With Imperial Russia continuously advancing south in the course of two wars against Persia, and the treaties of Turkmenchay and Gulistan in the western frontiers, plus

1972-526: Is present in the term Airyana Vaēǰah , the homeland of Zoroaster and Zoroastrianism , near the provinces of Sogdiana , Margiana , Bactria , etc., listed in the first chapter of the Vidēvdād . The Avestan evidence is confirmed by Greek sources: Arianē is spoken of as being between Persia and the Indian subcontinent . However, this is a Greek pronunciation of the name Haroyum/Haraiva ( Herat ), which

2088-649: Is split between several central Asian republics. Superimposed on and overlapping with Chorasmia was Khorasan which roughly covered nearly the same geographical areas in Central Asia (starting from Semnan eastward through northern Afghanistan roughly until the foothills of Pamir , ancient Mount Imeon ). Current day provinces such as Sanjan in Turkmenia , Razavi Khorasan Province , North Khorasan Province , and Southern Khorasan Province in Iran are all remnants of

2204-602: The Babylonian king Nabopolassar invaded Assyria and laid siege to and eventually destroyed Nineveh , the Assyrian capital, which led to the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire . Urartu was later on conquered and dissolved as well by the Medes. The Medes are credited with founding Iran as a nation and empire, and established the first Iranian empire, the largest of its day until Cyrus the Great established

2320-615: The Battle of the Zab . Abu Muslim stormed Damascus , the capital of the Umayyad caliphate, later that year. The Abbasid army consisted primarily of Khorasanians and was led by an Iranian general, Abu Muslim Khorasani . It contained both Iranian and Arab elements, and the Abbasids enjoyed both Iranian and Arab support. The Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads in 750. According to Amir Arjomand, the Abbasid Revolution essentially marked

2436-988: The British Empire through the Treaty of Paris in 1857 and the McMahon Arbitration in 1905. The name "Iran", meaning "land of the Aryans ", is the New Persian continuation of the old genitive plural aryānām (proto-Iranian, meaning "of the Aryans"), first attested in the Avesta as airyānąm (the text of which is composed in Avestan , an old Iranian language spoken in northeastern Greater Iran, or in what are now Afghanistan , Uzbekistan , Turkmenistan and Tajikistan ). The proto-Iranian term aryānām

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2552-675: The Caucasus to the Russian Empire following the Russo-Persian Wars . Iran remained a monarchy until the 1979 Iranian Revolution , when it officially became an Islamic republic on 1 April 1979. Since then, Iran has experienced significant political, social, and economic changes. The establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran led to the restructuring of its political system, with Ayatollah Khomeini as

2668-672: The First Persian invasion of Greece , the Persian general Mardonius re-subjugated Thrace and made Macedon a full part of Persia. The war eventually turned out in defeat, however. Darius' successor Xerxes I launched the Second Persian invasion of Greece . At a crucial moment in the war, about half of mainland Greece was overrun by the Persians, including all territories to the north of the Isthmus of Corinth , however, this

2784-781: The Indus River located in Pakistan . According to J. P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams most of Western greater Iran spoke Southwestern Iranian languages in the Achaemenid era while the Eastern territory spoke Eastern Iranian languages related to Avestan. George Lane also states that after the dissolution of the Mongol Empire , the Ilkhanids became rulers of greater Iran and Uljaytu , according to Judith G. Kolbas,

2900-745: The Iranian plateau before the emergence of Iranian peoples during the Early Iron Age . The Early Bronze Age saw the rise of urbanization into organized city-states and the invention of writing (the Uruk period ) in the Near East. While Bronze Age Elam made use of writing from an early time, the Proto-Elamite script remains undeciphered, and records from Sumer pertaining to Elam are scarce. Russian historian Igor M. Diakonoff stated that

3016-552: The Iranian plateau . It is referred to as the "Iranian Cultural Continent" by Encyclopædia Iranica . Throughout the 16th–19th centuries, Iran lost many of the territories that had been conquered under the Safavids and Qajars . The Ottoman–Iranian Wars resulted in the loss of present-day Iraq to the Ottoman Empire , as outlined in the Treaty of Amasya in 1555 and the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639. Simultaneously,

3132-699: The Kashafrud and Ganj Par sites that are thought to date back to 10,000 years ago in the Middle Paleolithic. Mousterian stone tools made by Neanderthals have also been found. There are more cultural remains of Neanderthals dating back to the Middle Paleolithic period, which mainly have been found in the Zagros region and fewer in central Iran at sites such as Kobeh, Kunji, Bisitun Cave , Tamtama, Warwasi , and Yafteh Cave. In 1949,

3248-651: The Kurdish area. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel called the Persians the "first Historical People". The Iranian empire began in the Iron Age with the rise of the Medes , who unified Iran as a nation and empire in 625 BC. The Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC), founded by Cyrus the Great , was the largest empire the world had seen, spanning from the Balkans to North Africa and Central Asia . They were succeeded by

3364-566: The Late Middle Ages and early modern period , negatively impacting the region. Iran was reunified as an independent state in 1501 by the Safavid dynasty , which established Shia Islam as the empire's official religion, marking a significant turning point in the history of Islam . Iran functioned again as a leading world power, especially in rivalry with the Ottoman Empire . In the 19th century, Iran lost significant territories in

3480-602: The Neo-Assyrian Empire and its records of incursions from the Iranian plateau. As early as the 20th century BC, tribes came to the Iranian plateau from the Pontic–Caspian steppe . The arrival of Iranians on the Iranian plateau forced the Elamites to relinquish one area of their empire after another and to take refuge in Elam, Khuzestan and the nearby area, which only then became coterminous with Elam. Bahman Firuzmandi say that

3596-891: The Parthians and the Sassanids . In the 3rd century AD, the Sassanids succeeded the Parthians and controlled the area for four centuries until the Arab conquest. Ardashir , the first ruler of the Iranian Sassanid dynasty marched to Oman and Bahrain and defeated Sanatruq (or Satiran), probably the Parthian governor of Bahrain. He appointed his son Shapur I as governor. Shapur constructed a new city there and named it Batan Ardashir after his father. At this time, it incorporated

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3712-400: The Persian language . History of Iran The history of Iran (or Persia , as it was known in the Western world) is intertwined with Greater Iran , a sociocultural region spanning from Anatolia to the Indus River and from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf . Central to this area is modern-day Iran , which covers the bulk of the Iranian plateau . Iran is home to one of

3828-402: The Russo-Iranian Wars resulted in the loss of the Caucasus to the Russian Empire : the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813 saw Iran cede present-day Dagestan , Georgia , and most of Azerbaijan ; the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828 saw Iran cede present-day Armenia , the remainder of Azerbaijan, and Iğdır , setting the northern boundary along the Aras River . Parts of Afghanistan were lost to

3944-404: The Russo-Persian War (1804–1813) Iran had to cede eastern Georgia , its possessions in the North Caucasus and many of those in what is today the Azerbaijan Republic , which included the khanates of Baku , Shirvan , Karabakh , Ganja , Shaki , Quba , Derbent , and parts of Talysh . These Khanates comprise most of what is today the Republic of Azerbaijan and Dagestan in Southern Russia. In

4060-465: The Safavid rule of Bahrain (1501–1722) and previous Persian rule. Village names such as Karbabad , Salmabad , Karzakan , Duraz , Barbar were originally derived from the Persian language, suggesting that Persians had a substantial effect on the island's history. The local Bahrani Arabic dialect has also borrowed many words from the Persian language. Bahrain's capital city, Manama is derived from two Persian words meaning 'I' and 'speech'. In 1910,

4176-410: The Seleucid , Parthian , and Sasanian empires, who governed Iran for almost 1,000 years, making Iran a leading power once again. Persia's arch-rival during this time was the Roman Empire and its successor, the Byzantine Empire . Iran endured invasions by the Macedonians , Arabs , Turks , and Mongols . Despite these invasions, Iran continually reasserted its national identity and developed as

4292-436: The Silk Road with China , he sees the premodern trans-Asian trade networks as having been driven by the activities of traders who were mostly of Iranian background, principally Sogdians but also Parthians and Persians . Foltz has moreover argued that, contrary to its mostly negative portrayals in the West today, Iranian civilization continues to occupy a foundational role in the identity of many Asian peoples, analogous to

4408-446: The Treaty of Turkmenchay of 1828 following the Russo-Persian War (1826–1828) , the result was even more disastrous, and resulted in Iran being forced to cede the remainder of the Talysh Khanate , the khanates of Nakhichevan and Erivan , and the Mughan region to Russia. All these territories together, lost in 1813 and 1828 combined, constitute all of the modern-day Republic of Azerbaijan, Armenia , and southern Dagestan . The area to

4524-438: The University of Florida . Prior to entering academia he worked for several years in Europe as a musician, film critic, and travel writer. The author of twelve books and over one hundred scholarly articles, his work has appeared in more than a dozen languages. Foltz has emphasized the role of Iranians in the spread of culture in world history, particularly in the domain of religions. In contrast to widespread notions associating

4640-481: The shekel (silver coin) was standardized (coinage had already been invented over a century before in Lydia c. 660 BC but not standardized), and administrative efficiency increased. The Old Persian language appears in royal inscriptions, written in a specially adapted version of the cuneiform script . Under Cyrus the Great and Darius I , the Persian Empire eventually became the largest empire in human history up until that point, ruling and administrating over most of

4756-538: The 4th millennium BC. There is a large quantity of objects decorated with highly distinctive engravings of animals, mythological figures, and architectural motifs. The objects and their iconography are considered unique. Many are made from chlorite , a grey-green soft stone; others are in copper , bronze , terracotta , and even lapis lazuli . Recent excavations at the sites have produced the world's earliest inscription which pre-dates Mesopotamian inscriptions. There are records of numerous other ancient civilizations on

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4872-426: The 9th century. Shortly thereafter the real power of the Abbasid caliphs began to wane; eventually, they became religious figureheads while the warrior slaves ruled. Richard Foltz Richard Foltz is a Canadian historian who specializes in the history of Iranian civilization — sometimes referred to as " Greater Iran ". He has also been active in the areas of environmental ethics and animal rights . Foltz

4988-399: The Akhbari-Usuli strands culminated in victory for the Usulis in Bahrain. An Afghan uprising led by Hotakis of Kandahar at the beginning of the 18th century resulted in the near-collapse of the Safavid state. In the resultant power vacuum, Oman invaded Bahrain in 1717 , ending over one hundred years of Persian hegemony in Bahrain. The Omani invasion began a period of political instability and

5104-401: The English or to find jobs. They were coming to Bahrain from Bushehr and the Fars province between 1920 and 1940. In the 1920s, local Persian merchants were prominently involved in the consolidation of Bahrain's first powerful lobby with connections to the municipality in an effort to contest the municipal legislation of British control. Bahrain's local Persian community has heavily influenced

5220-437: The European Scythians around the Danube river. In 512/511 BC, Macedon became a vassal kingdom of Persia. In 499 BC, Athens lent support to a revolt in Miletus , which resulted in the sacking of Sardis . This led to an Achaemenid campaign against mainland Greece known as the Greco-Persian Wars , which lasted the first half of the 5th century BC, and is known as one of the most important wars in European history . In

5336-420: The Great (r. 712–728), managed to hold his domains during his long struggle against the Arab general Yazid ibn al-Muhallab , who was defeated by a combined Dailamite-Dabuyid army, and was forced to retreat from Tabaristan. With the death of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik in 743, the Islamic world was launched into civil war. Abu Muslim was sent to Khorasan by the Abbasid Caliphate initially as

5452-412: The Greeks called 'Aria' (a land listed separately from the homeland of the Aryans). While up until the end of the Parthian period in the 3rd century CE, the idea of "Irān" had an ethnic, linguistic, and religious value, it did not yet have a political import. The idea of an "Iranian" empire or kingdom in a political sense is a purely Sasanian one. It was the result of a convergence of interests between

5568-432: The Iranian history. From the 6th century BC to the 3rd century BC, Bahrain was a prominent part of the Persian Empire under the Achaemenid dynasty. It was referred to by the Greeks as " Tylos ", the centre of pearl trading, when Nearchus discovered it while serving under Alexander the Great . From the 3rd century BC to the arrival of Islam in the 7th century AD, the island was controlled by two other Iranian dynasties,

5684-418: The Iranian plateau pointing to the existence of ancient cultures and urban settlements in the fourth millennium BC. One of the earliest civilizations on the Iranian plateau was the Jiroft culture in southeastern Iran in the province of Kerman . It is one of the most artefact-rich archaeological sites in the Middle East. Archaeological excavations in Jiroft led to the discovery of several objects belonging to

5800-655: The Khorasanian region. Dagestan remains the bastion of Persian culture in the North Caucasus with fine examples of Iranian architecture like the Sassanid citadel in Derbent , the strong influence of Persian cuisine , and common Persian names amongst the ethnic peoples of Dagestan. The ethnic Persian population of the North Caucasus, the Tats , remain, despite strong assimilation over the years, still visible in several North Caucasian cities. Even today, after decades of partition, some of these regions retain Iranian influences, as seen in their old beliefs, traditions and customs (e.g. Norouz ). According to Tadeusz Swietochowski ,

5916-409: The North of the river Aras , among which the territory of the contemporary republic of Azerbaijan were Iranian territory until they were occupied by Russia in the course of the 19th century. Many localities in this region bear Persian names or names derived from Iranian languages and Azerbaijan remains by far Iran's closest cultural, religious, ethnic, and historical neighbor. Azerbaijanis are by far

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6032-526: The Parthian cavalry was most notably feared by the Roman soldiers, which proved pivotal in the crushing Roman defeat at the Battle of Carrhae . On the other hand, the Parthians found it difficult to occupy conquered areas as they were unskilled in siege warfare. Because of these weaknesses, neither the Romans nor the Parthians were able completely to annex each other's territory. The Parthian empire subsisted for five centuries, longer than most Eastern Empires. The end of this empire came at last in 224 AD, when

6148-411: The Persian Gulf under their control and extended their influence as far as Oman . Because they needed to control the Persian Gulf trade route, the Parthians established garrisons along the southern coast of the Persian Gulf. through warfare and economic distress, been reduced to only 60. The influence of Iran was further undermined at the end of the 18th century when the ideological power struggle between

6264-444: The Persian community funded and opened a private school , Al-Ittihad school, that taught Farsi amongst other subjects. According to the 1905 census, there were 1650 Bahraini citizens of Persian origin. Historian Nasser Hussain says that many Iranians fled their native country in the early 20th century due to a law king Reza Shah issued which banned women from wearing the hijab , or because they feared for their lives after fighting

6380-433: The Roman Empire. During this time, the Sassanian and Romano-Byzantine armies clashed for influence in Anatolia, the western Caucasus (mainly Lazica and the Kingdom of Iberia ; modern-day Georgia and Abkhazia ), Mesopotamia , Armenia and the Levant. Under Justinian I, the war came to an uneasy peace with payment of tribute to the Sassanians. However, the Sasanians used the deposition of the Byzantine emperor Maurice as

6496-454: The Romans at the Battle of Edessa in 260 and took emperor Valerian prisoner for the remainder of his life. Eastern Arabia was conquered early on. During Khosrow II 's rule in 590–628, Egypt , Jordan , Palestine and Lebanon were also annexed to the Empire. The Sassanians called their empire Erânshahr ("Dominion of the Aryans", i.e., of Iranians ). A chapter of Iran's history followed after roughly six hundred years of conflict with

6612-408: The Safavid empire saw Huwala tribes seize control. In 1730, the new Shah of Persia , Nadir Shah , sought to re-assert Persian sovereignty in Bahrain. He ordered Latif Khan, the admiral of the Persian navy in the Persian Gulf, to prepare an invasion fleet in Bushehr . The Persians invaded in March or early April 1736 when the ruler of Bahrain, Shaikh Jubayr, was away on hajj . The invasion brought

6728-409: The Sasanian Empire and led to the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion in Persia. Over time, the majority of Iranians converted to Islam. Most of the aspects of the previous Persian civilizations were not discarded but were absorbed by the new Islamic polity. As Bernard Lewis has commented: "These events have been variously seen in Iran: by some as a blessing, the advent of the true faith,

6844-405: The Sasanian Empire's lifespan was overshadowed by the frequent Byzantine–Sasanian wars , a continuation of the Roman–Parthian Wars and the all-comprising Roman–Persian Wars ; the last was the longest-lasting conflict in human history. Started in the first century BC by their predecessors, the Parthians, and Romans, the last Roman–Persian War was fought in the seventh century. The Persians defeated

6960-644: The Sasanian throne under the two prominent generals Bahrām Chōbin and Shahrbaraz , it remained loyal to the Sasanians during their struggle against the Arabs, but the Mihrans were eventually betrayed and defeated by their own kinsmen, the House of Ispahbudhan , under their leader Farrukhzad , who had mutinied against Yazdegerd III. Yazdegerd III fled from one district to another until a local miller killed him for his purse at Merv in 651. By 674, Muslims had conquered Greater Khorasan (which included modern Iranian Khorasan province and modern Afghanistan and parts of Transoxiana ). The Muslim conquest of Persia ended

7076-424: The Sassanian Persians into the broader Muslim world. In 633, when the Sasanian king Yazdegerd III was ruling over Iran, the Muslims under Umar invaded the country right after it had been in a bloody civil war. Several Iranian nobles and families such as king Dinar of the House of Karen , and later Kanarangiyans of Khorasan , mutinied against their Sasanian overlords. Although the House of Mihran had claimed

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7192-410: The Supreme Leader. Iran's foreign relations have been shaped by the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), ongoing tensions with the United States, and its nuclear program, which has been a point of contention in international diplomacy. Despite economic sanctions and internal challenges, Iran remains a key player in Middle Eastern and global geopolitics. The earliest archaeological artifacts in Iran were found in

7308-504: The Two Iraqs"). The city of Arāk in western Iran still bears the region's old name, and Iranians still traditionally call the region between Tehran , Isfahan and Īlām "ʿErāq". During the medieval ages, Mesopotamian and Iranian peoples knew each other's languages because of trade, and because Arabic was the language of religion and science at that time. The Timurid historian Ḥāfeẓ-e Abru (d. 1430) wrote of Iraq: The majority of inhabitants of Iraq know Persian and Arabic , and from

7424-499: The Zagros Mountains region in western Iran. Around about the same time, the earliest-known clay vessels and modelled human and animal terracotta figurines were produced at Ganj Dareh, also in western Iran. There are also 10,000-year-old human and animal figurines from Tepe Sarab in Kermanshah Province among many other ancient artefacts. The south-western part of Iran was part of the Fertile Crescent where most of humanity's first major crops were grown, in villages such as Susa (where

7540-407: The bricks of ancient Babylon , just as later Baghdad , a little further upstream, was built out of the ruins of the Sassanian double city of Seleucia-Ctesiphon . According to Iranologist Richard N. Frye : Throughout Iran's history the western part of the land has been frequently more closely connected with the lowlands of Mesopotamia (Iraq) than with the rest of the plateau to the east of

7656-717: The broad sweep of Foltz's attention to Iranian civilization, a reviewer writes in The Muslim World that "No scholar, save perhaps such giants as Ehsan Yarshater and Richard Frye , can claim a depth of knowledge of traditions as diverse and covering such a wide historical span". Apart from his work on Iranian history and civilization, Foltz has played a formative role in the emergence of a new subfield of religious studies known as religion and ecology , having edited three seminal works in this area, including two collections devoted to Islam. While sympathetic to attempts by Hossein Nasr , Fazlun Khalid and others to derive an environmental ethic from Islamic principles, Foltz has questioned

7772-481: The broadest sense, ranging from the Ossetes and the Kurds in the West to the Tajiks in the East. His book A History of the Tajiks: Iranians of the East is the first monograph on the subject to be written in any Western language, as is his The Ossetes: Modern-Day Scythians of the Caucasus . Foltz's approach is syncretic, bringing together, in the words of Omid Safi , "many different bodies of scholarship which have rarely been placed side by side". Commenting on

7888-401: The central deserts [the Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut ]. Between the coming of the Abbasids [in 750] and the Mongol onslaught [in 1258], Iraq and western Iran shared a closer history than did eastern Iran and its western counterpart. Testimony to the close relationship shared by Iraq and western Iran during the Abbasid era and later centuries, is the fact that the two regions came to share

8004-412: The condition that Bahrain would become a tributary state of Persia. In 1800, Sayyid Sultan invaded Bahrain again in retaliation and deployed a garrison at Arad Fort , in Muharraq island and had appointed his twelve-year-old son Salim, as Governor of the island. Many names of villages in Bahrain are derived from the Persian language. These names were thought to have been as a result influences during

8120-533: The country's local food dishes. One of the most notable local delicacies of the people in Bahrain is mahyawa , which is consumed in Southern Iran as well. It is a watery, earth-brick-coloured sauce made from sardines, and consumed with bread or other food. Bahrain's Persians are also famous in Bahrain for bread-making. Another local delicacy is pishoo made from rose water ( golab ) and agar agar . Other food items consumed are similar to Persian cuisine . Throughout history, Iran always had strong cultural ties with

8236-437: The empire's organization had loosened and the last king was defeated by one of the empire's vassal peoples, the Persians under the Sasanians. However, the Arsacid dynasty continued to exist for centuries onwards in Armenia , the Iberia , and the Caucasian Albania , which were all eponymous branches of the dynasty. The first shah of the Sasanian Empire, Ardashir I , started reforming the country economically and militarily. For

8352-617: The empire's territorial borders, reaching as far as Western Europe, Africa, China and India and also playing a prominent role in the formation of both European and Asiatic medieval art. This influence carried forward to the Muslim world . The dynasty's unique and aristocratic culture transformed the Islamic conquest and destruction of Iran into a Persian Renaissance. Much of what later became known as Islamic culture, architecture, writing, and other contributions to civilization, were taken from

8468-469: The empire. The city of Baghdad was constructed on the Tigris River , in 762, to serve as the new Abbasid capital. The Abbasids established the position of vizier like Barmakids in their administration, which was the equivalent of a "vice-caliph", or second-in-command. Eventually, this change meant that many caliphs under the Abbasids ended up in a much more ceremonial role than ever before, with

8584-525: The end of the Arab empire and the beginning of a more inclusive, multi-ethnic state in the Middle East. One of the first changes the Abbasids made after taking power from the Umayyads was to move the empire's capital from Damascus , in the Levant , to Iraq . The latter region was influenced by Persian history and culture, and moving the capital was part of the Persian mawali demand for Arab influence in

8700-642: The end of the age of ignorance and heathenism; by others as a humiliating national defeat, the conquest and subjugation of the country by foreign invaders. Both perceptions are of course valid, depending on one's angle of vision." After the fall of the Sasanian Empire in 651, the Arabs of the Umayyad Caliphate adopted many Persian customs, especially the administrative and the court mannerisms. Arab provincial governors were undoubtedly either Persianized Arameans or ethnic Persians; certainly Persian remained

8816-422: The environmental credentials of contemporary Muslim societies, citing fatalism and strongly pro- natalist attitudes as obstacles to an environmental ethic. He has also challenged claims by Zoroastrians such as Farhang Mehr that Zoroastrianism is "the world's original environmentalist religion," noting that its cosmic dualism is at odds with contemporary ecological understanding which sees all species as having

8932-450: The hypothetical Zayandeh River Culture . Parts of what is modern-day northwestern Iran was part of the Kura–Araxes culture (circa 3400 BC—ca. 2000 BC), that stretched up into the neighbouring regions of the Caucasus and Anatolia . Susa is one of the oldest-known settlements of Iran and the world. Based on C14 dating, the time of the foundation of the city is as early as 4395 BC,

9048-545: The importance of Classical civilization for the West: "Most of the cultures of Asia identify with Iran on some level, much as Westerners do with Greece and Rome." In addition to religions commonly associated with Iran such as Zoroastrianism , Manichaeism , Islam and the Baháʼí Faith , Foltz's work highlights the influence of Iranian ideas on Judaism , Buddhism and Christianity . His focus encompasses Iranian civilization in

9164-566: The invading Muslim forces. The Sasanian era, encompassing the length of Late Antiquity , is considered to be one of the most important and influential historical periods in Iran, and had a major impact on the world. In many ways, the Sassanian period witnessed the highest achievement of Persian civilization and constitutes the last great Iranian Empire before the adoption of Islam. Persia influenced Roman civilization considerably during Sassanian times, their cultural influence extending far beyond

9280-707: The island back under central rule and to challenge Oman in the Persian Gulf. He sought help from the British and Dutch, and he eventually recaptured Bahrain in 1736. During the Qajar era, Persian control over Bahrain waned and in 1753, Bahrain was occupied by the Sunni Persians of the Bushire -based Al Madhkur family, who ruled Bahrain in the name of Persia and paid allegiance to Karim Khan Zand . During most of

9396-534: The language of official business of the caliphate until the adoption of Arabic toward the end of the seventh century, when in 692 minting began at the capital, Damascus . The new Islamic coins evolved from imitations of Sasanian coins (as well as Byzantine ), and the Pahlavi script on the coinage was replaced with Arabic alphabet . During the Umayyad Caliphate, the Arab conquerors imposed Arabic as

9512-659: The later Iranian and Greek dynasties chose Mesopotamia to be the political center of their rule. For a period of around 500 years, what is now Iraq formed the core of Iran, with the Iranian Parthian and Sasanian empire having their capital in what is modern-day Iraq for the same centuries-long time span. ( Ctesiphon ) Of the four residences of the Achaemenids named by Herodotus — Ecbatana , Pasargadae or Persepolis , Susa and Babylon —the last [situated in Iraq]

9628-537: The modern inhabitants of Iran are descendants of mainly non-Indo-European groups, more specifically of pre-Iranic inhabitants of the Iranian Plateau: "It is the autochthones of the Iranian plateau, and not the Proto-Indo-European tribes of Europe, which are, in the main, the ancestors, in the physical sense of the word, of the present-day Iranians." Records become more tangible with the rise of

9744-747: The new dynasty and the Zoroastrian clergy , as we can deduce from the available evidence. This convergence gave rise to the idea of an Ērān-šahr "Kingdom of the Iranians", which was "ēr" ( Middle Persian equivalent of Old Persian "ariya" and Avestan "airya"). Richard Nelson Frye defines Greater Iran as including " much of the Caucasus, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, with cultural influences extending to China and western India ." According to him, " Iran means all lands and peoples where Iranian languages were and are spoken, and where in

9860-425: The old Khorasan. Until the 13th century and the devastating Mongol invasion of the region, Khorasan was considered the cultural capital of Greater Iran. The Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County regions of China harbored a Tajik population and culture. Chinese Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County was always counted as a part of the Iranian cultural & linguistic continent with Kashgar , Yarkand , and Hotan bound to

9976-521: The past, multi-faceted Iranian cultures existe d." Richard Foltz notes that while " A general assumption is often made that the various Iranian peoples of 'greater Iran'—a cultural area that stretched from Mesopotamia and the Caucasus into Khwarizm , Transoxiana , Bactria, and the Pamirs and included Persians, Medes , Parthians and Sogdians among others—were all 'Zoroastrians' in pre-Islamic times... This view, even though common among serious scholars,

10092-536: The primary language of the subject peoples throughout their empire. Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf , who was not happy with the prevalence of the Persian language in the divan , ordered the official language of the conquered lands to be replaced by Arabic, sometimes by force. In al-Biruni 's From The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries for example it is written: "When Qutaibah bin Muslim under the command of Al-Hajjaj bin Yousef

10208-400: The region of present-day Iraq . Mesopotamia is considered the cradle of civilization and the place where the first empires in history were established. These empires, namely the Sumerian , Akkadian , Babylonian , and Assyrian , dominated the ancient middle east for millennia, which explains the great influence of Mesopotamia on the Iranian culture and history, and it is also the reason why

10324-447: The region. For over 150 years Assyrian kings of nearby Northern Mesopotamia had been wanting to conquer Median tribes of Western Iran. Under pressure from Assyria, the small kingdoms of the western Iranian plateau coalesced into increasingly larger and more centralized states. In the second half of the seventh century BC, the Medes gained their independence and were united by Deioces . In 612 BC, Cyaxares , Deioces ' grandson, and

10440-411: The ruling Arab elite until the end of the Umayyad Caliphate. During this era, Islam was initially associated with the ethnic identity of the Arab and required formal association with an Arab tribe and the adoption of the client status of mawali . The half-hearted policies of the late Umayyads to tolerate non-Arab Muslims and Shias had failed to quell unrest among these minorities. However, all of Iran

10556-400: The same name. The western region of Iran (ancient Media) was called 'Irāq-e 'Ajamī ("Persian Iraq"), while central-southern Iraq (Babylonia) was called 'Irāq al-'Arabī ("Arabic Iraq") or Bābil ("Babylon"). For centuries the two neighbouring regions were known as " The Two Iraqs " ("al-'Iraqain"). The 12th century Persian poet Khāqāni wrote a famous poem Tohfat-ul Iraqein ("The Gift of

10672-617: The same time in history. Furthermore, the name of "Azerbaijan" is derived through the name of the Persian satrap which ruled the contemporary region of Iranian Azerbaijan and minor parts of the Republic of Azerbaijan in ancient times. Khwarazm is one of the regions of Iran-zameen , and is the home of the ancient Iranians, Airyanem Vaejah , according to the ancient book of the Avesta . Modern scholars believe Khwarazm to be what ancient Avestic texts refer to as "Ariyaneh Waeje" or Iran vij. Iranovich These sources claim that Urgandj , which

10788-436: The second half of the eighteenth century, Bahrain was ruled by Nasr Al-Madhkur , the ruler of Bushehr . The Bani Utibah tribe from Zubarah exceeded in taking over Bahrain after war broke out in 1782. Persian attempts to reconquer the island in 1783 and in 1785 failed; the 1783 expedition was a joint Persian- Qawasim invasion force that never left Bushehr. The 1785 invasion fleet, composed of forces from Bushehr, Rig, and Shiraz

10904-401: The second-largest ethnicity in Iran, and comprise the largest community of ethnic Azerbaijanis in the world, vastly outnumbering the number in the Republic of Azerbaijan. Both nations are the only officially Shia majority in the world, with adherents of the religion comprising an absolute majority in both nations. The people of nowadays Iran and Azerbaijan were converted to Shiism during exactly

11020-624: The southern Iranians might be intermixed with the Elamite peoples living in the plateau. By the mid-first millennium BC, Medes , Persians , and Parthians populated the Iranian plateau. Until the rise of the Medes, they all remained under Assyrian domination, like the rest of the Near East . In the first half of the first millennium BC, parts of what is now Iranian Azerbaijan were incorporated into Urartu . In 646 BC, Assyrian king Ashurbanipal sacked Susa , which ended Elamite supremacy in

11136-473: The southern Sassanid province covering the Persian Gulf's southern shore plus the archipelago of Bahrain. The southern province of the Sassanids was subdivided into three districts; Haggar (now al-Hafuf province, Saudi Arabia), Batan Ardashir (now al-Qatif province, Saudi Arabia), and Mishmahig (now Bahrain Island) (In Middle-Persian /Pahlavi it means "ewe-fish"). By about 130 BC, the Parthian dynasty brought

11252-592: The successful Greek repelling of the Second Invasion with numerous Greek city-states under the Athens' newly formed Delian League , which eventually ended with the peace of Callias in 449 BC, ending the Greco-Persian Wars. In 404 BC, following the death of Darius II , Egypt rebelled under Amyrtaeus . Later pharaohs successfully resisted Persian attempts to reconquer Egypt until 343 BC, when Egypt

11368-489: The territories of Iran and the republic of Azerbaijan usually shared the same history from the time of ancient Media (ninth to seventh centuries b.c.) and the Persian Empire (sixth to fourth centuries b.c.). Intimately and inseparably intertwined histories for millennia, Iran irrevocably lost the territory that is nowadays Azerbaijan in the course of the 19th century. With the Treaty of Gulistan of 1813 following

11484-531: The then known world, as well as spanning the continents of Europe , Asia, and Africa. The greatest achievement was the empire itself. The Persian Empire represented the world's first superpower that was based on a model of tolerance and respect for other cultures and religions. In the late sixth century BC, Darius launched his European campaign, in which he defeated the Paeonians , conquered Thrace , and subdued all coastal Greek cities, as well as defeating

11600-514: The time of the domination of Turkic people the Turkish language has also found currency. Iraqis share religious and certain cultural ties with Iranians . The majority of Iranians are Twelver Shia (an Islamic sect). Iraqi culture has commonalities with the culture of Iran . The Mesopotamian cuisine also has similarities to the Persian cuisine , including common dishes and cooking techniques. The Iraqi dialect has absorbed many words from

11716-509: The unexpected death of Abbas Mirza in 1833, and the murdering of Persia's Grand Vizier ( Mirza AbolQasem Qa'im Maqām ), many Central Asian khanates began losing hope for any support from Persia against the Tsarist armies. The Russian armies occupied the Aral coast in 1849, Tashkent in 1864, Bukhara in 1867, Samarkand in 1868, and Khiva and Amudarya in 1873. In the 8th century, Iran

11832-570: The vizier in real power. A new Persian bureaucracy began to replace the old Arab aristocracy, and the entire administration reflected these changes, demonstrating that the new dynasty was different in many ways from the Umayyads. By the 9th century, Abbasid control began to wane as regional leaders sprang up in the far corners of the empire to challenge the central authority of the Abbasid caliphate. The Abbasid caliphs began enlisting mamluks , Turkic-speaking warriors, who had been moving out of Central Asia into Transoxiana as slave warriors as early as

11948-753: The world's oldest continuous major civilizations, with historical and urban settlements dating back to 4000 BC. The western part of the Iranian plateau participated in the traditional ancient Near East with Elam (in Ilam and Khuzestan ), Kassites (in Kuhdesht ), Gutians (in Luristan ) and later with other peoples such as the Urartians (in Oshnavieh and Sardasht ) in the southwest of Lake Urmia and Mannaeans (in Piranshahr , Saqqez and Bukan ) in

12064-540: Was also " King of Kings ", xšāyaθiya xšāyaθiyānām ( shāhanshāh in modern Persian) – "great king", Megas Basileus , as known by the Greeks . Cyrus's son, Cambyses II , conquered the last major power of the region, ancient Egypt , causing the collapse of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt . Since he became ill and died before, or while, leaving Egypt , stories developed, as related by Herodotus , that he

12180-626: Was also turned out in a Greek victory, following the battles of Plataea and Salamis , by which Persia lost its footholds in Europe, and eventually withdrew from it. During the Greco-Persian wars, the Persians gained major territorial advantages. They captured and razed Athens twice , once in 480 BC and again in 479 BC. However, after a string of Greek victories the Persians were forced to withdraw, thus losing control of Macedonia , Thrace and Ionia . Fighting continued for several decades after

12296-462: Was called off after the death of the ruler of Shiraz, Ali Murad Khan . Due to internal difficulties, the Persians could not attempt another invasion. In 1799, Bahrain came under threat from the expansionist policies of Sayyid Sultan , the Sultan of Oman , when he invaded the island under the pretext that Bahrain did not pay taxes owed. The Bani Utbah solicited the aid of Bushire to expel the Omanis on

12412-655: Was conquered by the Arab Abbassids who ruled from Baghdad . The territory of Iran at that time was composed of two portions: Persian Iraq (western portion) and Khorasan (eastern portion). The dividing region was mostly the cities of Gurgan and Damaghan . The Ghaznavids , Seljuqs and Timurids divided their empires into Iraqi and Khorasani regions. This point can be observed in many books such as Abul Fazl Bayhqi 's "Tārīkhi Baïhaqī" , Al-Ghazali 's Faza'ilul al-anam min rasa'ili hujjat al-Islam and other books. Transoxiana and Chorasmia were mostly included in

12528-571: Was maintained as their most important capital, the fixed winter quarters, the central office of bureaucracy, exchanged only in the heat of summer for some cool spot in the highlands. Under the Seleucids and the Parthians the site of the Mesopotamian capital moved a little to the north on the Tigris —to Seleucia and Ctesiphon . It is indeed symbolic that these new foundations were built from

12644-400: Was reconquered by Artaxerxes III . From 334 BC to 331 BC, Alexander the Great defeated Darius III in the battles of Granicus , Issus and Gaugamela , swiftly conquering the Persian Empire by 331 BC. Alexander's empire broke up shortly after his death, and Alexander's general, Seleucus I Nicator , tried to take control of Iran, Mesopotamia , and later Syria and Anatolia . His empire

12760-488: Was sent to Khwarazmia with a military expedition and conquered it for the second time, he swiftly killed whoever wrote the Khwarazmian native language that knew of the Khwarazmian heritage, history, and culture. He then killed all their Zoroastrian priests and burned and wasted their books, until gradually the illiterate only remained, who knew nothing of writing, and hence their history was mostly forgotten." There are

12876-605: Was still not under Arab control, and the region of Daylam was under the control of the Daylamites , while Tabaristan was under Dabuyid and Paduspanid control, and the Mount Damavand region under Masmughans of Damavand . The Arabs had invaded these regions several times but achieved no decisive result because of the inaccessible terrain of the regions. The most prominent ruler of the Dabuyids, known as Farrukhan

12992-513: Was struck down for impiety against the ancient Egyptian deities . After the death of Cambyses II, Darius ascended the throne by overthrowing the legitimate Achaemenid monarch Bardiya , and then quelling rebellions throughout his kingdom. As the winner, Darius I , based his claim on membership in a collateral line of the Achaemenid Empire. Darius' first capital was at Susa, and he started the building program at Persepolis . He rebuilt

13108-713: Was the Seleucid Empire . He was killed in 281 BC by Ptolemy Keraunos . The Parthian Empire —ruled by the Parthians, a group of northwestern Iranian people—was the realm of the Arsacid dynasty. This latter reunited and governed the Iranian plateau after the Parni conquest of Parthia and defeating the Seleucid Empire in the late third century BC. It intermittently controlled Mesopotamia between c.  150 BC and 224 AD and absorbed Eastern Arabia . Parthia

13224-525: Was the capital of ancient Khwarazm for many years, was actually "Ourva": the eighth land of Ahura Mazda mentioned in the Pahlavi text of Vendidad. Others such as University of Hawaii historian Elton L. Daniel believe Khwarazm to be the "most likely locale" corresponding to the original home of the Avestan people, while Dehkhoda calls Khwarazm "the cradle of the Aryan people" (مهد قوم آریا). Today Khwarazm

13340-584: Was the eastern arch-enemy of the Roman Empire and it limited Rome's expansion beyond Cappadocia (central Anatolia). The Parthian armies included two types of cavalry : the heavily armed and armored cataphracts and the lightly armed but highly-mobile mounted archers . For the Romans, who relied on heavy infantry , the Parthians were too hard to defeat, as both types of cavalry were much faster and more mobile than foot soldiers. The Parthian shot used by

13456-563: Was the ruler of this expanse between 1304 and 1317 A.D. Primary sources , including Timurid historian Mir Khwand , define Iranshahr (Greater Iran) as extending from the Euphrates to the Oxus The Cambridge History of Iran takes a geographical approach in referring to the "historical and cultural" entity of "Greater Iran" as "areas of Iran, parts of Afghanistan, Chinese and Soviet Central Asia ". Greater Iran

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