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170-589: Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad ibn Sam ( Persian : معز الدین محمد بن سام , romanized :  Muʿizz al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Sām ; c.  1144  – 15 March 1206), also known as Muhammad of Ghor or Muhammad Ghori , was a ruler from the Ghurid dynasty based in the Ghor region of what is today central Afghanistan who ruled from 1173 to 1206. Muhammad and his elder brother Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad ruled in

340-497: A dyarchy until the latter's death in 1203. Ghiyath al-Din, the senior partner, governed the western Ghurid regions from his capital at Firozkoh whereas Muhammad extended Ghurid rule eastwards, laying the foundation of Islamic rule in South Asia , which lasted after him for nearly half a millennium under evolving Muslim dynasties. During his early career as governor of the southern tract of Ghurid Empire , Muhammad subjugated

510-479: A " dagger ". However, this account is not corroborated by the earlier authorities. Minhaj al-Siraj Juzjani , Hasan Nizami and Shams ad-Dīn adh-Dhahabi all contemporary or near contemporary accounts confirmed that Muhammad was assassinated by a " Heretic devote " ("fida-i-mulahida"). The story of his assassination by the Khokhars is probably an invention of later times based on indirect evidences. Muhammad's coffin

680-643: A $ 720 million four-year investment deal with the Taliban government of Afghanistan for extraction on its side of the Amu Darya basin. The deal will see a 15% royalty given to the Afghan government over the course of its 25-year term. The Chinese see this basin as the third-largest potential gas field in the world. The clashing noise of battle reached the sky The blood of the Bengalees flowed like

850-655: 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

1020-472: A Qazi Zia-ud-Din of Tulak as governor of the fortress with 1200 horsemen, Muhammad received the news that Prithviraj's army, led by his vassal prince Govind Rai were on their way to besiege the fortress. The two armies eventually met near the town of Tarain , 14 miles from Thanesar in present-day Haryana . The battle was marked by the initial attack of mounted Mamluk archers to which Prithviraj responded by counter-attacking from three sides and thus dominating

1190-528: A brief period of struggle for the succession between Alauddin Shah of Khwarezm and his nephew Hindu Khan. The Ghurid siblings seized the opportunity and amidst the turmoil in the Khwarezmian house for succession, Muhammad and Ghiyath al-Din invaded and captured the oasis cities of Nishapur , Merv and Tus and reached as far as Gorgan . The Ghurids, thus, for a short span established their sway over most of

1360-680: A devastating defeat at Andkhud against their Turkish rivals Khwarazmians aided by timely reinforcements from the Qara Khitais , which resulted in the Ghurid power ebbing out in most of the Khurasan . Muhammad quelled the widespread insurrection throughout his empire after the debacle and ordered the construction of a bridge over the Oxus River to launch a full-scale invasion of Transoxiana in order to avenge his defeat at Andkhud, although

1530-418: 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

1700-505: 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

1870-468: A league The shorn and parcelled Oxus strains along Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles — Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere , A foiled circuitous wanderer: — till at last The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wide His luminous home of waters opens, bright And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars Emerge, and shine upon

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2040-417: 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

2210-536: 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

2380-451: A prince, he was instructed to subdue the Oghuz tribes whose power and influence began to wane, although they were still controlling extensive territories. He used Kandahar as a base and raided the principality of Oghuzs multiple times, before defeating them decisively along with Ghiyath al-Din and followed up their victory by conquering Ghazni in 1169 along with some other territories in what

2550-744: A rebellion by the Hindu Khokhars forced him to move towards the Salt Range , where he brutally crushed the Khokhar revolt during his last campaign. On his way back, Muhammad of Ghor was assassinated on the bank of Indus at Damyak on 15 March 1206, by the Ismāīlī emissaries while offering evening prayers. Muhammad's assassination led to the rapid decline of the Ghurids and enabled Shah Muhammad II to annex remaining Ghurid territories west of

2720-594: A remnant of his soldiers arrived in the night and searched for his body at the battle site. Muhammad in extremely critical situation recognised his soldiers, who rejoiced after finding him alive and took him from the battlefield in a litter to Ghazni. However, the version from Za'inul Masir is not corroborated by any other contemporary and later writers, which made its authenticity dubious and the version of Juzjani more credible. The Ghurid garrison of Tabarhind under Ziauddin, held out for thirteen months before being capitulated. The Rajputs could not make quick progressions during

2890-566: A revolt by his uncle Hariraja , Govindraja was forced to move towards Ranthambore, where he established a new dynasty of the Chahamanas . Hariraja, briefly dislodged the Ghurid garrison from Ajmer , but was later defeated by Qutb ud-Din Aibak . Subsequently, Hairaja immolated himself on a funeral pyre and the Ghurids reoccupied Ajmer and placed it under a Muslim governor. Soon after, Delhi

3060-599: 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

3230-591: A sudden attack and afterwards sacked his capital Anhilwara . Thus, Aibak avenged the rout of Muhammad at the same place in 1178 . Muhammad continued to aid his brother for the expansion in west against the Khwarezmians in the interlude of his eastwards expansion. Meanwhile, in the affairs of Khurasan , Sultan Shah was defeated by his brother Ala al-Din Tekish in alliance with the Qara Khitai troops and

3400-600: A year in 1191 possibly due to the drug overdose. According to historian A.B.M. Habibullah , the Ghurids could not annex any territory in Khurasan outside Herat which remained under the sway of Tekesh and who by 1193 captured much of the Persia along with the Trans-Caspian belt . Conversely, C. E. Bosworth stated that Ghurids annexed some part of Khurasan after their victory in Merv . Tekish died in 1200, which led to

3570-501: A young Qabacha who was sold into slavery and was later bestowed with the domains of Kerman and Sanjar for his Iqṭāʿ by the Ghurid Sultan. He raised his slaves with affection and treated them as his sons and successors, after his despondency with his own Ghurid household in his later days. According to another contemporary account of Fakhr-i Mudabbir who wrote under the patronage of Qutb ud-Din Aibak also emphasized upon

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3740-615: 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

3910-664: 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

4080-628: 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

4250-850: 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

4420-675: 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

4590-425: 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

4760-454: Is navigable for over 1,450 kilometres (900 mi). All of the water comes from the high mountains in the south where annual precipitation can be over 1,000 mm (39 in). Even before large-scale irrigation began, high summer evaporation meant that not all of this discharge reached the Aral Sea – though there is some evidence the large Pamir glaciers provided enough meltwater for

4930-460: 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

5100-475: 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 ),

5270-585: 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

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5440-725: Is present-day eastern Afghanistan. Soon, Muhammad's coronation took place in Ghazni in 1173 and his brother returned to Firuzkuh for the westwards expansion in Transoxania . Subsequently, Muhammad utilized the city of Ghazni as a launch pad to led a series of lucrative forays down to the Indus Delta and beyond. In 1174, Muhammad led an expedition against the Ghuzzs of Sanquran in present-day Turkmenistan and subdued them. In 1175, Muhammad marched from Ghazni and helped his brother in

5610-495: 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

5780-491: The Encyclopædia Iranica notes that the Iranian, Afghan, and Tajiki varieties comprise distinct branches of the Persian language, and within each branch a wide variety of local dialects exist. The following are some languages closely related to Persian, or in some cases are considered dialects: More distantly related branches of the Iranian language family include Kurdish and Balochi . The Glottolog database proposes

5950-506: 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

6120-679: The Bamiyan Valley , Baha al-Din Sam II to construct a boat bridge and a castle across the river Oxus to facilitate the march of his armies in Transoxiana . Muhammad also directed his Indian soldiers to join him in the expedition against the Qara Khitais. However, soon another political unrest broke out which turned Muhammad towards Punjab again where he was eventually assassinated. The Khokhar tribe whose influence extended from

6290-717: The Basmachi movement and killed Ibrahim Bek . A large refugee population of Central Asians, including Turkmen, Tajiks, and Uzbeks, fled to northern Afghanistan. In the 1960s and 1970s the Soviets started using the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya to irrigate extensive cotton fields in the Central Asian plain. Before this time, water from the rivers was already being used for agriculture, but not on this massive scale. The Qaraqum Canal , Karshi Canal, and Bukhara Canal were among

6460-668: 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

6630-641: The Indus River by 1215. However, his conquests east of the Indus in the Indian Subcontinent , evolved into the formidable Delhi Sultanate under his slave commander Qutbuddin Aibak . Muhammad of Ghor was born in the  Ghur  region of present-day west-central Afghanistan to the Ghurid ruler Baha al-Din Sam I who ruled his ancestral realm briefly before he died in 1149, when Muhammad of Ghor

6800-514: The Khokhars . The Khokhars led by Bakan and Sarkha offered a battle somewhere between the Chenab and Jhelum rivers and fought valiantly until the afternoon but Muhammad carried the day after Iltutmish arrived with a reserve contingent, whom Muhammad earlier stationed on the banks of Jhelum . Muhammad followed his victory by a large scale slaughter of the Khokhars . His armies also burnt down

6970-675: The Levant through Persia to Afghanistan , with the Oxus as his stated goal, "to see certain famous monuments, chiefly the Gonbad-e Qabus , a tower built as a mausoleum for an ancient king." George MacDonald Fraser 's Flashman at the Charge (1973), places Flashman on the Amu Darya and the Aral Sea during the (fictitious) Russian advance on India during The Great Game period. But

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7140-656: The Northern India , Muhammad turned south towards present-day Gujarat in Anhilwara . Before entering in Anhilwara , he laid siege to the fort of Nadol (around Marwar ) and captured it after a short siege from Kelhanadeva along with sacking the Shiva temple in Kiradu . After marching through the dry Thar Desert south of Marwar , the Ghurid army got exhausted, when they reached Mount Abu where they were routed in

7310-417: The Oghuz Turks after a series of forays and annexed Ghazni where he was installed by Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad as an independent sovereign. Expanding the Ghurid dominion east of the Indus Delta from his base in Ghazni, Muhammad crossed the river Indus in 1175, approaching it through the Gomal Pass and captured Multan and Uch from the Carmathians within a year. Afterwards, Muhammad took his army by

7480-410: The Rajput Confederacy led by the Chahamana ruler Prithviraj Chauhan at Tarain in 1191. Muhammad returned to Khurasan , and returned a year later with a vast army of mounted archers to secure a decisive victory in the return engagement on the same battleground and executed Prithviraj shortly afterwards. He limited his presence in India afterwards, deputing the political and military operations in

7650-455: 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

7820-412: The Tabaqat-i-Nasiri in 1260 which is regarded as a monumental work from the medieval period on the Ghurid dynasty and the Delhi Sultanate . In 1190, after consildating in Sindh and western Punjab, the Ghurid generals began to raid the eastern Punjab region and captured a castle - Bathinda in present-day Punjab state on the northwestern frontier of Prithviraj Chauhan 's kingdom. After appointing

7990-443: The Tajikistan–Afghanistan Friendship Bridge . It subsequently forms the border of Afghanistan and Uzbekistan for about 200 kilometres (120 mi), passing Termez and the Afghanistan–Uzbekistan Friendship Bridge . It delineates the border of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan for another 100 kilometres (62 mi) before it flows into Turkmenistan at Atamurat . It flows across Turkmenistan south to north, passing Türkmenabat , and forms

8160-420: The Transcaspian Canal . The 534,769 square kilometres (206,475 sq mi) of the Amu Darya drainage basin include most of Tajikistan, the southwest corner of Kyrgyzstan , the northeast corner of Afghanistan, a narrow portion of eastern Turkmenistan and the western half of Uzbekistan. Part of the Amu Darya basin divide in Tajikistan forms that country's border with China (in the east) and Pakistan (to

8330-439: 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

8500-423: 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

8670-479: 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 ,

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8840-432: The "Sultan-i-Ghazi" (sultan of the holy warriors) portraying his Indian expeditions as the engagement between the army of Islam ( Lashkar-i Islam ) and the army of infidels ( Lashkar-i Kuffar ). The Ghurid brothers ruling in a dyarchy with the senior partner Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad engaged in a protracted duel with the Khwarazmians from his capital Firuzkuh situated in west-central Afghanistan , while Muhammad expanded

9010-422: The Amu Darya basin. During the Soviet era, a resource-sharing system was instated in which Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan shared water originating from the Amu and Syr Daryas with Kazakhstan , Turkmenistan , and Uzbekistan in summer. In return, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan received Kazakh, Turkmen, and Uzbek coal, gas, and electricity in winter. After the fall of the Soviet Union this system disintegrated and

9180-409: The Amu Darya would not exist—because it rarely rains in the lowlands through which most of the river flows. Of the total drainage area, only about 200,000 square kilometres (77,000 sq mi) actively contribute water to the river. This is because many of the river's major tributaries (especially the Zeravshan River ) have been diverted, and much of the river's drainage is arid. Throughout most of

9350-420: The Aral to overflow during the 13th and 14th centuries. Since the end of the 19th century, there have been four different claimants as the true source of the Oxus: A glacier turns into the Wakhan River and joins the Pamir River about 50 kilometres (31 mi) downstream. Bill Colegrave's expedition to Wakhan in 2007 found that both claimants 2 and 3 had the same source, the Chelab stream, which bifurcates on

9520-572: 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

9690-430: The Central Asian nations have failed to reinstate it. Inadequate infrastructure, poor water management, and outdated irrigation methods all exacerbate the issue. The Caspian tiger used to occur along the river's banks. After its extirpation, the Darya's delta was suggested as a potential site for the introduction of its closest surviving relative, the Siberian tiger . A feasibility study was initiated to investigate if

9860-407: The Empire of Russia, which at the time wielded great influence over the Oxus area, would overcome these obstacles and find a suitable route through which to invade British India – but this never came to pass. The area was taken over by Russia during the Russian conquest of Turkestan . The Soviet Union became the ruling power in the early 1920s and expelled Mohammed Alim Khan . It later put down

10030-437: The Ghurid domains eastwards into the Indian plains from his capital at Ghazni. The expeditions into the Indian plains and the plunder extracted from the sacking of lucrative Hindu temples in the Gangetic Plain , gave Muhammad access to a vast amount of treasure in Ghazni which according to chronicler Juzjani based on the authority of Muhammad's comptroller included 60,000 kg (1500 mann ) of jewels. Muhammad's expeditions in

10200-473: The Ghurid expansion in Transoxiana against the Khwarezmian Empire as his brother Ghiyath al-Din began to have health problems. Notwithstanding, Muhammad as per the writings of Fakhr-i Mudabbir and Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani , appointed Aibak as his administrator of the Ghurid domains in North India after the Second Battle of Tarain . His lieutenants - Qutb ud-Din Aibak, Bahauddin Tughril , Bakhtiyar Khalji and Yildiz before his assassination, swiftly raided

10370-402: The Ghurid governor Karang there. Muhammad of Ghor, possibly to take over the entire Khwarezmian Empire , laid siege to their capital Gurganj , instead of Herat which was besieged by the Khwarezmians after Ghiyath al-Din's death. Alauddin retreated on the Ghurid advance and desperately requested aid from the Qara Khitais , who sent a sizeable army to aid the Khwarezmians. Muhammad, because of

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10540-418: The Ghurid siblings were reinstated in Sanjah, although the earlier account of " Tabaqat-i-Nasiri " stated that the hardship continued due to their financial conditions. Muhammad thus, took shelter in the court of his uncle Fakhruddin Masud who held the principality of Bamiyan as vassal of their uncle Alauddin Husayn. Later, Fakhr al-Din Masud laid his own claim for the succession after Sayf al-Din death as

10710-567: The Ghurids. However, the attempt turned to be futile and Muhammad marched again with his forces on Nishapur which forced Alauddin to shut himself inside the city walls. Muhammad recaptured Tus along with Herat and sacked the country-side. Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad around this time died at Herat on 13 March 1203, after months of illness which briefly diverted Muhammad's attention from the existing state of affairs. Thus, taking advantage of his absence from Herat where he appointed his nephew Alp Ghazi, Khwarezmian forces captured Merv and beheaded

10880-418: The Indian subcontinent started against the Qarmatians ( sevener branch of Isma'ilis ) who regained a foothold in Multan , soon after the death of Mahmud of Ghazni who installed a Sunni governor there. Muhammad defeated the Qarmatian ruler Khafif in 1175 and annexed Multan. The defeat turned to be a death blow for the Qarmatian power in Multan, who never regained their influence in the region again. After

11050-469: The Ismaili assassins were sent by the Khwarezmian Shah is unlikely to be correct. Muhammad's assassins were probably sent by the Imam of Alamut whose castle he sacked during the Khurasan expedition. Some later accounts possibly with the genesis in the writing of Ferishta claimed that his assassins were Hindu Khokhars. In " Tarikh-i-Firishta ", he stated that "Twenty Khokhar infidels" who were cowed down by him earlier attacked his carvan and stabbed him with

11220-404: The Khokhars, on his way back to his capital in Ghazni, Muhammad's caravan rested at Dhamiak near Sohawa (which is near the city of Jhelum in the Punjab province of modern-day Pakistan) where he was assassinated on March 15, 1206, by the Ismāʿīlī emissaries. The martyrdom of the sovereign of sea and land, Muizz-ud-din, From the beginning of the world the like of whom no monarch arose, On

11390-406: The Khurasan for first time in their history. However, their success turned to be a short-term affair as Alauddin succeeded the throne in August 1200 and soon after recaptured his lost territories by 1201. Despite the success against the Ghurids, Alauddin sent an envoy for diplomacy to Muhammad, probably in order to focus solely on overcoming from the suzerainty of Qara Khitais by sougthing peace with

11560-500: 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

11730-431: The Mongols came to the area, they used the water of the Amu Darya to flood Konye-Urgench . One southern route of the Silk Road ran along part of the Amu Darya northwestward from Termez before going westwards to the Caspian Sea . According to the Quaternary International, it is possible that the Amu Darya's course across the Karakum Desert has gone through several major shifts in the past few thousand years. Much of

11900-429: 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

12070-459: 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

12240-481: 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

12410-401: 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

12580-457: The Persian word for 'lake' or 'sea'. Medieval Arabic and Islamic sources call the river Jeyhoun ( Arabic : جَـيْـحُـوْن , romanized :  Jayḥūn ), which is derived from Gihon , the biblical name for one of the four rivers of the Garden of Eden . The Amu Darya passes through one of the world's highest deserts. Western travelers in the 19th century mentioned that one of

12750-886: 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,

12920-484: 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

13090-588: 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)

13260-518: 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

13430-611: The annexation of the cosmopolitan city of Herat and Pushang after defeating a former general of the Seljuks . The Ghurid siblings advanced into the present-day Iran and brought Nasrid dynasty of Sistan under their sway whose ruler Taj al-Din III Harb ibn Muhammad ibn Nasr acknowledged the Ghurid suzerainty and later sent his armies several times assisting the Ghurids in their warfares. Afterwards, Ghiyath al-Din captured Balkh and territories adjoining Herat in Khurasan . After

13600-408: The area is suitable and if such an initiative would receive support from relevant decision makers. A viable tiger population of about 100 animals would require at least 5,000 km (1,900 sq mi) of large tracts of contiguous habitat with rich prey populations. Such habitat is not available at this stage and cannot be provided in the short term. The proposed region is therefore unsuitable for

13770-498: The area of Lake Urmia in the records of Shalmaneser III . The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain, but from a linguistic viewpoint the word matches Old Persian pārsa itself coming directly from the older word * pārćwa . Also, as Old Persian contains many words from another extinct Iranian language, Median , according to P. O. Skjærvø it is probable that Old Persian had already been spoken before

13940-601: The battle led to widespread insurrections throughout the Ghurid Sultanate, most notably by Aibak Beg, Husain Kharmil and by the governor of Ghazni, Yildiz, as well. Muhammad first marched to Multan instead of Ghazni, where his slave general Aibak Beg (who rescued him in Battle of Andkhud ) assassinated the Ghurid governor Amir Dad Hasan in a personal meeting and issued a fake decree of him being appointed by Muhammad as

14110-640: The battle on the bank of river Saraswati (present-day Sirsa ) and summarily executed. After the victory, Muhammad took over much of the Chahamana kingdom and sacked their capital Ajmer during which several Hindu temples were desecrated by the Ghurids in Ajmer. Muhammad captured and placed strong garrisons at the strategic military stations of Sirsa , Hansi , Samana and Kohram . Muhammad later installed Prithviraja's minor son Govindaraja IV as his puppet ruler on condition of heavy tribute. However, later after

14280-498: The battle. Muhammad mortally wounded Govind Rai in personal combat and in the process was himself wounded, whereupon his army retreated and Prithvīrāj's army was deemed victorious. According to Juzjani, Muhammad was carried away from the battleground in wounded state by a Khalji horsemen. A largely different account from Za'inul Masir claimed that Muhammad after being wounded in combat with Govindraja fell unconscious and his forces withdrew in disarray after assuming him to be dead, later

14450-478: The border of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan from Halkabat. It is then split by the Tuyamuyun Hydro Complex into many waterways that used to form the river delta joining the Aral Sea, passing Urgench , Daşoguz , and other cities, but it does not reach what is left of the sea any more and is lost in the desert. Use of water from the Amu Darya for irrigation has been a major contributing factor to

14620-611: The borders of Lahore for few more years by sending tributes along with one of the Ghaznavid prince (Malik Shah) under his custody in Ghazni as a hostage. In 1182, Muhammad followed a southerly arc to the port city of Debal on the Arabian Sea coast of Sindh , subjugating the Soomras . In the subsequent years, he expanded and consolidated his conquests around present-day Pakistan and annexed Sialkot along with sacking Lahore and

14790-548: The canal with the Taliban. The Taliban has made the canal a priority, with images supplied by Planet Labs demonstrate that from April 2022 to February 2023, more than 100 km of canal was excavated. According to the Taliban, the initiative is expected to convert 550,000 hectares of desert into farmland. In January 2023, the Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Company (aka CAPEIC) signed

14960-457: 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

15130-512: 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

15300-526: The communities of "the vassal Khanates of Maimene, Khulm, Kunduz, and even the Badakshan and Wahkran." An Englishman, William Moorcroft , visited the Oxus around 1824 during the Great Game period. Another Englishman, a naval officer called John Wood , came with an expedition to find the source of the river in 1839. He found modern-day Lake Zorkul , called it Lake Victoria, and proclaimed he had found

15470-580: The conquest of Multan, Muhammad captured Uch which was situated south of the confluence of the rivers Chenab and Jhelum . His campaign in Uch is not mentioned in detail in the near contemporary accounts except Kāmil fit-Tārīkh , although the detail in the text about his expedition in Uch is possibly blurred by a legend associated with the Bhati Rajputs . Nonetheless, Firishta , a later chronicler mentioned

15640-569: The countryside. After Khusrau Malik made an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge the Ghurid garrison in Sialkot, Muhammad made the final assault on Lahore and forced him to surrender after a short siege. He imprisoned Khusrau Malik in the fort of Gharchistan , breaching his own agreement of safe conduct for his presence. Khusrau Malik was sent to Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad in Firuzkuh where he and all his kinfolks were executed before 1192. Thus, ended

15810-535: The death of Ghiyath Al-Din Muhammad – the senior partner in the dyarchy – Muhammad assumed the title of "Al-Sultan Al-Azam" which meant the "Greatest Sultan". On one of colonnade in the Qutb Minar along with some of his golden mints circulated in India – Muhammad is eulogized as the "Sikander Al-Thani". (Second Alexander) Muhammad's courtier rhetorically aggrandize him as the champion of Islam styling him as

15980-519: The desert to Ghazni. The defeat forced Muhammad to opt for the northern routes who thenceforth, concentrated on creating a suitable base in Punjab and northwest for further incursions into northern India . In 1179, Muhammad conquered Peshawar which was possibly ruled by the Ghaznavids. Thereafter, he advanced further and besieged Lahore in 1181, although Khusrau Malik managed to keep him around

16150-491: The directive of his ruling sibling and proposing the dispatch of an envoy to negotiate peace. According to accounts from Hasan Nizami, Muhammad Ufi, and Firishta, it becomes evident that Ghori employed deception, and Prithviraj, considering it a genuine truce, accepted the proposal. Before the next day, the Ghurids attacked the Rajput army. The assault occurred before sunrise, catching the Chahamana army off guard as they had spent

16320-455: The elder member of the Ghurid family. Muhammad helped his brother in suppressing the revolt of Fakhruddin who garnered a sizeable army in alliance with the chiefs of Balkh and Herat who both were executed in the battle, although Fakhruddin was reinstated in Bamiyan in 1163. Afterwards, with the support of the remaining local Ghurid officers and " maliks ", his brother succeeded Sayf al-Din to

16490-592: The elephant phalanx of the Rajput forces by having them attack mock elephants made of mud and wood. The near contemporary chroniclers Juzjani and Isami stated that Muhammad brought 120,000-130,000 fully armoured men to the battle in 1192. Ferishta placed the strength of Rajput army in the decisive battle at 3,000 elephants, 300,000 cavalry and infantry (most likely a gross exaggeration). Prithviraj Chauhan had called his banners but hoped to buy time as his banners (other Rajputs under him or his allies) had not arrived. Instead of engaging in direct confrontation as they did in

16660-600: 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

16830-687: The families of his slaves in accordance with the practise of endogamy . The notable among these alliances, were the marriages of the daughters of Taj al-Din Yildiz to Qutb ud-Din Aibak and Nasir ad-Din Qabacha . Further, two daughters of Aibak were married to Qabacha. This policy was continued by Aibak as well, who married his daughter to his slave Illtutmish . Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -⁠shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ),

17000-550: The following phylogenetic classification: Oxus River In classical antiquity , the river was known as the Ōxus in Latin and Ὦξος ( Ôxos ) in Greek — a clear derivative of Vakhsh , the name of the largest tributary of the river. In Sanskrit texts , the river is also referred to as Vakṣu ( वक्षु ). The Brahmanda Purana refers to the river as Chaksu which means 'an eye'. The Avestan texts too refer to

17170-588: The forces of the Rajput Gahadavala king Jayachandra in the Battle of Chandawar . The Ghurid army was victorious, Jayachandra was killed in the battle, and much of his army was slaughtered. Following the battle, the Ghurids took the fort at Asni, where they plundered the royal treasure of the Gahadavalas, and went on to take the pilgrimage city of Varanasi , which was looted and a large number of its temples destroyed. The Gahadavala capital Kanauj

17340-435: The forests where many of them took refuge while fleeing. Iltutmish was rewarded for his gallantry against the Khokhars with a presentation of special robe of honour from Muhammad. According to Juzjani, Muhammad also manumitted Illtutmish, despite the fact that his master Aibak who purchased him originally was still a slave along with other senior slaves of Muhammad who were not manumitted until that point. After crushing

17510-577: 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

17680-476: 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

17850-750: The fort under his senior slave Bahauddin Tughril , who later established Sultankot and used it as his stronghold. After the conquest of Thankar, Bahaurddin Turghil reduced the fort of Gwalior whose Parihar chief Sallakhanapala surrendered after a long siege and accepted the Ghurid suzerainty. After the assassination of Muhammad, Tourghil styled himself as the Sultan in Bayana . In 1197, Qutb ud-Din Aibak invaded Gujarat and defeated Bhima II in Sirohi after

18020-692: The importance of each of the Turkish slaves ("bandagan") to Muhammad. He further panegyrise Aibak for enduring the trust of his master. Muhammad's slaves played a key role in the expansion and consolidation of the Ghurid conquests in the Ganga-Jamuna doab when he was engaged in the affairs of Khurasan and amidst this also raised their own authority in the North India while still regarding Muhammad as their supreme master until his assassination. Muhammad, later also organized matrimonial alliances among

18190-597: The initial Battle of Tarain, the Ghurids adopted a strategy of deceit and diplomacy to overcome the Rajputs , as documented in Taj-ul Ma'asir by Hasan Nizami . Upon Ghori's arrival on the battlefield, Prithviraj, the Rajput leader, purportedly sent a formal message suggesting a peaceful resolution, stating, "It would be wise for you to return to your homeland, and we have no intention of pursuing you." In response, Ghori replied, indicating that he had come to face challenges on

18360-466: 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

18530-570: The largest of the irrigation diversions built. However, the Main Turkmen Canal , which would have diverted water along the dry Uzboy River bed into central Turkmenistan, was never built. In the course of the Soviet–Afghan War in the 1970s, Soviet forces used the valley to invade Afghanistan through Termez . The Soviet Union fell in the 1990s and Central Asia split up into the many smaller countries that lie within or partially within

18700-705: The last Ghurid ruler Jalal al-Din Ali from the Bamiyan line in the same year. Thus, the Šansabānī house was extirpated by 1215. Yildiz was toppled from Ghazni around the same time as well who later fled to Delhi and laid his own claim for succession of the Ghurid conquests of Muhammad of Ghor. However, he was defeated and executed in 1216 by Iltutmish in Tarain . According to Juzjani's Tabaqat-i-Nasiri (c.1260), Muhammad enthusiastically used to purchase several slaves during his lifetime who later according to Juzjani became renowned for their calibre in "east". Muhammad purchased

18870-568: The later succeeded the throne of Khwarezm in December 1172. Sultan Shah fled to the Ghurid brothers and asked for their assistance in order to expel his brother Tekish. While they received him well, they refused to give him military aid against Tekish, with whom the Ghurids were on good terms till then. Sultan Shah, carved out his independent principality in Khurasan and began plundering the regions of Ghor along with his governor Bahauddin Turghil. Thus, Ghiyath al-Din asked for aid from Muhammad, who

19040-470: The lineage of Ghaznavids and their historic struggle with the Ghurids . After uprooting the Ghaznavids, Muhammad now established his sway over the strategic Indus Basin including most of the Punjab. He, appointed Mulla Sirajuddin who was earlier a high-ranking Qāḍi in his father court, as the head of judicature department in the newly conquered Ghaznavid territories along with the charge of Multan. His son Minhaj al-Siraj Juzjani (born 1193) later composed

19210-631: The local kingdoms and expanded his empire in the Indian Subcontinent up to north-western parts of Bengal in east, Ajmer and Ranthambore ( Rajasthan ) in north and till the borders of Ujjain in south. After Aibak consolidated the Ghurid rule in and around the Delhi doab , Muhammad himself returned to India to further expand down the Ganges Valley . Accordingly, in 1194, he crossed the Jamuna river with an army of 50,000 horsemen where he confronted

19380-434: The lower Indus until Siwalik hills, arose in the wake of Muhammad's rout in the Battle of Andkhud and rebelled by disrupting the Ghurid communication chain between Lahore and Ghazni along with plundering Lahore . According to Juzjani, the Khokhars were hostile to Muslims and use to "torment every " Musalman they captured". Hence, Muhammad marched from Ghazni in December 1205 for his last campaign in order to subjugate

19550-514: The main stem and the Uzboy. But in the 18th century, the river again turned north, flowing into the Aral Sea, a path it has taken since. Less and less water flowed down the Uzboy. When Russian explorer Bekovich-Cherkasski surveyed the region in 1720, the Amu Darya did not flow into the Caspian Sea anymore. By the 1800s, the ethnographic makeup of the region was described by Peter Kropotkin as

19720-445: The majestic River floated on, Out of the mist and hum of that low land, Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, Rejoicing, through the hushed Chorasmian waste, Under the solitary moon: — he flowed Right for the polar star, past Orgunjè, Brimming, and bright, and large: then sands begin To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, And split his currents; that for many

19890-432: 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

20060-536: 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

20230-657: The mountainous pass of Gadararaghatta , by the Solanki ruler Mularaja II who was also aided by other Rajput chiefs mainly the Naddula Chahamana ruler Kelhanadeva (who was earlier deposed by from Nadol by Muhammad), the Jalor Chahamana ruler Kirtipala , and the Arbuda Paramara ruler Dharavarsha. The Ghurid army suffered heavy casualties during the battle, and also in the retreat back across

20400-440: The mutineers and turned his attention towards the affairs of Central Asia again to avenge the rout at Andhkhud and to reclaim his holdings in Khurasan . Accordingly, by July 1205, Muhammad's governor of Balkh besieged Tirmidh in the present-day Uzbekistan and captured the city following a short siege, destroying the Qara Khitai garrison stationed there and placed it under his son. Afterwards, Muhammad ordered his viceory in

20570-466: The names by which the river was known in Afghanistan was Gozan , and that this name was used by Greek, Mongol, Chinese, Persian, Jewish, and Afghan historians. However, this name is no longer used. The river's total length is 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi) and its drainage basin totals 534,739 square kilometres (206,464 sq mi) in area, providing a mean discharge of around 97.4 cubic kilometres (23.4 cu mi) of water per year. The river

20740-466: 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

20910-448: 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

21080-486: The negotiations between Muhammad and Taniku were arranged by Uthman ibn Ibrahim of Samarkand who do not want the "Sultan of Islam" to be captured by the infidels. Following the defeat, the Ghurids lost the control over most of the Khurasan except Herat and Balkh . Thus, Muhammad of necessity agreed for a cold peace with the Khwarezmians . After the disaster of Andkhud and the subsequent rumours of Muhammad's death in

21250-425: The new governor of Multan. Muhammad defeated Aibak Beg decisively and captured him in the battle. Afterwards, he marched towards Ghazni, where Yildiz mutinied earlier and seized the city. On the advance of a vast army of Muhammad of Ghor, foreseeing an inevitable defeat, Yildiz and his aristocrats surrendered to Muhammad, who pardoned them. Thus, Muhammad successfully restored his empire to stability, after suppressing

21420-414: 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

21590-408: The night in a state of unawareness. Although they were able to quickly form formations, they suffered losses due to surprise attacks before sunrise. Juzjani attributed the success of the Ghurid army to the 10,000 elite mounted archers whom Muhammad stationed at a small distance from the elephant phalanx of the Rajput forces and which ultimately scattered the "infidel host". Prithviraj was captured during

21760-732: 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

21930-538: The numismatic evidences in which he minted his name along with placing Alauddin's name in the " khuṭbah " until his assassination in 1212. Afterwards, the Khwarazmians established their puppet government in the Ghurid lands, although Yildiz drove them back in 1213 before Alauddin eradicated the Ghurids and annexed Fīrūzkūh from Zia al-Din Ali in 1215 who either died as his captive (burned in Iran ) or retired to Delhi in exile. Alauddin also defeated and executed

22100-542: 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

22270-638: 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

22440-551: The pressure from the Qara Khitai forces was forced to relieve the siege and retreat. However, he was chased on his way to Firuzkuh and was decisively defeated in the Battle of Andkhud in 1204 by the combined forces of Qara Khitai and Kara-Khanid Khanate under Taniku and Uthman ibn Ibrahim . He was allowed to return to his capital, after paying a heavy ransom to the Qara Khitai general Taniku (Tayangu) which included several elephants and gold coins. According to Juzjani ,

22610-446: The province, made him doubtful of their loyalty and seeing a possible challenge to his own authority, he ordered his nephews to be imprisoned in the castle of Gharjistan . Although, they were released from the captivity by his son Sayf al-Din Muhammad after the death of his father in 1161. Sayf al-Din, later died in a battle against the nomadic Oghuzs of Balkh . ‌After their release from the captivity, " Tarik-i-Firishtah " states that

22780-588: 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

22950-634: The region to a handful of elite slave commanders who swiftly raided local Indian kingdoms and extended the Ghurid influence as far east as the Ganges delta in Bengal and regions to the north in Bihar . After the death of Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad in 1203, Muhammad of Ghor ascended the throne of Firozkoh as well, becoming the supreme Sultan of the Ghurid Empire . Within a year or so, Muhammad suffered

23120-602: 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

23290-402: The reintroduction, at least at this stage. Since March 2022, the building of the 285 km Qosh Tepa Canal has been underway in northern Afghanistan to divert water from the Amu Darya. Uzbekistan has expressed concern that the canal will have an adverse effect on its agriculture. The canal is also expected to make the Aral Sea disaster worse, and in 2023 Uzbek officials held talks on

23460-487: The river Jaihun . ~ Mirza Nathan describing a battle between the Mughals and Musa Khan of Bengal (translated by M. I. Borah) The Oxus river, and Arnold's poem, fire the imaginations of the children who adventure with ponies over the moors of the West Country in the 1930s children's book The Far-Distant Oxus . There were two sequels, Escape to Persia and Oxus in Summer . Robert Byron 's 1937 travelogue, The Road to Oxiana , describes its author's journey from

23630-417: The river as Yakhsha/Vakhsha (and Yakhsha Arta ('Upper Yakhsha'), referring to the Jaxartes / Syr Darya twin river to Amu Darya). In Middle Persian sources of the Sasanian period the river is known as Wehrōd (lit. 'good river'). The name Amu is said to have come from the medieval city of Āmul (later Chahar Joy/Charjunow, and now known as Türkmenabat ) in modern Turkmenistan , with Daryā being

23800-409: The shrinking of the Aral Sea since the late 1950s. Historical records state that in different periods, the river flowed into the Aral Sea (from the south), into the Caspian Sea (from the east), or both, similar to the Syr Darya (Jaxartes, in Ancient Greek ). Partly based on such records, first Tsarist and later Soviet engineers proposed to divert the Amu Darya to the Caspian Sea by constructing

23970-502: The siege due to absence of siege engines on their part, which strengthened the position of Muhammad during these months to raise a formidable army. After the defeat in Tarain, Muhammad meted out severe punishments to the Ghurid , Khalji and Afghan "emirs" who fled during the battle. The wallets filled with grains were tied around their necks and under this condition they were paraded through Ghazni, those who refused were beheaded. The late medieval historian Ferishta further states on

24140-554: 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

24310-436: The slavery and with investment of a "chatr" from Mahmud, Yildiz established himself as the king of Ghazni in 1206 and Aibak in Lahore (who declared independence in 1208) established the Delhi Sultanate . Historian Iqtidar Alam Khan though, doubted that Aibak styled himself as the "Sultan" as it is not attested by the numismatic evidences. Soon, Mahmud was enforced to accept suzerainty of Alauddin Shah of Khawarazm as attested by

24480-402: The source. Then, the French explorer and geographer Thibaut Viné collected a lot of information about this area during five expeditions between 1856 and 1862. The question of finding a route between the Oxus valley and India has been of concern historically. A direct route crosses extremely high mountain passes in the Hindu Kush and isolated areas like Kafiristan . Some in Britain feared that

24650-411: The south). About 61% of the drainage lies within Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, while 39% is in Afghanistan. The abundant water flowing in the Amu Darya comes almost entirely from glaciers in the Pamir Mountains and Tian Shan , which, standing above the surrounding arid plain, collect atmospheric moisture which otherwise would probably escape elsewhere. Without its mountain water sources,

24820-452: 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

24990-458: 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,

25160-408: The steppe, the annual rainfall is about 300 millimetres (12 in). The ancient Greeks called the Amu Darya the Oxus . In ancient times, the river was regarded as the boundary between Greater Iran and Ṫūrān ( Persian : تُوران ). The river's drainage lies in the area between the former empires of Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great , although they occurred at very different times. When

25330-403: The testimony of folklore in Ghazni, that Muhammad vowed not to visit his royal harem and heal his wounds sustained in the battle till he avenged the humiliation of his defeat. Husain Kharmil , a prominent Iranian general of the Ghurids , was called from Ghazni with a large contingent along with other seasoned warlords like Mukalba, Kharbak and Illah. Muhammad made necessary arrangements to counter

25500-508: The third of the month Sha`ban in the year six hundred and two, Happened on the road to Ghazni at the halting-place of Damyak. According to some sketchy accounts regarding the identity of Muhammad's assassins, claimed that the assassins were sent by Muhammad II of Khwarezm . However, the Khwarezmians already curbed the Ghurid ambition in Transoxiana after the Andkhud debacle and were not facing any potential danger from them. Hence, historian Mohammad Habib theorizes that this speculation that

25670-429: The throne in 1163 and initially placed Muhammad as a minor officer in his court, which result in him retiring (unhappy with his position) to the court of Sistan where he spend a whole season. However, later Ghiyath-al din sent an envoy to brought him back who subsequently placed him in charge of the southern part of the Ghurid domains which possibly included Istiyan and Kajuran. ‌ During the early campaigns of Muhammad as

25840-401: The time – most recently from the 13th century to the late 16th century – the Amu Darya emptied into both the Aral and the Caspian Seas, reaching the latter via a large distributary called the Uzboy River . The Uzboy splits off from the main channel just south of the river's delta. Sometimes the flow through the two branches was more or less equal, but often most of the Amu Darya's flow split to

26010-572: The title of "Muizzuddin" or "Mu'izz al-Din". The synchronous accounts did not write much about Muhammad's exact birth date, although based on the writings of Juzjani - Muhammad was younger to Ghiyath al-Din by three years and few months, who was born in 1140. Therefore, Muhammad's birth year can be dated to 1144. The early years of both Muhammad and his brother Ghiyath al-Din were spent in constant hardship. Their uncle Ala al-Din Husayn after his campaign in Ghazni, initially installed them as governors of Sanjah. However, their efficient administration of

26180-403: The upper Indus Plain along with most of the Punjab . After expelling the Ghaznavids from their last bastion, Muhammad, thus secured the Khyber Pass , the traditional route of entry for invading armies into northern India . Extending the Ghurid dominion further eastwards into the Gangetic Plain , the Ghurid forces suffered a decisive reverse and Muhammad himself got wounded in engagement with

26350-422: The use of Farsi in foreign languages. Etymologically, the Persian term Farsi derives from its earlier form Pārsi ( Pārsik in Middle Persian ), which in turn comes from the same root as the English term Persian . In the same process, the Middle Persian toponym Pārs ("Persia") evolved into the modern name Fars. The phonemic shift from /p/ to /f/ is due to the influence of Arabic in

26520-402: The watershed of the Little Pamir, half flowing into Lake Chamaktin and half into the parent stream of the Little Pamir/Sarhad River. Therefore, the Chelab stream may be properly considered the true source or parent stream of the Oxus. The Panj River forms the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan . It flows west to Ishkashim where it turns north and then north-west through the Pamirs passing

26690-414: The way of lower Sindh , endeavoring to penetrate into present-day Gujarat through the Thar Desert , only to end up getting wounded and routed near Mount Abu at Kasahrada by a coalition of Rajput chiefs led by the Chaulukya king Mularaja , which forced him to change his route for future inroads into the Indian Plains. Hence, Muhammad pressed upon the Ghaznavids and uprooted them by 1186 , conquering

26860-437: The west and flowed into the Caspian. People began to settle along the lower Amu Darya and the Uzboy in the 5th century, establishing a thriving chain of agricultural lands, towns, and cities. In about AD 985, the massive Gurganj Dam at the bifurcation of the forks started to divert water to the Aral. Genghis Khan 's troops destroyed the dam in 1221, and the Amu Darya shifted to distributing its flow more or less equally between

27030-419: The year of Uch conquest as 1176. It was placed under Malik Nasiurdin Aitam until his death in the Battle of Andkhud in 1204. Afterwards, it was placed under Nasiruddin Qabacha. During the course of his early invasions, Muhammad avoided Punjab and instead focused on lands bordering the middle and lower course of the Indus . Therefore, to outflank the Ghaznavids in Punjab and to open up an alternative route to

27200-453: Was a child. His name is variously transliterated as Muizuddin Sam, Shihabuddin Ghuri, Muhammad Ghori and Muhammad of Ghor. According to the Tabaqat-i-Nasiri , his birth name was "Muhammad" which is vernacularly spelt as "Hamad" by the Ghurids. During his childhood, his mother used to call him "Zangi" due to his dark skin tone . After the coronation in Ghazni, he styled himself as "Malik Shihabuddin" and after his occupation of Khurasan , he took

27370-416: Was already complete by the era of the three princely dynasties of Iranian origin, the Tahirid dynasty (820–872), Saffarid dynasty (860–903), and Samanid Empire (874–999). Abbas of Merv is mentioned as being the earliest minstrel to chant verse in the New Persian tongue and after him the poems of Hanzala Badghisi were among the most famous between the Persian-speakers of the time. The first poems of

27540-407: Was also captured by Muhammad and Qutb al-Din Aibak in 1193, although in continuation with the policy adopted earlier in Ajmer , a puppet Rajput scion was installed in Delhi on tribute. (possibly the son of Govindraja who died in Tarain ) However, he was soon deposed on the account of treason. While, Muhammad continued to carry raids in the north Indian plain , although later he got preoccupied with

27710-407: Was annexed in 1198. During this campaign, the Buddhist city of Sarnath was also sacked. Muhammad returned to the Indian frontier again around 1196 to consolidate his hold around the present-day Rajasthan . The territory of Bayana at the time was under the control of a sect of Jadaun Rajputs . Muhammad along with Aibak advanced and besieged Thankar whose ruler Kumarpal was defeated. Muhammad placed

27880-440: Was carried from Dhamiak to Ghazni by his Vizier Moidul Mulk along with other elites, where he was buried (Ghazni) in the mausoleum of his daughter. Despite the debacle of Andhkhud and the successive plummet of their western frontier, Muhammad's empire at the time of his assassination still spread out as far as Herat in the west, Zamindawar Valley in the south and the Yasin Valley in the north-east. Muhammad's only offspring

28050-529: Was his daughter who died during his own lifetime. His sudden assassination in Damyak led to a period of struggle among his slaves and other senior Ghurid elites for the succession. The Ghurid aristocrats of Ghazni and Fīrūzkūh supported the succession of Baha al-Din Sam II from the Bamiyan branch, although his Turkic slaves supported Ghiyath al-Din Mahmud who was his nephew and son of his brother Ghiyath al-Din. Nonetheless, Baha al-Din died on his march to Ghazni on 24 February 1206 due to illness. Thus, Muhammad

28220-532: Was occupied with his Indian expeditions at the time, marched with his army from Ghazni. The Ghurid feudatories: Shamsuddin Muhammad of Bamiyan and Tajuddin of Herat joined them with their respective contingents against the Khwarezmians . The Ghurid forces decisively defeated Sultan Shah on the banks of river Murgabh after months of campaigning and executed their governor of Herat Bahauddin Turghil while Sultan Shah fled to Merv . The Ghurids followed their victory by recapturing Herat . Sultan Shah died after

28390-484: Was patronised and given official status under the Sultans of Bengal , and was a popular literary form used by Bengalis during the pre-colonial period, irrespective of their religion. Following the defeat of the Hindu Shahi dynasty, classical Persian was established as a courtly language in the region during the late 10th century under Ghaznavid rule over the northwestern frontier of the subcontinent . Employed by Punjabis in literature, Persian achieved prominence in

28560-477: Was succeeded by Ghiyath al-Din Mahmud in 1206, although most of his conquests in the Ganga Valley were in the grasp of his lieutenants – Qutb ud-Din Aibak , Taj al-Din Yildiz , Bahauddin Tughril , Nasir ad-Din Qabacha and Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khilji who barely consulted Ghiyath al-Din Mahmud in their affairs. Notwithstanding, they still paid him a minimal tribute. During his reign, Mahmud also officially grant " manumission " on Aibak and Yildiz. Thus, freed from

28730-488: Was taught in state schools, and was also offered as an elective course or recommended for study in some madrasas . Persian learning was also widespread in the Ottoman-held Balkans ( Rumelia ), with a range of cities being famed for their long-standing traditions in the study of Persian and its classics, amongst them Saraybosna (modern Sarajevo , Bosnia and Herzegovina), Mostar (also in Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Vardar Yenicesi (or Yenice-i Vardar, now Giannitsa , in

28900-425: Was to prevent books from being printed with wrong use of words. According to the executive guarantee of this association, the government was responsible for wrongfully printed books. Words coined by this association, such as rāh-āhan ( راه‌آهن ) for "railway", were printed in Soltani Newspaper ; but the association was eventually closed due to inattention. A scientific association was founded in 1911, resulting in

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