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185-655: Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī ( Persian : جلال‌الدین محمّد رومی ), or simply Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century poet, Hanafi faqih (jurist), Islamic scholar , Maturidi theologian ( mutakallim ), and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran . Rumi's works were written mostly in Persian , but occasionally he also used Turkish , Arabic and Greek in his verse. His Masnavi ( Mathnawi ), composed in Konya ,

370-687: A proxy war as the Pakistani government provided these rebels with covert training centers, the United States supported them through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and the Soviet Union sent thousands of military advisers to support the PDPA regime. Meanwhile, there was increasingly hostile friction between the competing factions of the PDPA ;– the dominant Khalq and

555-674: A socialist state (itself a response to the dictatorship established following a coup d'état in 1973 ), and subsequent infighting prompted the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan in 1979. Mujahideen fought against the Soviets in the Soviet–Afghan War and continued fighting among themselves following the Soviets' withdrawal in 1989 . The Taliban controlled most of the country by 1996, but their Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan received little international recognition before its overthrow in

740-655: 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

925-648: A Molvi (Islamic teacher) and taught his adherents in the madrassa. During this period, Rumi also travelled to Damascus and is said to have spent four years there. It was his meeting with the dervish Shams-e Tabrizi on 15 November 1244 that completely changed his life. From an accomplished teacher and jurist, Rumi was transformed into an ascetic. Shams had travelled throughout the Middle East searching and praying for someone who could "endure my company". A voice said to him: "What will you give in return?" Shams replied, "My head!" The voice then said, "The one you seek

1110-574: A closer relationship with the Soviet Union . Afterward, the 1964 constitution was formed, and the first non-royal prime minister was sworn in. Zahir Shah, like his father Nadir Shah, had a policy of maintaining national independence while pursuing gradual modernization, creating nationalist feeling, and improving relations with the United Kingdom. Afghanistan was neither a participant in World War II nor aligned with either power bloc in

1295-652: A contingent of 4,000 Pashtuns . The Abdalis had "unanimously accepted" Ahmad Shah as their new leader. With his ascension in 1747, Ahmad Shah had led multiple campaigns against the Mughal empire , Maratha empire , and then-receding Afsharid empire . Ahmad Shah had captured Kabul and Peshawar from the Mughal appointed governor, Nasir Khan. Ahmad Shah had then conquered Herat in 1750, and had also captured Kashmir in 1752. Ahmad Shah had launched two campaigns into Khorasan , 1750–1751 and 1754–1755. His first campaign had seen

1480-475: A destination of pilgrimage to this day, and is probably the most popular pilgrimage site to be regularly visited by adherents of every major religion. Like other mystic and Sufi poets of Persian literature, Rumi's poetry speaks of love which infuses the world. Rumi's teachings also express the tenets summarized in the Quranic verse which Shams-e Tabrizi cited as the essence of prophetic guidance: "Know that ‘There

1665-418: 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

1850-733: A key role in the transfer of the Avesta to Persia and is thus considered by some to be the "second homeland of Zoroastrianism". Alexander the Great and his Macedonian forces arrived in Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier in the Battle of Gaugamela . Following Alexander's brief occupation, the successor state of the Seleucid Empire controlled the region until 305 BCE, when they gave much of it to

2035-505: 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

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2220-417: 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

2405-801: A member state for their official spokesman in Doha , Suhail Shaheen . The United Nations did not recognize the previous Taliban government and chose to work with the then government-in-exile instead. Western nations suspended most of their humanitarian aid to Afghanistan following the Taliban's August 2021 takeover of the country; the World Bank and International Monetary Fund also halted their payments. More than half of Afghanistan's 39 million people faced an acute food shortage in October 2021. Human Rights Watch reported on 11 November 2021 that Afghanistan

2590-524: A movement and militia of students ( talib ) from Islamic madrassas (schools) in Pakistan , who soon had military support from Pakistan. Taking control of Kandahar city that year, they conquered more territories until finally driving out the government of Rabbani from Kabul in 1996, where they established an emirate . The Taliban were condemned internationally for the harsh enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic sharia law, which resulted in

2775-468: A myriad of campaigns to unite most of Afghanistan in his reign, launching numerous incursions including against the surrounding states such as the Hazarajat campaign , conquest of Balkh , conquest of Kunduz , and the conquest of Kandahar . Dost Mohammad led his final campaign against Herat , conquering it and re-uniting Afghanistan. During his campaigns of re-unification, he held friendly relations with

2960-488: A path for reaching God. For Rumi, music helped devotees to focus their whole being on the divine and to do this so intensely that the soul was both destroyed and resurrected. It was from these ideas that the practice of whirling Dervishes developed into a ritual form. His teachings became the base for the order of the Mevlevi, which his son Sultan Walad organised. Rumi encouraged Sama , listening to music and turning or doing

3145-536: 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

3330-515: A series of events that would dramatically turn Afghanistan from a poor and secluded (albeit peaceful) country to a hotbed of international terrorism. The PDPA initiated various social, symbolic, and land distribution reforms that provoked strong opposition, while also brutally oppressing political dissidents. This caused unrest and quickly expanded into a state of civil war by 1979, waged by guerrilla mujahideen (and smaller Maoist guerrillas) against regime forces countrywide. It quickly turned into

3515-585: A small power like Afghanistan, which is like a goat between these lions [Britain and Russia] or a grain of wheat between two strong millstones of the grinding mill, stand in the midway of the stones without being ground to dust? During the First World War , when Afghanistan was neutral, Habibullah Khan was met by officials of the central powers in the Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition . They called on Afghanistan to declare full independence from

3700-611: A son, Amir Alim Chalabi, and a daughter, Malakeh Khatun. On 1 May 1228, most likely as a result of the insistent invitation of 'Alā' ud-Dīn Key-Qobād , ruler of Anatolia, Baha' ud-Din came and finally settled in Konya in Anatolia within the westernmost territories of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm . Baha' ud-Din became the head of a madrassa (religious school) and when he died, Rumi, aged twenty-five, inherited his position as

3885-599: A speaker of Persian. Persian is a member of the Western Iranian group of the Iranian languages , which make up a branch of the Indo-European languages in their Indo-Iranian subdivision . The Western Iranian languages themselves are divided into two subgroups: Southwestern Iranian languages, of which Persian is the most widely spoken, and Northwestern Iranian languages, of which Kurdish and Balochi are

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4070-591: A splendid shrine, the "Green Tomb" ( Turkish : Yeşil Türbe, Arabic : قبة الخضراء ; today the Mevlâna Museum ), was erected over his place of burial. His epitaph reads: When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men. Georgian princess and Seljuq queen Gurju Khatun was a close friend of Rumi. She was the one who sponsored the construction of his tomb in Konya . The 13th-century Mevlâna Mausoleum , with its mosque, dance hall, schools and living quarters for dervishes, remains

4255-581: A state-supporting elite of Abdālī / Durrānī Afghans, the Sadūzāʾī Durrānī polity that came into being in 1160 / 1747 was not called Afghanistan in its own day. The name became a state designation only during the colonial intervention of the nineteenth century. The term "Afghanistan" was officially used in 1855, when the British recognized Dost Mohammad Khan as king of Afghanistan . Excavations of prehistoric sites suggest that humans were living in what

4440-536: Is $ 81 billion by purchasing power parity and $ 20.1 billion by nominal values. Per capita, its GDP is among the lowest of any country as of 2020 . Some scholars suggest that the root name Afghān is derived from the Sanskrit word Aśvakan , which was the name used for ancient inhabitants of the Hindu Kush . Aśvakan literally means "horsemen", "horse breeders", or " cavalrymen " (from aśva ,

4625-593: Is Jalal ud-Din of Konya." On the night of 5 December 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. It is rumoured that Shams was murdered with the connivance of Rumi's son, 'Ala' ud-Din; if so, Shams indeed gave his head for the privilege of mystical friendship. Rumi's love for, and his bereavement at the death of, Shams found their expression in an outpouring of lyric poems, Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi . He himself went out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus. There, he realised: Why should I seek? I am

4810-615: 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

4995-664: 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

5180-628: 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

5365-638: Is a member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and a founding member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation . Due to the effects of war in recent decades, the country has dealt with high levels of terrorism, poverty , and child malnutrition. Afghanistan remains among the world's least developed countries , ranking 182nd on the Human Development Index . Afghanistan's gross domestic product (GDP)

5550-796: 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

5735-782: Is an Arabic name meaning "Glory of the Faith". Balkhī and Rūmī are his nisbas , meaning, respectively, "from Balkh " and "from Rûm ", as he was from the Sultanate of Rûm in Anatolia . According to the authoritative Rumi biographer Franklin Lewis of the University of Chicago , "[t]he Anatolian peninsula which had belonged to the Byzantine, or eastern Roman empire, had only relatively recently been conquered by Muslims and even when it came to be controlled by Turkish Muslim rulers, it

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5920-675: 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

6105-833: Is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar in the south of the country) was a center of the Helmand culture . More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilization stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. After 2000 BCE successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan; among them were many Indo-European -speaking Indo-Iranians . These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, and toward Europe via

6290-460: Is considered one of the greatest poems of the Persian language. Rumi's influence has transcended national borders and ethnic divisions: Iranians , Afghans , Tajiks , Turks , Kurds , Greeks , Central Asian Muslims , as well as Muslims of the Indian subcontinent have greatly appreciated his spiritual legacy for the past seven centuries. His poetry influenced not only Persian literature , but also

6475-425: 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

6660-476: Is no god but He,’ and ask forgiveness for your sin" (Q. 47:19). In the interpretation attributed to Shams, the first part of the verse commands the humanity to seek knowledge of tawhid (oneness of God), while the second instructs them to negate their own existence. In Rumi's terms, tawhid is lived most fully through love, with the connection being made explicit in his verse that describes love as "that flame which, when it blazes up, burns away everything except

6845-460: 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

7030-482: Is now Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities in the area were among the earliest in the world. An important site of early historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in the historical value of its archaeological sites. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic , Mesolithic , Neolithic , Bronze , and Iron Ages have been found in Afghanistan. Urban civilization

7215-475: 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 ),

7400-585: 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

7585-473: Is one of the four founders of the Taliban and was a deputy prime minister of the previous emirate; his appointment was seen as a compromise between moderates and hardliners. A new, all-male cabinet was formed, which included Abdul Hakim Haqqani as minister of justice. On 20 September 2021, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres received a letter from acting minister of foreign affairs Amir Khan Muttaqi to formally claim Afghanistan's seat as

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7770-877: Is sometimes considered to be the founder of the first modern Afghan state . Afghanistan became a buffer state in the Great Game between the British Empire and the Russian Empire . From India, the British attempted to subjugate Afghanistan but were repelled in the First Anglo-Afghan War ; the Second Anglo-Afghan War saw a British victory. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, Afghanistan became free of foreign political hegemony, and emerged as

7955-495: 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

8140-575: Is very popular in Turkey , Azerbaijan and South Asia , and has become the "best selling poet" in the United States. He is most commonly called Rumi in English. His full name is given by his contemporary Sipahsalar as Muhammad bin Muhammad bin al-Husayn al-Khatibi al-Balkhi al-Bakri ( Arabic : محمد بن محمد بن الحسين الخطيبي البلخي البكري ). He is more commonly known as Molānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī ( مولانا جلال‌الدین محمد رومی ). Jalal ad-Din

8325-468: Is widely known by the sobriquet Mawlānā / Molānā ( Persian : مولانا Persian pronunciation: [moulɒːnɒ] ) in Iran and popularly known as Mevlânâ in Turkey. Mawlānā ( مولانا ) is a term of Arabic origin, meaning "our master". The term مولوی Mawlawī / Mowlavi (Persian) and Mevlevi (Turkish), also of Arabic origin, meaning "my master", is also frequently used for him. Rumi

8510-491: 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

8695-506: 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

8880-531: The 2014 presidential election where for the first time in Afghanistan's history power was democratically transferred. On 28 December 2014, NATO formally ended ISAF combat operations and transferred full security responsibility to the Afghan government. The NATO-led Operation Resolute Support was formed the same day as a successor to ISAF. Thousands of NATO troops remained in the country to train and advise Afghan government forces and continue their fight against

9065-580: The Badakhshan region. During the first century BCE, the Parthian Empire subjugated the region but lost it to their Indo-Parthian vassals. In the mid-to-late first century CE the vast Kushan Empire , centered in Afghanistan, became great patrons of Buddhist culture, making Buddhism flourish throughout the region. The Kushans were overthrown by the Sassanids in the 3rd century CE, though

9250-404: The Battle of Jamrud . Akbar Khan and the Afghan army failed to capture the Jamrud Fort from the Sikh Khalsa Army , but killed Sikh Commander Hari Singh Nalwa , thus ending the Afghan-Sikh Wars . By this time the British were advancing from the east, capitalizing off of the decline of the Sikh Empire after it had its own period of turbulence following the death of Ranjit Singh , which engaged

9435-457: 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

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9620-402: The Cold War . However, it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the United States vied for influence by building Afghanistan's main highways, airports, and other vital infrastructure. On a per capita basis, Afghanistan received more Soviet development aid than any other country. In 1973, while the King was in Italy, Daoud Khan launched a bloodless coup and became

9805-400: The Emirate of Kabul in the first major conflict during " The Great Game ". In 1839 a British expeditionary force marched into Afghanistan, invading the Principality of Qandahar , and in August 1839, seized Kabul . Dost Mohammad Khan defeated the British in the Parwan campaign , but surrendered following his victory. He was replaced with the former Durrani ruler Shah Shuja Durrani as

9990-421: The Indo-Sassanids continued to rule at least parts of the region. They were followed by the Kidarites who, in turn, was replaced by the Hephthalites . They were replaced by the Turk Shahi in the 7th century. The Buddhist Turk Shahi of Kabul was replaced by a Hindu dynasty before the Saffarids conquered the area in 870, this Hindu dynasty was called Hindu Shahi . Much of the northeastern and southern areas of

10175-420: The Italian Renaissance as the center of a cultural rebirth. In the early 16th century Babur arrived from Ferghana and captured Kabul from the Arghun dynasty . Babur would go on to conquer the Afghan Lodi dynasty who had ruled the Delhi Sultanate in the First Battle of Panipat . Between the 16th and 18th century, the Uzbek Khanate of Bukhara , Iranian Safavids , and Indian Mughals ruled parts of

10360-463: The Karzai administration and provide basic security. By this time, after two decades of war as well as an acute famine at the time, Afghanistan had one of the highest infant and child mortality rates in the world, the lowest life expectancy, much of the population were hungry, and infrastructure was in ruins. Many foreign donors started providing aid and assistance to rebuild the war-torn country. As coalition troops entered Afghanistan to help

10545-413: The League of Nations in 1934. The 1930s saw the development of roads, infrastructure, the founding of a national bank , and increased education. Road links in the north played a large part in a growing cotton and textile industry. The country built close relationships with the Axis powers , with Nazi Germany having the largest share in Afghan development at the time. Until 1946 King Zahir ruled with

10730-409: The Maurya Empire as part of an alliance treaty. The Mauryans controlled the area south of the Hindu Kush until they were overthrown in about 185 BCE. Their decline began 60 years after Ashoka 's rule ended, leading to the Hellenistic reconquest by the Greco-Bactrians . Much of it soon broke away and became part of the Indo-Greek Kingdom . They were defeated and expelled by the Indo-Scythians in

10915-440: The Northern Alliance , later joined by others, to resist the Taliban. Dostum's forces were defeated by the Taliban during the Battles of Mazar-i-Sharif in 1997 and 1998; Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Pervez Musharraf , began sending thousands of Pakistanis to help the Taliban defeat the Northern Alliance. By 2000, the Northern Alliance only controlled 10% of territory, cornered in the northeast. On 9 September 2001, Massoud

11100-463: The Principality of Qandahar , Emirate of Herat , Khanate of Qunduz , Maimana Khanate , and numerous other warring polities. The most prominent state was the Emirate of Kabul , ruled by Dost Mohammad Khan . With the collapse of the Durrani Empire, and the exile of the Sadozai Dynasty to be left to rule in Herat , Punjab and Kashmir were lost to Ranjit Singh , ruler of the Sikh Empire , who invaded Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in March 1823 and captured

11285-402: The Punjab region The Durranis lost Multan in 1772 after Ahmad Shah's death. Following this victory, Timur Shah was able to lay siege to Multan and recapture it, incorporating it into the Durrani Empire once again, reintegrating it as a province until the Siege of Multan (1818) . Timur Shah was succeeded by his son Zaman Shah Durrani after his death in May 1793. Timur Shah's reign oversaw

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11470-407: The Sanskrit and Avestan words for "horse"). Historically, the ethnonym Afghān was used to refer to ethnic Pashtuns . The Arabic and Persian form of the name, Afġān , was first attested in the 10th-century geography book Hudud al-'Alam . The last part of the name, " -stan ", is a Persian suffix meaning "place of". Therefore, "Afghanistan" translates to "land of the Afghans", or "land of

11655-425: The Soviet Union and the Weimar Republic . He proclaimed himself King of Afghanistan on 9 June 1926, forming the Kingdom of Afghanistan . He introduced several reforms intended to modernize his nation. A key force behind these reforms was Mahmud Tarzi , an ardent supporter of the education of women. He fought for Article 68 of Afghanistan's 1923 constitution , which made elementary education compulsory. Slavery

11840-592: The Soviet withdrawal , the civil war ensued until the communist regime under People's Democratic Party leader Mohammad Najibullah collapsed in 1992. The Soviet–Afghan War had drastic social effects on Afghanistan. The militarization of society led to heavily armed police, private bodyguards, openly armed civil defense groups, and other such things becoming the norm in Afghanistan for decades thereafter. The traditional power structure had shifted from clergy, community elders, intelligentsia, and military in favor of powerful warlords . Another civil war broke out after

12025-455: 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

12210-437: The Third Anglo-Afghan War , and entering British India via the Khyber Pass . After the end of the Third Anglo-Afghan War and the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi on 19 August 1919, Emir Amanullah Khan declared the Emirate of Afghanistan a sovereign and fully independent state . He moved to end his country's traditional isolation by establishing diplomatic relations with the international community, particularly with

12395-439: 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

12580-484: The Uppsala Conflict Data Program , at least 212,191 people were killed in the conflict. Though the state of war in the country ended in 2021, armed conflict persists in some regions amid fighting between the Taliban and the local branch of the Islamic State , as well as an anti-Taliban Republican insurgency . The Taliban government is led by supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and acting prime minister Hasan Akhund , who took office on 7 September 2021. Akhund

12765-442: The creation of a dysfunctional coalition government between leaders of various mujahideen factions. Amid a state of anarchy and factional infighting, various mujahideen factions committed widespread rape, murder and extortion, while Kabul was heavily bombarded and partially destroyed by the fighting. Several failed reconciliations and alliances occurred between different leaders. The Taliban emerged in September 1994 as

12950-423: 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

13135-463: The northeast and east . Occupying 652,864 square kilometers (252,072 sq mi) of land, the country is predominantly mountainous with plains in the north and the southwest , which are separated by the Hindu Kush mountain range. Kabul is the country's capital and largest city. According to the World Population review, as of 2023 , Afghanistan's population is 43 million. The National Statistics Information Authority of Afghanistan estimated

13320-475: The rebuilding process , the Taliban began an insurgency to regain control. Afghanistan remained one of the poorest countries in the world because of a lack of foreign investment, government corruption , and the Taliban insurgency. The Afghan government was able to build some democratic structures, adopting a constitution in 2004 with the name Islamic Republic of Afghanistan . Attempts were made, often with

13505-451: The siege of Kandahar , the last Hotak stronghold, from Shah Hussain Hotak . Soon after, the Persian and Afghan forces invaded India , Nader Shah had plundered Delhi, alongside his 16-year-old commander, Ahmad Shah Durrani who had assisted him on these campaigns. Nader Shah was assassinated in 1747. After the death of Nader Shah in 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani had returned to Kandahar with

13690-597: The " Persianized " Turko-Mongol dynasties during the 12th to 15th centuries, and under restored Persian rule during the 16th to 19th centuries. Persian during this time served as lingua franca of Greater Persia and of much of the Indian subcontinent . It was also the official and cultural language of many Islamic dynasties, including the Samanids, Buyids , Tahirids , Ziyarids , the Mughal Empire , Timurids , Ghaznavids , Karakhanids , Seljuqs , Khwarazmians ,

13875-405: The 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan . The Taliban returned to power in 2021 after capturing Kabul , ending the 2001–2021 war . The Taliban government remains internationally unrecognized. Afghanistan is rich in natural resources, including lithium , iron, zinc , and copper. It is the second-largest producer of cannabis resin , and third largest of both saffron and cashmere . The country

14060-519: The Afghan government and quickly advanced in front of collapsing Afghan government forces. The Taliban captured the capital city of Kabul on 15 August 2021, after regaining control over a vast majority of Afghanistan. Several foreign diplomats and Afghan government officials, including president Ashraf Ghani, were evacuated from the country, with many Afghan civilians attempting to flee along with them. On 17 August, first vice president Amrullah Saleh proclaimed himself caretaker president and announced

14245-606: The Afghans, as well as accept Afghan sovereignty. Following this, Ahmad Shah sieged Nishapur once again, and captured it. Ahmad Shah invaded India eight times during his reign, beginning in 1748. Crossing the Indus River, his armies sacked and absorbed Lahore into the Durrani Realm . He met Mughal armies at the Battle of Manupur (1748) , where he was defeated and forced to retreat back to Afghanistan. He returned

14430-708: The American invasion. During the initial invasion, US and UK forces bombed al-Qaeda training camps, and later working with the Northern Alliance, the Taliban regime came to an end. In December 2001, after the Taliban government was overthrown, the Afghan Interim Administration under Hamid Karzai was formed. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established by the UN Security Council to help assist

14615-681: The Birds by Attar of Nishapur , and the miscellanea of Gulistan and Bustan by Saadi Shirazi , are written in Persian. Some of the prominent modern Persian poets were Nima Yooshij , Ahmad Shamlou , Simin Behbahani , Sohrab Sepehri , Rahi Mo'ayyeri , Mehdi Akhavan-Sales , and Forugh Farrokhzad . There are approximately 130 million Persian speakers worldwide, including Persians , Lurs , Tajiks , Hazaras , Iranian Azeris , Iranian Kurds , Balochs , Tats , Afghan Pashtuns , and Aimaqs . The term Persophone might also be used to refer to

14800-744: The British despite the First Anglo-Afghan War, and affirmed their status in the Second Anglo-Afghan treaty of 1857, while Bukhara and internal religious leaders pressured Dost Mohammad to invade India during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 . Dost Mohammad died in June 1863, a few weeks after his successful campaign to Herat. Following his death, a civil war ensued among his sons, prominently Mohammad Afzal Khan , Mohammad Azam Khan , and Sher Ali Khan . Sher Ali won

14985-609: The Everlasting Beloved." Rumi's longing and desire to attain this ideal is evident in the following poem from his book the Masnavi : از جمادی مُردم و نامی شدم وز نما مُردم به حیوان برزدم مُردم از حیوانی و آدم شدم پس چه ترسم کی ز مردن کم شدم؟ حملهٔ دیگر بمیرم از بشر تا برآرم از ملائک بال و پر وز ملک هم بایدم جستن ز جو کل شیء هالک الا وجهه بار دیگر از ملک پران شوم آنچ اندر وهم ناید آن شوم پس عدم گردم عدم چون ارغنون گویدم که انا الیه راجعون I died to

15170-592: The Ghurids in 1186 , whose architectural achievements included the remote Minaret of Jam . The Ghurids controlled Afghanistan for less than a century before being conquered by the Khwarazmian dynasty in 1215. In 1219 CE, Genghis Khan and his Mongol army overran the region . His troops are said to have annihilated the Khwarazmian cities of Herat and Balkh as well as Bamyan . The destruction caused by

15355-471: The Hindu Kush. The Ghaznavids rose to power in the 10th century. By the 11th century, Mahmud of Ghazni had defeated the remaining Hindu rulers and effectively Islamized the wider region, with the exception of Kafiristan . Mahmud made Ghazni into an important city and patronized intellectuals such as the historian Al-Biruni and the poet Ferdowsi . The Ghaznavid dynasty was overthrown by

15540-715: The Islamic molvi. One of Baha' ud-Din's students, Sayyed Burhan ud-Din Muhaqqiq Termazi, continued to train Rumi in the Shariah as well as the Tariqa , especially that of Rumi's father. For nine years, Rumi practised Sufism as a disciple of Burhan ud-Din until the latter died in 1240 or 1241. Rumi's public life then began: he became an Islamic Jurist, issuing fatwas and giving sermons in the mosques of Konya. He also served as

15725-625: 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

15910-748: The Mongols forced many locals to return to an agrarian rural society. Mongol rule continued with the Ilkhanate in the northwest while the Khalji dynasty administered the Afghan tribal areas south of the Hindu Kush until the invasion of Timur (aka Tamerlane), who established the Timurid Empire in 1370. Under the rule of Shah Rukh , the city of Herat served as the focal point of the Timurid Renaissance , whose glory matched Florence of

16095-771: The Order of the Whirling Dervishes, famous for the Sufi dance known as the Sama ceremony. He was laid to rest beside his father, and over his remains a shrine was erected. A hagiographical account of him is described in Shams ud-Din Ahmad Aflāki's Manāqib ul-Ārifīn (written between 1318 and 1353). This biography needs to be treated with care as it contains both legends and facts about Rumi. For example, Professor Franklin Lewis of

16280-543: The Ottoman Empire all spoke Persian, such as Sultan Selim I , despite being Safavid Iran's archrival and a staunch opposer of Shia Islam . It was a major literary language in the empire. Some of the noted earlier Persian works during the Ottoman rule are Idris Bidlisi 's Hasht Bihisht , which began in 1502 and covered the reign of the first eight Ottoman rulers, and the Salim-Namah , a glorification of Selim I. After

16465-464: The Pakistani government ordered the expulsion of Afghans from Pakistan . Iran also decided to deport Afghan nationals back to Afghanistan. Taliban authorities condemned the deportations of Afghans as an "inhuman act". Afghanistan faced a humanitarian crisis in late 2023. On 10 November 2024, Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry confirmed that Taliban representatives would attend the COP29 summit , marking

16650-613: The Pashtuns" in a historical sense. According to the third edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam : The name Afghanistan (Afghānistān, land of the Afghans / Pashtuns, afāghina , sing. afghān ) can be traced to the early eighth/fourteenth century, when it designated the easternmost part of the Kartid realm. This name was later used for certain regions in the Ṣafavid and Mughal empires that were inhabited by Afghans. While based on

16835-530: The Persian language can be divided into the following three distinct periods: As a written language , Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscription , dating to the time of King Darius I (reigned 522–486 BC). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran , Romania ( Gherla ), Armenia , Bahrain , Iraq , Turkey, and Egypt . Old Persian

17020-425: The Persian language, a language historically called Dari, emerged in present-day Afghanistan. The first significant Persian poet was Rudaki . He flourished in the 10th century, when the Samanids were at the height of their power. His reputation as a court poet and as an accomplished musician and singer has survived, although little of his poetry has been preserved. Among his lost works are versified fables collected in

17205-401: 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

17390-771: 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,

17575-531: The Quran features as guidebook for humanity and those who want to understand the reality of the world. The prophets of Islam, according to Rumi, constitute the highest point of spiritual development and are the closest to God. Throughout Rumi's writings, Muhammad is the most perfect example of all previous prophets. Despite Rumi's explicit adherence to Islam, there are traces of religious pluralism throughout his work. Although Rumi acknowledges religious discrepancies,

17760-484: 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

17945-588: 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)

18130-518: 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

18315-592: The Taliban. A report titled Body Count concluded that 106,000–170,000 civilians had been killed as a result of the fighting in Afghanistan at the hands of all parties to the conflict. On 19 February 2020, the US–Taliban deal was made in Qatar. The deal was one of the critical events that caused the collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF); following the signing of the deal,

18500-523: The US dramatically reduced the number of air attacks and deprived the ANSF of a critical edge in fighting the Taliban insurgency , leading to the Taliban takeover of Kabul. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced on 14 April 2021 that the alliance had agreed to start withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan by 1 May. Soon after NATO troops began withdrawing, the Taliban launched an offensive against

18685-631: The United Kingdom, join them and attack British India, as part of the Hindu–German Conspiracy . The effort to bring Afghanistan into the Central Powers failed, but it sparked discontent among the population about maintaining neutrality with the British. Habibullah was assassinated in February 1919, and Amanullah Khan eventually assumed power. A staunch supporter of the 1915–1916 expeditions, Amanullah Khan invaded British India, beginning

18870-608: The University of Chicago, author of the most complete biography on Rumi, has separate sections for the hagiographical biography of Rumi and the actual biography about him. Rumi's father was Bahā ud-Dīn Walad, a theologian, jurist and a mystic from Wakhsh, who was also known by the followers of Rumi as Sultan al-Ulama or "Sultan of the Scholars". According to Sultan Walad's Ibadetname and Shamsuddin Aflaki (c.1286 to 1291), Rumi

19055-652: The Way out of the desert." Rumi, however, asserts the supremacy of Islam by stating: "The Light of Muhammad has become a thousand branches (of knowledge), a thousand, so that both this world and the next have been seized from end to end. If Muhammad rips the veil open from a single such branch, thousands of monks and priests will tear the string of false belief from around their waists." Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -⁠shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ),

19240-405: The angel, I will become that which cannot come into the imagination, Then I will become non-existent; non-existence says to me (in tones) like an organ, Truly, to Him is our return . The Masnavi weaves fables, scenes from everyday life, Qur'anic revelations and exegesis, and metaphysics into a vast and intricate tapestry. Rumi believed passionately in the use of music, poetry and dance as

19425-744: The area north of the Caspian Sea . The region at the time was referred to as Ariana . By the middle of the 6th century BCE, the Achaemenids overthrew the Medes and incorporated Arachosia , Aria , and Bactria within its eastern boundaries. An inscription on the tombstone of Darius I of Persia mentions the Kabul Valley in a list of the 29 countries that he had conquered. The region of Arachosia , around Kandahar in modern-day southern Afghanistan, used to be primarily Zoroastrian and played

19610-498: 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

19795-463: The assistance of his uncle, who held the post of prime minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. Another uncle, Shah Mahmud Khan , became prime minister in 1946 and experimented with allowing greater political freedom. He was replaced in 1953 by Mohammed Daoud Khan , a Pashtun nationalist who sought the creation of a Pashtunistan , leading to highly tense relations with Pakistan. Daoud Khan pressed for social modernization reforms and sought

19980-633: The attempted stabilization and consolidation of the empire. However, Timur Shah had over 24 sons, which plunged the empire in civil war over succession crises. Zaman Shah Durrani succeeded to the Durrani Throne following the death of his father, Timur Shah Durrani. His brothers Mahmud Shah Durrani and Humayun Mirza revolted against him, with Humayun centered in Kandahar and Mahmud Shah centered in Herat . Zaman Shah would defeat Humayun and force

20165-426: The brutal treatment of many Afghans, especially women . During their rule, the Taliban and their allies committed massacres against Afghan civilians, denied UN food supplies to starving civilians and conducted a policy of scorched earth , burning vast areas of fertile land and destroying tens of thousands of homes. After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum formed

20350-471: The city of Peshawar following the Battle of Nowshera . In 1834, Dost Mohammad Khan led numerous campaigns, firstly campaigning to Jalalabad , and then allying with his rival brothers in Kandahar to defeat Shah Shuja Durrani and the British in the Expedition of Shuja ul-Mulk . In 1837, Dost Mohammad Khan attempted to conquer Peshawar and sent a large force under his son Wazir Akbar Khan , leading to

20535-457: 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

20720-512: 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

20905-673: The core of all religions is the same. The disagreement between religions does not lie in the core of these religions, but in doctrinal differences. Accordingly, Rumi criticizes Christianity for "overloading the image of God with superfluous structures and complications". Yet, Rumi declares that "the lamps are different, but the Light is the same; it comes from beyond". His depth of his spiritual vision extended beyond narrow sectarian concerns. One quatrain reads: در راه طلب عاقل و دیوانه یکی است در شیوه‌ی عشق خویش و بیگانه یکی است آن را که شراب وصل جانان دادند در مذهب او کعبه و بتخانه یکی است On

21090-607: The country remained dominated by Buddhist culture. Arab Muslims brought Islam to Herat and Zaranj in 642 CE and began spreading eastward; some of the native inhabitants they encountered accepted it while others revolted. Before the arrival of Islam , the region used to be home to various beliefs and cults, often resulting in Syncretism between the dominant religions such as Zoroastrianism , Buddhism or Greco-Buddhism , Ancient Iranian religions , Hinduism , Christianity, and Judaism. An exemplification of

21275-680: The defeat of his brother, Suleiman Mirza. Timur Shah Durrani ascended to the throne in November 1772, having defeated a coalition under Shah Wali Khan and Humayun Mirza. Timur Shah began his reign by consolidating power toward himself and people loyal to him, purging Durrani Sardars and influential tribal leaders in Kabul and Kandahar . One of Timur Shah's reforms was to move the capital of the Durrani Empire from Kandahar to Kabul . Timur Shah fought multiple series of rebellions to consolidate

21460-787: The eighteen-year-old Rumi and later on became the inspiration for his works. From Nishapur, Walad and his entourage set out for Baghdad , meeting many of the scholars and Sufis of the city. From Baghdad they went to Hejaz and performed the pilgrimage at Mecca . The migrating caravan then passed through Damascus , Malatya , Erzincan , Sivas , Kayseri and Nigde . They finally settled in Karaman for seven years; Rumi's mother and brother both died there. In 1225, Rumi married Gowhar Khatun in Karaman. They had two sons: Sultan Walad and Ala-eddin Chalabi. When his wife died, Rumi married again and had

21645-461: The empire, and he also led campaigns into Punjab against the Sikhs like his father, though more successfully. The most prominent example of his battles during this campaign was when he led his forces under Zangi Khan Durrani – with over 18,000 men total of Afghan, Qizilbash, and Mongol cavalrymen – against over 60,000 Sikh men. The Sikhs lost over 30,000 in this battle and staged a Durrani resurgence in

21830-512: The ethnic Pashtun and Baloch territories were divided by the Durand Line , which forms the modern-day border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Shia -dominated Hazarajat and pagan Kafiristan remained politically independent until being conquered by Abdur Rahman Khan in 1891–1896. He was known as the "Iron Amir" for his features and his ruthless methods against tribes. He died in 1901, succeeded by his son, Habibullah Khan . How can

22015-652: The extent of its influence on certain languages of the Indian subcontinent. Words borrowed from Persian are still quite commonly used in certain Indo-Aryan languages, especially Hindi - Urdu (also historically known as Hindustani ), Punjabi , Kashmiri , and Sindhi . There is also a small population of Zoroastrian Iranis in India, who migrated in the 19th century to escape religious execution in Qajar Iran and speak

22200-474: The family stretches back to six or seven generations to famous Hanafi jurists. We do not learn the name of Baha al-Din's mother in the sources, only that he referred to her as "Māmi" (colloquial Persian for Māma), and that she was a simple woman who lived to the 1200s. The mother of Rumi was Mu'mina Khātūn. The profession of the family for several generations was that of Islamic preachers of the relatively liberal Hanafi Maturidi school, and this family tradition

22385-602: The first president of Afghanistan , abolishing the monarchy. In April 1978, the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in a bloody coup d'état against then-President Mohammed Daoud Khan , in what is called the Saur Revolution . The PDPA declared the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan , with its first leader named as People's Democratic Party General Secretary Nur Muhammad Taraki . This would trigger

22570-543: The first time the country participated since the Taliban's return to power in 2021. Afghanistan had been barred from previous summits due to the lack of global recognition of the Taliban regime. However, the Taliban's environmental officials stressed that climate change is a humanitarian issue, not a political one, and should be addressed regardless of political differences. Afghanistan is located in Southern-Central Asia. The region centered at Afghanistan

22755-470: The following phylogenetic classification: Afghanistan Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia . It is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south , Iran to the west , Turkmenistan to the northwest , Uzbekistan to the north , Tajikistan to the northeast , and China to

22940-582: The formation of an anti-Taliban front with a reported 6,000+ troops in the Panjshir Valley , along with Ahmad Massoud . However, by 6 September, the Taliban had taken control of most of Panjshir province , with resistance fighters retreating to the mountains. Clashes in the valley ceased mid-September. According to the Costs of War Project , 176,000 people were killed in the conflict, including 46,319 civilians, between 2001 and 2021. According to

23125-444: The formation of many modern languages in West Asia, Europe, Central Asia , and South Asia . Following the Turko-Persian Ghaznavid conquest of South Asia , Persian was firstly introduced in the region by Turkic Central Asians. The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties. For five centuries prior to

23310-421: The formation of the Achaemenid Empire and was spoken during most of the first half of the first millennium BCE. Xenophon , a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BCE, which is when Old Persian was still spoken and extensively used. He relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like

23495-417: The independent Kingdom of Afghanistan in 1926. This monarchy lasted almost half a century, until Zahir Shah was overthrown in 1973 , following which the Republic of Afghanistan was established. Since the late 1970s, Afghanistan's history has been dominated by extensive warfare, including coups, invasions, insurgencies, and civil wars . The conflict began in 1978 when a communist revolution established

23680-410: 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

23865-453: The late 2nd century BCE. The Silk Road appeared during the first century BCE, and Afghanistan flourished with trade, with routes to China, India, Persia, and north to the cities of Bukhara , Samarkand , and Khiva in present-day Uzbekistan. Goods and ideas were exchanged at this center point, such as Chinese silk, Persian silver and Roman gold, while the region of present Afghanistan was mining and trading lapis lazuli stones mainly from

24050-401: The literary traditions of the Ottoman Turkish , Chagatai , Pashto , Kurdish , Urdu , and Bengali languages. Rumi's works are widely read today in their original language across Greater Iran and the Persian-speaking world. His poems have subsequently been translated into many of the world's languages and transposed into various formats. Rumi has been described as the "most popular poet",

24235-491: The loyalty of Mahmud Shah Durrani. Securing his position on the throne, Zaman Shah led three campaigns into Punjab . The first two campaigns captured Lahore , but he retreated due to intel about a possible Qajar invasion. Zaman Shah embarked on his third campaign for Punjab in 1800 to deal with a rebellious Ranjit Singh. However, he was forced to withdraw, and Zaman Shah's reign was ended by Mahmud Shah Durrani. However, just under two years into his reign, Mahmud Shah Durrani

24420-432: 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

24605-499: The mineral state and became a plant, I died to the vegetal state and reached animality, I died to the animal state and became a man, Then what should I fear? I have never become less from dying. At the next charge (forward) I will die to human nature, So that I may lift up (my) head and wings (and soar) among the angels, And I must (also) jump from the river of (the state of) the angel, Everything perishes except His Face, Once again I will become sacrificed from (the state of)

24790-583: The more moderate Parcham . In October 1979, PDPA General Secretary Taraki was assassinated in an internal coup orchestrated by then-prime minister Hafizullah Amin , who became the new general secretary of the People's Democratic Party . The situation in the country deteriorated under Amin, and thousands of people went missing. Displeased with Amin's government, the Soviet Army invaded the country in December 1979, heading for Kabul and killing Amin. A Soviet-organized regime, led by Parcham's Babrak Karmal but inclusive of both factions (Parcham and Khalq), filled

24975-403: The most famous mystic Persian poets, Attar , in the Iranian city of Nishapur , located in the province of Khorāsān. Attar immediately recognized Rumi's spiritual eminence. He saw the father walking ahead of the son and said, "Here comes a sea followed by an ocean." Attar gave the boy his Asrārnāma , a book about the entanglement of the soul in the material world. This meeting had a deep impact on

25160-411: 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

25345-411: 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

25530-448: 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

25715-467: The new ruler of Kabul , a de facto puppet of the British. Following an uprising that saw the assassination of Shah Shuja , the 1842 retreat from Kabul of British-Indian forces and the annihilation of Elphinstone 's army, and the punitive expedition of The Battle of Kabul that led to its sacking, the British gave up on their attempts to try to subjugate Afghanistan, allowing Dost Mohammad Khan to return as ruler. Following this, Dost Mohammad pursued

25900-462: The new Amir, leading to Britain gaining control of Afghanistan's foreign relations as part of the Treaty of Gandamak of 1879, making it an official British Protected State . An uprising however, re-started the conflict, and Yaqub Khan was deposed. During this tumultuous period, Abdur Rahman Khan began his rise to power, becoming an eligible candidate to become Amir after he seized much of Northern Afghanistan . Abdur Rahman marched on Kabul , and

26085-414: 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

26270-471: The next year in 1749 and captured the area around Lahore and Punjab , presenting it as an Afghan victory for this campaign. From 1749 to 1767, Ahmad Shah led six more invasions, the most important being the last; the Third Battle of Panipat created a power vacuum in northern India, halting Maratha expansion. Ahmad Shah Durrani died in October 1772, and a civil war over succession followed, with his named successor, Timur Shah Durrani succeeding him after

26455-549: 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

26640-418: 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

26825-421: The opening eighteen lines of his Masnavi , beginning with: Listen to the reed and the tale it tells, How it sings of separation... Hussam implored Rumi to write more. Rumi spent the next twelve years of his life in Anatolia dictating the six volumes of this masterwork, the Masnavi , to Hussam. In December 1273, Rumi fell ill; he predicted his own death and composed the well-known ghazal , which begins with

27010-433: The population to be 32.9 million as of 2020 . Human habitation in Afghanistan dates to the Middle Paleolithic era. Popularly referred to as the graveyard of empires , the land has witnessed numerous military campaigns , including those by the Persians , Alexander the Great , the Maurya Empire , Arab Muslims , the Mongols , the British , the Soviet Union , and a US-led coalition . Afghanistan also served as

27195-524: 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

27380-404: The quatrains ( rubayāt ) and odes ( ghazal ) of the Divan , the six books of the Masnavi . The prose works are divided into The Discourses, The Letters, and the Seven Sermons . Despite references to other religions, Rumi clearly holds the superiority of Islam. As Muslim, Rumi praises the Quran, not only as sacred book of Muslims, but also as tool to distinguish truth from falsehood. As such,

27565-477: 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

27750-441: 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

27935-440: The resulting Afghan Civil War (1863–1869) and ruled Afghanistan until his death in 1879. In his final years, the British returned to Afghanistan in the Second Anglo-Afghan War to fight perceived Russian influence in the region. Sher Ali retreated to northern Afghanistan, intending to create a resistance there similar to his predecessors, Dost Mohammad Khan, and Wazir Akbar Khan. His untimely death however, saw Yaqub Khan declared

28120-399: The sacred dance. In the Mevlevi tradition, samāʿ represents a mystical journey of spiritual ascent through mind and love to the Perfect One. In this journey, the seeker symbolically turns towards the truth, grows through love, abandons the ego, finds the truth and arrives at the Perfect. The seeker then returns from this spiritual journey, with greater maturity, to love and to be of service to

28305-430: The same as He. His essence speaks through me. I have been looking for myself! Mewlana had been spontaneously composing ghazals (Persian poems), and these had been collected in the Divan-i Kabir or Diwan Shams Tabrizi. Rumi found another companion in Salaḥ ud-Din-e Zarkub, a goldsmith. After Salah ud-Din's death, Rumi's scribe and favourite student, Hussam-e Chalabi , assumed the role of Rumi's companion. One day,

28490-477: The seeker's path, the wise and crazed are one. In the way of love, kin and strangers are one. The one who they gave the wine of the beloved's union, in his path, the Kaaba and house of idols are one. According to the Quran, Muhammad is a mercy sent by God. In regards to this, Rumi states: "The Light of Muhammad does not abandon a Zoroastrian or Jew in the world. May the shade of his good fortune shine upon everyone! He brings all of those who are led astray into

28675-465: The siege of Mashhad , however, he was forced to retreat after four months. In November 1750, he moved to siege Nishapur , but he was unable to capture the city and was forced to retreat in early 1751. Ahmad Shah returned in 1754 ; he captured Tun , and on 23 July, he sieged Mashhad once again. Mashhad had fallen on 2 December, but Shahrokh was reappointed in 1755. He was forced to give up Torshiz , Bakharz , Jam , Khaf , and Turbat-e Haidari to

28860-554: 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

29045-409: The source from which the Greco-Bactrians and the Mughals , among others, rose to form major empires. Because of the various conquests and periods in both the Iranian and Indian cultural spheres, the area was a center for Zoroastrianism , Buddhism, Hinduism, and later Islam. The modern state of Afghanistan began with the Durrani Afghan Empire in the 18th century, although Dost Mohammad Khan

29230-452: 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

29415-458: 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,

29600-428: The support of foreign donor countries, to improve the country's economy, healthcare, education, transport, and agriculture. ISAF forces also began to train the Afghan National Security Forces . Following 2002, nearly five million Afghans were repatriated. The number of NATO troops present in Afghanistan peaked at 140,000 in 2011, dropping to about 16,000 in 2018. In September 2014 Ashraf Ghani became president after

29785-401: The syncretism in the region would be that people were patrons of Buddhism but still worshipped local Iranian gods such as Ahura Mazda , Lady Nana , Anahita or Mihr (Mithra) and portrayed Greek gods as protectors of Buddha. The Zunbils and Kabul Shahi were first conquered in 870 CE by the Saffarid Muslims of Zaranj. Later, the Samanids extended their Islamic influence south of

29970-469: The territory. During the medieval period, the northwestern area of Afghanistan was referred to by the regional name Khorasan , which was commonly used up to the 19th century among natives to describe their country. In 1709, Mirwais Hotak , a local Ghilzai tribal leader, successfully rebelled against the Safavids . He defeated Gurgin Khan , the Georgian governor of Kandahar under the Safavids, and established his own kingdom. Mirwais died in 1715, and

30155-412: The turn of one street". His father was also connected to the spiritual lineage of Najm al-Din Kubra . Rumi lived most of his life under the Persianate Seljuk Sultanate of Rum , where he produced his works and died in 1273   AD. He was buried in Konya , and his shrine became a place of pilgrimage. Upon his death, his followers and his son Sultan Walad founded the Mevlevi Order , also known as

30340-411: The two of them were wandering through the Meram vineyards outside Konya when Hussam described to Rumi an idea he had had: "If you were to write a book like the Ilāhīnāma of Sanai or the Mantiq ut-Tayr of 'Attar, it would become the companion of many troubadours. They would fill their hearts from your work and compose music to accompany it." Rumi smiled and took out a piece of paper on which were written

30525-422: 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

30710-557: The vacuum. Soviet troops in more substantial numbers were deployed to stabilize Afghanistan under Karmal, marking the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War . Lasting nine years, the war caused the deaths of between 562,000 and 2 million Afghans, and displaced about 6 million people who subsequently fled Afghanistan, mainly to Pakistan and Iran . Heavy air bombardment destroyed many countryside villages, millions of landmines were planted, and some cities such as Herat and Kandahar were also damaged from bombardment. After

30895-428: The verse: How doest thou know what sort of king I have within me as companion? Do not cast thy glance upon my golden face, for I have iron legs. Rumi died on 17 December 1273 in Konya . His death was mourned by the diverse community of Konya, with local Christians and Jews joining the crowd that converged to bid farewell as his body was carried through the city. Rumi's body was interred beside that of his father, and

31080-405: The west and the Sikh Empire in the east. Fateh Khan , leader of the Barakzai tribe , installed many of his brothers in positions of power throughout the empire. Fateh Khan was brutally murdered in 1818 by Mahmud Shah . As a result, the brothers of Fateh Khan and the Barakzai tribe rebelled, and a civil war brewed. During this turbulent period, Afghanistan fractured into many states, including

31265-410: The whole of creation without discrimination with regard to beliefs, races, classes and nations. In other verses in the Masnavi , Rumi describes in detail the universal message of love: The lover's cause is separate from all other causes Love is the astrolabe of God's mysteries. Rumi's favourite musical instrument was the ney (reed flute). Rumi's poetry is often divided into various categories:

31450-419: Was a descendant of Abu Bakr . Some modern scholars, however, reject this claim and state it does not hold on closer examination. The claim of maternal descent from the Khwarazmshah for Rumi or his father is also seen as a non-historical hagiographical tradition designed to connect the family with royalty, but this claim is rejected for chronological and historical reasons. The most complete genealogy offered for

31635-602: Was abolished in 1923. King Amanullah's wife, Queen Soraya , was an important figure during this period in the fight for woman's education and against their oppression. Some of the reforms, such as the abolition of the traditional burqa for women and the opening of co-educational schools, alienated many tribal and religious leaders, leading to the Afghan Civil War (1928–1929) . King Amanullah abdicated in January 1929, and soon after Kabul fell to Saqqawist forces led by Habibullah Kalakani . Mohammed Nadir Shah , Amanullah's cousin, defeated and killed Kalakani in October 1929, and

31820-416: 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

32005-463: Was assassinated by two Arab suicide attackers in Panjshir Valley . Around 400,000 Afghans died in internal conflicts between 1990 and 2001. In October 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan to remove the Taliban from power after they refused to hand over Osama bin Laden , the prime suspect of the September 11 attacks , who was a "guest" of the Taliban and was operating his al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan. The majority of Afghans supported

32190-430: Was at that time a major centre of Persian culture and Sufism had developed there for several centuries. The most important influences upon Rumi, besides his father, were the Persian poets Attar and Sanai . Rumi expresses his appreciation: "Attar was the spirit, Sanai his eyes twain, And in time thereafter, Came we in their train" and mentions in another poem: "Attar has traversed the seven cities of Love, We are still at

32375-413: Was born to Persian parents, in Balkh , modern-day Afghanistan or Wakhsh , a village on the East bank of the Wakhsh River known as Sangtuda in present-day Tajikistan . The area, culturally adjacent to Balkh , is where Mawlânâ's father, Bahâ' uddîn Walad, was a preacher and jurist. He lived and worked there until 1212, when Rumi was aged around five and the family moved to Samarkand . Greater Balkh

32560-416: Was continued by Rumi (see his Fihi Ma Fih and Seven Sermons) and Sultan Walad (see Ma'rif Waladi for examples of his everyday sermons and lectures). When the Mongols invaded Central Asia sometime between 1215 and 1220, Baha ud-Din Walad, with his whole family and a group of disciples, set out westwards. According to hagiographical account which is not agreed upon by all Rumi scholars, Rumi encountered one of

32745-432: Was declared Amir, being recognized by the British as well. Another uprising by Ayub Khan threatened the British, where rebels confronted and defeated British forces in the Battle of Maiwand . Following up on his victory, Ayub Khan unsuccessfully besieged Kandahar , and his decisive defeat saw the end of the Second Anglo-Afghan War, with Abdur Rahman secured firmly as Amir. In 1893, Abdur Rahman signed an agreement in which

32930-520: Was declared King Nadir Shah. He abandoned the reforms of King Amanullah in favor of a more gradual approach to modernization, but was assassinated in 1933 by Abdul Khaliq . Mohammed Zahir Shah succeeded to the throne and reigned as king from 1933 to 1973. During the tribal revolts of 1944–1947 , King Zahir's reign was challenged by Zadran , Safi , Mangal , and Wazir tribesmen led by Mazrak Zadran , Salemai , and Mirzali Khan , among others – many of whom were Amanullah loyalists . Afghanistan joined

33115-403: Was deposed by his brother Shah Shuja Durrani on 13 July 1803. Shah Shuja attempted to consolidate the Durrani Realm but was deposed by his brother at the Battle of Nimla (1809) . Mahmud Shah Durrani defeated Shah Shuja and forced him to flee, usurping the throne again. His second reign began on 3 May 1809. By the early 19th century, the Afghan empire was under threat from the Persians in

33300-616: Was facing widespread famine due to an economic and banking crisis. The Taliban have significantly tackled corruption, now being placed as 150th on the corruption watchdog perception index. The Taliban have also reportedly reduced bribery and extortion in public service areas. At the same time, the human rights situation in the country has deteriorated. Following the 2001 invasion, more than 5.7 million refugees returned to Afghanistan; however, in 2021, 2.6 million Afghans remained refugees, primarily in Iran and Pakistan, and another 4 million were internally displaced. In October 2023,

33485-484: 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

33670-480: Was still known to Arabs, Persians and Turks as the geographical area of Rum. As such, there are a number of historical personages born in or associated with Anatolia known as Rumi, a word borrowed from Persian literally meaning 'Roman,' in which context Roman refers to subjects of the Byzantine Empire or simply to people living in or things associated with Anatolia ." He was also known as "Mullah of Rum" ( ملای روم mullā-yi Rūm or ملای رومی mullā-yi Rūmī ). Rumi

33855-466: Was succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz , who was soon killed by Mirwais's son Mahmud for possibly planning to sign a peace with the Safavids. Mahmud led the Afghan army in 1722 to the Persian capital of Isfahan , and captured the city after the Battle of Gulnabad and proclaimed himself King of Persia. The Afghan dynasty was ousted from Persia by Nader Shah after the 1729 Battle of Damghan . In 1738, Nader Shah and his forces captured Kandahar in

34040-488: 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

34225-425: 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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