Bokhtar ( Tajik : Бохтар ), previously known as Qurghonteppa , Kurganteppa and Kurgan-Tyube , is a city in southwestern Tajikistan , which serves as the capital of the Khatlon region. Bokhtar is the largest city in southern Tajikistan, and is located 100 kilometres (62 mi) south of Dushanbe and 150 kilometres (93 mi) north of Kunduz , Afghanistan .
111-554: As of 2019, the city's population was estimated at 110,800, making it the third-largest city in the country. The population fluctuates depending on the season, due to the many Tajik migrant workers in Russia. Along with the capital Dushanbe , Bokhtar is more demographically diverse than other major Tajik cities such as Khujand , Kulob or Istaravshan . Its population includes Tajiks, Uzbeks , Russians , Pashtuns , Tatars , Ukrainians , Kazakhs , Greeks , and many more. The city had
222-659: A Persian -speaking Iranian ethnic group native to Central Asia , living primarily in Afghanistan , Tajikistan , and Uzbekistan . Tajiks are the largest ethnicity in Tajikistan, and the second-largest in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. More Tajiks live in Afghanistan than Tajikistan. They speak varieties of Persian, a Western Iranian language . In Tajikistan, since the 1939 Soviet census, its small Pamiri and Yaghnobi ethnic groups are included as Tajiks. In China,
333-467: A "Tajik", is typically defined as any primarily Dari -speaking Sunni Muslim who refer to themselves by the region, province, city, town, or village that they are from; such as Badakhshi , Baghlani , Mazari , Panjsheri , Kabuli , Herati , Kohistani , etc. Although in the past, some non- Pashto speaking tribes were identified as Tajik, for example, the Furmuli. By this definition, according to
444-592: A 2009 U.S. State Department release, the population of Tajikistan is 98% Muslim, (approximately 85% Sunni and 5% Shia ). In Afghanistan , the great number of Tajiks adhere to Sunni Islam . A small number of Tajiks may follow Twelver Shia Islam ; the Farsiwan are one such group. The community of Bukharian Jews in Central Asia speak a dialect of Persian. The Bukharian Jewish community in Uzbekistan
555-473: A 2015 study estimates some 2,600 Muslim Tajik converted to Christianity. Tajikistan marked 2009 as the year to commemorate the Tajik Sunni Muslim jurist Abu Hanifa , whose ancestry hailed from Parwan Province of Afghanistan, as the nation hosted an international symposium that drew scientific and religious leaders. The construction of one of the largest mosques in the world, funded by Qatar ,
666-534: A Hellenized form of Old Persian Pārsa ( 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 ), which evolves into Fārs ( فارس ) in modern Persian. In the Bible , particularly in the books of Daniel , Esther , Ezra , and Nehemya , it is given as Pārās ( פָּרָס ). A Greek folk etymology connected the name to Perseus , a legendary character in Greek mythology . Herodotus recounts this story, devising a foreign son, Perses , from whom
777-595: A West-Eurasian component (~74%), an East Asian-related component (~18%), and a South Asian component samplified by Great Andamanese (~8%). According to the authors, the South Asian (Great Andamanese) affinity of Tajiks was previously unreported, although evidence for the presence of a deep South Asian ancestry was already found previously in other Central Asian samples (e.g. among modern Turkmens and historical Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex samples). Both historical and more recent geneflow (~1500 years ago) shaped
888-576: A center of interest, particularly during the annual international Shiraz Arts Festival and the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire . The Pahlavi rulers modernized Iran, and ruled it until the 1979 Revolution . In modern Iran, the Persians make up the majority of the population. They are native speakers of the modern dialects of Persian , which serves as the country's official language. The Persian language belongs to
999-590: A dialect version of Gujarati , and no longer speak in Persian. They do however continue to use Avestan as their liturgical language. The Parsis have adapted many practices and tendencies of the Indian groups that surrounded them, such as Indian dress norms, and the observance of many Indian festivals and ceremonies. From Persis and throughout the Median, Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian empires of ancient Iran to
1110-410: A geometric system. The enclosure of this symmetrically arranged planting and irrigation by an infrastructure such as a palace created the impression of "paradise". The word paradise itself originates from Avestan pairidaēza ( Old Persian paridaida ; New Persian pardis , ferdows ), which literally translates to "walled-around". Characterized by its quadripartite ( čārbāq ) design,
1221-544: A handful of cities in Tajikistan, Russia and Kazakhstan . Bokhtar has a semi-arid climate ( Köppen climate classification BSk ), with cool winters and very hot summers. Precipitation is quite low. It is highest in the spring, while summers are very dry. Finnish electronic duo Pan Sonic have a track entitled "Radio Qurghonteppa" on their 2010 farewell album Gravitoni. Tajik people Tajiks ( Persian : تاجيک، تاجک , romanized : Tājīk, Tājek ; Tajik : Тоҷик , romanized : Tojik ) are
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#17327725376761332-416: A large number of ethnic Russians who worked in the industrial and agricultural complexes in and around the city. Bokhtar is a stronghold of Tajikistan's political opposition. During the civil war in Tajikistan , Bokhtar (then Qurghonteppa) became the epicenter of conflict by the summer of 1992, and was seriously damaged. Many of the local Kulobi and Uzbeks were forced to flee in 1992, following attacks by
1443-520: A leading historian of Iranian and Central Asian history, the Persian migration to Central Asia may be considered the beginning of the modern Tajik nation, and ethnic Persians, along with some elements of East-Iranian Bactrians and Sogdians, as the main ancestors of modern Tajiks. In later works, Frye expands on the complexity of the historical origins of the Tajiks. In a 1996 publication, Frye explains that many "factors must be taken into account in explaining
1554-683: A major role in the downfall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire . The Medes , another group of ancient Iranian people, unified the region under an empire centered in Media , which would become the region's leading cultural and political power of the time by 612 BC. Meanwhile, under the dynasty of the Achaemenids , the Persians formed a vassal state to the central Median power. In 552 BC, the Achaemenid Persians revolted against
1665-435: A more available and detailed documentation than the earlier periods, and is especially more evident within the context of Zoroastrian musical rituals . Overall, Sasanian music was influential and was adopted in the subsequent eras. Iranian music, as a whole, utilizes a variety of musical instruments that are unique to the region, and has remarkably evolved since the ancient and medieval times. In traditional Sasanian music,
1776-704: A period of artistic growth that left a legacy ranging from Cyrus the Great's solemn tomb at Pasargadae to the structures at Persepolis and Naqsh-e Rostam . The Bam Citadel , a massive structure at 1,940,000 square feet (180,000 m ) constructed on the Silk Road in Bam , is from around the 5th century BC. The quintessential feature of Achaemenid architecture was its eclectic nature, with elements from Median architecture, Assyrian architecture, and Asiatic Greek architecture all incorporated. The architectural heritage of
1887-482: A reference to Persians. The Tajiks are the principal ethnic group in most of Tajikistan , as well as in northern and western Afghanistan , though there are more Tajiks in Afghanistan than in Tajikistan. Tajiks are a substantial minority in Uzbekistan , as well as in overseas communities. Historically, the ancestors of the Tajiks lived in a larger territory in Central Asia than now. Tajiks make up around 84.3% of
1998-507: A variety of Persian by the name of Aimaqi , which also belongs to the Dari dialect continuum. Persian-speaking communities native to modern Arab countries are generally designated as Ajam , including the Ajam of Bahrain , the Ajam of Iraq , and the Ajam of Kuwait . The Parsis are a Zoroastrian community of Persian descent who migrated to South Asia , to escape religious persecution after
2109-547: Is a Western Iranian language , likely adopting the language in the 7th century AD following the Islamic conquest of Persia , when the prestigious Persian language consequently spread further east leading to the gradual extinction of the Bactrian and Sogdian languages. The Tajiks and their ancestors have inhabited Northern Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and other parts of Central Asia continuously for many millennia. The culture of
2220-719: Is attested as late as 465". Following the Arab conquest of the Sasanian Empire in the medieval times, the Arab caliphates established their rule over the region for the next several centuries, during which the long process of the Islamization of Iran took place. Confronting the cultural and linguistic dominance of the Persians, beginning by the Umayyad Caliphate , the Arab conquerors began to establish Arabic as
2331-467: Is attested from the middle of the 1st millennium BC. The ancestors of the Tajiks constituted the core of the ancient population of Khwārezm (Khorezm) and Bactria, which formed part of Transoxania (Sogdiana). Over the course of time, the eastern Iranian dialect that was used by the ancient Tajiks eventually gave way to Farsi , a western dialect spoken in Iran and Afghanistan. The geographical division between
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#17327725376762442-688: Is essentially a reciprocal cultural exchange. Its legacy and impact on the kingdom of Macedon was also notably huge, even for centuries after the withdrawal of the Persians from Europe following the Greco-Persian Wars . During the Achaemenid era, Persian colonists settled in Asia Minor . In Lydia (the most important Achaemenid satrapy), near Sardis , there was the Hyrcanian plain , which, according to Strabo , got its name from
2553-539: Is from the Behistun Inscription , a multilingual inscription from the time of Achaemenid ruler Darius the Great carved on a cliff in western Iran. There are several ethnic groups and communities that are either ethnically or linguistically related to the Persian people, living predominantly in Iran, and also within Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, the Caucasus, Turkey, Iraq, and the Arab states of
2664-536: Is known to have one of the world's oldest and most influential literatures. Old Persian written works are attested on several inscriptions from between the 6th and the 4th centuries BC, and Middle Persian literature is attested on inscriptions from the Parthian and Sasanian eras and in Zoroastrian and Manichaean scriptures from between the 3rd to the 10th century AD. New Persian literature flourished after
2775-421: Is regarded as the world's oldest existing carpet, depicts elements of Assyrian and Achaemenid designs, including stylistic references to the stone slab designs found in Persian royal buildings. According to the accounts reported by Xenophon, a great number of singers were present at the Achaemenid court. However, little information is available from the music of that era. The music scene of the Sasanian Empire has
2886-642: Is the immediate ancestor of Modern Persian and a variety of other Iranian dialects, became the official language of the empire and was greatly diffused among Iranians. The Parthians and the Sasanians would also extensively interact with the Romans culturally. The Roman–Persian wars and the Byzantine–Sasanian wars would shape the landscape of Western Asia , Europe , the Caucasus , North Africa, and
2997-727: Is the largest remaining community of Central Asian Jews and resides primarily in Bukhara and Samarkand, while the Bukharaian Jews of Tajikistan live in Dushanbe and number only a few hundred. From the 1970s to the 1990s the majority of these Tajik-speaking Jews emigrated to the United States and to Israel in accordance with Aliyah . Recently, the Protestant community of Tajiks descent has experienced significant growth,
3108-994: Is used, it is called the Tajiki language . In Afghanistan , unlike in Tajikistan , Tajiks continue to use the Perso-Arabic script , as well as in Iran. When the Soviet Union introduced the Latin script in 1928, and later the Cyrillic script, the Persian dialect of Tajikistan came to be disassociated from the Tajik language. Many Tajik authors have lamented this artificial separation of the Tajik language from its Iranian heritage. One Tajik poem relates: Once you said 'you are Iranian', then you said, 'you are Tajik' May he die separated from his roots, he who separated us . Since
3219-638: The Arab conquest of Iran with its earliest records from the 9th century, and was developed as a court tradition in many eastern courts. The Shahnameh of Ferdowsi , the works of Rumi , the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam , the Panj Ganj of Nizami Ganjavi , the Divān of Hafez , The Conference of the Birds by Attar of Nishapur , and the miscellanea of Gulistan and Bustan by Saadi Shirazi are among
3330-575: The Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province in Tajikistan, and Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County in China. Some of the famous Islamic scholars were from either modern or historical East-Iranian regions lying in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and therefore can arguably be viewed as Tajiks. They include Abu Hanifa , Imam Bukhari , Tirmidhi , Abu Dawood , Nasir Khusraw and many others. According to
3441-772: The Greek colonies of the Tauric Chersonesos , and for a brief time the Roman province of Asia . After a long struggle with Rome in the Mithridatic Wars , Pontus was defeated; part of it was incorporated into the Roman Republic as the province of Bithynia and Pontus , and the eastern half survived as a client kingdom. Following the Macedonian conquests , the Persian colonists in Cappadocia and
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3552-572: The Iranian calendar , which corresponds to around March 21 in the Gregorian calendar. An ancient tradition that has been preserved in Iran and several other countries that were under the influence of the ancient empires of Iran, Nowruz has been registered on UNESCO 's Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists . In Iran, the Nowruz celebrations (incl. Charshanbe Suri and Sizdebedar ) begin on the eve of
3663-579: The Old Assyrian form Parahše , designating a region belonging to the Sumerians . The name of this region was adopted by a nomadic ancient Iranian people who migrated to the region in the west and southwest of Lake Urmia , eventually becoming known as "the Persians". The ninth-century BC Neo-Assyrian inscription of the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III , found at Nimrud , gives it in
3774-563: The Pahlavi dynasty issued a decree asking the international community to use the term Iran , the native name of the country, in formal correspondence. However, the term Persian is still historically used to designate the predominant population of the Iranian peoples living in the Iranian cultural continent . Persia is first attested in Assyrian sources from the third millennium BC in
3885-860: The Pamiri ethnic group that lives in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwestern China . They are one of the 56 nationalities officially recognized by the government of the People's Republic of China . According to the 1999 population census , there were 26,000 Tajiks in Kazakhstan (0.17% of the total population), about the same number as in the 1989 census. According to official statistics , there were about 47,500 Tajiks in Kyrgyzstan in 2007 (0.9% of
3996-541: The Qarluq Turks (see Bregel, Atlas, Maps 8–10) consisted not only of Arabs, but also of Persian converts from Fārs and the central Zagros region (Bartol'd [Barthold], "Tadžiki," pp. 455–57). Hence the Turks of Central Asia adopted a variant of the Iranian word, täžik, to designate their Muslim adversaries in general. For example, the rulers of the south Indian Chalukya dynasty and Rashtrakuta dynasty also referred to
4107-479: The Sasanian Empire , a national culture that was fully aware of being Iranian took shape, partially motivated by restoration and revival of the wisdom of "the old sages" ( dānāgān pēšēnīgān ). Other aspects of this national culture included the glorification of a great heroic past and an archaizing spirit. Throughout the period, Iranian identity reached its height in every aspect. Middle Persian , which
4218-456: The Sassanid and early Islamic period. The Tajiks have a mixed origin, and are primarily descended from Bactrians , Sogdians , Scythians , but also Persians , Greeks and various Turkic peoples of Central Asia, all of whom are known to have inhabited the region at various times. Tajiks are therefore mainly Eastern Iranian in their ethnic makeup but speak a Persian dialect, which
4329-445: The Soviet Union and the exodus of Russians from Central Asia. Nevertheless, Russian fluency is still considered an vital skill for business and education. The dialects of modern Persian spoken throughout Greater Iran have a common origin. This is due to the fact that one of Greater Iran 's historical cultural capitals, called Greater Khorasan , which included parts of modern Central Asia and much of Afghanistan and constitutes as
4440-470: The Western world , the names Persia and Persian came to refer to all of Iran and its subjects. Some medieval and early modern Islamic sources also used cognates of the term Persian to refer to various Iranian peoples and languages, including the speakers of Khwarazmian , Mazanderani , and Old Azeri . 10th-century Iraqi historian Al-Masudi refers to Pahlavi , Dari , and Azari as dialects of
4551-608: The World Factbook , Tajiks make up about 25–27% of Afghanistan 's population, but according to other sources, they form 37–39% of the population. Other sources however, for example the Encyclopædia Britannica , state that they constitute about 12–20% of the population, which is mostly excluding Persianized ethnic groups like some Pashtuns , Uzbeks , Qizilbash , Aimaqs etc. who, especially in large urban areas like Kabul or Herat , assimilated into
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4662-548: The Zoroastrian , and Buddhist pre-Islamic heritage of the Tajik people. Early temples for fire worship have been found in Balkh and Bactria and excavations in present-day Tajikistan and Uzbekistan show remnants of Zoroastrian fire temples. Today, however, the great majority of Tajiks follow Sunni Islam , although small Twelver and Ismaili Shia minorities also exist in scattered pockets. Areas with large numbers of Shias include Herat , Badakhshan provinces in Afghanistan,
4773-410: The octave was divided into seventeen tones. By the end of the 13th century, Iranian music also maintained a twelve-interval octave, which resembled the western counterparts. The Iranian New Year 's Day, Nowruz , which translates to "new day", is celebrated by Persians and other peoples of Iran to mark the beginning of spring on the vernal equinox on the first day of Farvardin , the first month of
4884-774: The western group of the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family . Modern Persian is classified as a continuation of Middle Persian , the official religious and literary language of the Sasanian Empire , itself a continuation of Old Persian , which was used by the time of the Achaemenid Empire . Old Persian is one of the oldest Indo-European languages attested in original text. Samples of Old Persian have been discovered in present-day Iran, Armenia , Egypt , Iraq , Romania ( Gherla ), and Turkey . The oldest attested text written in Old Persian
4995-613: The (ideally) nomadic military executive and the urban civil bureaucracy (Niẓām al-Molk: tāzik, pp. 146, 178–79; Fragner, "Tādjīk. 2" in EI2 10, p. 63). The word also occurs in the 8th-century Tonyukuk inscriptions as tözik , used for a local Arab tribe in the Tashkent area. These Arabs were said to be from the Taz tribe, which is still found in Yemen. In the 7th-century, the Taz began to Islamize
5106-409: The 19th century, Tajiki has been strongly influenced by the Russian language and has incorporated many Russian language loan words . It has also adopted fewer Arabic loan words than Iranian Persian while retaining vocabulary that has fallen out of use in the latter language. Many Tajiks can read, speak or write in Russian, however the prestige and importance of Russian has declined since the fall of
5217-467: The Arabs as "Tajika" in the 8th and 9th century. By the eleventh century ( Yusof Ḵāṣṣ-ḥājeb , Qutadḡu bilig , lines 280, 282, 3265), the Qarakhanid Turks applied this term more specifically to the Persian Muslims in the Oxus basin and Khorasan, who were variously the Turks' rivals, models, overlords (under the Samanid Dynasty ), and subjects (from Ghaznavid times on). Persian writers of the Ghaznavid, Seljuq and Atābak periods (ca. 1000–1260) adopted
5328-416: The Caucasus (primarily living in the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Russian republic of Dagestan ), speak a language ( Tat language ) that is closely related to Persian. The origin of the Tat people is traced to an Iranian-speaking population that was resettled in the Caucasus by the time of the Sasanian Empire. The Lurs , an ethnic Iranian people native to western Iran, are often associated with
5439-426: The Kazakhstan border. There are currently estimated to be over one million Tajik guest workers living in Russia, with their remittances accounting for as much as half of Tajikistan's economy. There are an estimated 220,000 Tajiks in Pakistan as of 2012, mainly refugees from Afghanistan. During the 1990s, as a result of the Tajikistan Civil War , between 700 and 1,200 Tajiks arrived in Pakistan, mainly as students,
5550-400: The Late Assyrian forms Parsua and Parsumaš as a region and a people located in the Zagros Mountains , the latter likely having migrated southward and transferred the name of the region with them to what would become Persis (Persia proper, i.e., modern-day Fars ), and that is considered to be the earliest attestation to the ancient Persian people. The ancient Persians played
5661-403: The Median monarchy, leading to the victory of Cyrus the Great over the throne in 550 BC. The Persians spread their influence to the rest of what is considered to be the Iranian Plateau , and assimilated with the non-Iranian indigenous groups of the region, including the Elamites and the Mannaeans . At its greatest extent, the Achaemenid Empire stretched from parts of Eastern Europe in
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#17327725376765772-433: The Mediterranean Basin for centuries. For a period of over 400 years, the Sasanians and the neighboring Byzantines were recognized as the two leading powers in the world. Cappadocia in Late Antiquity , now well into the Roman era, still retained a significant Iranian character; Stephen Mitchell notes in the Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity : "Many inhabitants of Cappadocia were of Persian descent and Iranian fire worship
5883-408: The Parthian era, Iranian identity had an ethnic, linguistic, and religious value. However, it did not yet have a political import. The Parthian language , which was used as an official language of the Parthian Empire, left influences on Persian, as well as on the neighboring Armenian language . The Parthian monarchy was succeeded by the Persian dynasty of the Sasanians in 224 AD. By the time of
5994-403: The Persian Gulf . The Tajiks are a people native to Tajikistan , Afghanistan , and Uzbekistan who speak Persian in a variety of dialects. The Tajiks of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are native speakers of Tajik , which is the official language of Tajikistan, and those in Afghanistan speak Dari , one of the two official languages of Afghanistan. The Tat people , an Iranian people native to
6105-402: The Persian fire ceremony at the towns of Hyrocaesareia and Hypaepa . Mithridates III of Cius , a Persian nobleman and part of the Persian ruling elite of the town of Cius , founded the Kingdom of Pontus in his later life, in northern Asia Minor. At the peak of its power, under the infamous Mithridates VI the Great , the Kingdom of Pontus also controlled Colchis , Cappadocia , Bithynia ,
6216-432: The Persian garden was evolved and developed into various forms throughout history, and was also adopted in various other cultures in Eurasia. It was inscribed on UNESCO 's World Heritage List in June 2011. Carpet weaving is an essential part of the Persian culture, and Persian rugs are said to be one of the most detailed hand-made works of art. Achaemenid rug and carpet artistry is well recognized. Xenophon describes
6327-520: The Persian language are known as Tajiks , with the former two countries having their own dialects of Persian known as Dari and Tajiki , respectively; whereas those in the Caucasus (primarily in the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan and Dagestan , Russia ), albeit heavily assimilated, are known as Tats . Historically, however, the terms Tajik and Tat were used synonymously and interchangeably with Persian . Many influential Persian figures hailed from outside of Iran's present-day borders—to
6438-413: The Persian language. In 1333, medieval Moroccan traveler and scholar Ibn Battuta referred to the Afghans of Kabul as a specific sub-tribe of the Persians. Lady Mary (Leonora Woulfe) Sheil, in her observation of Iran during the Qajar era, states that the Kurds and the Leks would consider themselves as belonging to the race of the "old Persians". On 21 March 1935, the then-king of Iran Reza Shah of
6549-421: The Persian settlers that were moved from Hyrcania . Similarly near Sardis, there was the plain of Cyrus, which further signified the presence of numerous Persian settlements in the area. In all these centuries, Lydia and Pontus were reportedly the chief centers for the worship of the Persian gods in Asia Minor. According to Pausanias , as late as the second century AD, one could witness rituals which resembled
6660-459: The Persians is eclectic and has included contributions from both the east and the west. Due to the central location of Iran, Persian art has served as a fusion point between eastern and western traditions. Persians have contributed to various forms of art, including calligraphy , carpet weaving , glasswork , lacquerware , marquetry ( khatam ), metalwork , miniature illustration , mosaic , pottery , and textile design . The Persian language
6771-407: The Persians and the Kurds . They speak various dialects of the Luri language , which is considered to be a descendant of Middle Persian . The Hazaras , making up the third largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, speak a variety of Persian by the name of Hazaragi , which is more precisely a part of the Dari dialect continuum. The Aimaqs , a semi-nomadic people native to Afghanistan, speak
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#17327725376766882-447: The Persians took the name. Apparently, the Persians themselves knew the story, as Xerxes I tried to use it to suborn the Argives during his invasion of Greece, but ultimately failed to do so. Although Persis (Persia proper) was only one of the provinces of ancient Iran, varieties of this term (e.g., Persia ) were adopted through Greek sources and used as an exonym for all of the Persian Empire for many years. Thus, especially in
6993-440: The Sasanian Empire includes, among others, castle fortifications such as the Fortifications of Derbent (located in North Caucasus , now part of Russia ), the Rudkhan Castle and the Shapur-Khwast Castle , palaces such as the Palace of Ardashir and the Sarvestan Palace , bridges such as the Shahrestan Bridge and the Shapuri Bridge , the Archway of Ctesiphon , and the reliefs at Taq-e Bostan . Architectural elements from
7104-426: The Tajik community accounts for 5% of the nation's population. However, these numbers do not include ethnic Tajiks who, for a variety of reasons, choose to identify themselves as Uzbeks in population census forms. During the Soviet " Uzbekization " supervised by Sharof Rashidov , the head of the Uzbek Communist Party, Tajiks had to choose either stay in Uzbekistan and get registered as Uzbek in their passports or leave
7215-733: The Tajik sample was assigned to the North African maternal haplogroup X2j. The dominant paternal haplogroup among modern Tajiks is the Haplogroup R1a Y-DNA. ~45% of Tajik men share R1a (M17), ~18% J (M172), ~8% R2 (M124), and ~8% C (M130 & M48). Tajiks of Panjikent score 68% R1a, Tajiks of Khojant score 64% R1a. The high frequency of haplogroup R1a in the Tajiks probably reflects a strong founder effect . According to another genetic test, 63% of Tajik male samples from Tajikistan carry R1a. An autosomal DNA study by Guarino-Vignon et al. (2022), suggested that modern Tajiks show genetic continuity with ancient samples from Tajikistan and Turkmenistan . The genetic ancestry of Tajiks consists largely of
7326-408: The Tajik's ancestral homeland, played a key role in the development and propagation of Persian language and culture throughout much of Greater Iran after the Muslim conquest. Furthermore, early manuscripts of the historical Persian spoken in Mashhad during the development of Middle to New Persian show that their origins came from Sistan , in present-day Afghanistan. Various scholars have recorded
7437-477: The Tajiks is predominantly Persianate but with strong elements from other cultures of Central Asia, such as Turkic and heavily infused with Islamic traditions. The Tajiks are an Iranian people, speaking a variety of Persian, concentrated in the Oxus Basin, the Farḡāna valley (Tajikistan and parts of Uzbekistan) and on both banks of the upper Oxus, i.e., the Pamir Mountains (Mountain Badaḵšān, in Tajikistan) and northeastern Afghanistan (Badaḵšān). Historically,
7548-434: The ancient Tajiks were chiefly agriculturalists before the Arab Conquest of Iran . While agriculture remained a stronghold, the Islamization of Iran also resulted in the rapid urbanization of historical Khorasan and Transoxiana that lasted until the devastating Mongolian invasion. Several surviving ancient urban centers of the Tajik people include Samarkand , Bukhara , Khujand , and Termez . Contemporary Tajiks are
7659-404: The carpet production in the city of Sardis, stating that the locals take pride in their carpet production. A special mention of Persian carpets is also made by Athenaeus of Naucratis in his Deipnosophistae , as he describes a "delightfully embroidered" Persian carpet with "preposterous shapes of griffins ". The Pazyryk carpet, a Scythian pile-carpet dating back to the 4th century BC that
7770-404: The children of Tajik refugees in Afghanistan. In 2002, around 300 requested to return home and were repatriated back to Tajikistan with the help of the IOM , UNHCR and the two countries' authorities. 80,414 Tajiks live in the United States. A 2014 study of the maternal haplogroups of Tajiks from Tajikistan revealed substantial admixture of West Eurasian and East Eurasian lineages, and also
7881-502: The descendants of ancient Eastern Iranian inhabitants of Central Asia, in particular, the Sogdians and the Bactrians . Possibly are descendants from other groups, with an admixture of Western Iranian Persians and non-Iranian peoples. The latter group may include Greeks who were known to have settled in the Tajikistan and Uzbekistan region following the conquests of Alexander the Great and some of them were referred to as Dayuan by Chinese chronicles. According to Richard Nelson Frye ,
7992-518: The early population associated with the Tarim mummies . The authors concluded that Tajiks "present patterns of genetic continuity of Central Asians since the Bronze Age". The language of the Tajiks is an eastern dialect of Persian , called Dari (derived from Darbārī , "[of/from the] royal courts", in the sense of "courtly language"), or also Parsi-e Darbari. In Tajikistan, where Cyrillic script
8103-716: The eastern and western Iranians is often considered historically and currently to be the desert Dasht-e Kavir , situated in the center of the Iranian plateau. During the Soviet–Afghan War , the Tajik-dominated Jamiat-e Islami founded by Burhanuddin Rabbani resisted the Soviet Army and the communist Afghan government . Tajik commander, Ahmad Shah Massoud , successfully repelled nine Soviet campaigns from taking Panjshir Valley and earned
8214-468: The eastern provinces of Lebap and Mary adjoining the borders with Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. The population of Tajiks in Russia was about 350,236 according to the 2021 census, up from 38,000 in the last Soviet census of 1989. Most Tajiks came to Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union , often as guest workers in places like Moscow and Saint Petersburg or federal subjects near
8325-529: The evolution of the peoples whose remnants are the Tajiks in Central Asia" and that "the peoples of Central Asia, whether Iranian or Turkic speaking, have one culture, one religion, one set of social values and traditions with only language separating them." Regarding Tajiks, the Encyclopædia Britannica states: The Tajiks are the direct descendants of the Iranian peoples whose continuous presence in Central Asia and northern Afghanistan
8436-621: The expansion of the Persianate societies , particularly those of Turco-Persian and Indo-Persian blends. After over eight centuries of foreign rule within the region, the Iranian hegemony was reestablished by the emergence of the Safavid Empire in the 16th century. Under the Safavid Empire, focus on Persian language and identity was further revived, and the political evolution of the empire once again maintained Persian as
8547-571: The fall of the Sassanian Empire . They have had a significant role in the development of India , Pakistan and Sri Lanka , and also played a role in the development of Iranian nationalism during the late Qajar years and Pahlavi dynasty. They are primarily located in the western regions of India principally the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra , with smaller communities in other parts of India and in South and Southeast Asia. They speak
8658-669: The fall of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, records only traces of Persians in western Asia Minor; however, he considered Cappadocia "almost a living part of Persia". The Iranian dominance collapsed in 330 BC following the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire by Alexander the Great , but reemerged shortly after through the establishment of the Parthian Empire in 247 BC, which was founded by a group of ancient Iranian people rising from Parthia . Until
8769-489: The famous works of medieval Persian literature. A thriving contemporary Persian literature has also been formed by the works of writers such as Ahmad Shamlou , Forough Farrokhzad , Mehdi Akhavan-Sales , Parvin E'tesami , Sadegh Hedayat , and Simin Daneshvar , among others. Not all Persian literature is written in Persian, as works written by Persians in other languages—such as Arabic and Greek—might also be included. At
8880-658: The first time after two centuries of no attestation of the language, now having received the Arabic script and a large Arabic vocabulary. Persian language and culture continued to prevail after the invasions and conquests by the Mongols and the Turks (including the Ilkhanate , Ghaznavids , Seljuks , Khwarazmians , and Timurids ), who were themselves significantly Persianized , further developing in Asia Minor , Central Asia , and South Asia , where Persian culture flourished by
8991-463: The genetic makeup of Southern Central Asian populations, such as the Tajiks. A follow-up study by Dai et al. (2022) estimated that the Tajiks derive between 11.6 and 18.6% ancestry from admixture with from an East-Eurasian steppe source represented by the Xiongnu , with the remainder of their ancestry being derived from Western Steppe Herders and BMAC components, as well as a small contribution from
9102-428: The good and beautiful things that the soil produce." The Persian garden , the earliest examples of which were found throughout the Achaemenid Empire, has an integral position in Persian architecture. Gardens assumed an important place for the Achaemenid monarchs, and utilized the advanced Achaemenid knowledge of water technologies, including aqueducts , earliest recorded gravity-fed water rills, and basins arranged in
9213-712: The government there has made a conscious effort to revive the legacy of the Samanid empire, the first Tajik-dominated state in the region after the Arab advance. For instance, the President of Tajikistan , Emomalii Rahmon , dropped the Russian suffix "-ov" from his surname and directed others to adopt Tajik names when registering births. According to a government announcement in October 2009, approximately 4,000 Tajik nationals have dropped "ov" and "ev" from their surnames since
9324-544: The language to simply "Tajiki" in 1994. On 6 October 2009, Tajikistan adopted the law that removes Russian as the lingua franca and mandated Tajik as the language to be used in official documents and education, with an exception for members Tajikistan's ethnic minority groups, who would be permitted to receive an education in the language of their choosing. Persians The Persians ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən z / PUR -zhənz or / ˈ p ɜːr ʃ ən z / PUR -shənz ) are an Iranian ethnic group who comprise
9435-450: The last several decades, particularly as a result of Soviet administration in Central Asia. Alternative names for the Tajiks are Fārsīwān (Persian-speaker), and Dīhgān (cf. Tajik : Деҳқон ) which translates to "farmer or settled villager", in a wider sense "settled" in contrast to "nomadic" and was later used to describe a class of land-owning magnates as " Persian of noble blood" in contrast to Arabs , Turks and Romans during
9546-617: The main language of the country. During the times of the Safavids and subsequent modern Iranian dynasties such as the Qajars , architectural and iconographic elements from the time of the Sasanian Persian Empire were reincorporated, linking the modern country with its ancient past. Contemporary embracement of the legacy of Iran's ancient empires, with an emphasis on the Achaemenid Persian Empire, developed particularly under
9657-527: The majority of the population of Iran . They share a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language as well as of the languages that are closely related to Persian . The ancient Persians were originally an ancient Iranian people who had migrated to the region of Persis (corresponding to the modern-day Iranian province of Fars ) by the 9th century BCE. Together with their compatriot allies, they established and ruled some of
9768-441: The neighboring Greek city states and the kingdom of Macedon , and later throughout the medieval Islamic world , all the way to modern Iran and others parts of Eurasia , Persian culture has been extended, celebrated, and incorporated. This is due mainly to its geopolitical conditions, and its intricate relationship with the ever-changing political arena once as dominant as the Achaemenid Empire. The artistic heritage of
9879-457: The nickname "Lion of Panjshir" ( شیر پنجشیر ). According to John Perry ( Encyclopaedia Iranica ): The most plausible and generally accepted origin of the word is Middle Persian tāzīk 'Arab' (cf. New Persian tāzi), or an Iranian (Sogdian or Parthian) cognate word. The Muslim armies that invaded Transoxiana early in the eighth century, conquering the Sogdian principalities and clashing with
9990-568: The northeast in Afghanistan and Central Asia , and to a lesser extent within the Caucasus proper to the northwest. In historical contexts, especially in English , "Persian" may be defined more loosely (often as a national identity) to cover all subjects of the ancient Persian polities, regardless of their ethnic background. The term Persian , meaning "from Persia", derives from Latin Persia , itself deriving from Greek Persís ( Περσίς ),
10101-570: The population of Tajikistan. This number includes speakers of the Pamiri languages , including Wakhi and Shughni , and the Yaghnobi people who in the past were considered by the government of the Soviet Union nationalities separate from the Tajiks. In the 1926 and 1937 Soviet censuses, the Yaghnobis and Pamiri language speakers were counted as separate nationalities. After 1937, these groups were required to register as Tajiks. In Afghanistan,
10212-528: The population of the ancient cities of Bukhara and Samarkand , and are found in large numbers in the Surxondaryo Region in the south and along Uzbekistan's eastern border with Tajikistan. According to official statistics (2000), Surxondaryo Region accounts for 20.4% of all Tajiks in Uzbekistan, with another 34.3% in Samarqand and Bukhara regions. Official statistics in Uzbekistan state that
10323-460: The presence of South Asian and North African lineages, as well. Another study reports that "the Tajik mtDNA pool gene pool harbors nearly equal proportions of eastern Eurasian and western Eurasian haplotypes." West Eurasian maternal lineages included haplogroups H, J, K, T, I, W and U. East Eurasian lineages included haplogroups M, C, Z, D, G, A, Y and B. South Asian lineages detected in this study included haplogroups M and R. One lineage in
10434-421: The primary language of the subject peoples throughout their empire, sometimes by force, further confirming the new political reality over the region. The Arabic term ʿAjam , denoting "people unable to speak properly", was adopted as a designation for non-Arabs (or non-Arabic speakers), especially the Persians. Although the term had developed a derogatory meaning and implied cultural and ethnic inferiority, it
10545-591: The pro-opposition Gharmi forces. The city was officially renamed from Qurghonteppa to Bokhtar on 22 January 2018. The name change was one of many in Tajikistan targeting places whose names derive from the Uzbek and Kyrgyz languages. Near Bokhtar are the ruins of a Buddhist monastery complex called Ajina Tepe , believed to be built in the 7th or 8th centuries CE. It features a 12-meter-long image of Buddha in Nirvana . Bokhtar International Airport provides flights to
10656-569: The region of Transoxiana in Central Asia. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam , however, the oldest known usage of the word Tajik as a reference to Persians in Persian literature can be found in the writings of the famous Persian poet and Islamic scholar Jalal ad-Din Rumi . The 15th-century Turkic-speaking poet Mīr Alī Šer Navā'ī who lived in the Timurid empire also used Tajik as
10767-489: The reign of the Pahlavi dynasty , providing the motive of a modern nationalistic pride. Iran's modern architecture was then inspired by that of the country's classical eras, particularly with the adoption of details from the ancient monuments in the Achaemenid capitals Persepolis and Pasargadae and the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon . Fars, corresponding to the ancient province of Persia, with its modern capital Shiraz , became
10878-760: The republic for Tajikistan, which is mountainous and less agricultural. It is only in the last population census (1989) that the nationality could be reported not according to the passport, but freely declared based on the respondent's ethnic self-identification. This had the effect of increasing the Tajik population in Uzbekistan from 3.9% in 1979 to 4.7% in 1989. Some scholars estimate that Tajiks may make up 35% of Uzbekistan's population, and believe that just like Afghanistan, there are more Tajiks in Uzbekistan than in Tajikistan. Chinese Tajiks or Mountain Tajiks in China ( Sarikoli : [tudʒik] , Tujik ; Chinese : 塔吉克族 ; pinyin : Tǎjíkè Zú ), including Sarikolis (majority) and Wakhis (minority) in China, are
10989-503: The respective local culture. Tajiks (or Farsiwans respectively) are predominant in four of the largest cities in Afghanistan ( Kabul , Mazar-e Sharif , Herat , and Ghazni ) and make up the qualified majority in the northern and western provinces of Badakhshan , Panjshir and Balkh , while making up significant portions of the population in Takhar , Kabul , Parwan , Kapisa , Baghlan , Badghis and Herat . Despite not being Tajik,
11100-606: The rest of Asia Minor were cut off from their co-religionists in Iran proper, but they continued to practice the Iranian faith of their forefathers. Strabo, who observed them in the Cappadocian Kingdom in the first century BC, records (XV.3.15) that these "fire kindlers" possessed many "holy places of the Persian Gods", as well as fire temples. Strabo, who wrote during the time of Augustus ( r. 27 BC – AD 14 ), almost three hundred years after
11211-426: The same time, not all literature written in Persian is written by ethnic Persians or Iranians, as Turkic, Caucasian, and Indic authors have also used Persian literature in the environment of Persianate cultures . The most notable examples of ancient Persian architecture are the works of the Achaemenids hailing from Persis . Achaemenid architecture , dating from the expansion of the empire around 550 BC, flourished in
11322-610: The start of the year. In September 2009, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan proposed a draft law to have the nation's language referred to as "Tajiki-Farsi" rather than "Tajik." The proposal drew criticism from Russian media since the bill sought to remove the Russian language as Tajikistan's inter-ethnic lingua franca . In 1989, the original name of the language (Farsi) had been added to its official name in brackets, though Rahmon's government renamed
11433-420: The term and extended its use to cover Persians in the rest of Greater Iran , now under Turkish rule, as early as the poet ʿOnṣori, ca. 1025 (Dabirsiāqi, pp. 3377, 3408). Iranians soon accepted it as an ethnonym, as is shown by a Persian court official's referring to mā tāzikān "we Tajiks" (Bayhaqi, ed. Fayyāz, p. 594). The distinction between Turk and Tajik became stereotyped to express the symbiosis and rivalry of
11544-582: The term is used to refer to its Pamiri ethnic groups, the Tajiks of Xinjiang , who speak the Eastern Iranian Pamiri languages . In Afghanistan, the Pamiris are counted as a separate ethnic group. As a self-designation, the literary New Persian term Tajik , which originally had some previous pejorative usage as a label for eastern Persians or Iranians , has become acceptable during
11655-554: The time of Iran's ancient Persian empires have been adopted and incorporated in later period. They were used especially during the modernization of Iran under the reign of the Pahlavi dynasty to contribute to the characterization of the modern country with its ancient history. Xenophon , in his Oeconomicus , states: "The Great King [Cyrus II]...in all the districts he resides in and visits, takes care that there are parádeisos ("paradise") as they [Persians] call them, full of
11766-479: The total population), up from 42,600 in the 1999 census and 33,500 in the 1989 census. According to the last Soviet census in 1989, there were 3,149 Tajiks in Turkmenistan, or less than 0.1% of the total population of 3.5 million at that time. The first population census of independent Turkmenistan conducted in 1995 showed 3,103 Tajiks in a population of 4.4 million (0.07%), most of them (1,922) concentrated in
11877-529: The west to the Indus Valley in the east, making it the largest empire the world had yet seen. The Achaemenids developed the infrastructure to support their growing influence, including the establishment of the cities of Pasargadae and Persepolis . The empire extended as far as the limits of the Greek city states in modern-day mainland Greece , where the Persians and Athenians influenced each other in what
11988-410: The westernmost Indo-Aryan Pashayi people of northeastern Afghanistan have deliberately been listed as Tajik by census takers and government agents. This is a result of the census takers being Tajik themselves, wanting to increase their own numbers for “consequent benefits”. Although, Pashayi-speaking Nizari Isma’ilis refer to themselves as Tajik. In Uzbekistan , the Tajiks are the largest part of
12099-479: The world's most powerful empires that are well-recognized for their massive cultural, political, and social influence, which covered much of the territory and population of the ancient world . Throughout history, the Persian people have contributed greatly to art and science . Persian literature is one of the world's most prominent literary traditions. In contemporary terminology, people from Afghanistan , Tajikistan , and Uzbekistan who natively speak
12210-485: Was announced in October 2009. The mosque is planned to be built in Dushanbe and construction is said to be completed by 2014. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Civil War in Afghanistan both gave rise to a resurgence in Tajik nationalism across the region, including a trial to revert to the Perso-Arabic script in Tajikistan. Furthermore, Tajikistan in particular has been a focal point for this movement, and
12321-544: Was gradually accepted as a synonym for "Persian" and still remains today as a designation for the Persian-speaking communities native to the modern Arab states of the Middle East. A series of Muslim Iranian kingdoms were later established on the fringes of the declining Abbasid Caliphate , including that of the ninth-century Samanids , under the reign of whom the Persian language was used officially for
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