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112-590: Principlist groups Monarchist groups Monarchists Defunct The Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist ( Persian : ولایت فقیه , romanized :  Velâyat-e Faqih , also Velayat-e Faghih ; Arabic : وِلاَيَةُ ٱلْفَقِيهِ , romanized :  Wilāyat al-Faqīh ) is a concept in Twelver Shia Islamic law which holds that until the reappearance of the "infallible Imam " (sometime before Judgement Day ), at least some of

224-596: A mujtahid when seeking to determine Islamically correct behavior; was the triumph of the Usuli school of doctrine over the Akhbari school. But along with this doctrinal power came political, economic and social power -- control by the ulama over activities left to the government in modern states — the clergy "directly collected and dispersed" the zakat and khums taxes, had "huge" waqf mortmains (religious foundations) as well as personal properties, "controlled most of

336-400: A faqih , Khomeini was an expert on Islamic jurisprudence, and had originally supported an interpretation of Velayat-e faqih limited to "legal rulings, religious judgments, and intervention to protect the property of minors and the weak", even when "rulers are oppressive". In his 1941/1943 book Secrets Revealed ; he specifically stated "we do not say that government must be in the hands of

448-655: 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

560-444: A century earlier than Khomeini, and over all aspects of a believer's personal life, but never tried to establish or preach for the establishment of a state based on wilayat al-faqıh al-siyasıyah (the divine mandate of the jurisprudent to rule). Ahmad Naraqi insisted on the absolute guardianship of the jurist over all aspects of a believer's personal life, but he did not claim jurist's authority over public affairs nor present Islam as

672-418: 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

784-476: A friend, etc. Synonyms include rule, supremacy, sovereignty, guardianship, authority, mandate, governance, rulership, governorship and province. In another sense, it means friendship and loyalty. (see Wali ). In Islam, jurists or experts in Islamic jurisprudence are Faqīh , (plural Fuquaha ). For those who support a government based on rule of a faqih, Wilāyat al-Faqīh has been translated as "rule of

896-505: 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

1008-417: 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

1120-407: A model "of political rule" from "the early nineteenth century". A doctrinal change in most of Twelver Shiism (and particularly Iran) in the late 18th century that gave Shi'i ulama the power to use of ijtihad (i.e., reasoning) in the creation of new rules of fiqh , exclude hadith they considered unreliable, and declaring it obligatory to for non-faqih Muslims (i.e. almost all Muslims) to obey

1232-518: A modern political or state system. Nor did he pose any challenge to Fath Ali Shah Qajar , obediently declaring jihad against Russia for the Russo-Persian War (1826–1828) , which Iran lost. According to Moojan Momen, "the most" that Naraqi or any Shi'i prior to Khomeini "have claimed is that kings and rulers should be guided in their actions and politics by the Shi'i faqih ..." Naraqi's concept

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1344-536: 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

1456-599: 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

1568-511: A vast area including modern day Iran and beyond. The Safavids forcibly converting Iran's population to the state religion of Twelver Shi'ism , (which continues to be the religion of a large majority of its population). According to Hamid Algar , (a convert to Islam and supporter of Ruhollah Khomeini ), under the Safavids, the general deputyship "occasionally was interpreted to include all the prerogatives of rule that in principle had belonged to

1680-661: Is Islamic State – Khorasan Province and Islamic State - West Africa Province. The Persian word for province ( velâyat ) is still used in several similar forms in Central Asian countries: During the Soviet period the divisions of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were called oblasts and raions , using Russian terminology. In the Tsez language , the districts of Dagestan are also referred to as "вилайат" ( wilayat ), plural "вилайатйоби" ( wilayatyobi ). But

1792-615: 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

1904-664: 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

2016-628: 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

2128-850: Is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan , as well as within other regions with a Persianate history in the cultural sphere of Greater Iran . It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet , a derivative of the Arabic script , and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet , a derivative of the Cyrillic script . Modern Persian

2240-675: 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

2352-600: Is common particularly outside of scholarly and religious discussion, and among supporters (e.g. Muhammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi). In more religious, scholarly, and precise discussion, terminology becomes more involved. Wilayat conveys several meanings which are involved in Twelver Islamic history. Morphologically, Wilāyat is derived from the Arabic verbal root "w-l-y", Wilaya , meaning not only "to be in charge", but “to be near or close to someone or something", to be

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2464-425: 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

2576-492: Is disagreement over how widely supported Khomeini's doctrine is; that is, whether "the absolute authority and guardianship" of a high-ranking Islamic jurist is "universally accepted amongst all Shi’a theories of governance" and forms "a central pillar of Imami [Shi'i] political thought" ( Ahmed Vaezi and Taqi Yazdi ), or whether there is no consensus in favor of the model of the Islamic Republic of Iran, neither among

2688-413: Is necessary — "is more necessary even than prayer and fasting". The necessity of a Jurist leader to serve the people as "a vigilant trustee", enforcing "law and order", is not an ideal to strive for, but a matter of survival for Islam and Muslims. Without him, Islam will fall victim "to obsolescence and decay", as heretics, "atheists and unbelievers" add and subtract rites, institutions, and ordinances from

2800-460: 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

2912-475: 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 ),

3024-585: 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

3136-480: Is that the spiritual and political successors of (the Islamic prophet) Muhammad are not caliphs (as Sunni Muslims believe), but the " Imams "—a line starting with Muhammad's cousin, son-in-law and companion, Ali (died 661 CE), and continuing with his male descendants. Imams were almost never in a position to rule territory, but did have the loyalty of their followers and delegated some of their functions, to "qualified members" of their community, "particularly in

3248-495: Is the appropriate designation of the language in English, as it has the longer tradition in western languages and better expresses the role of the language as a mark of cultural and national continuity. Iranian historian and linguist Ehsan Yarshater , founder of the Encyclopædia Iranica and Columbia University 's Center for Iranian Studies, mentions the same concern in an academic journal on Iranology , rejecting

3360-491: 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

3472-506: 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

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3584-668: The British colonization , Persian was widely used as a second language in the Indian subcontinent . It took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts on the subcontinent and became the sole "official language" under the Mughal emperors . The Bengal Sultanate witnessed an influx of Persian scholars, lawyers, teachers, and clerics. Thousands of Persian books and manuscripts were published in Bengal. The period of

3696-674: The Sultanate of Rum , Turkmen beyliks of Anatolia , Delhi Sultanate , the Shirvanshahs , Safavids , Afsharids , Zands , Qajars , Khanate of Bukhara , Khanate of Kokand , Emirate of Bukhara , Khanate of Khiva , Ottomans , and also many Mughal successors such as the Nizam of Hyderabad . Persian was the only non-European language known and used by Marco Polo at the Court of Kublai Khan and in his journeys through China. A branch of

3808-713: The Turkic , Armenian , Georgian , & Indo-Aryan languages . It also exerted some influence on Arabic, while borrowing a lot of vocabulary from it in the Middle Ages. Some of the world's most famous pieces of literature from the Middle Ages, such as the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi , the works of Rumi , the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám , the Panj Ganj of Nizami Ganjavi , The Divān of Hafez , The Conference of

3920-491: The ezāfe construction, expressed through ī (modern e/ye ), to indicate some of the relations between words that have been lost with the simplification of the earlier grammatical system. Although the "middle period" of the Iranian languages formally begins with the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the transition from Old to Middle Persian had probably already begun before the 4th century BC. However, Middle Persian

4032-435: The faqih ". But in his 1970 book he argued that Faqih should get involved in politics not just in special situations, but that they must rule the state and society, and that monarchy or any other sort of non-Faqih government are "systems of unbelief ... all traces" of which it is the duty of Muslims to "destroy". In a true Islamic state (he maintained) only those who have knowledge of Sharia should hold government posts, and

4144-597: 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 ,

4256-458: The 1960s, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was the leading cleric fighting the monarch (Shah) of the secularist Pahlavi dynasty . In early 1970, when he was exiled to the holy Shia city of Najaf , he gave a series of lectures on how "Islamic Government" required Wilayat Al Faqih . Leading up to the revolution, a book based on the lectures ( The Jurist's Guardianship, Islamic Government ) was spread widely among his network of followers in Iran. As

4368-681: 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

4480-489: The Islamic Republic and Wilayat al-faqih rule was not without conflict. In his manifesto Islamic Government , Khomeini had warned sternly about measures that Islam will take with "troublesome" groups that damage "Islam and the Islamic state", and noted that the Prophet Muhammad had "eliminated" one "troublesome group" (i.e. the tribe Bani Qurayza whose men were all executed and women and children enslaved after

4592-485: The Islamic Republic. Press freedom was also tightened, with the international group the Reporters Without Borders declaring Iran one of the world's most repressive countries for journalists" for the first 40 years after the revolution (1980-2020). In the world of Shi'i Islam, inside and outside of Iran, "the velayat-e faqih thesis was rejected by almost the entire dozen grand ayatollahs living" in

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4704-565: 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

4816-543: 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

4928-530: 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

5040-425: 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

5152-401: 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

5264-886: The Perso-Arabic script. Persian was the first language to break through the monopoly of Arabic on writing in the Muslim world , with Persian poetry becoming a tradition in many eastern courts. It was used officially as a language of bureaucracy even by non-native speakers, such as the Ottomans in Anatolia , the Mughals in South Asia, and the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. It influenced languages spoken in neighboring regions and beyond, including other Iranian languages,

5376-484: 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

5488-535: 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)

5600-462: 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

5712-498: 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

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5824-400: The atmosphere and combat against Iran's interests" (August 18, 1979). As his supporters finalized a new post-revolutionary constitution and it became clear religious dignitaries (and specifically Khomeini) very much were going to rule, it came as shock to moderate and secular Muslims who had been within the fold of his broad movement, but by then he had solidified his hold on power. Following

5936-613: The basis of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran , which calls for a Guardian Jurist ( Vali-ye Faqih , Arabic : وَلِيُّةُ فَقِيهٌ , romanized :  Waliy Faqīh ), to serve as the Supreme Leader of that country. Currently, this role is held by Ayatollah Khamenei . Under the "absolute authority of the jurist" ( Velayat-e Motlaqaye Faqih ), the jurist/faqih has control over all public matters including governance of states, all religious affairs including

6048-690: The centuries have gone by and the wait continues (the Hidden Imam's "life has been miraculously prolonged"), the Shi'i community ( ummah ), has had to determine who, if anyone, has his authority ( wilayah ) for what functions during the Imam's absence. The delegation of some functions—for example, the collection and disbursement of religiously mandated tithes ( zakat and khums ) — continued during occultation, but others were limited. Shi'i jurists, and especially al-Sharif al-Murtada (d. 1044 CE), forbade "waging of offensive jihad or (according to some jurists)

6160-457: 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

6272-512: 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

6384-597: The concept and practice in Iran , which is both the largest Shi'i majority country, and as the Islamic Republic of Iran , is also the one country in the world where Wilāyat al-Faqīh is part of the structure of government. Wilāyat al-Faqīh / velayat-e faqih is often used to mean Ayatollah Khomeini's vision of velayat-e faqih as essential to Islamic government, giving no further qualification, with those supporting limited non-governmental guardianship of faqih, being described as "rejecting" velayat-e faqih. This

6496-641: The conclusion that the only barrier blocking their way [in exploiting Iran] are Islam and the religious leadership." Their goal is "to keep us backward, to keep us in our present miserable state so they can exploit our riches, our underground wealth, our lands and our human resources. They want us to remain afflicted and wretched, and our poor to be trapped in their misery ... they and their agents wish to go on living in huge palaces and enjoying lives of abominable luxury". Khomeini, Islamic Government , 1981 : p.34</ref> Though in exile, Khomeini, had an extensive network of capable loyalists operating in Iran. As

6608-551: The country's ruler should be the faqih (a guardian jurist, Vali-ye faqih ), of the top rank—known as a Marjaʿ —who "surpasses all others in knowledge" of Islamic law and justice — as well as having intelligence and administrative ability. Not only is the rule of Islamic jurists and obedience toward them an obligation of Islam, it is as important a religious obligation as any a Muslim has. "Our obeying holders of authority", like Islamic jurists, "is actually an expression of obedience to God." Preserving Islam — for which Wilāyat al-Faqīh

6720-509: The cry 'There is no god but Allah' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle. In the early 1980s, Ayatollah Khomeini sent some of his followers, including 1500 Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (pasdaran) instructors, to Lebanon to form Hezbollah , a Shia Islamist political party and militant group, committed to bringing Islamic revolution and rule of wilayat al-faqih in Lebanon. A large fraction of Lebanon's population

6832-499: The dispensing of justice", were "the primary educators, oversaw social welfare, and were frequently courted and even paid by rulers" — but meant that as the nineteenth century progressed "important ulama" and their allies in the bazaar (the traditional commercial and banking sector) came into conflict with the secular authorities, specifically the shah. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were two major instances of jurist involvement in politics in Iran, (which continued to be

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6944-652: 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

7056-463: The famous textbook Javaher-ol-Kalaam ( جواهر الکلام ). The issue was reportedly mentioned by the earliest Shi'i mujtahids such as al-Shaykh Al-Mufid (948–1022), and enforced for a while by Muhaqqiq Karaki during the era of Tahmasp I (1524–1576). Iranian cleric Mohammad Mahdee Naraqi , or at least his son Molla Ahmad Naraqi (1771-1829 C.E.), are said to have argued that "the scope of wilayat al-faqıh extends to political authority", more than

7168-566: The first years of the revolution. In 1988 and 89, shortly before and after Khomeini's death, significant changes were made to the constitution and the concept of Wilāyat al-Faqīh, increasing the power of the Supreme Leader but reducing the scholarly qualifications needed for any new one. Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -⁠shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ),

7280-623: The following phylogenetic classification: Wilaya In Arabic, wilayah is used to refer to the states of the United States , and the United States of America as a whole is called al-Wilāyāt al-Muttaḥidah al-Amrīkīyah , literally meaning "the American United States". For Morocco , which is divided into provinces and wilāyas, the translation "province" would cause the distinction to cease. For Sudan ,

7392-444: 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

7504-421: 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

7616-452: The governance by jurist is "new", is erroneous. Vaezi maintains it is the logical conclusion of arguments made by high-level Shia faqih of medieval times who argued that high-level Shia faqih be given authority, although their use of Taqiya (precautionary dissimulation) prevents this from being obvious to us. A significant event in Islamic and especially Shia history was the rise of the Safavid dynasty (1501–1702), which at its height ruled

7728-401: The holding of Friday prayers", as this power was in abeyance ( saqit ) until the return of the Imam. Al-Murtada also excluded implementing the penal code ( hudud ), leading the community in jihad , and giving allegiance to any leader. For many centuries, according to at least two historians ( Moojan Momen , Ervand Abrahamian ), Shia jurists have tended to stick to one of three approaches to

7840-414: The imams, but no special emphasis was placed on this." And in the nineteenth century, velayat-e faqih began "to be discussed as a distinct legal topic". There are other theories by supporters of absolute Wilāyat al-Faqīh of when the doctrine was first advocated or practiced, or at least early examples of it. One argument is that was probably first introduced in the fiqh of Ja'far al-Sadiq (d.765) in

7952-408: The judicial sphere". In the late 9th century (873-874 CE) the Twelfth Imam, a boy at the time, is reported to have mysteriously disappeared. Historians believe that Shi'i jurists "responded by developing the idea" of the " occultation ", whereby the 12th Imam was still alive but had "been withdrawn by God from the eyes of people" to protect his life until conditions were ripe for his reappearance. As

8064-404: The jurisconsult," "mandate of the jurist," "governance of the jurist", "the discretionary authority of the jurist". More ambiguous translations are "guardianship of the jurist", "trusteeship of the jurist". (Shaykh Murtadha al-Ansari and Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei , for example, would talk of the "guardianship of the jurisprudent", not "the mandate of the jurisprudent".) Some definitions of uses of

8176-466: The language of the Persians. Related to Old Persian, but from a different branch of the Iranian language family, was Avestan , the language of the Zoroastrian liturgical texts. The complex grammatical conjugation and declension of Old Persian yielded to the structure of Middle Persian in which the dual number disappeared, leaving only singular and plural, as did gender. Middle Persian developed

8288-506: The largest Shia-majority state and went on to be a major petroleum exporter). The Tobacco Protest and Constitutional Revolution (and not the Islamic revolution ), have been described both as Ayatollah Sheikh Fazlollah Nouri who fought against a democratic law-making parliament in the 1905-1911 Iranian Constitutional Revolution ( انقلاب مشروطه ), predating Khomeini in supporting rule by sharia and opposing Western ideas in Iran. In

8400-432: 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

8512-589: The monarch of Iran lost popularity and revolutionary fervour spread, Khomeini became not only the undisputed leader of the Revolution that overthrew the Shah, but one treated with great reverence, even awe. While he often emphasized that Iran would become an Islamic state, he "never specified precisely what he meant by that term". Those within his network may have been learning about the necessity of rule by Jurists, but "in his interview, speeches, messages and fatvas" to

8624-536: The most widely spoken. The term Persian is an English derivation of Latin Persiānus , the adjectival form of Persia , itself deriving from Greek Persís ( Περσίς ), a Hellenized form of Old Persian Pārsa ( 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 ), which means " Persia " (a region in southwestern Iran, corresponding to modern-day Fars ). According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the term Persian as

8736-466: The nationalist movement of the time. The academy was a key institution in the struggle to re-build Iran as a nation-state after the collapse of the Qajar dynasty. During the 1930s and 1940s, the academy led massive campaigns to replace the many Arabic , Russian , French , and Greek loanwords whose widespread use in Persian during the centuries preceding the foundation of the Pahlavi dynasty had created

8848-448: 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

8960-414: 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

9072-732: The northern part of Greece). Vardar Yenicesi differed from other localities in the Balkans insofar as that it was a town where Persian was also widely spoken. However, the Persian of Vardar Yenicesi and throughout the rest of the Ottoman-held Balkans was different from formal Persian both in accent and vocabulary. The difference was apparent to such a degree that the Ottomans referred to it as "Rumelian Persian" ( Rumili Farsisi ). As learned people such as students, scholars and literati often frequented Vardar Yenicesi, it soon became

9184-542: The official language of the Achaemenid kings. Assyrian records, which in fact appear to provide the earliest evidence for ancient Iranian (Persian and Median) presence on the Iranian Plateau, give a good chronology but only an approximate geographical indication of what seem to be ancient Persians. In these records of the 9th century BCE, Parsuwash (along with Matai , presumably Medians) are first mentioned in

9296-520: The overthrow of the Shah by the Iranian Revolution , a modified form of Khomeini's doctrine was incorporated into the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran , adopted by referendum on 2 and 3 December 1979. It established the first country (and so far only) in history to apply the principal of velayat-e faqih to government. The jurist who surpassed all others in learning and justice as well as having intelligence and administrative ability,

9408-638: The present territories of northwestern Afghanistan as well as parts of Central Asia, played a leading role in the rise of New Persian. Khorasan, which was the homeland of the Parthians, was Persianized under the Sasanians. Dari Persian thus supplanted Parthian language , which by the end of the Sasanian era had fallen out of use. New Persian has incorporated many foreign words, including from eastern northern and northern Iranian languages such as Sogdian and especially Parthian. The transition to New Persian

9520-468: The president, appoint the main military commanders, declare war and peace, and name senior clerics to the Guardian Council ", (a powerful body which can veto legislation and disqualify candidates for office). Khomeini's concept of wilayat al-faqih was to be universal and not to be limited to Iran. In one of his speeches, he declared: We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until

9632-475: The public during this period, there is "not a single reference to velayat-e faqih." When asked, Khomeini repeatedly denied Islamic clerics "want to rule" (August 18, 1979), "administer the state" (October 25, 1978), "hold power in the government" (26 October 1978), or that he himself would "occupy a post in the new government" (7 November 1978). In fact, he could become indignant at the suggestion -- "those who pretend that religious dignitaries should not rule, poison

9744-658: The public in Iran (Alireza Nader, David E Thaler, and S. R. Bohandy), nor among most religious leaders in the leading centers of Shia thought, such as Qom and Najaf (Ali Mamouri). Arabic language phrases associated with Guardianship of the Jurist, such as Wilāyat al-Faqīh , Wali al-Faqīh , are widely used, Arabic being the original language of Islamic sources such as the Quran , hadith , and much other literature. The Persian language translations, such as Velayat-e Faqih and Vali-e-faqih , are also commonly used in discussion about

9856-588: The region during the following centuries. Persian continued to act as a courtly language for various empires in Punjab through the early 19th century serving finally as the official state language of the Sikh Empire , preceding British conquest and the decline of Persian in South Asia. Beginning in 1843, though, English and Hindustani gradually replaced Persian in importance on the subcontinent. Evidence of Persian's historical influence there can be seen in

9968-602: The reign of Sultan Ghiyathuddin Azam Shah is described as the "golden age of Persian literature in Bengal". Its stature was illustrated by the Sultan's own correspondence and collaboration with the Persian poet Hafez ; a poem which can be found in the Divan of Hafez today. A Bengali dialect emerged among the common Bengali Muslim folk, based on a Persian model and known as Dobhashi ; meaning mixed language . Dobhashi Bengali

10080-491: The religion; Muslim society will stay divided "into two groups: oppressors and oppressed"; Muslim government(s) will continue to be infested with corruption, "constant embezzlement"; not just lacking in competence and virtue, but actively serving as agents of imperialist Western powers. "Foreign experts have studied our country and have discovered all our mineral reserves -- gold, copper, petroleum, and so on. They have also made an assessment of our people's intelligence and come to

10192-494: The religious and social affairs of the Muslim world should be administered by righteous Shi'i jurists ( Faqīh ). The nature of these affairs are disputed. Wilāyat al-Faqīh is associated in particular with Ruhollah Khomeini and the Islamic Republic of Iran . In a series of lectures in 1970 , Khomeini advanced the idea of guardianship in its "absolute" form as rule of the state and society. This version of guardianship now forms

10304-562: The seven undifferentiated prefectures proper ( Chinese : 地区 ; pinyin : dìqū ; that is, not prefecture-level cities, autonomous prefectures, etc.) are translated into the Uygur language as Vilayiti ( ۋىلايىتى ). For the other, more numerous types of administrative divisions in Xinjiang , however, Uygur uses Russian loanwords like oblasti or rayoni , in common with other Xinjiang languages like Kazakh . In Kenya and Tanzania,

10416-613: 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

10528-573: The standard Persian of Tajikistan, has been officially designated as Tajik ( тоҷикӣ , tojikī ) since the time of the Soviet Union . It is the name given to the varieties of Persian spoken in Central Asia in general. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa for the Persian language, as its coding system is mostly based on the native-language designations. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses

10640-717: 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,

10752-410: The state: cooperated with it, trying to influence policies by becoming active in politics, or most commonly, remaining aloof from it. One firm supporter of governance by jurist -- Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi —describes the arrival of rule of jurist in Iran as a "revolution" after fourteen centuries of "lamentable" governance in the Islamic world. Other supporters ( Ahmed Vaezi ) insist that the idea that

10864-474: The temporary suspension of religious obligations such as the salat prayer or hajj pilgrimage. Obedience to him is more important (according to proponents) than performing those religious obligations. Other Shi'i Islamic scholars disagree, with some limiting guardianship to a much narrower scope—things like mediating disputes, and providing guardianship for orphaned children, the mentally incapable, and others lacking someone to protect their interests. There

10976-694: The term Traditionally the provinces of the Ottoman Empire were known as eyâlet s, but beginning in 1864, they were gradually restructured as smaller vilâyet s—the Turkish pronunciation of the Arabic word wilāyah . Most were subdivided into sanjaks . The current provinces of Turkey are called il in Turkish. The territory under the governance of the Islamic State (ISIS) is referred to them as officially being divided into wilayah , often translated into English as " province ". An example

11088-407: The term Vilayat is used to refer to any foreign country. As an adjective Vilayati is used to indicate an imported article or good. In Bengali and Assamese , the term is bilat and bilati (archaic bilaiti ), referring exclusively to Britain and British-made. The British slang term blighty derives from this word, via the fact that the foreign British were referred to using this word during

11200-409: The term state and for Mauritania , the term region is used. The governorates of Iraq ( muhafazah ) are sometimes translated as provinces, in contrast to official Iraqi documents and the general use for other Arab countries. This conflicts somehow with the general translation for muhafazah ( governorate ) and wilāyah (province). In the ethnically diverse Xinjiang region of Northwest China,

11312-522: The term wilaya is a Swahili term which refers to the administrative districts into which provinces are divided. In Malay (both in Malaysian and Indonesian standards) and Tausug , wilayah or wilāya is a general word meaning "territory", "area" or "region". In Thailand , it is the standard Malay term used to translate a " province" ". In Malaysia , the term In the Philippines ,

11424-543: The term "район" ( rayon ), plural "районйаби" ( rayonyabi ) is also used. Caucasus Emirate , a self-proclaimed successor state to the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria , is divided into vilayats. The Persian word for province (velâyat) is still used in several similar forms in South Asian countries as well: (Pashto: ولايت, wilāyat, plural: ولايتونه, wilāyatuna), subdivided into districts (Pashto: ولسوالۍ, wuləswāləi or Persian: ولسوالی, wolaswālī) In Urdu ,

11536-445: The term “Wilayat” (not necessarily involving jurists) in Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) terminology (or at least Twelver terminology) are: Regarding jurist involvement in governance, definitions include: The term "mullahocracy" (rule by mullahs , i.e. by Islamic clerics) has been used as a pejorative term to describe Wilāyat al-Faqīh as government and specifically the Islamic Republic of Iran. A foundational belief of Twelver Shi'ism

11648-453: The tribe collaborated with Muhammad's enemies and later refuse to convert to Islam). In revolutionary Iran, more than 7900 political prisoners were executed between 1981 and 1985, (according to historian Ervand Abrahamian, this compares with the "less than 100" killed by the monarchy during the eight years leading up to the revolution). In addition, the prison system was "drastically expanded" and prison conditions made "drastically worse" under

11760-485: The use of Farsi in foreign languages. Etymologically, the Persian term Farsi derives from its earlier form Pārsi ( Pārsik in Middle Persian ), which in turn comes from the same root as the English term Persian . In the same process, the Middle Persian toponym Pārs ("Persia") evolved into the modern name Fars. The phonemic shift from /p/ to /f/ is due to the influence of Arabic in

11872-457: Was Khomeini himself. "The plan of the Islamic government" is "based upon wilayat al-faqih, as proposed by Imam Khumaynî [i.e. Khomeini]", according to the constitution, which was drafted by an assembly made up primarily by disciples of Khomeini. While the constitution made concessions to popular sovereignty—including an elected president and parliament—"the Leader" was given "authority to dismiss

11984-532: Was Shia, and they had grown to become the largest confessional group in Lebanon, but had traditionally been subservient to Lebanese Christians and Sunni Muslims. Over time Hezbollah's para-military wing grew to be considered stronger than the Lebanese army, and Hezbollah to become described as a " state within a state ". By 2008, the goal of transforming Lebanon into somewhere like Iran had been abandoned in favor of "a more inclusive approach". The establishment of

12096-597: Was already complete by the era of the three princely dynasties of Iranian origin, the Tahirid dynasty (820–872), Saffarid dynasty (860–903), and Samanid Empire (874–999). Abbas of Merv is mentioned as being the earliest minstrel to chant verse in the New Persian tongue and after him the poems of Hanzala Badghisi were among the most famous between the Persian-speakers of the time. The first poems of

12208-651: Was not passed on by his most famous student, the great Shi'ite jurist Ayatullah Shaykh Murtaza Ansari , who argued against absolute authority of the jurist over all affairs of a believer's life. According to John Esposito in The Oxford Dictionary of Islam , the first Islamic scholar to advance the theory of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist (and who "developed a notion of 'rule of the jurist'") came much later -- Morteza Ansari (~1781–1864). Mohamad Bazzi dates "the concept of wilayat al-faqih" as

12320-597: Was patronised and given official status under the Sultans of Bengal , and was a popular literary form used by Bengalis during the pre-colonial period, irrespective of their religion. Following the defeat of the Hindu Shahi dynasty, classical Persian was established as a courtly language in the region during the late 10th century under Ghaznavid rule over the northwestern frontier of the subcontinent . Employed by Punjabis in literature, Persian achieved prominence in

12432-613: Was taught in state schools, and was also offered as an elective course or recommended for study in some madrasas . Persian learning was also widespread in the Ottoman-held Balkans ( Rumelia ), with a range of cities being famed for their long-standing traditions in the study of Persian and its classics, amongst them Saraybosna (modern Sarajevo , Bosnia and Herzegovina), Mostar (also in Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Vardar Yenicesi (or Yenice-i Vardar, now Giannitsa , in

12544-492: Was to prevent books from being printed with wrong use of words. According to the executive guarantee of this association, the government was responsible for wrongfully printed books. Words coined by this association, such as rāh-āhan ( راه‌آهن ) for "railway", were printed in Soltani Newspaper ; but the association was eventually closed due to inattention. A scientific association was founded in 1911, resulting in

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