Iranian People and the Race of People Settled in the

Vahid Rashidvash*

Abstract

A long standing, and still the unchallenged belief of historians is that the people of Europe, , and India, with the exception of Hungarians and the Finns, have their ancestry in common. Based on historical evidence and supports from archaeology, historians propose the existence of a pre-historic tribal confederation, called theoretically Indo-Europeans, who eventually spread out from their original homeland to cover the mass of land in Western Eurasia. Their language, costumes and cultural characteristics survived in one way or another to the historical time and it is based on comparative studies of various Indo-European languages and cultures that the idea of a common ancestry first came to existence. The are descendants of the (Indo-Iranian) tribes that began migrating from into what is now Iran in the second millennium BC. The and other Iranian tongues emerged as these Aryan tribes split up into two major groups, the Persians and the , and intermarried with peoples indigenous to the Iranian Plateau such as the Elamites.

Keywords: Indo-Europeans, Indo-Iranians, ,The , Art, Culture

*Department of , Yerevan State University, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia

71 Jhss, Vol. 3, No.2, July to December 2012 Introduction

Around 3000 BCE, the ancestors of Iranians first emigrated from their Central Asian homeland - where they lived with their Indian kin as one person to the Iranian Plateau. There they came into contact with the already established civilizations such as the or the Elamites, the latter having over 2000 years of political presence in the plateau. Probably mostly through integration and taking advantage of the weakness of these civilizations because of their constant warfare with the of Mesopotamia, the came to dominate the society although at the same time adopting much of the existing culture and social norms. The integration of the Aryans with the locals and the settlement of all the tribes around the plateau gave rise to the first Iranian civilizations. Throughout its long history, people of Iran have intermarried with Greeks, Arabs, Mongols, Turks and other tribes. Today most of the population has similar characteristics and obvious differences are rare. The worthy exceptions are the members of the semi-nomadic Turk man tribes who show clear Turko-Mongolian anatomies. For more information about the , please see the history page. In the following discussion of Iranian peoples, the term Iranian may be understood in two ways. It is first of all a linguistic classification, intended to designate any society which inherited or adopted and transmitted, an Iranian language. The set of Iranian-speaking peoples is thus considered a kind of unity in spite of their distinct lineage identities plus all the factors which may have further differentiated any one group’s sense of self. These include; 1. Divergent specializations in economic organization, environmental adaptation, and other aspects of material culture, emergent differences in oral traditions and Folkways; 2. Hand in hand with the preceding: different conditioning by already established populations encountered in the area of settlement or absorbed in the course of migrations; 3. Further conditioning by the later introduction of non-Iranian-speaking populations. These factors, fostering some degree of diversity within a region’s society, may have worked toward distinctions in dialect, social organization, law, religion, and other aspects of culture. The management of marked regional diversity, in the absence of an established political infrastructure, would have been especially challenging to the earliest efforts at a real hegemony by the Medes and the Persians. Secondly and inevitably, Iranian also acquires the broader sense of a person residing on the Iranian plateau, since the ethnicity of various peoples who are only briefly mentioned in historical sources often is not definitely known. In qualification of the

71 Iranian People and the Race of People Settled in the Iranian Plateau first point, the difference in language is not viewed as necessarily a barrier to community cohesion and communications.

History of Iran

Iran is a mountainous, arid, ethnically diverse country of southwestern Asia. Much of Iran consists of a central desert plateau, which is ringed on all sides by lofty mountain ranges that afford access to the interior through high passes. Most of the population lives on the edges of this forbidding, waterless waste. The capital is Tehrān, a sprawling, jumbled metropolis at the southern foot of the Elburz Mountains. Famed for its handsome architecture and verdant gardens, the city fell somewhat into disrepair in the decades following the of 1979, though efforts were later mounted to preserve historic buildings and expand the city’s network of parks. As with Tehrān cities such as Eṣfahān and Shīrāz combine modern buildings with important landmarks from the past and serve as major centers of education, culture and commerce. The heart of the storied Persian of antiquity, Iran has long played an important role in the region as an imperial power and later because of its strategic position and abundant natural resources especially petroleum as a factor in colonial and superpower rivalries. The country’s roots as a distinctive culture and society date of the Achaemenian period, which began in 550 BC. By that time the region that is now Iran traditionally known as Persia has been influenced by waves of indigenous and foreign conquerors and immigrants, including the Hellenistic Seleucids and native Parthians and Sāsānids. Persia’s conquest by the Muslim Arabs in the 7th century AD was to leave the most lasting influence, however, as Iranian culture was all but completely subsumed under that of its conquerors. An Iranian cultural Renaissance in the late 8th century led to a reawakening of Persian literary culture, though the Persian language was now highly arabized and in Arabic script, and native Persian Islamic dynasties began to appear with the rise of the Sāmānids in the early 9th century. The region fell under the sway of successive waves of Persian, Turkish and Mongol conquerors until the rise of the Ṣafavids who introduced IthnāAsharīShīism as the official creed, in the early 16th century. Over the following centuries with the state-fostered the rise of a Persian-based Shīite clergy a synthesis was formed between Persian culture and Shīite that marked each indelibly with the tincture of the other. With the fall of the Ṣafavidsof 1736, rule passed into the hands of several short-lived dynasties leading to the rise of the Qājār line in 1796. Qājār rule was marked by the growing influence of the European powers in Iran’s 71 Jhss, Vol. 3, No.2, July to December 2012 internal affairs with its attendant economic and political difficulties and by the growing power of the Shīite clergy in social and political issues.1The country’s difficulties led to the ascension in 1925 of the Pahlavi line whose ill-planned efforts to modernize Iran led to widespread dissatisfaction and the dynasty’s subsequent overthrow in the revolution of 1979. This revolution brought a regime to power that uniquely combined elements of a parliamentary democracy with an Islamic theocracy run by the country’s clergy. The world’s sole Shīite state, Iran found itself almost immediately embroiled in a long-term war with neighboring Iraq that left it economically and socially drained and the Islamic republic’s alleged support for international terrorism left the country ostracized from the global community. Reformist elements arose within the government during the last decade of the 20th century as opposed both to the ongoing rule of the clergy and to Iran’s continued political and economic isolation from the international community. Many observers have noted that since pre-Islamic time’s Iranian culture has been imbued with a powerful sense of dualism which is likely grounded in the Zoroastrian notion of a perpetual struggle between good and evil. This attitude persisted in different forms in succeeding centuries, with the culture’s preoccupation with justice and injustice and with an ongoing tension between religion and science. The 12th-century poet Omar Khayyam himself a noted mathematician captured this dualism in one of his robāiyyātquatrains in which he expresses his own ambivalence.

Indo-Europeans and Indo-Iranians

A considerable amount of criticism has been bestowed upon the idea of Indo-European ancestry. It has been called a racist idea, it has been challenged by those who felt left-out of it and it has been linked to and the idea of European superiority. Probably the worst use of this theory has been the Nazi ideology of a pure Aryan race. Nevertheless, our purpose here is purely historical and for the sake of the narrative we assume that the idea of a common Indo- European ancestry, first and foremost in linguistic and mythological terms rather than biological, is valid and at least supportable. One of the most serious problems for all adherents to the common ancestry theory is the location of the original homeland of Indo- Europeans. Nineteenth century historians proposed an Eastern

1 Rashidvash, Vahid ,The Qajar Dynasty in Iran: The Most Important Occurence Evented in the Qajars Monarchy. International Journal of Business and Social Science- United States of America, Vol. 3, No. 12, (2012),pp. 181-187.

02 Iranian People and the Race of People Settled in the Iranian Plateau

European homeland lately revitalised by new archaeology others saw Northern Europe more plausible and in the twentieth century, steppes of Southern Russia have won the most favour. Archaeology in the steppes shows the coexistence of many tribes during the proposed time of the start of Indo-European migrations (c. 3000 BCE). These cultures show varied anatomies, and strengthen the idea that a common biological ancestry might not have been the case. Since no written evidence is available from this era, our only points of reference are their pottery, tool use, and burial habits, based on which they have been called the Kurgan people from the Russian word for grave. Their graves were built in a mound shape, and the body was buried in chambers, along with personal belongings and animals such as horses in case of the more prosperous members of the society. It is generally accepted now that Indo-Europeans as a historical reality were most likely a collection of tribes spread from Central Asia to Eastern Europe and they all migrated in different time periods due to climatic and demographic reasons. An eastern branch of these tribes, theoretically called proto-Indo-Iranians, lived probably in Central Asia and belonged to a branch of Kurgan people called the by archaeologists.2These people, who called themselves Aryans Indo-Iranian for noble, Wellborn, migrated towards south into present day and Eastern Iran sometime around 2000 BCE. There, they seem to have been split into two branches the eastern one called Indo-Aryans by historians and the other one were proto-Iranians. Based on their later literature, we might assume an inter-tribal war or ideological disagreement might have initiated the split. In any case, their languages, or what has been preserved of their older forms (Vedic and Avestan respectively) show remarkable similarities in linguistic and mythical tradition terms. These people were supposedly nomadic; they had domesticated horses, probably as early as their time in Central Asia and had a complex pantheon of gods and natural forces. It has been suggested that prior to the first phase of their migration, Indo- Iranians have had a communal social system, but by the time of their split, they had formed into a patriarchal class system society. These changes, along with their complex belief system, lead some to believe that the proto-Indo-Iranian society was not as simplistic and nomadic based as currently assumed. Furthermore, archaeological evidence such as excavations in the Bactro-Margian Archaeological Complex (BMAC) point out to a very early formation of settlements and commercial centres in Central Asia. Artefacts from BMAC show

2 Saidiyan, Abd Alhossein ,. Peoples of the World, 4th edit. Tehran, Science and life publ, (1991), pp.114-117.

07 Jhss, Vol. 3, No.2, July to December 2012 pottery very similar to the ones found in the Mohenjo-Daro/Harappa culture of the Indus Valley and Uruk culture of Sumer. Although the BMAC excavations show more influence from the Dravidians of Indus Valley than Indo-Iranians, they also show an early contact of proto- Indo-Iranians with civilisation and thus a much earlier formation of class society and complexity believed up to now. Also, the discovery of some pottery with what seems to be an early form of writing might challenge the accepted theories of the development of civilizations and cultural formation. In any case, the branching of proto-Indo-Iranians to Indo-Aryans and proto-Iranians happened at the dawn of history c. 2000-1800 BC. Indo-Aryans apparently moved to the Indus Valley region, with which they might have been familiar with their contacts with BMAC traders. There they faced the challenge of an established civilisation. The traditional story would tell us that the superior military power of Indo-Aryans especially their use of horses left no chance for the local Dravidians who were conquered massacred absorbed into the Aryans society as untouchables or driven to the south of the Indian peninsula. However, new studies whose scope are out of the capacity of the present paper, suggest that the conquest of the Harappa culture and the establishment of an Indo-Aryan lead society did not happen as easily and took more time and included a higher degree of influence from the Dravidians on conquering Aryans. We have less evidence of such sudden conflict in the Iranian case. Proto-Iranians seem to have been split into branches early in their history forming the nomadic /Scythian tribes and the settled populations that inhabited the Iranian plateau and eventually came to be known under the massive and inaccurate names of Parthians, Persians and Medians. How early this split happened and how the Iranians came to overpower the established civilisations of the Mitanni, the Kassites and civilizations of eastern Iran, is not known. Only their final pressure in replacing the prosperous civilization of has survived into history. For earlier events we only have scattered reports from the Assyrian and Babylonian chronicles and rarely in Elamite reports. The idea of a simple split of proto-Iranians from Indo-Aryans and especially their origin in Central Asia poses some problems. In dates supposedly prior to their migration we have evidence of their existence in Western Iran. Terms relating to horse breeding that are from an obvious Indo-Iranian source exist in Mitanni, Kassite and even Babylonian documents. We know that horses were taken by the Kassites to Babylon, and they most likely learned about horse taming from proto-Iranians who lived to their east and north. Also, the names of Indo-Aryan deities like Indra and the Nassaties exist among the names of Mitanni deities in a treaty with the , while these

00 Iranian People and the Race of People Settled in the Iranian Plateau deities don't exist among the Iranian pantheon.3 Also, some Mitanni names have obvious Indo-Iranian and even purely Iranian overtones, while an Egyptian Pharaoh married a girl from the east of Sumer ca. 2200 BCE who has an Iranian name. As we can see the route and time of Indo-Iranian migrations is not certain and provable, and some even deny any migration in a sensible term and instead propose the gradual push of Indo-Iranians from the northern Caspian regions via both and Central Asia in a much earlier (e.g. 3000 BCE) date. Nevertheless, by 1200 BCE, we have a remarkable and undeniable Iranian presence on the plateau, and their overwhelming military force seems to have gradually overpowered the local people and formed early kingdoms which posed threats to the established civilisations of , , and Elam.

These petty kingdoms seem to have established confederacies of all the tribes, Aryan and non-Aryan and spread their early influence in the areas east of Elam. The earliest of these confederacies to form a coherent kingdom of which we have historical evidence was the kingdom of the Medes. We shall see the development of this kingdom in further chapters.

Anthropological Research

If we begin by seeking to define the category of race in ancient times, an important model used by physical anthropologists is the cephalic index of the relationship between head length to head breadth, which differentiates different peoples with Dolio, miso and brachycephalic skulls. This category applies to the three races in popular parlance Caucasian or white Negroid or black and Mongoloid or yellow. The earliest evidence of human habitation reveals that the people of the present countries of Iran and Afghanistan were overwhelmingly Caucasian in race with little trace of Negroid or Mongoloid mixtures. Applying the cephalic index to Caucasoid in Europe we find that in the north the population was predominantly long-headed or doliocephalic, sometimes designated as Nordic, while in Middle Europe the majority of people were round-headed or mesocephalic also called Alpines. In the south were wide-heads or Mediterraneans, so called after the sea around which most of them lived. On the Iranian plateau, the most ancient populations had perhaps a dominance of brachycephalics with fewer

3 Minorsky, V ,Studies in Caucasian history, Cambridge University Press, (1953), pp. 78-81.

02 Jhss, Vol. 3, No.2, July to December 2012 Alpine or Nordic types. This discussion of race, however, tells us little about the peoples in historical times or the present when physical characteristics have been mixed.

Since people are distinguished by language or social structure (settled, nomadic, tribal) these are the categories to which our analysis is devoted. The earliest inhabitants of the Iranian plateau were hunters and gatherers. Presumably they spoke a range of languages and dialects of which we have no information. After the Neolithic revolution estimated to have been about the eighth millennium B.C.E. on the plateau we find settlements and traces of material culture, primarily pottery which reveal little of the inhabitants’ identity. One can only say that differentiation between agriculturists and pastoralists occurred at much the same time, but the development of extended families into clans and tribes must have taken place much earlier. One may presume that tribal organization continued to be the basis of social forms in both villages and pastoral groups and we can begin to speak of linguistic divisions.4Some clans may have developed dialects of a shared tribal language. What was the population of the plateau before the coming of the Aryans?

Arrival of the Iranians

A general picture of the peoples of Iran at the beginning of the second millennium B.C.E. might be reconstructed, from cuneiform sources of Mesopotamia and from later relics, as follows: in the southern plains Khuzestan were the Elamites, who extended to the east perhaps as far as Sistān and in the north possibly to the Alborz mountains. It would be more accurate to say that Elamite culture and influence reached so far as may be inferred from remains of material culture and traces of proto-Elamite writing. Obviously many dialects and forms of social life existed but the basic racial features of Caucasoids remained constant. Above Elam, the expanse of territory of the peoples north and west across and beyond the Zagros was labeled vaguely as Gutium by the states of Mesopotamia from the third millennium on.

4 Rashidvash, Vahid, .Multivariate comparison of cephalometric traits in Iranian Azaris and Persians.Biological Journal of Armenia, Vol. 63, No. 2, (2011),pp. 78-80

02 Iranian People and the Race of People Settled in the Iranian Plateau

In the north, the Caspian and other tribes or sub-tribes lived in the Alborz Mountains and on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea coast in relative isolation and independence a condition which persisted in varying extent into the Islamic period. In the northwest of Iran, in and extending into Anatolia, were probably the ancestors of historical peoples who would exert important influence on the arriving Iranians namely, the Manneans successors in the Zagros and region, if not lineal descendants of the Hurrian people of the 3rd-2nd millennium and the Urartians the dominant people of the Caucasus in the early first millennium. The fortified town excavated at Ḥasanlu in Azerbaijan provides valuable glimpses of the economic and cultural interaction across these regions and with Assyria. The population of eastern Iran and Afghanistan about 2000 B.C.E. is virtually unknown so the conjecture is rife. We may suppose that, similar to the Elamites in the southwest, here the people of the Indus valley civilization, possibly proto-Dravidians dominated the east, at least in culture and influence. North of the range it is conceivable that the ancestors of the Hunzakut, the Burushaski speaking people of present day Hunza in Northern Areas of , had a presence so far to the west.5 Some scholars have suggested that, previous to the expansion of the Indo-European speakers a family of peoples extended from the Atlantic Ocean to India the relics of which were or are the Basques, Etruscans Rhaetians, some Caucasian peoples and the Hunzakut plus the Dravidian Brahuis of Baluchistan. This is an unproved theory and we can only say that it is most probable that the Indo-European speakers did not come upon empty areas in their expansion on the Iranian plateau but found earlier unrelated inhabitants. The role of these people in conveying new culture, both material and other to the arriving Indo-Europeans is a subject of much speculation. This holds true especially for those settled on the north eastern staging ground for entry to the plateau i.e., the area termed the Bactriana- Archaeological Complex. A long period of contact there between the settled agriculturists and the Indo-Iranians to the north may have been characterized by a symbiotic similar to that between Bactrians and in and after the Achaemenid period. The Indo-Europeans as their migration proceeded southward also must have benefited from the existence of routes linking with other trading points across Iran. The Semitic and Hamitic peoples of the Near East and Africa are not in the purview of our investigation, even though small numbers of

5 Saidiyan, Abd Alhossein, People of Iran. 1st edit. Tehran, science and life publishment, (2004), pp., 76- 78.

02 Jhss, Vol. 3, No.2, July to December 2012 Semites did move onto the plateau at various times. The expansion of the Indo-Europeans in the second millennium B.C.E. changed the face of Iran. The Indo-European languages are usually divided into two major groups, the centum western and the satem eastern, from the Latin and Avestan words respectively for the number 100. The following is a speculative reconstruction but has a good chance of verisimilitude. It seems that the earliest migration of the Indo- Europeans from the reputed homeland in South Russia was with the centum group, some of whom in the early second millennium moved into Anatolia the Hittites, contributing to the complex mix of ethnic groups in Asia Minor others in western China the Tokharians. This movement may have injected Nordic racial elements into the existing populations. A few tribes of centum-speakers some perhaps subsumed under the label Gutians in cuneiform sources could have come onto the Iranian plateau, but we have no evidence, as we do for the next migration, that of the Indo-Iranians or Aryans. The latter was the first satem-speaking Indo-Europeans who moved south from their supposed homeland in present-day Kazakhstan. In the second half of the second millennium B.C.E. in Northern Mesopotamia, the kingdom of Mitanni had Indo-Iranian elements, who displayed elements specific to Indo-Aryan culture. They possibly were to be found only among the ruling class or as specialists in horse warfare. Perhaps their predecessors in western Iran and the Zagros from the 18th century B.C.E., the Kassites shared a common lineage with them. As for movements in the east the present-day Dardic speakers of northern Pakistan are claimed to be descendants of the Indo-Iranians who first moved into the subcontinent. Undoubtedly these early Indo-European speakers mixed with the local population and for the most part were absorbed into it. At the beginning of the first millennium B.C.E. numerous Iranian-speaking tribes, coming from the northeast expanded over the plateau giving their languages to the indigenous peoples rather than being absorbed. One of the factors which enabled the Iranians to prevail was their mastery of horse-riding.6 Although horses had been used previously to pull wagons or it was probably the Scythian/Saka Iranians on the steppes of southern Russia who evolved their earlier practice of riding horses to control sheep or cattle into a military application as cavalry. This innovation enabled them to display a mobility surpassing that of other formations. By the time of the establishment of the the spread of Iranian languages and dialects was proceeding apace.

6 Eghbal Ashtiyani, A , History of Iran, Tehran, Tehran University publication,(2001),pp. 45- 49 02 Iranian People and the Race of People Settled in the Iranian Plateau

Western Iranian Peoples

During the 1st centuries of the first millennium BCE, the ancient Persians established themselves in the western portion of the Iranian plateau and appear to have interacted considerably with the Elamites and Babylonians, while the Medes also entered in contact with the Assyrians. Remnants of the Median language and Old Persian show their common Proto-Iranian roots, emphasized in Strabo and Herodotus' description of their languages as very similar to the languages spoken by the Bactrians and Soghdians in the east. Following the establishment of the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian language spread from Pars or to various regions of the Empire, with the modern dialects of Iran, Afghanistan and Central- Asia known as Tajiki descending from Old Persian. Old Persian is attested in the Behistun Inscription (c. 519 BCE), recording a proclamation by Darius the Great. In southwestern Iran, the Achaemenid kings usually wrote their inscriptions in trilingual from (Elamite, Babylonian and Old Persian) while elsewhere other languages were used. The administrative languages were Elamite in the early period, and later Imperial Aramaic. The early inhabitants of the Achaemenid Empire appear to have adopted the religion of Zoroastrianism. The Baloch who speaks a western Iranian language relate an oral tradition regarding their migration from Aleppo, Syria around the year 1000 AD, whereas linguistic evidence links Balochi to Kurmanji, Soranî, Gorani and Zazaki7 .

Eastern Iranian Peoples

While the Iranian tribes of the south are better known through their texts and modern counterparts, the tribes which remained largely in the vast Eurasian expanse are known through the references made to them by the ancient Greeks, Persians, and Indo-Aryans as well as by archaeological finds. Many ancient Sanskrit texts make references to tribes like , Paradas, , , Uttaramadras, Madras, Lohas, Parama Kambojas, Rishikas, Tukharas or etc. And locate them in the (north-west) division, in Central Asia, around the Hindukush range in northern Pakistan. The Greek chronicler, Herodotus (5th century BCE) makes references to

7. Rashidvash, Vahid , Iranian people and the origin of the Turkish-speaking population of the north-western of Iran. Canadian Social Science, Vol. 8, No.2, (2012) , pp. 132-139

01 Jhss, Vol. 3, No.2, July to December 2012 a nomadic people, the Scythians; he describes as having dwelt in what is today Southern Russia. It is believed that these Scythians were conquered by their eastern cousins, the Sarmatians, who are mentioned by Strabo as the dominant tribe which controlled the southern Russian steppe in the 1st millennium AD. These Sarmatians were also known to the Romans, who conquered the western tribes in the Balkans and sent Sarmatian conscripts, as part of Roman legions, as far west as Roman Britain. The Sarmatians of the east became the Alans, who also ventured far and wide, with a branch ending up in Western Europe and North Africa, as they accompanied the Germanic Vandals during their migrations.

Iranian Ethnic Groups

The only measure of ethnic diversity that appears in official statistics is identification of the language normally used at home: Iranian languages, including Persian, Luri (Lori), Kurdi (Kordi), Gilaki and Māzanda-rāni, and Baluchi (Baluči) and non-Iranian languages including Azeri Turkish, Arabic, and Turkmeni. The largest group of people in present-day Iran is the Persians who speak dialects of the language called Fārsi in Persian, since it was primarily the tongue of the people of Fārs. A number of dialects exist in the province including Lāri spoken in Larestān, Baškerdi on the eastern border with Kermān and Baluchistan, where the inhabitants are settled in villages and other minor dialects. It is not the intention here to discuss dialects but it should be noted that along the coast in the past speakers of Swahili were reported, presumably migrants from Africa. Also the presence of Negritoes, as speakers of Baluchidialects has been claimed on the eastern coast of Baluchistan; again these may be descendants of slaves. Among the people of Fārs, as well as elsewhere, are Gypsies and they mainly travelled musicians. In addition to their own language of Indian origin they speak Luri or Persian. Their number is unknown but small and many have left Iran since the revolution of 1979. The Lurs occupy areas of northern Fārs and the southern Zagros range, and the best known of them are the Baḵtiāris who, known as Lur-e-Bozorg, live to the west of Isfahan and speak a Luri dialect. They are divided between the Čahar Lang in the north and the Haft Lang in the south, and they have included settled Persian speakers in the confederations they have formed over the years. Others of this linguistic group are called Mamasani and Kuhgiluya, while the other major dialect is spoken by the western Lurs in the mountains known as Lur-e Kučak. Other names are applied to sub-groups of the Lurs, such as the Boir Aḥmadi and 01 Iranian People and the Race of People Settled in the Iranian Plateau

Došmanziāri. It is difficult to know the number of Lurs, since many settled people in their territories do not consider themselves Lurs but an estimate of the total number of Lurs may be close to four million. In addition to the Lur confederations, the Turkic-speaking tribes of Fārs also were united in a confederation under the main band of nomads, the Qašqāis, beginning in the 18th century. Both Lurs and Turks for the most part have given up their nomadic life for a settled one. At present there may be about half a million Turkic speakers in southern Iran and their dialects are closely related to the Azeri Turkic language.

The Kurds live north of the Lurs in the Zagros Mountains, up to and over the frontiers with Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They speak many dialects but these are divided between two major groups, Kormānji (northwestern) and Sorāni (southwestern). The Kurds mostly live in villages or towns, although a small number are still pastoralists but tribal allegiances are still strong among all Kurds. They are estimated at about five million but since many live in Tehran or other cities, it is difficult to know how many consider themselves as Kurds. Most Kurds are Sunnis but in the southern areas in Kermānšāh Province one finds Shiites and followers of sects such as Aḥl-e-Ḥaqq and Yazidis. About half a million Kurds live in northern Khorasan, having been moved there by the Safavids. Many Kurds consider themselves descended from the ancient Medes and even use a calendar dating from 612 B.C. when the Assyrian capital of Nineveh was conquered by the Medes.8 The Turkish speakers of Azerbaijan are mainly descended from the earlier Iranian speakers, several pockets of whom still exist in the region. A massive migration of Oghuz Turks in the 11th and 12th centuries gradually Turkified the Azerbaijan as well as Anatolia. The Azeri Turks are Shiites and were founders of the . They are settled, although there are pastoralists in the Moḡān steppe called Ilsevan (formerly Šāhsevan) numbering perhaps 100,000 they as other tribes in Iran, were forced to adopt a settled life under Reza Shah. Other Turkic speakers—Turkmen, Qajars, Afšārs, etc. are scattered in various regions of western Iran. The number of Turkic speakers in Iran today is estimated about 16 million. Most of the call themselves and are referred to as Turks but also insist on their Iranian identity, buttressed not only by the religious bond being mostly Shiite in contrast to the Sunni Turks of Anatolia but also by cultural, historical and economic factors. The long and complex

8 Safizadeh, Sedigh ,History of Kurd and Kurdestan, first edit, Tehran, Atiyehpubl,( 1999),pp. 78, 82.

01 Jhss, Vol. 3, No.2, July to December 2012 history of Azari a major Iranian language and the original language of the region and its partial replacement with Azeri Turkish, the present-day language of Azerbaijan, is surveyed in detail and with a wealth of citations from historical sources elsewhere in the Encyclopaedia. Although the original Azari gradually lost its stature as the prevalent language by the end of the 14th century, the fact that the region had produced some of the finest Persian writers and poets of classical Persian, including Qaṭrān of Tabriz, Neẓāmi of Ganja, Ḵāqāni of Širvān, Homām of Tabriz, Awḥadi of Marāḡa, Zayn-al- Ābedin of Širvān, Maḥmud of Šabestar, Ṣafi-al-Din of Urmia, Abd-al- Qāder of Marāḡa has induced literary historians to talk of The School of Azerbaijan (Rypka). The significant contribution of this school to the preservation of the memory of a fecund shared culture capable of producing unique masterpieces of narrative and panegyric poetry is a matter of common knowledge. The tradition continues to this day, producing such diversely significant poets as Iraj Mirzā, Šahriār, Radi Āḏaraḵši, and Esmāil Amirḵizi and the writer and dramatist Ḡolām- Ḥosayn Sāedi. The geographic position of this fertile region has also contributed to the preservation of a common identity with the rest of the country.9 The eventful modern history of Azerbaijan and its contribution to the progressive movements in modern Persian history, most notably the Constitutional Revolution and to the development of institutions such as the press, has shown how highly influential it has been in shaping the history of modern Iran and its national identity. A survey of the national biography of eminent Iranians would show a high percentage of people of Azerbaijani origin appearing in different spheres as ranking politicians, clerics, merchants and military commanders, including such outstanding scholars as Sayyed Ḥasan Taqizadeh, Aḥmad Kasrawi, Moḥammad- Ali Tarbiat, Reżāzādeh Šafaq and such prominent educators and social thinkers as Mirzā Ḥasan Rošdiya, Kāẓemzādeh Irānšahr Taqi Arāni and Moḥammad Naḵjavāni among others. Also included are a large number of high ranking officials and statesmen, such as the influential prime ministers, Ebrāhim Ḥakimi, Maḥmud Jam Ali Soheyli, and Moḥammad Sāed. Confirmed and vocal Iranian nationalists, these scholars and statesmen had made significant contributions to the territorial integrity of Iran during the troubled periods of 1905-20 and 1941-46, when the country was in the midst of revolution, civil war, and foreign occupation. In Azerbaijan Armenians and Assyrians have been mentioned; the former lived in

9 Rashidvash, Vahid,. The race of the Azerbaijani people in Iran. International Journal of Research in Social Sciences-India, Vol. 2, No.2,(2012) ,pp. 437- 449.

22 Iranian People and the Race of People Settled in the Iranian Plateau villages north of Salmās up to the border of the country, and the Assyrians in villages west of Lake Urmia. Both have left these regions and few remain, mainly in Tehran, Urmia, and other cities. Their place has been taken mostly by Kurds. On the Caspian Sea coast, in Gilān and Māzandarān and in the Alborz Mountains, live descendants of Caspian peoples speaking Persian dialects with remnants from earlier tongues.10

The Arabs of Khuzestan and the coast of the Persian Gulf are both urban and pastoralists or fishermen on the Gulf. Although, after the Arab invasion of Persia in the 7th century, many Arab tribes settled in different parts of Iran, it is the Arab tribes of Khuzestan (Ḵuzestān) that have retained their identity in language and culture to the present day. But here as in the case of Azerbaijan discussed earlier the ethno-linguistic characteristics of the region must be studied against the long and turbulent history of the province, with its own local language Kuzi, which may have been of Elamite origin and which gradually disappeared in the early medieval period. The influx of Arab tribes from outside the province was also a long-term process. There was a great influx of Arab-speaking immigrants into the province from the 16th to the 19th century, including the migration of the Banu Kab and Banu Lam. It was also during the Safavid period that the term Arabestān began to be used to designate the province, until replaced again by Khuzestan during the reign of Reza Shah, who put an end to the separatist aspirations of Shaikh Ḵazal, the head of the Kab tribe. There were also renewed attempts in vain by the Iraqi regime during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88) to generate Arab nationalism in the area but without any palpable success. Thus the mosaic of peoples living in Iran today reflects the central geographical situation of the country throughout history, frequently described as a crossroads of Eurasia. Although many languages and dialects are spoken in the country and different forms of social life, the dominant influence of the Persian language and culture has created a solidarity complex of great strength.

This was revealed in the Iran-Iraq War when the Arabs of Khuzestan did not join the invaders, and earlier when Azeris did not rally to their northern cousins after World War II, when Soviet forces occupied Azerbaijan. Likewise the Baluch, Turkmen, Armenians and Kurds, although with bonds to their kinsmen on the other side of

10 Raiesniya, Rahim, Azerbaijan in the History of Iran, 1st edit, Tabriz, Nima publishment, (2007), pp. 211-215.

27 Jhss, Vol. 3, No.2, July to December 2012 borders, are conscious of the power and richness of Persian culture and willing to participate in it.

The Iranian Languages

The Iranian languages also called Irani languages form a subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages which in turn are a subgroup of the Indo- European language family. The speakers of Iranian languages are known as Iranian peoples. The Iranian languages are considered in three stages of Old until 400 BCE Middle 400 BCE – 900 CE and New since 900 CE. From the Old Iranian languages the better understood and recorded ones is Old Persian a language of Achaemenid Iran and Avestan the language of Zarathushtra. Middle Iranian languages included Middle Persian a language of Sassanid Iran) and Parthian a language of Arsacid Iran. There are many Iranian languages the largest amongst them are Persian, Pashto, Kurdish, and Balochi.

Today, there are an estimated 150–200 million native speakers of Iranian languages. The Ethnologue lists 87 Iranian languages. Persian has about 65 million native speakers Pashto about 50 million Kurdish about 18 million Balochi about 7 million and Lurishabout 2.3 million. The term Iranian language applies to any language which is descended from the Proto-Iranian parent language. The unattested Proto-Iranian was first spoken by presumably people/tribes in Central Asia sometime in the late 3rd to early 2nd millennium BCE. The area in which Iranian languages i.e. Descendants of Proto-Iranian have been spoken stretches from western China to Western Europe. Proto-Iranian was related to also unattested; Proto-Indic. Proto-Indic gave birth to the various northern Indian languages over time; taken together all Iranian Indo-Aryan and Nuristani languages from the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. The term Iranian was introduced in 1836 by Christian Lassen followed by Wilhelm Geiger and his Grundriss der Irani schen Philologie 1895 whereas Friedrich von Spiegel in 1859 preferred the term Eranian. Robert Needham Cust, however used the term Irano- Aryan as early as 1878. Orientalists such as George Abraham Grierson and Max Müller also differentiated between Irano- Aryan and Indo-Aryan. Grierson also uses the term Eranian. Some recent scholarship - primarily in German - has revived of the term Irano-Aryan in analogy to Indo-Aryan. The linguist Ahmad Hasan Dani uses the term and asserts Iranian is short for Irano- Aryan. The linguist Gilbert Lazard specialist in Persian has been using the term consequently in his publications whereas Mohammad

20 Iranian People and the Race of People Settled in the Iranian Plateau

Djafar suggests establishing Aryan for the branch. Still Iranian remains the standard term used by the vast majority of English- language linguists. Soon after postulating an Indo-European family in the 19th century, the Iranian languages Avestan, Old Persian, Pahlavi together with Indic Sanskrit, Prakrit were recognized by works of the linguist Rasmus Rask in 1826 as the eastern branch of Indo- European languages.

The was also considered as an Iranian language but was very soon (in 1875 effectively) established as a separate language in the Indo-European group of languages. Iranian languages are divided into Eastern and Western subfamilies, totaling about 84 languages (SIL estimate). Of the most widely-spoken Iranian languages Kurdish, Persian and Balochi are all Western Iranian languages while Pashto is an Eastern Iranian language.

Proto- Iranian and Old Iranian Languages

Together with the other Indo-Iranian languages the Iranian languages are descended from a common ancestor, Proto-Indo- Iranian. The Indo-Iranian languages are thought to have originated in Central Asia. The Andronovo culture is the suggested candidate for the common Indo-Iranian culture, c. 2000 BC. It was situated precisely in the western part of Central Asia that borders present- day Russia and present-day Kazakhstan. It was in relative proximity to the other satem ethno-linguistic groups of the Indo- European family like Thracian Balto-Slavic and others, and to common Indo-European's original homeland more precisely the steppes of southern Russia to the north of the Caucasus according to the reconstructed linguistic relationships of common Indo-European. Proto-Iranian thus dates to sometime after Proto- Indo-Iranian break-up or the early second millennium BCE as the Old Iranian languages began to break off and evolve separately as the various Iranian tribes migrated and settled in vast areas of southeastern Europe the Iranian plateau and Central Asia. Avestan mainly attested through the Avesta a collection of sacred texts connected to the Zoroastrian religion, is considered to belong to a central Iranian group where only peripheral groups such as southwestern represented by Old Persian and northeastern Sogdian and Sakan language (Scythian) had developed.re only peripheral groups such as southwestern represented by Old Persian and northeastern Sogdianand Sakan language (Scythian) had developed. Among the less known Old Iranian languages is Median spoken in western and central Iran which may have had an official status 22 Jhss, Vol. 3, No.2, July to December 2012 during the Median era (c. 700–559 BC). Apart from place and personal names some words reported in Herodotus' Histories and some preserved forms in Achaemenid inscriptions there are numerous non-Persian words in the Old Persian texts that are commonly considered Median. Some of the modern Western and Central Iranian dialects are also likely to be descended from Median. Other such languages are Carduchi the predecessor to Kurdish and Parthian which evolved into the language of the later empire.11

Middle Iranian Languages

What is known in Iranian linguistic history as the Middle Iranian era is thought to begin around the 4th century BCE lasting through the 9th century. Linguistically the Middle Iranian languages can be classified into two main families Western and Eastern. The Western family includes Parthian (Arsacid Pahlavi) and Middle Persian while Bactrian, Sogdian, Khwarezmian, Saka, and Old Ssetic (Scytho- Sarmatian) fall under the Eastern category. The two languages of the Western group were linguistically very close to each other but quite distinct from their eastern counterparts. On the other hand the Eastern group retained some similarity to Avestan. They were inscribed in various Aramaic-derived alphabets which had ultimately evolved from the Achaemenid Imperial Aramaic script though Bactrian was written using an adapted Greek script. Middle Persian (Pahlavi) was the official language under the Sasanian dynasty in Iran. It was in use from the 3rd century CE until the beginning of the 10th century. The script used for Middle Persian in this era underwent significant maturity. Middle Persian, Parthian and Sogdian were also used as literary languages by the Manichaeans whose texts also survive in various non-Iranian languages, from Latin to Chinese. Manichaean texts were written in a script closely akin in the Syriac script.12

New Iranian Languages

Following the Islamic Conquest of Persia (Iran) there were important changes in the role of the different dialects within the Persian Empire. The old prestige form of Middle Iranian, also known as Pahlavi was replaced by a new standard dialect called as the

11 Henning, WB ,The Ancient Language of Azerbaijan. Transaction of the Philological Society, London, (1954), pp. 98. 102. 12. Yarshater, E. Azerbaijan vii (1987).The Iranian Language of Azerbaijan. In: Encyclopedia Iranica, Vol. III/2, http:// www.iranica. Com/articles/Azerbaijan-vii.

22 Iranian People and the Race of People Settled in the Iranian Plateau official language of the court. The name Dari comes from the word Darbâr which refers to the royal court where many of the poets were protagonists and patrons of the literature flourished. The Saffarid dynasty in particular was the first in a line of many dynasties to officially adopt the new language in 875 CE. Dari may have been heavily influenced by regional dialects of eastern Iran whereas the earlier Pahlavi standard was based more on western dialects. This new prestige dialect became the basis of Standard New Persian. Medieval Iranian scholars such as Abdullah Ibn al- Muqaffa 8th century and Ibn al-Nadim 10th century associated the term Dari with the eastern province of Khorasan while they used the term Pahlavi to describe the dialects of the northwestern areas between Isfahan and Azerbaijan and Pârsi Persian proper to describe the Dialects of Fars. They also noted that the unofficial language of the royalty itself was yet another dialect Khuzi associated with the western province of Khuzestan. The Islamic conquest also brought with it the adoption of Arabic script for writing Persian Pashto and Balochi. All three were adapted to the writing by the addition of a few letters. This development probably occurred sometime during the second half of the 8th century when the old middle Persian script began dwindling in usage. The Arabic script remains in use in contemporary modern Persian. Tajik script was first Latinized in the 1920 under the then Soviet nationality policy. The script was however subsequently Cyrillicized in the 1930 by the Soviet government. The geographical areas in which Iranian languages were spoken were pushed back in several areas by newly neighboring languages.13

Arabic spread in some parts of Western Iran Khuzestan and Turkic languages spread through much of Central Asia displacing various Iranian languages such as Sogdian and Bactrian in parts of what is today Turkmenistan and . Sogdian barely survives in a small area of the Zarafshan valley east of Samarkand, and Saka as Sariqoli in parts of southern Xinjiang as well as Ossetic in the Caucasus. Various small Iranian languages in the Pamirs survive that are derived from Eastern Iranian.

13. Rashidvash, Vahid ,The Iranian and Azari languages, Research on Humanities and Social Sciences- Hong Kong, Vol.2, No.5, (2012).pp.28- 36.

22 Jhss, Vol. 3, No.2, July to December 2012 Persian Culture

With a long-standing and proud civilization, Persian culture is among the richest in the world. Two and a half millennia of inspiring literature, thousands of poets and writers, magnificent and impressive architecture, live customs dating back to Zoroastrians over 3000 years ago, and other unique characteristics of the nation are rivalled by only a few countries. Throughout the history, this grand treasure of Persia was gradually transferred to eastern and western nations. Iran's significant contribution into the world civilization in many respects is indispensable. Many ceremonies of the ancient Persians are the basis of western celebrations. Among the ceremonies still being held are Norouz, Charshanbeh Suri, Sizdah Bedar, Yalda Night and Haft Sin. Sitting around Haft Sin and reciting Hafez, visiting family and friends during Norouz celebration, night of Charshanbeh Suri and jumping over the bonfire in the hope of getting rid of all illnesses and misfortunes, spending Sizdah Bedar, the 13th day of the New Year, in nature, are old interesting traditions coming from the Achaemenid Empire. Another eminent feature of Persian culture is art. In fact culture and art are two closely interwoven concepts forming the soul of human civilizations. Persian exquisite carpets, subtle soulful classic music, outstanding tile work of unique blue mosques, old influential architectural style and countless brilliant literary works are famous in the world. Persian or Farsi, is one of the world's old languages still in use today, and is known to have one of the most powerful literary traditions and potentials. Persian poetry with masterpieces of Saadi, Hafiz, Rumi and Omar Khayyam is well known around the world. As all Persians are quick to point out, Farsi is not related to Arabic, it is a member of the Indo-European family of languages. One more art intertwined with Persian culture, worth mentioning, is the art of cooking. Persian foods, accompanied by herbs and spices are a product of the creativity, skill and patience of many generations of cooks.14

Persian Art

The artistic heritage of Persia is eclectic and includes major contributions from both east and west. borrowed heavily from the indigenous Elamite civilization and Mesopotamia and later from Hellenism (as can be seen with statues from the Greek period).

14. Rashidvash, Vahid , Qajar Rule in Iran: The Qajar Government Events That Changed the Fate of Iran, The Journal of History and Social Sciences- Pakistan, Vol.2, No.2,(2011),pp. 1- 29.

22 Iranian People and the Race of People Settled in the Iranian Plateau

In addition, due to Persia's somewhat central location, it has served as a fusion point between eastern and western arts and architecture as Greco-Roman influence was often fused with ideas and techniques from India and China. When talking about the creative Persian arts one has to include a geographic area that actually extends into Central Asia, the Caucasus, Asia Minor, and Iraq as well as modern Iran. This vast geographic region has been pivotal in the development of the Persian arts as a whole.

Conclusion

The world is a place containing various racial and lingual groups. So that as far as this issue is concerned there is no difference between developed and developing countries. As if, among all existing countries and islands in the world, about 160 countries have an increasing situation regarding race and culture. Iran is not an exception, because it can be called a multi-national or multi-racial community. It is difficult for anthropologists and ethnologists to determine the race of people settled on the Iranian plateau. The reason is that it has been as an invasion field bilaterally from many years ago. On the other hand, it is as a bridge between the Far East, Middle East and Mesopotamia. Therefore, many different nations with various races have entered this plateau and placed under a unite ceiling of language. It seems that the present residents in this plateau are more related to people in the west and the northwest of Iran. As a result of anthropological studies and measurements in Iran, one basic branch called ‘the white race’ has been determined. It is the race of people in the Iranian plateau. The ancient Iranians (Homo Iranicus) are the genius brothers of original mankind (Homo sapiens) grown in the southwest of Asia physically and culturally, namely the cradle of direct ancestors of Aryans. The Iranians are among the oriental race called Indo-European who have immigrated to this plateau from Axus and Caucasian mountains in the late of the second thousand B.C. They were called Aryan in the history. It took 1000 years for Aryans to enter into this plateau in different small and large groups. Finally in the first millennium B.C., they were replaced and then made various sovereignties. The Iranian Plateau started a new life with fresh Aryan tribes and made the ancient age of Iran which lasts 1000 years. This time is regarded as the golden period in the history of Iran.

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21 Iranian People and the Race of People Settled in the Iranian Plateau

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