Persians

The Persian people

[21]
are an Iranian people who speak the modern Persian language
[22]
and closely akin Iranian dialects
and languages.
[23][24]
Their origins are traced to the ancient Iranian peoples, themselves part of the Indo-Iranian branch of
the greater Indo-European peoples.
The term Persian translates to "from Persis" which is a region north of the Persian Gulf located in Pars, Iran. It was from
this region that Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid empire, united all other Iranian empires (such as the
Medes), and expanded the Persian cultural and social influences by incorporating the Babylonian empire, and the
Lydian empire. Although not the first Iranian empire, the Achaemenid empire is the first Persian empire well recognized
by Greek and Persian historians for its massive cultural, military and social influences going as far as Athens, Egypt,
and Libya.
[25]

Persians have generally been a pan-national group often comprising regional people who often refer to themselves as
"Persians" and have also often used the term "Iranian" (in the ethnic-cultural sense)
[citation needed]
. Some scholars,
mechanically identifying the speakers of Persian as a distinct ethnic unit (the Persians), exclude those Iranians who
speak dialects of Persian. However, this approach can be misleading, as historically all ethnic groups in Iran, were
always referred to, collectively, as Iranians (Irani).
[26]

History
The Persians are believed to be descendents of the Aryan (Indo-Europeans) tribes that began migrating from Central
Asia into what is now Iran in the second millennium BCE
[65][66][67]
The Persian language and other Iranian tongues
emerged as these Aryan tribes split up into two major groups, the Persians and the Medes, and intermarried with
minority peoples indigenous to the Iranian plateau such as the Elamites.
[68][69]
The first mention of the Persians dates to
the 9th century BCE, when they appear as the Parsu in Assyrian sources, as a people living at the southeastern shores of
Lake Urmia.
The ancient Persians from the province of Pars became the rulers of a large empire under the Achaemenid dynasty
(Hakhamaneshiyan) in the 6th century BCE, reuniting with the tribes and other provinces of the ancient Iranian plateau
and forming the Persian Empire. Over the centuries Persia was ruled by various dynasties; some of them were ethnic
Iranians including the Achaemenids, Parthians (Ashkanian), Sassanids (Sassanian), Buwayhids and Samanids, and some
of them were not, such as the Seleucids, Ummayyads, Abbasids, and Seljuk Turks.
The founding dynasty of the empire, the Achaemenids, and later the Sassanids, were from the southwestern region of
Iran, Pars. The latter Parthian dynasty arose from the north. However, according to archaeological evidence found in
modern day Iran in the form of cuneiforms that go back to the Achaemenid era, it is evident that the native name of
Parsa (Persia) had been applied to Iran from its birth.
[70][71]

The Persian culture and its influence during the Achaemenid Persian empire has been traditionally described by a
"center-periphery" model.
[82]
Center-Periphery model is a model of cultural influence composed of a dominant center
with greater power and economic resources and often some form of overt control and a subordinate periphery; in this
cultural model, the periphery strives to incorporate prestige via adoption of cultural and value systems of the center, a
process termed "emulation" while the center is an engine for generation of new cultural standards.
[82]
The cultural
interaction between the Achaemenid center and the periphery was through a system of states, called the "satrapy." The
influence of the Persian center was such that places such as Anatolia, Lydia, and the Lykian dynasty completely adopted
the Persian culture acting as a full periphery to the central influence.
[82]
The Greeks also were influenced by the Persians,
since originally they were a logical next step in the cultural expansion of the Achaemenids, and in fact such places as
Cyprus, and Ionia were for a considerable time within the sphere of Persian cultural influences.
[82]
As Greeks gained
power, Athens developed into a central power in its own right and developed its own cultural periphery and inevitably
came to clash with the Persians. The contact was most prominent through the Ionian coast, where the periphery regions
of both entities overlapped in what can be thought of as an "interaction zone" between Persian and Greek influences.
The interaction between Greeks and Persians however is not entirely a center-periphery model with inevitable clashes,
but is in fact a "reciprocal cultural interaction" in which Persians were influenced by the Greek culture and its
architectural, philosophical elements, while the Greeks were influenced by the Persian culture and its sociopolitical,
artistic, and ceremonial elements.
[82]

Exchange between ancient Persians and their neighbours must have been diverse including such areas as sciences, art,
philosophy, architecture, cuisine, governance, marriage, military technology, clothing, and symbols of elitism. For
instance, the use of parasol fan or flywhisk-bearing was a marker of status in Persia, and this was adopted by the
Greeks, mainly women, who depicted their aristocratic status by the use of fans, whereas use of statues as a symbol of
power and wealth by the Greek men influenced the Persian monarchs' use of statue in their reliefes for depiction of
wealth and power.

Religion
The Persian civilization spawned three major religions: Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, which heavily influenced Saint
Augustine before he turned to Christianity, and the Bah' Faith.
Sunni was the dominant form of Islam in most of Iran until rise of Safavid Empire. There were however some
exceptions to this general domination of the Sunni creed which emerged in the form of the Zayds of Tabaristan, the
Buwayhid, the rule of Sultan Muhammad Khudabandah (13041316 CE), the Hashashin and the Sarbedaran.
Nevertheless, apart from this domination there existed, firstly, throughout these nine centuries, Shia inclinations among
many Sunnis of this land and, secondly, all three surviving branches of Shi'a Islam, Twelver, Ismaili, as well as
Zaidiyyah had prevalence in some parts of Iran. During this period, Shia in Iran were nourished from Kufa, Baghdad
and later from Najaf and Hillah.
[73]
Shiism were dominant sect in Tabaristan, Qom, Kashan, Avaj and Sabzevar. In many
other areas the population of Shia and Sunni was mixed. In recent centuries Ismailis have also largely been an Indo-
Iranian community.
[74]

Many scholars and scientists in Persia who lived before the Safavid era such as Ferdowsi, Jbir ibn Hayyn, Al-Farabi
and Nasr al-Dn al-Ts, were Shi'a Muslims
[citation needed]
, as was most of Iran's elite, while other renowned Sunni Muslim
scientists, scholars and personaliries were Persian or had Persian descent, including Abu Dawood, Hakim al-Nishaburi,
Al-Tabarani, Ghazali, Imam Bukhari, Tirmidhi, Al-Nasa'i and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, amongst many others. Abu Hanifa,
the founder of the Sunni Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence is also widely accepted of Persian ancestry.
The first officially Shia empire, the Safavid dynasty in Iran, advocated the Twelver faith, made Twelver law the law of
the land, and supported Twelver scholarship. For this, Twelver ulama "crafted a new theory of government" which held
that while "not truly legitimate", the Safavid monarchy would be "blessed as the most desirable form of government
during the period of waiting" for the twelfth imam.
[74]

Today, most Persians are Twelver Shia succeeded by Hanafi Sunni Muslims
[citation needed]
. There is also a sizeable number of
Shafi`i Sunni Muslims in southern Iran and amongst Kurds. Small Ismaili Shia minorities also exist in scattered pockets.
Some communities practice Shi'a Sufism. There are also smaller communities of Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews, and
Bah's. Bah's are the largest non-Muslim religious minority in Iran.
[75]
There exist Persians who are atheist and
agnostic.

Culture
Culture by one definition is the collective programming of the human mind that distinguishes the members of one
human group from those of another.
[76]
Persian culture therefore reflects the collective mindset of the Persian people
throughout time, whether Persian is meant in an ethnic sense or a culturally inclusive pan-ethnic sense. From the early
inhabitants of Persis, to the Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sassanid Empires, to the neighbouring Greek city states,
[77]
to the
Caliphate and the Islamic world,
[78][79]
all the way to the modern day Iran and such far places as those found in India,
[80]

Asia,
[81]
and Indonesia, Persian culture, has been either recognized, incorporated, adopted, or celebrated.
[78][82]
The unique
aspect of Persian culture is its geo-political context and its intricate relationship with the ever changing Persian political
arena once as dominant as the Achaemenids stretching from India in east to Libya in west, and now limited to Iran
stretching from Afghanistan, and Pakistan in the east to Iraq and Turkey in the west. It is this ever-changing reach
within the Iranian plateau that brought Persians face to face with Babylonians, Greeks, Egyptians, Scythians, Arabs,
Turks, Mughals, Hindus, North Africans, and even the Chinese, allowing them to influence these populations with their
cultural norms all the while being influenced by them in what can best be described as a "reciprocal cultural
receptivity".
[82]

Some reciprocal cultural exchange was achieved through commerce and foreign relations, some through victory or
defeat through military conquests, and some as a function of geopolitical proximity with neighbouring states. Cyrus the
Great, and his son Cambyses II would bring Persians face to face with the Elamites, Babylonians, Hittites, Lydians,
Egyptians, and Libyans through conquest, and Greeks and Scythians through border contact whether in form of military
conflicts, employment, or even political and military cooperation.
[83]
From a chronological perspective, and also
weighing political and social forces accordingly, Persian culture can be divided into pre-Islamic era with major contact
with the Western powers of the time, the Macedonians/Greeks, and the later Romans and the post-Islamic era, with
major contact with emerging Eastern powers such as Arabs, Ottoman Turks, and Mughals and in recent years imperalist
powers such as the Russians, and the British empire. The Achaemenids, Parthians, and Sassanids would represent the
Persian cultural globe in the pre-Islamic era while an array of emerging Persian empires namely the Safavids, Samanids,
Qajar, Pahlavi and countless others would represent the post-Islamic era.
Persian cultural contributions include artistic (Persian carpets, Persian artworks and crafts, miniature paintings,
calligraphy), linguistic (Persian literature and poetry), Societal (Architectural influences, customs & clothing,
Gardening, music, social norms and standards), culinary, political and ceremonial (Nowruz festivity, Chaharshanbe Suri
festival) contributions.
Women
From the Achaemenid days, Persian women have had great influence and presence. One such Persian figure was
Cassandane, queen consort of Cyrus the Great and mother of Cambyses II, Atossa, and Bardiya. Cyrus the Great had a
special dearly love for Cassandane. Cassandane also loved Cyrus to the point that upon her death bed she is noted as
having found it more bitter to leave Cyrus, than to depart her life.
[106]
According to the chronicle of Nabonidus, when
Cassandane died, all the nations of Cyrus's empire observed "a great mourning", and, particularly in Babylonia, there
was probably even a public mourning lasting for six days (identified as 2126 March 538 BC).
[107]

Atossa was the daughter of Cyrus the Great and Cassandane, and the queen consort of Darius the Great; she would play
a critical role in solidifying Darius's legitimacy to the throne after the overthrow of the magus impersonator of Bardiya.
Achaemenids also allowed women high positions including military and royal positions, best exemplified by Artemisia I
of Caria, a Halicarnassian who was an Achaemenid Navy admiral, serving Xerxes I of Persia.
[108]

During the Sassanid era, women also practiced power although in a limited scale. One such example was the Sassanid
queen Borandukht, who rose to power after death of her 7-year-old nephew Ardashir III at the hands of a Sassanid
general Shahrbaraz who was himself killed by the Persian army. Borandukht would inherit Persia at its most unstable
and disorganised hour; she started to amend the situation by first making peace with the Byzantine empire and then
attempting to amend the civil disturbances of the empire. She would however be murdered soon in the chaos only after a
year of rule. It is this chaos that led to election of Yazdegerd III and contributed to the subsequent Arab victories after
their invasion of Persia.
[109]

Scheherazade, though fictional, is an important figure of female wit and intelligence, while the beauty of Mumtaz Mahal
inspired the building of the Taj Mahal itself and the poet Thirih had a great influence on modern women's movements
throughout the Middle East. Persian women have also achieved national and international recognition in such diverse
areas as sciences, politics, and entertainment. Such individuals include Shirin Ebadi, the Persian lawyer and activist who
won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her efforts in human rights,
[110]
as well as Iranian singer Googoosh, who was a well
known national singer in the 1960s in Iran and abroad.
Although in ancient times, aristocratic females possessed numerous rights sometimes on par with men, Persian women
did not attain greater parity until the 20th century. Universal suffrage was constitutionally approved for all women in
January 26, 1963, under the Pahlavi regime.
[111]
Persian women can be seen working in a variety of areas such as politics,
law enforcement, transportation industries, health industry, military, universities, and in the Iranian parliament.