147-557: The Khoy Khanate ( Persian : خانات خوی , romanized : Khānāt-e Khoy ), also known as the Principality of Donboli ( Persian : شاهزادهنشین دنبلی , romanized : Shāhzādeneshīn-e Donbolī ) , was a hereditary Kurdish khanate around Khoy and Salmas in Iran ruled by the Donboli tribe from 1210 until 1799. The khanate has been described as the most powerful khanate in
294-638: 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
441-620: A descendant of Isa Beg conquered territory around Hakkâri . When the Safavids captured the area, Haji Beg, the grandson of Shaikh Ahmad Beg was chosen as governor of Sokmanabad which now included Khoy (Shah Tahmasp merged Khoy and Sokmanabad into one district). Haji Beg was also entrusted with the defence of the Safavid frontier in Van before he was assassinated in 1548 by the Governor of Van. This event worsened
588-531: A dialect of the Southern Oghuz group or a dialect of Azerbaijani . As he was growing up, he must have swiftly learned Persian, which was the language of the cities and high culture . But unless he was speaking to someone who spoke only Persian, he always preferred to communicate in Turkic. His knowledge of Arabic is not documented, but it seems doubtful given his lack of interest in literature and theology. Nader
735-418: 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
882-493: A fifth school ( madhhab ) of Sunni Islam and that the Ottomans would allow its adherents to go on the hajj , or pilgrimage, to Mecca , which was within their territory. In the subsequent peace negotiations, the Ottomans refused to acknowledge Ja'farism as a fifth mazhab but they did allow Iranian pilgrims to go on the hajj . Nader was interested in gaining rights for Iranians to go on the hajj in part because of revenues from
1029-464: A figure of national importance. When Nader discovered that Fath Ali Khan was in treacherous correspondence with Malek Mahmud and revealed this to the shah, Tahmasp executed him and made Nader the chief of his army instead. Nader subsequently took on the title Tahmasp Qoli (Servant of Tahmasp). In late 1726, Nader recaptured Mashhad . Nader chose not to march directly on Isfahan. First, in May 1729, he defeated
1176-645: A form of Shia Islam he called "Ja'fari", in honour of the sixth Shia imam Ja'far al-Sadiq . He banned certain Shia practices which were particularly offensive to Sunni Muslims , such as the cursing of the first three caliphs of Islam. Personally, Nader is said to have been indifferent towards religion and the French Jesuit who served as his personal physician reported that it was difficult to know which religion he followed and that many who knew him best said that he had none. Nader hoped that "Ja'farism" would be accepted as
1323-500: 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
1470-417: 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
1617-405: A move to prepare for an improbable conquest of distant Kashgaria . Such a campaign did not materialize, but Nader frequently sent funds and engineers to Merv trying to restore its prosperity and rebuild its ill-fated dam. Merv, however, did not become prosperous. Nader now decided to punish Dagestan for the death of his brother Ebrahim Qoli on a campaign a few years earlier. In 1741, while Nader
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#17330863045641764-529: 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
1911-470: A result of his illness and his desire to extort more and more tax money to pay for his military campaigns. New revolts broke out and Nader crushed them ruthlessly, building towers from his victims' skulls in imitation of his hero Timur. In 1747, Nader set off for Khorasan, where he intended to punish Kurdish rebels . Some of his officers and courtiers feared he was about to execute them and plotted against him, including two of his relatives: Muhammad Quli Khan,
2058-440: A roar. 'Where is my sword? Bring me my weapons!' The assassins were struck with fear by these words and wanted to escape, but ran straight into the two chiefs of the murder-conspiracy, who allayed their fears and made them go into the tent again. Nader Shah had not yet had time to get dressed; Muhammad Quli Khan ran in first and struck him with a great blow of his sword which felled him to the ground; two or three others followed suit;
2205-558: A rumour broke out that Nader had been assassinated, some Indians attacked and killed Iranian troops; by midday 900 Iranian soldiers had been killed. Nader, furious, reacted by ordering his soldiers to sack the city . During the course of one day (22 March) 20,000 to 30,000 Indians were killed by the Iranian troops and as many as 10,000 women and children were taken as slaves, forcing Mohammad Shah to beg Nader for mercy. In response, Nader Shah agreed to withdraw, but Mohammad Shah paid
2352-580: 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
2499-644: 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
2646-610: 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
2793-812: 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
2940-654: 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
3087-425: 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
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#17330863045643234-459: Is known to have acquired reading and writing skills at some point in his life, probably later on. Approximately three million people or more were nomadic or semi-nomadic pastoralists in Iran in the beginning of the 18th-century, accounting for one-third of the country's population. Strong ties of kinship as well as customs of helping each other out with fights and finances kept their tribal groups united. Despite being partially or fully absorbed into
3381-455: 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
3528-655: Is now part of or includes Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Georgia, India, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Oman, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, the North Caucasus , and the Persian Gulf , but his military spending had a ruinous effect on the Iranian economy. Nader idolized Genghis Khan and Timur , the previous conquerors from Central Asia. He imitated their military prowess and—especially later in his reign—their cruelty. His victories during his campaigns briefly made him West Asia 's most powerful sovereign, ruling over what
3675-468: 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 ),
3822-570: 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
3969-486: 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
4116-436: 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
4263-502: 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
4410-721: The Napoleon of Persia , the Sword of Persia , or the Second Alexander . Nader belonged to the Turkoman Afshars , one of the seven Qizilbash tribes that helped the Safavid dynasty establish their power in Iran . Nader rose to power during a period of chaos in Iran after a rebellion by the Hotaki Afghans had overthrown the weak Shah Soltan Hoseyn ( r. 1694–1722 ), while
4557-936: The Abdali Afghans near Herat . Many of the Abdali Afghans subsequently joined his army. The new shah of the Ghilzai Afghans, Ashraf , decided to move against Nader but in September 1729, Nader defeated him at the Battle of Damghan and again decisively in November at Murchakhort. Ashraf fled and Nader finally entered Isfahan, handing it over to Tahmasp in December. The citizens' rejoicing was cut short when Nader plundered them to pay his army. Tahmasp made Nader governor over many eastern provinces, including his native Khorasan, and Tahmasp's sister
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4704-651: 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
4851-556: The Chenab valley, and seized a large amount of the booty and freed most of the slaves in captivity. The Persians, however, were unable to pursue the Sikhs, because they were overloaded with the remaining plunder and overwhelmed by the terrible heat of that May. Traveling with an advance guard, Nader Shah stopped at Lahore where he learned of his losses. He traveled back to his forces, accompanied by Governor Zakariya Khan . Upon learning about
4998-751: The Ilkhanate and supposedly saved the Ilkhanate from destruction. Nonetheless, the successor of Ibrahim Donboli, Cemşid Dunbulî (d. 1341), died fighting the Mongolians. The successor Emir Behlül Dunbulî (d. 1359) ended the wars with the Mongolians. He subsequently died in Hakkâri. The leader of the Donboli tribe before the conquest of the region by the Aq Qoyunlu was Isa Beg. Under the administration of Aq Qoyunlu, Shaikh Ahmad Beg,
5145-402: 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
5292-575: The Khanate of Khiva . After the Iranians had forced the Uzbek Khanate of Bukhara to submit, Nader wanted Reza to marry the khan's elder daughter because she was a descendant of his hero Genghis Khan, but Reza flatly refused and Nader married the girl himself. With regard to Central Asia, Nader viewed Merv (present-day Bayramali , Turkmenistan ) vital to his north-eastern defenses. He also tried to secure
5439-534: The North Caucasus , South Caucasus , as well as in northern mainland Iran. This included mainly, but was not limited to, the losses of Dagestan (including its principal city of Derbent ), Baku , Gilan , Mazandaran , and Astrabad . The regions to the west of that, mainly Iranian territories in Georgia , Iranian Azerbaijan , and Armenia , were taken by the Ottomans. The newly gained Russian and Turkish possessions were confirmed and further divided amongst themselves in
5586-644: The Ottoman Empire regained the lost territories in Western Armenia and Mesopotamia . Finally, Karim Khan founded the Zand dynasty and became ruler of Iran by 1760. Erekle II and Teimuraz II , who, in 1744, had been made the kings of Kakheti and Kartli respectively by Nader himself for their loyal service, capitalized on the eruption of instability, and declared de facto independence. Erekle II assumed control over Kartli after Teimuraz II's death, thus unifying
5733-503: The Ottoman Empire , as well as the campaigns in the North Caucasus . Nader also secured one of the Mughal emperor's daughters, Jahan Afruz Banu Begum, as a bride for his youngest son. The Indian campaign was the zenith of Nader's career. Afterwards he became increasingly despotic as his health declined markedly. Nader had left his son Reza Qoli Mirza to rule Iran in his absence. Reza had behaved highhandedly and somewhat cruelly but he had kept
5880-520: The Ottoman Empire . He believed that Safavid Shia Islam had intensified the conflict with the Sunni Ottoman Empire. His army was a mix of Shia and Sunni Muslims (with a notable minority of Christians and Kurds ) and included his own Qizilbash as well as Uzbeks , Afghans , Christian Georgians , and Armenians , and others. He wanted Iran to adopt a form of religion that would be more acceptable to Sunni Muslims and suggested that Iran adopt
6027-691: The Qajar tribe , who offered to back him. Meanwhile, Iran's imperial neighboring rivals, the Ottomans and the Russians , took advantage of the chaos in the country to seize and divide territory for themselves. In 1722, Russia, led by Peter the Great and further aided by some of the most notable Caucasian regents of the disintegrating Safavid Empire, such as Vakhtang VI , launched the Russo-Iranian War (1722–1723) in which Russia captured swaths of Iran's territories in
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6174-624: The Siege of Erivan in 1804 on the Russian side and received a dagger as a gift which he sought to erect in Khoy. Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of
6321-655: 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
6468-565: The Treaty of Constantinople (1724) . During the chaos, Nader cut a deal with Mahmud Hotaki to rule Kalat in the north of Iran. However, when Mahmud Hotaki began minting coins in his name and asked for everyone's allegiance, Nader refused. Tahmasp and the Qajar leader Fath Ali Khan (the ancestor of Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar ) contacted Nader and asked him to join their cause and drive the Ghilzai Afghans out of Khorasan. He agreed and thus became
6615-688: 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
6762-403: The Turkoman Afshar tribe , which was one of the seven tribes of the Qizilbash who helped the Safavid dynasty establish their power in Iran. The Afshar tribe had originally lived in the Turkestan region, but during the 13th-century they moved to the Azerbaijan region in northwestern Iran as a result of the expansion of the Mongol Empire . Nader was from the semi-nomadic Qirqlu clan of
6909-423: The ezāfe construction, expressed through ī (modern e/ye ), to indicate some of the relations between words that have been lost with the simplification of the earlier grammatical system. Although the "middle period" of the Iranian languages formally begins with the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the transition from Old to Middle Persian had probably already begun before the 4th century BC. However, Middle Persian
7056-479: 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 ,
7203-513: The 1732 Treaty of Resht yet, resulting in the reestablishment of Iranian rule over all of the Caucasus and northern mainland Iran again. Nader suggested to his closest intimates, after a great hunting party on the Moghan plains (presently split between Azerbaijan and Iran), that he should be proclaimed the new king ( shah ) in place of the young Abbas III. The small group of close intimates, Nader's friends, included Tahmasp Khan Jalayer and Hasan-Ali Beg Bestami . Following Nader's suggestion,
7350-421: The Afshars, which lived in the Khorasan region of northeastern Iran. They had either settled there during the reign of the first Safavid Shah Ismail I ( r. 1501–1524 ), or had been resettled by Shah Abbas I ( r. 1588–1629 ) to fend off Uzbek attacks. Regardless, Afshars moving to Khorasan was already taking place by start of the 16th-century. The Afshar dialect is categorized either as
7497-405: The Arabs. In 1743, he conquered Oman and its main capital Muscat . In 1743, Nader started another war against the Ottoman Empire . Despite having a huge army at his disposal, in this campaign Nader showed little of his former military brilliance. It ended in 1746 with the signing of a peace treaty, the Treaty of Kerden , in which the Ottomans agreed to let Nader occupy Najaf . Nader changed
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#17330863045647644-572: 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
7791-521: The Donbolis (due to Jafar Qoli Khan Donboli being appointed governor of Tabriz) but he was repulsed. Later though he was able to convince the Afshars of Urmia and the Donbolis to rebel. Fath-Ali Shah Qajar heard of the news in Dh'ul Qadah 1212 (April-May 1798) and made a farman to discourage the elites of Tabriz from supporting the alliance. Iranian forces eventually moved into Azerbaijan, captured Urmia on June 20, and on July 1 moved towards Salmas and Khoy and deposed Jafar Qoli Khan. Hosayn Qoli Donboli
7938-436: The Donbolis. In June 1799 Abbas entered Tabriz and on September 17 the Donbolis were defeated near Khoy, effectively ending the khanate. Mahmud Khan was appointed as governor but not long after he was deposed and the khanate was annexed. Jafar Qoli Khan Donboli fled to Maku and then to the Ottoman Empire. Later he switched alliances to the Russian Empire and was given Shaki Khanate in 1806. Jafar Qoli Khan had taken part in
8085-402: The Iranian coinage system. He minted silver coins, called Naderi , that were equal to the Mughal rupee . Nader discontinued the policy of paying soldiers based on land tenure. Like the late Safavids he resettled tribes. Nader Shah transformed the Shahsevan , a nomadic group living around Azerbaijan whose name literally means "shah lover", into a tribal confederacy which defended Iran against
8232-416: The Iranians could make little headway against them. Though Nader managed to take most of Dagestan during his campaign, the effective guerrilla warfare as deployed by the Lezgins, but also the Avars and Laks made the Iranian re-conquest of the particular North Caucasian region a short lived one; several years later, Nader was forced to withdraw . During the same period, Nader accused his son of being behind
8379-500: 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
8526-429: 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
8673-516: The Ottoman ambassador Ali Pasha. He cut a deal with notables and the clergy that he would only assume the position of Shah if they promised to refrain from cursing Omar and Uthman , avoid beating themselves to draw blood at the Ashura festival, accept Sunni practices as legitimate, and to obey Nader's children and relatives after his death, thereby setting up a dynasty in his name. He was effectively realigning Persia with Sunni Islam. The notables accepted. The Safavids had forced Shia Islam as
8820-486: The Ottomans and Mughals more closely than the Safavids had been, Nader Shah started creating new concepts. One of these was a focus on a shared Turkmen descent, by having several official documents evoke how Nader Shah, the Ottomans, Uzbeks, and Mughals all had a shared Turkmen background. In a broad sense, this concept mirrored the origin fables of 15th century Anatolian Turkmen dynasties . The Ottomans, however, were left unimpressed with Nader Shah's new concept. According to
8967-426: The Ottomans and Mughals. He may have perceived a need to unite disparate components of the ummah against the expanding power of Europe at that time, however his view of Muslim unity was different from later concepts of it. He proposed a peace treaty with the Ottomans , in it, he proclaimed the Persians wanted the Ja'fari Maddhab to be incorporated as a Madhhab of Islam. While only a nominal claim, Nader's army
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#17330863045649114-414: The Ottomans, and signed a treaty ceding Georgia and Armenia in exchange for Tabriz . Nader, furious, saw that the moment had come to ease Tahmasp from power. He denounced the treaty, seeking popular support for a war against the Ottomans. In Isfahan, Nader got Tahmasp drunk then showed him to the courtiers asking if a man in such a state was fit to rule. In 1732 he forced Tahmasp to abdicate in favour of
9261-459: 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
9408-425: 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
9555-401: 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
9702-487: 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,
9849-428: 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
9996-427: 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)
10143-407: 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
10290-534: The Shah who sent in nomadic tribes from Shirvan , Ganja , and Yerevan . According to British diplomat Harford Jones-Brydges , who was in Iran in the early 19th century, Hosayn Qoli Donboli fought and defeated the Zand army in 1787 led by Lotf Ali Khan near Shiraz , imprisoning and killing about 18,000 soldiers. However, the castle of Shiraz was not taken and Ali Khan himself was unharmed. Jones-Brydges adds that Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar wished to 'reduce Azerbaijan' and therefore gave his ally Hosayn Qoli Donboli
10437-403: The Shah's baby son, Abbas III, to whom Nader became regent . Nader decided, as he continued the 1730–1735 war, that he could win back the territory in Armenia and Georgia by seizing Ottoman Baghdad and then offering it in exchange for the lost provinces, but his plan went badly amiss when his army was routed by the Ottoman general Topal Osman Pasha near the city in 1733. the soldiers under
10584-547: The Sikhs, he told Khan that these rebels would one day rule the land. Still, the remaining plunder his forces had seized from India was so much that Nader was able to stop taxation in Iran for three years following his return. Many historians believe that Nader attacked the Mughal Empire to give his country some breathing space after previous turmoil. His successful campaign and replenishment of funds meant that he could continue his wars against Iran's archrival and neighbour,
10731-709: The Tarikh-e-Jahangoshay-e-Naderi ( History of Nader Shah's Wars ). Finished translations were presented to Nāder Shah in Qazvīn in June 1741, who, however, was not impressed. Nader diverted money going to Shia mullahs and redirected it to his army instead. In 1738, Nader Shah conquered Kandahar, the last outpost of the Hotaki dynasty . His thoughts now turned to the Mughal Empire of India. This once powerful Muslim state to
10878-491: The arch-enemy of the Safavids, the Ottomans , as well as the Russians had seized Iranian territory for themselves. Nader reunited the Iranian realm and removed the invaders. He became so powerful that he decided to depose the last members of the Safavid dynasty, which had ruled Iran for over 200 years, and become Shah himself in 1736. His numerous campaigns created a great empire that, at its maximum extent, briefly encompassed what
11025-493: 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
11172-533: The assassination attempt in Mazanderan. Reza Qoli angrily protested his innocence, but Nader had him blinded as punishment, and ordered his eyes to be brought to him on a platter. When his orders had been carried out, however, Nader instantly regretted it, crying out to his courtiers, "What is a father? What is a son?" Soon afterwards, Nader started executing the nobles who had witnessed his son's blinding. In his last years, Nader became increasingly paranoid , ordering
11319-509: The assassination of large numbers of suspected enemies. Following the orders of Nadir Shah, his soldiers executed 150 monks at Monastery of Saint Elijah after they refused to convert to Islam . With the wealth he gained, Nader started to build an Iranian navy . With lumber from Mazandaran , he built ships in Bushehr . He also purchased thirty ships in India. He recaptured the island of Bahrain from
11466-573: The beginning of May 1739, but before they left, he ceded back to Muhammad Shah all territories to the east of the Indus which he had overrun. The booty they had collected was loaded on 700 elephants, 4,000 camels, and 12,000 horses. Nader Shah left the area via the mountains in Northern Punjab . Learning of his planned route, the Sikhs started gathering light cavalry bands, and planned an attack to capture his plunder. The Sikhs fell upon Nadir's army in
11613-479: The border and invade the militarily weak but still extremely wealthy far eastern empire, and in a brilliant campaign against the governor of Peshawar he took a small contingent of his forces on a daunting flank march through nearly impassable mountain passes and took the enemy forces positioned at the mouth of the Khyber Pass completely by surprise, utterly beating them despite being outnumbered two-to-one. This led to
11760-475: The capital, Isfahan . After the Shah failed to escape or to rally a relief force elsewhere, the city was starved into submission and Soltan Husayn abdicated, handing power to Mahmud. In Khorasan, Nader at first submitted to the local Afghan governor of Mashhad , Malek Mahmud, but then rebelled and built up his own small army. Soltan Husayn's son had declared himself Shah Tahmasp II , but found little support and fled to
11907-449: The captain of the guards, and Salah Khan, the overseer of Nader's household. Nader Shah was assassinated on 20 June 1747, at Quchan in Khorasan . He was surprised in his sleep by around fifteen conspirators, and stabbed to death. Nader was able to kill two of the assassins before he died. The most detailed account of Nader's assassination comes from Père Louis Bazin, Nader's physician at
12054-409: The capture of Ghazni , Kabul , Peshawar , Sindh , and Lahore . As he moved into the Mughal territories, he was loyally accompanied by his Georgian subject and future king of eastern Georgia , Erekle II , who led a Georgian contingent as a military commander as part of Nader's force. Following the prior defeat of Mughal forces, he then advanced deeper into India, crossing the river Indus before
12201-457: 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
12348-512: 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
12495-446: The command of Mohammad Khan Baloch to besiege finally, after hours of fighting, Nader's troops were defeated and retreated. This was the only time that he was ever defeated in battle. Nader decided he needed to regain the initiative as soon as possible to save his position because revolts were already breaking out in Iran. He faced Topal again with a larger force and defeated and killed him. He then besieged Baghdad, as well as Ganja in
12642-621: The consequence in handing over the keys of his royal treasury, and losing even the fabled Peacock Throne to the Iranian emperor. The Peacock Throne, thereafter, served as a symbol of Iranian imperial might. It is estimated that Nader took away with him treasures worth as much as seven hundred million rupees. Among a trove of other fabulous jewels, Nader also looted the Koh-i-Noor (meaning "Mountain of Light" in Persian) and Darya-ye Noor (meaning "Sea of Light") diamonds . The Iranian troops left Delhi at
12789-580: The east was falling apart as the nobles became increasingly disobedient and local opponents such as the Sikhs and Hindu Marathas of the Maratha Empire were expanding upon its territory. Its ruler Muhammad Shah was powerless to reverse this disintegration. Nader asked for the Afghan rebels to be handed over, but the Mughal emperor refused. Nader used the pretext of his Afghan enemies taking refuge in India to cross
12936-576: The end of year. The news of the Iranian army's swift and decisive successes against the northern vassal states of the Mughal empire caused much consternation in Delhi, prompting the Mughal ruler, Muhammad Shah , to raise an army of some 300,000 men and march to confront Nader Shah. Despite being outnumbered by six to one, Nader Shah crushed the Mughal army in less than three hours at the huge Battle of Karnal on 13 February 1739. After this spectacular victory, Nader captured Mohammad Shah and entered Delhi . When
13083-584: 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
13230-498: The first four caliphs of Islam . Alternatively, it has also been recorded that the four peaks symbolised the territories of Persia , India , Turkestan , and Khwarezm . In 1741, eight Muslim scholars and three European and five Armenian priests translated the Koran and the Gospels . The commission was supervised by Mīrzā Moḥammad Mahdī Khan Monšī , the court historiographer and author of
13377-403: The following phylogenetic classification: Nader Shah Khorasan Campaign Afghan Campaigns Safavid restoration First Ottoman War Indian Campaign Central Asian Campaign Dagestan Campaign Persian Gulf Campaign Second Ottoman War Rebellions & Civil War Nader Shah Afshar ( Persian : نادر شاه افشار ; 6 August 1698 – 20 June 1747)
13524-562: 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
13671-471: 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
13818-471: The fortress of Dastgerd in the northern valleys of Khorasan , a province in the northeast of the Iranian Empire. His father, Emam Qoli, was a herdsman who may also have been a coatmaker. His family lived a nomadic way of life. Nader was a long-waited son in his family. At the age of 13, his father died and Nader had to find a way to support himself and his mother. He had no source of income other than
13965-412: The future. Nader returned to the province of Khorasan in 1708. At the age of 15, he enlisted as a musketeer for a governor. He rose the ranks and became the governor's right-hand man. Nader grew up during the final years of the Safavid dynasty which had ruled Iran since 1502. At its peak, under such figures as Abbas the Great , Safavid Iran had been a powerful empire, but by the early 18th century
14112-469: The group did not "demur", and Hasan-Ali remained silent. When Nader asked him why he remained silent, Hasan-Ali replied that the best thing for Nader to do would be assembling all leading men of the state, in order to receive their agreement in "a signed and sealed document of consent". Nader approved with the proposal, and the writers of the chancellery, which included the court historian Mirza Mehdi Khan Astarabadi , were instructed with sending out orders to
14259-461: 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
14406-432: 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
14553-535: The military, clergy and nobility of the nation to summon at the plains. The summonses for the people to attend had gone out in November 1735, and they began arriving in January 1736. In the same month of January 1736, Nader held a qoroltai (a grand meeting in the tradition of Genghis Khan and Timur ) on the Moghan plains. The Moghan plain was specifically chosen for its size and "abundance of fodder ". Everyone agreed to
14700-468: The modern historian Ernest Tucker, comparing this concept to an early version of " pan-Turkism " would be "anachronistic and misleading." He adds that this was part of unpolished drafts of concepts that would get polished throughout the 11 years of Nader Shah's reign, and would include wide political and religious aspects. Nader's concepts regarding the Ja'farism and common Turkmen descent were directed primarily at
14847-504: The more progressive, urbanized Persian culture, many of them nevertheless identified culturally with the Turco-Mongol heritage that had been passed down from the era of Timur and Genghis Khan . The settled population was seen by the semi-nomads and nomads as inferior. Nader was part of this heritage, which the British academic Michael Axworthy calls "paradoxical". Nader Shah was born in
14994-525: 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
15141-461: 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
15288-448: 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
15435-420: The neighbouring Ottomans and Russians . In addition, he increased the number of soldiers under his command and reduced the number of soldiers under tribal and provincial control. His reforms may have strengthened the country, but they did little to improve Iran's suffering economy. He also always paid his troops on time, no matter what. In order to construct a broad political framework that could link him to
15582-414: 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
15729-662: 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
15876-454: The northern provinces, earning a Russian alliance against the Ottomans. Nader scored a great victory over a superior Ottoman force at Baghavard and by the summer of 1735, Iranian Armenia and Georgia were his again. In March 1735, he signed a treaty with the Russians in Ganja by which the latter agreed to withdraw all of their troops from Iranian territory, those which had not been ceded back by
16023-529: 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
16170-521: The peace in Iran. Having heard rumours that his father had died, he had made preparations for assuming the crown. These included the murder of the former shah Tahmasp and his family, including the nine-year-old Abbas III. On hearing the news, Reza's wife, who was Tahmasp's sister, committed suicide. Nader was not impressed with his son's waywardness and reprimanded him, but he took him on his expedition to conquer territory in Transoxiana . In 1740, he conquered
16317-419: The pilgrimage trade. Nader's other primary aim in his religious reforms was to weaken the Safavids further since Shia Islam had always been a major element in support for the dynasty. He had a Shia mullah of Iran strangled after he was heard expressing support for the Safavids. Among his reforms was the introduction of what came to be known as the kolah-e Naderi . This was a hat with four peaks which symbolised
16464-443: The poor. Throughout his career, he was only interested in his own advancement. Legend has it that in 1704, when he was about 17, a band of marauding Uzbeks invaded the province of Khorasan, where Nader lived with his mother. They killed many peasants. Nader and his mother were among those who were carried off into slavery. His mother died in captivity. According to another story, Nader managed to convince Turkmens by promising help in
16611-510: The possession of Tabriz Khanate in 1791. In 1797 Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar was assassinated. As a result, revolts popped up all over the country. One of these rebels was Sadiq Khan Shaqaqi , who revolted with a 15,000 man army. He was able to take over much of Azerbaijan and besieged Qazvin. However, he was subsequently defeated at Qazvin and kicked out of Azerbaijan by the Donboli. In the Spring of 1798 Sadiq Khan Shaqaqi revolted again and attacked
16758-679: 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
16905-401: The proposal of Nader becoming the new king, many—if not most—enthusiastically, the rest fearing Nader's anger if they showed support for the deposed Safavids. Nader was crowned Shah of Iran on 8 March 1736, a date his astrologers had chosen as being especially favorable, in attendance of an "exceptionally large assembly" composed of the military, religious and nobility of the nation, as well as
17052-631: 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
17199-524: The region during the second half of the 18th century. The official religion of this principality was originally Yezidism , until some rulers eventually converted to Islam. The principality has its origins under the Ayyubid dynasty and was ultimately dissolved in 1799 by Abbas Mirza . During this period, the status of principality oscillated between autonomous and independent. The principality under Emir Ibrahim Donboli (d. 1320) had good relations with Ghazan of
17346-589: 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
17493-560: The relations between the principality and Shah Tahmasp I who sent a force to subdue the Kurds and 400 Donboli members were massacred by the Qizilbash . The tribe consequently fled to the Ottoman Empire where they united under Mansur Beg, nephew of Haji Beg. About 400 Donboli members were killed and the massacres were perpetrated by the Qizilbash . The fear of growing Donboli influence in Kurdistan
17640-530: The ruler of Bukhara as his vassal, imitating previous great conquerors of Mongol - Timurid descent. According to a British scholar Peter Avery, Nader's attitude towards Bukhara was irredentist to an extent that he "may even have thought that, if only the Ottoman power in the west could be contained, he might make Bukhara a base for conquests further afield in Central Asia". Nader dispatched numerous artisans to Merv in
17787-482: The same time, the Abdali Afghans rebelled and besieged Mashhad, forcing Nader to suspend his campaign and save his brother, Ebrahim. It took Nader fourteen months to crush this uprising. Relations between Nader and the Shah had declined as the latter grew jealous of his general's military successes. While Nader was absent in the east, Tahmasp tried to assert himself by launching a foolhardy campaign to recapture Yerevan . He ended up losing all of Nader's recent gains to
17934-607: 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
18081-506: 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
18228-741: 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,
18375-439: The state religion of Iran. Nader may have been brought up as a Shiite on the basis of his name and background but later replaced Shia law with a version that was more sympathetic and compatible with Sunni law he called the "Ja'fari school" in an effort to disassociate radical Shia Islam from the state in part to please his supporters and also to improve relationships with other Sunni powers. as he gained power and began to push into
18522-563: The state was in serious decline and the reigning shah, Soltan Hoseyn , was a weak ruler. When Soltan Husayn attempted to quell a rebellion by the Ghilzai Afghans in Kandahar , the governor he sent ( Gurgin Khan ) was killed. Under their leader Mahmud Hotaki , the rebellious Afghans moved westwards against the shah himself and in 1722 they defeated a force at the Battle of Gulnabad and then besieged
18669-527: The sticks he gathered for firewood, which he transported to the market. Many years later, when he was returning in triumph from his conquest of Delhi , he led the army to his birthplace and made a speech to his generals about his early life of deprivation. He said, "You now see to what height it has pleased the Almighty to exalt me; from hence, learn not to despise men of low estate." Nader's early experiences did not, however, make him particularly compassionate toward
18816-514: The time of his death, who relied on the eyewitness testimony of Chuki, one of Nader's favourite concubines : Around fifteen of the conspirators were impatient or merely eager to distinguish themselves, and so turned up prematurely at the agreed meeting place. They entered the enclosure of the royal tent, pushing and smashing their way through any obstacles, and penetrated into the sleeping quarters of that ill-starred monarch. The noise they made on entering woke him up: 'Who goes there?' he shouted out in
18963-612: The two as the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti , becoming the first Georgian ruler in three centuries to preside over a politically unified eastern Georgia, and due to the frantic turn of events in mainland Iran he would be able to maintain its autonomy until the advent of the Iranian Qajar dynasty . The rest of the Iranian territories in the Caucasus, comprising modern-day Azerbaijan , Armenia , and Dagestan broke away into various khanates . Until
19110-478: 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
19257-484: The wretched monarch, covered in his own blood, attempted – but was too weak – to get up, and cried out, 'Why do you want to kill me? Spare my life and all I have shall be yours!' He was still pleading when Salah Khan ran up, sword in hand and severed his head, which he dropped into the hands of a waiting soldier. Thus perished the wealthiest monarch on earth. After his death, he was succeeded by his nephew Ali Qoli, who renamed himself Adel Shah ("righteous king"). Adel Shah
19404-405: Was a condition for the handover. Afterwards, the descendants of Haji Beg would rule Khoy hereditarily and continuously under the title khan until the early 19th century. When Khoy was returned to the Donboli, the city was in ruins from military conflict with the Ottomans and had to receive a certain amount of tax revenues taken from the districts of Sharur and Dere-Alkis 'for foods'. When Khoy
19551-578: 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
19698-426: Was another reason for the massacre. A nephew of Haji Beg fled to Qotur (then part of the Ottoman Empire ) where he gathered the remnants of the tribe. In the subsequent period from the late 16th century to early 17th century, Khoy was not under the rule of the Donboli. However, by the beginning of the 17th century, the principality changed their allegiance again and joined the Safavids and one Donboli, Jamshid Soltan
19845-450: Was appointed mayor of Marand after the Safavid capture of Tabriz in 1603. Other Donboli appointments were Salman Soltan who was given the governorship of Salmas and Churs and Maqsud Soltan was given Barkosat. The city of Khoy returned to the Donbolis by the 1620s, since it was stated in a document from 1628 that the ruler of Khoy was a Salman Khan Donboli. Military assistance to the Shah
19992-427: Was arguably the most powerful empire in the world. Following his assassination in 1747, his empire quickly disintegrated and Iran fell into a civil war. His grandson Shahrokh Shah was the last of his dynasty to rule, ultimately being deposed in 1796 by Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar , who crowned himself shah the same year. Nader Shah has been described as "the last great Asiatic military conqueror". Nader belonged to
20139-405: Was captured by Nader Shah from the Ottomans in 1737, the Donboli tribe under Najaf Qoli Khan entered the service of the Shah and also accompanied him in his military campaigns to India , Georgia and Dagestan . In 1743-1744, a powerful uprising took place in Khoy which received support from the local rayah , due to increased taxes by Nader Shah . However, the riots were ultimately suppressed by
20286-409: Was given in marriage to Nader's son. Nader pursued and defeated Ashraf, who was murdered by his own followers. In 1738 Nader Shah besieged and destroyed the last Hotaki seat of power at Kandahar . He built a new city near Kandahar, which he named " Naderabad ". In the spring of 1730, Nader attacked Iran's archrival the Ottomans and regained most of the territory lost during the recent chaos. At
20433-562: Was increasingly drawing from Sunni Afghans, Kurds , Turkmens , Baloch , and others who were happy with a less sectarian Persia. Externally he presented Persia as completely sympathetic to Sunnis. He probably did this for political reasons in order to increase his legitimacy within the Muslim world; he would have never been accepted if he remained a radical Shia Muslim like the Safavid Shahs . Though as stated countless times before, internally, he
20580-566: Was passing through the forest of Mazanderan on his way to fight the Dagestanis, an assassin took a shot at him but Nader was only lightly wounded. He began to suspect his son was behind the attempt and confined him to Tehran . Nader's increasing ill health made his temper ever worse. Perhaps it was his illness that made Nader lose the initiative in his war against the Lezgin tribes of Dagestan. Frustratingly for him, they resorted to guerrilla warfare and
20727-586: 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
20874-494: Was placed on the throne in replacement of his brother. After Fath-Ali Shah left for Tehran in the autumn of 1798, Jafar Qoli Khan attempted to retake the throne from his brother but was repulsed. In the Spring of 1799 Hosayn Qoli Donboli died of unknown causes and Jafar Qoli Khan was invited back and became the new Khan of Khoy. He requested confirmation from Fath-Ali Shah but the Shahanshah refused and sent Abbas Mirza to defeat
21021-415: Was probably agnostic. Whenever Nader laid siege to a city, he would construct a city of his own outside the walls. His encampment was filled with markets, mosques, bathhouses, coffeehouses, and stables. He did this to show the besieged his army would be there for the long haul, to prevent diseases from spreading within his troops' ranks, and to occupy his troops' time. Nader became increasingly cruel as
21168-467: Was probably involved in the assassination plot. Adel Shah was deposed within a year. During the struggle between Adel Shah, his brother Ibrahim Khan and Nader's grandson Shah Rukh and almost all provincial governors declared independence , established their own states, and the entire Empire of Nader Shah fell into anarchy . Oman and the Uzbek khanates of Bukhara and Khiva regained independence, while
21315-600: 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
21462-605: Was the founder of the Afsharid dynasty of Iran and one of the most powerful rulers in Iranian history , ruling as shah of Iran (Persia) from 1736 to 1747, when he was assassinated during a rebellion. He fought numerous campaigns throughout the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and South Asia, such as the battles of Herat , Mihmandust , Murche-Khort , Kirkuk , Yeghevārd , Khyber Pass , Karnal , and Kars . Because of his military genius, some historians have described him as
21609-484: 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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