John IV Megas Komnenos ( Greek : Ιωάννης Μέγας Κομνηνός, Iōannēs Megas Komnēnos ) (died April 1460) was Emperor of Trebizond from 1429 until his death. He was a son of Emperor Alexios IV of Trebizond and Theodora Kantakouzene .
143-502: Ismail I ( Persian : اسماعیل یکم , romanized : Ismāʿīl ; 17 July 1487 – 23 May 1524) was the founder and first shah of Safavid Iran , ruling from 1501 until his death in 1524. His reign is often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history , as well as one of the gunpowder empires . The rule of Ismail I is one of the most vital in the history of Iran . Before his accession in 1501, Iran, since its Islamic conquest eight-and-a-half centuries earlier, had not existed as
286-586: A Husaynid and have curses for Yazīd. I am Khatā'ī, a servant of the Shāh's. "The light of all is Muhammed." due to your desire my heart burned, will i see you ever? i hope in the holy divan of truth, you will remember me they call you generous, valiant oh' impeccable leader the light of all is Muhammed, valiant thou' Ali valiant i could not find anyone in this lone world who is like you let me see your moon-faced effigy, so i will not stay in desire all your servants who call your name will not be devoided in
429-542: A "Southern Turkish (Turcoman) dialect directly associated with the so-called ʻʻĀzarbāyjān Turkishʼʼ, and noted that his Turkish "already shows traces of decomposition due to the influence of the Iranian milieu". Minorsky also added that Chaghatai words are found (as well as other words and forms of unknown origin) in Ismail I's poems. Stephen Dale describes the language used by Ismail in his well-known propagandistic verse directed at
572-638: 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
715-524: A Shahnameh-like epic about his victories and his newly established dynasty. Although the epic was left unfinished, it was an example of mathnawis in the heroic style of the Shahnameh written later on for the Safavid kings. Most of the poems are concerned with love—particularly of the mystical Sufi kind—though there are also poems propagating Shi'i doctrine and Safavi politics. His other serious works include
858-449: A bride for his emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos . This incident is notable for the anecdote it relates about John, who gleefully related to Sphrantzes the news of the death of Sultan Murad II, and that Mehmed II's youth meant that now his empire could last longer and be blessed. Sphrantzes, however, was taken aback and explained to him that Mehmed's youth and seeming friendship were only ploys, and that under John's brother-in-law John VIII
1001-498: A commander who knew how the Ottomans fought, proposed that they should attack as quickly as possible. This proposal was rejected by the powerful Qizilbash officer Durmish Khan Shamlu , who rudely said that Mohammad Khan Ustajlu was only interested in the province which he governed. The proposal was rejected by Ismail himself, who said; "I am not a caravan-thief; whatever is decreed by God, will occur." Selim I eventually defeated Ismail at
1144-419: A common Persianate model of culture and kingship. Before his defeat at Chaldiran in 1514, Ismail not only identified himself as the reincarnation of Alid figures such as Ali and Husayn , but also as the personification of the divine light of investiture ( farr ) that had radiated in the ancient Iranian shahs Darius , Khosrow I Anushirvan ( r. 531–579 ), Shapur I ( r. 240–270 ), since
1287-507: A counterattack and entrapment by fresh Safavid forces called in from the interior, forced the triumphant Ottomans to withdraw prematurely. This allowed Ismail to recover. Among the booty from Tabriz was Ismail's favorite wife, for whose release the Sultan demanded huge concessions, which were refused. Despite his defeat at the Battle of Chaldiran, Ismail quickly recovered most of his kingdom, from east of
1430-418: 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
1573-518: A din, all his forces would have been routed and put to edge of the sword. He also adds that: If the Turks had been beaten in the battle of Chaldiran, the power of Ismail would have become greater than that of Tamerlane, as by the fame alone of such a victory he would have made himself absolute lord of the East. Shah Ismail's death ensued after a few years of a very saddening and depressing period of his life. After
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#17328585471631716-645: A fleet to plunder the shores and to attempt to capture the city. This expedition did not seriously affect Trebizond itself, but attacked Trebizond's dependencies in the Crimea and was partly destroyed by a storm on its return journey. The Ottomans did not make another attack on the Empire of Trebizond until the reign of the next Sultan, Mehmed II . In February 1451 the Byzantine diplomat George Sphrantzes arrived in Trebizond seeking
1859-500: 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
2002-417: 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
2145-482: A march against Urum The Imam of Ali's descent is coming I bow down and kissed his Hand The Imam of Ali's descent is coming He fills the cups step by step In his stable only noble Arab horses His ancestry, he is the son of the Shah The Imam of Ali's descent is coming The fields are marked step by step His rival makes his heart aching Red-green is the young warrior dressed The Imam of Ali's descent
2288-529: 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
2431-504: A significant Sufi order in Gilan , from his spiritual master and father-in-law Zahed Gilani . The order was later known as the Safavid. One genealogy claimed that Sheikh Safi (the founder of the order and Ismael's ancestor) was a lineal descendant of Ali . Ismail also proclaimed himself the Mahdi and a reincarnation of Ali. In 1488, the father of Ismail was killed in a battle at Tabasaran against
2574-779: 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 is a continuation of Middle Persian , an official language of
2717-580: 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
2860-482: A unified country under native Iranian rule. Although many Iranian dynasties rose to power amidst this whole period, it was only under the Buyids that a vast part of Iran properly returned to Iranian rule (945–1055). The dynasty founded by Ismail I would rule for over two centuries, being one of the greatest Iranian empires and at its height being amongst the most powerful empires of its time, ruling all of present-day Iran,
3003-505: 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 is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by
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#17328585471633146-558: 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
3289-654: 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
3432-399: Is coming He lets him seen often on the field No one knows the secret of the saviour Shah of the world goodman Haydar's grandson The Imam of Ali's descent is coming Pir Sultan Abdal, I am, if i could see this Submit my self, if I could wipe my face at him From ere he is the leader of the 12 Imams The Imam of Ali's descent is coming An important feature of the Safavid society
3575-425: 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
3718-455: 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
3861-468: 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 ),
4004-570: 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
4147-451: Is reddish; he only wears moustachios, and uses his left hand instead of his right. He is as brave as a game cock, and stronger than any of his lords; in the archery contests, out of the ten apples that are knocked down, he knocks down seven. Ismail's greatest legacy was establishing an empire which lasted over 200 years. As Alexander Mikaberidze states, "The Safavid dynasty would rule for two more centuries [after Ismail's death] and establish
4290-486: 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
4433-436: 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
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4576-502: 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
4719-577: The Nasihatnāme , a book of advice, and the unfinished Dahnāme , a book which extols the virtues of love—both written in the same Turkoman Turkish (i.e. proto-Azeri Turkic). Along with the poet Imadaddin Nasimi , Khatā'ī is considered to be among the first proponents of using a simpler Azerbaijani language in verse that would appeal to a broader audience. His work is most popular in Azerbaijan, as well as among
4862-631: The Ak Koyunlu . He also pursued Western support through effecting a union with the Roman Catholic Church . As early as 1434 he had responded to the letters of Pope Eugenius IV , in marked contrast to earlier emperors of Trebizond, who had ignored papal missives. The Metropolitan of Trebizond joined the Byzantine clergy at the Council of Basel-Ferrara-Florence (1438-1439). However, these approaches to
5005-489: The Battle of Chaldiran , Ismail lost his supernatural air and the aura of invincibility, gradually falling into heavy drinking . He retired to his palace and never again participated in a military campaign, and left the affairs of the state to his vizier Mirza Shah Husayn , who became his close friend and Nadeem (i.e. drinking companion). This allowed Mirza Shah Husayn to gain influence and expand his authority. Mirza Shah Husayn
5148-513: The Bektashis of Turkey . There is a large body of Alevi and Bektashi poetry that has been attributed to him. The major impact of his religious writings, in the long run, was the conversion of Persia from Sunni to Shia Islam. Examples of his poems are: Today I have come to the world as a Master. Know truly that I am Haydar's son. I am Fereydun , Khosrow , Jamshid , and Zahak . I am Zal 's son ( Rostam ) and Alexander. The mystery of I am
5291-651: 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
5434-606: The Kabasites , offered to act as intermediaries; however, an interpolator of the History of Chalkokondyles, or Pseudo-Chalkokondyles, states that they were John's "secret accomplices" for some of the Kabasitai had agreed to allow two of John's archontes into Emperor Alexios' tent, and once inside the archontes murdered Alexios around midnight. According to Pseudo-Chalkokondyles, John had instructed them to only bring his father to him, but
5577-494: The Kule boylu . John IV was married twice, including Bagrationi daughter of King Alexander I of Georgia . John was in the past believed to have had as many as three children—a son and either one or two daughters. However, researchers from Kuršanskis in 1979 onwards consider it likely that John had only one child—Theodora Megale Komnene, better known by her Mongol appellation " Despina Hatun " (who married Uzun Hassan ). Previously,
5720-776: The Kura River in December 1500, and marched towards the Shirvanshah 's state. They defeated the forces of the Shirvanshah Farrukh Yassar near Cabanı (present-day Shamakhi Rayon , Azerbaijan Republic ) or at Gulistan (present-day Gülüstan, Goranboy , Nagorno-Karabakh ), and subsequently went on to conquer Baku . Thus, Shirvan and its dependencies (up to southern Dagestan in the north) were now Ismail's. The Shirvanshah line nevertheless continued to rule Shirvan under Safavid suzerainty for some more years, until 1538, when, during
5863-524: The Lake Van to the Persian Gulf . However, the Ottomans managed to annex for the first time Eastern Anatolia and parts of Mesopotamia , as well as briefly northwestern Iran. The Venetian ambassador Caterino Zeno describes the events as follows: The monarch [Selim], seeing the slaughter, began to retreat, and to turn about, and was about to fly, when Sinan, coming to the rescue at the time of need, caused
Ismail I - Misplaced Pages Continue
6006-741: The Republic of Azerbaijan , Armenia , most of Georgia , the North Caucasus , and Iraq , as well as parts of modern-day Turkey , Syria , Pakistan , Afghanistan , Uzbekistan , and Turkmenistan . It also reasserted the Iranian identity in large parts of Greater Iran . The legacy of the Safavid Empire was also the revival of Iran as an economic stronghold between East and West , the establishment of an efficient state and bureaucracy based upon " checks and balances ", its architectural innovations , and patronage for fine arts . One of his first actions
6149-581: 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
6292-517: The Shahnameh , helped him to represent himself as the heir to the Iranian model of kingship. According to the modern historian Abbas Amanat, Ismail was motivated to visualize himself as a shah of the Shahnameh , possibly Kaykhosrow , the archetype of a great Iranian king, and the person who overcame the Turanian king Afrasiyab , the nemesis of Iran. From an Iranian perspective, Afrasiyab's kingdom of Turan
6435-571: The Shahnameh ; his oldest son was named Tahmasp, after the last shah of the Pishdadian dynasty ; his third son Sam after the champion of the Pishdadian shah Manuchehr and ancestor of the celebrated warrior-hero Rostam ; his youngest son Bahram after the Sasanian shah Bahram V ( r. 420–438 ), famous for his romantic life and hunting feats. Ismail's expertise in Persian poetic tales such as
6578-681: The Sufi Muslim ascetic Abdul Qadir Gilani in 1508. Ismail I was also a prolific poet who under the pen name Khaṭāʾī ( Persian / Azerbaijani : خطائی , lit. 'the Cathayan ') contributed greatly to the literary development of the Azerbaijani language . He also contributed to Persian literature , though few of his Persian writings survive. Ismail I was born to Martha and Shaykh Haydar on July 17, 1487, in Ardabil . His father, Haydar,
6721-655: 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
6864-688: 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
7007-505: The Turkic Azeri population. Ismail was bilingual in Persian and a Southern Turkic dialect, a precursor (i.e. "proto" version) of modern Azeri Turkic . His ancestry was mixed, from various ethnic groups such as Georgians , Greeks , Kurds and Turkomans ; the majority of scholars agree that his empire was an Iranian one. In 700/1301, Safi al-Din assumed the leadership of the Zahediyeh ,
7150-413: The battle of Chaldiran in 1514. Ismail's army was more mobile and his soldiers were better prepared, but the Ottomans prevailed due in large part to their efficient modern army, and possession of artillery, black powder and muskets. Ismail was wounded and almost captured in battle. Selim entered the Iranian capital of Tabriz in triumph on September 5, but did not linger. A mutiny among his troops, fearing
7293-578: The battle of Sharur on 1 Jumada al-Thani 907 / 22 December 1501, making Ḥayātī's book entitled Tārīkh (1554) the only known narrative source to give the exact date of Shah Ismail's ascent to the throne. After defeating an Aq Qoyunlu army in 1502, Ismail took the title of "Shah of Iran". In the same year he gained possession of Erzincan and Erzurum , while a year later, in 1503, he conquered Eraq-e Ajam and Fars . See also: Battle of Hamadan (1503) One year later he conquered Mazandaran , Gorgan , and Yazd . In 1507, he conquered Diyarbakır . During
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#17328585471637436-483: 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
7579-480: The pansebastos and scattering the army. John escaped by means of his fleet, and made it back to Trebizond. Shaykh Junayd soon arrived before the walls of Trebizond, but after three days he found the walls impregnable and marched his army south to ravage the district of Mesochaldia instead. No contemporary chronicler or historian recorded the actual date of John's death. Beginning with Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer , modern scholars have inferred it from two records: one
7722-537: The vakil ( vicegerent ) of the empire and the commander-in-chief ( amir al-umara ) of the Qizilbash army. His army was composed of tribal units, the majority of which were Turkmen from Anatolia and Syria with the remainder Kurds and Čaḡatāy. He also appointed a former Iranian vizier of the Aq Qoyunlu, named Amir Zakariya, as his vizier . After proclaiming himself Shah, Ismail also proclaimed Twelver Shi'ism to be
7865-479: 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 ,
8008-440: The 1430s (E. Janssens) through the 1440s (von Hammer, Finlay, and Miller) to 1456 (Shukurov) or 1456-58 ( Anthony Bryer ). John assembled his land and naval forces, then assisted by his pansebastos sailed forth to meet the Shaikh. The two armies met at Kapanion. John had planned to attack Junayd from both land and sea; however, a strong wind prevented the sailors from landing and the Sheikh's men successfully counteracted, killing
8151-415: The Alexander of (my) contemporaries. Look you, Yazīd, polytheist and the adept of the Accursed one, I am free from the Ka'ba of hypocrites. In me is Prophethood (and) the mystery of Holiness. I follow the path of Muhammad Mustafā . I have conquered the world at the point of (my) sword. I am the Qanbar of Murtaza 'Ali. My sire is Safī, my father Haydar. Truly I am the Ja'far of the audacious. I am
8294-435: The Aq Qoyunlu. Ismail then began destroying Sunni sites in Baghdad, including tombs of Abbasid Caliphs and tombs of Imam Abū Ḥanīfah and Abdul Qadir Gilani . By 1510, he had conquered the whole of Iran (including Shirvan ), southern Dagestan (with its important city of Derbent ), Mesopotamia , Armenia , Khorasan , and Eastern Anatolia , and had made the Georgian kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti his vassals. In
8437-572: 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
8580-444: The Byzantine court in 1429 and had eventually married Maria Gattilusio, the daughter of the Genoese lord of Lesbos . The apprehensiveness towards Genoa was contrasted by friendlier relations with Venice, although the Venetians never recovered their former influence in the Black Sea. At some point in his reign, John was faced with an attack by the ruler of Ardabil , Shaykh Junayd , who marched upon Trebziond: proposed dates range from
8723-403: The Commander-in-chief and President of Azerbaijan ) 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 the Indo-European languages . Persian
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#17328585471638866-430: The Emperor of Trebizond for news of John arriving at Caffa had reached Genoa. Here he found a large vessel full of arms , and in exchange for appointing its owner his protostrator the vessel and its crew brought him home in 1429. Landing at Saint Phokas (the modern Kordyle ), John and his supporters made their base in the monastery. His father Alexios rode out with his retinue and camped nearby. An important family,
9009-449: The Genoese of Caffa advanced on Trebizond with their fleet, threatening to set up an embargo. The disputes were never fully settled and seriously injured commerce in the Black Sea . John's hostile attitude towards Genoa was explained by one contemporary, the Spanish traveller Pero Tafur , as a fear of a potential Byzantine-Genoese alliance that could place his brother Alexander on the throne of Trebizond. Alexander had fled Trebizond for
9152-500: 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
9295-429: 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
9438-439: The Papacy were not marked by harmonious relations with the most important Western power concerned with Trebizond, the Republic of Genoa. Although John owed his throne to a Genoese crew, he repeatedly failed to reimburse the Genoese for debts owed to them in 1431, and in 1441 refused to provide reparations for a Genoese ship ordered seized and looted six years earlier. Further diplomatic initiatives by Genoa failed in 1443, and in 1447
9581-459: 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
9724-425: 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
9867-401: 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
10010-487: 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,
10153-405: The Qizilbash which had ceased temporarily before the defeat at Chaldiran resurfaced intensely immediately after his death and led to ten years of civil war (930–40/1524–33) until Shah Tahmasp regained control of the affairs of the state. The Safavids later briefly lost Balkh and Kandahar to the Mughals , and nearly lost Herat to the Uzbeks . During Ismail's reign, mainly in the late 1510s,
10296-453: The Safavid era. In the Safavid period, the famous Azeri folk romance Shah Ismail emerged. According to Azerbaijani literary critic Hamid Arasly , this story is related to Ismail I. But it is also possible that it is dedicated to Ismail II. Shah Ismayil is the name of an Azerbaijani mugham opera in 6 acts and 7 scenes composed by Muslim Magomayev , in 1915–19. Shah Ismail Order (the highest Azerbaijani military award presented by
10439-524: The Safavid forces, and both sides met at the battle of Sharur in which Ismail's army came out victorious despite being outnumbered by four to one. Shortly before his attack on Shirvan, Ismail had made the Georgian kings Constantine II and Alexander I of respectively the kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti , attack the Ottoman possessions near Tabriz , on the promise that he would cancel the tribute that Constantine
10582-567: The Safavids soon became even more numerous, as Ismail and his successors included and promoted Kurds , Arabs , Georgians , Circassians , and Armenians into their imperial program. Moreover, the conquests of Genghis Khan and Timur had merged Mongolian and Chagatai aspects into the Persian bureaucratic culture, terminology, seals, and symbols. Ismail is also known for his poetry using the pen name Khaṭāʾī ( Persian / Azerbaijani : خطائی , lit. 'the Cathayan '). He wrote in
10725-479: 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
10868-575: 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)
11011-457: 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
11154-565: The Shah's slave full of shortcomings. At thy gate I am the smallest and the last [servant]. My name is Shāh Ismā'īl. I am God's mystery. I am the leader of all these ghāzīs. My mother is Fātima , my father is ' Ali ; and eke I am the Pīr of the Twelve Imāms . I have recovered my father's blood from Yazīd . Be sure that I am of Haydarian essence. I am the living Khidr and Jesus, son of Mary. I am
11297-592: The Turkish Sultan. It may be both versions contain part of the truth: although John ascended to the throne on the murder of his father, it may be the Turkish Sultan provided John with financial or military support to return to Trebizond. His brother Alexander was exiled to Constantinople, where the Spanish Ambassador Tafur met him eight years later. In 1442 the Ottoman Sultan Murad II sent out
11440-504: The Turkish of Safavid Iran and Persian, although his extant verses in the former vastly outnumber the latter. The (Turkoman) Turkish spoken in Iran, which was commonly known as Turki , was not the Turkish of Istanbul , but a sort of precursor (i.e "proto" form ) of modern-day Azerbaijani or Azeri Turkic (see also; Ajem-Turkic ). Vladimir Minorsky characterized Ismail's divan as written in
11583-534: The Turkoman tribesmen in Azerbaijan and eastern Anatolia as the same precursor of Azeri Turkish (i.e. proto-Azeri) that he was able to converse in. Ismail is considered an important figure in the literary history of Azerbaijani language. According to Encyclopædia Iranica , "Ismail was a skillful poet who used prevalent themes and images in lyric and didactic-religious poetry with ease and some degree of originality". He
11726-486: The accession of Sultan Selim I in 1512 to the Ottoman throne, and became the casus belli which led to Selim's decision to invade Safavid Iran two years later. Selim and Ismail had been exchanging a series of belligerent letters prior to the attack. While the Safavid forces were at Chaldiran and planning on how to confront the Ottomans, Mohammad Khan Ustajlu , who served as the governor of Diyarbakır , and Nur-Ali Khalifa ,
11869-579: The age of 12, he came out of hiding and returned to what is now Iranian Azerbaijan along with his followers. Ismail's rise to power was made possible by the Turkoman tribes of Anatolia and Azerbaijan, who formed the most important part of the Qizilbash movement. In the summer of 1500, Ismail rallied about 7,000 Qizilbash troops at Erzincan , including members of the Ustajlu, Rumlu, Takkalu, Dhu'l-Qadar, Afshar , Qajar , and Varsaq . Qizilbash forces passed over
12012-493: 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
12155-495: The artillery to be brought up and fired on both the janissaries [sic] and the Persians. The Persian horses hearing the thunder of those infernal machines, scattered and divided themselves over the plain, not obeying their riders bit or spur anymore, from the terror they were in ... It is certainly said, that if it had not been for the artillery, which terrified in the manner related the Persian horses which had never before heard such
12298-452: The basis for the modern-nation state of Iran." Even after the fall of the Safavids in 1736, their cultural and political influence endured through the succeeding dynasties of the Afsharid , Zand , Qajar , and Pahlavi states and into the contemporary Islamic Republic of Iran as well as the neighboring Republic of Azerbaijan , where Shia Islam is still the dominant religion as it was during
12441-531: The citadel until the palace staff released them. John then fled to Georgia . As a result, his brother Alexander was designated despotes in his place. While in Georgia John married Bagrationi , a daughter of King Alexander I , but he could not obtain sufficient support to establish himself in Trebizond. A Genoese document dated November 8, 1427 orders the consul at Caffa in the Crimea to keep on good terms with
12584-456: The clergy as so-called vaqf . They would thus retain the official ownership and secure their land from being confiscated by royal commissioners or local governors, as long as a percentage of the revenues from the land went to the ulama. Increasingly, members of the religious class, particularly the mujtahids and the seyyeds , gained full ownership of these lands, and, according to contemporary historian Iskandar Munshi , Persia started to witness
12727-457: 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
12870-512: 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
13013-573: The discovery of a memorandum in the Genoese archives. Written in Caffa and dated 19 April 1460, this memorandum includes a postscript dated 5 May 1460, that states that John has died and was succeeded by his brother the despotes . In discussing this document, Thierre Ganchou explains that it confirms clearly a terminus ante quem for John's death of 22 April 1460. Because this document shows that this news reached Caffa between 19 April and 5 May, and that Trebizond
13156-567: The early 1510s, Ismail's rapidly expansionist policies had made the Safavid border in Asia Minor shift even further west. In 1511, there was a widespread pro-Safavid rebellion in southern Anatolia by the Takkalu Qizilbash tribe, known as the Şahkulu Rebellion , and an Ottoman army that was sent in order to put down the rebellion down was defeated. A large-scale incursion into Eastern Anatolia by Safavid ghazis under Nūr-ʿAlī Ḵalīfa coincided with
13299-439: The emergence of a new and significant group of landowners. Ismail was described by contemporaries as having a regal appearance, gentlemanly in quality and youthfulness . He also had a fair complexion and red hair . An Italian traveller describes Ismail as follows: This Sophi is fair, handsome, and very pleasing; not very tall, but of a light and well-framed figure; rather stout than slight, with broad shoulders. His hair
13442-631: The empire had been deeply in debt, but now his new emperor was trying to change that. His conversation with Sphrantzes should have warned John IV of the new peril which had come forth. After the Fall of Constantinople to Mehmed II in 1453, Trebizond and the Morea were left as the last remnants of the Byzantine imperial tradition. Mehmed II immediately summoned John to pay tribute in Constantinople and imposed heavy tolls on Trapezuntine and Venetian shipping through
13585-590: The era of the Achaemenids and Sasanians. This was a typical Safavid combination of Islamic and pre-Islamic Iranian motifs. The Safavids also included and promoted Turkic and Mongol aspects from the Central Asian steppe, such as giving high-ranking positions to Turkic leaders, and utilizing Turkic tribal clans for their aspirations in war. They likewise included Turco-Mongolian titles such as khan and bahadur to their growing collection of titles. The cultural aspects of
13728-632: 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
13871-607: The first steps for the Habsburg–Persian alliance were taken with Charles V and Ludwig II of Hungary being in contact with a view of combining against the common Ottoman Turkish enemy. From an early age, Ismail was acquainted with the Iranian cultural legacy. When he reached Lahijan in 1494, he gifted Mirza Ali Karkiya a copy of the medieval Persian epic Shahnameh (Book of Kings) with over 300 illustrations. Owing to his fondness of Iranian national legends, Ismail named three of his four sons after mythological shahs and heroes of
14014-447: The following phylogenetic classification: John IV of Trebizond John had been designated despotes , or heir apparent, by his father as early as 1417, but had come into conflict with his parents. According to a passage considered to be an interpolation in the history of Laonikos Chalkokondyles , he accused his mother Theodora of having an affair with an unnamed protovestiarios , whom he killed, then held his parents captive in
14157-605: The forces of the Shirvanshah Farrukh Yassar and his overlord, the Aq Qoyunlu , a Turkic tribal federation which controlled most of Iran . In 1494, the Aq Qoyunlu captured Ardabil , killing Ali Mirza Safavi , the eldest son of Haydar, and forcing the 7-year-old Ismail to go into hiding in Gilan , where under the Kar-Kiya ruler Soltan-Ali Mirza , he received education under the guidance of scholars. When Ismail reached
14300-562: 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
14443-471: 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
14586-468: The hereafter the light of all is Muhammed, valiant thou' Ali valiant forgive this sinner, i lead my face to your holy dergah my soul stayed in blasphemy, thou' will not insist on my sin i soughed shelter and came to this revealed refuge the light of all is Muhammed, valiant thou' Ali valiant Hata-i says: "thou' Ali, my body is filled up with sins" the light of all is Muhammed, valiant thou' Ali valiant From Pir Sultan Abdal : He makes
14729-410: 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
14872-482: The men thought John would be more grateful if they killed his father the Emperor, and did so. They learned they had misunderstood John's wishes: he had the eyes of one man put out and the hand of the other cut off. On 26 April 1429, John became emperor of Trebizond, succeeding his father. Pero Tafur provides a detail at variance with the account of Pseudo-Chalkokondyles, for he reports that John became emperor with help of
15015-432: 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
15158-525: 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
15301-461: 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
15444-448: 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
15587-588: The neighbouring Ottoman empire and the Safavid state on a collision course. As the Encyclopaedia Iranica states, "As orthodox or Sunni Muslims, the Ottomans had reason to view with alarm the progress of Shīʿī ideas in the territories under their control, but there was also a grave political danger that the Ṣafawīya, if allowed to extend its influence still further, might bring about the transfer of large areas in Asia Minor from Ottoman to Persian allegiance". By
15730-414: 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
15873-662: 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
16016-451: The official and compulsory religion of Iran. He enforced this new standard by the sword, dissolving Sunni Brotherhoods and executing anyone who refused to comply to the newly implemented Shi'ism. Qāsim Beg Ḥayātī Tabrīzī (fl. 961/1554), a poet and bureaucrat of early Safavid era, states that he had heard from several witnesses that Shah Ismail's enthronement took place in Tabriz immediately after
16159-529: 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
16302-628: 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
16445-631: 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
16588-456: The reign of Ismail's son, Tahmasp I (r. 1524–1576), from then on it came to be ruled by a Safavid governor. After the conquest, Ismail had Alexander I of Kakheti send his son Demetre to Shirvan to negotiate a peace agreement. The successful conquest had alarmed the ruler of the Aq Qoyunlu , Alvand, who subsequently proceeded north from Tabriz, and crossed the Aras River in order to challenge
16731-540: 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
16874-518: The return the captives Hizir had taken. John sent his brother David to ratify the treaty before Mehmed II himself, which he did in 1458, but the tribute was raised to 3,000 gold pieces. Aware of the Ottoman advance against the remaining Byzantine possessions in the Morea, John IV attempted to bolster his position by resorting to an old family tradition; the same year David delivered the tribute to Mehmed, John married his daughter Theodora to Uzun Hasan of
17017-453: The same year, Husayn Beg Shamlu lost his office as commander-in-chief in favor of a man of humble origins, Mohammad Beg Ustajlu. Ismail also appointed Najm-e Sani as the new vakil of the empire due to the death of Mas'ud Gilani. Ismail I moved against the Uzbeks . In the battle near the city of Merv , some 17,000 Qizilbash warriors trapped an Uzbek force. The Uzbek ruler, Muhammad Shaybani ,
17160-658: The same year, Ismail appointed the Iranian Amir Najm al-Din Mas'ud Gilani as the new vakil . This was because Ismail had begun favoring the Iranians more than the Qizilbash, who, although they had played a crucial role in Ismail's campaigns, possessed too much power and were no longer considered trustworthy. One year later, Ismail forced the rulers of Khuzestan , Lorestan , and Kurdistan to become his vassals. The same year, Ismail and Husayn Beg Shamlu seized Baghdad , putting an end to
17303-607: 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
17446-561: 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
17589-741: 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,
17732-472: The straits. John apparently failed to cooperate, and in 1456 the Sultan dispatched his governor of Amasya Hizir Bey to attack Trebizond by both land and sea. According to Chalkokondyles, Hizir raided the countryside, even penetrating into the marketplace of Trebizond, capturing altogether about two thousand people. The city was deserted due to plague and likely to fall; John made his submission and agreed to pay an annual tribute of 2,000 gold pieces in return for
17875-475: The text of Reg. Lat. 557, a manuscript now at the Vatican Library . Noting that the letter appears between two other documents dated to 1459, Ganchou blames a "lazy scribe" for writing that year when transcribing this letter, instead of the correct 1460. Once these two sources are accepted as plausible, then there is no longer any basis to reject the evidence of the lost inscription Fallmerayer reported seeing on
18018-515: The truth is hidden in this my heart. I am the Absolute Truth and what I say is Truth. I belong to the religion of the "Adherent of the Ali" and on the Shah's path I am a guide to every one who says: "I am a Muslim." My sign is the "Crown of Happiness". I am the signet-ring on Sulayman 's finger. Muhammad is made of light, Ali of Mystery. I am a pearl in the sea of Absolute Reality. I am Khatai,
18161-478: 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
18304-452: The year 6968 (= A.D. 1 September 1459 – 31 August 1460); however this inscription was never seen by any other historian, despite determined efforts, and the citadel itself has since been destroyed. Since William Miller wrote his book on Trebizond, the scholarly consensus dated his death to 1458, although with some dissent to 1459 (Lampsides, Kursanskis) or simply state the broad limits 1458/9-1460 (Anthony Bryer). This may have been settled with
18447-425: Was a letter from John's successor and brother, David of Trebizond, dated 22 April 1459, but because it was associated with the dubious embassy led by Ludovico da Bologna , and internal inconsistencies, this letter has been considered at the least a partial forgery; the other record was a damaged inscription Fallmerayer reported to have seen in the citadel Kule boylu ("high tower"), which was made by John and dated to
18590-578: 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
18733-439: Was also deeply influenced by the Persian literary tradition of Iran, particularly by the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi , which probably explains the fact that he named all of his sons after Shahnameh -characters. Dickson and Welch suggest that Ismail's "Shāhnāmaye Shāhī" was intended as a present to his young son Tahmasp. After defeating Muhammad Shaybani 's Uzbeks, Ismail asked Hatefi , a famous poet from Jam (Khorasan) , to write
18876-505: Was assassinated in 1523 by a group of Qizilbash officers, after which Ismail appointed Zakariya's son Jalal al-Din Mohammad Tabrizi as his new vizier . Ismail died on 23 May 1524 aged 36 and was buried in Ardabil . He was succeeded by his son Tahmasp I . The consequences of the defeat at Chaldiran were also psychological for Ismail; his relationships with the Qizilbash followers were fundamentally altered. The tribal rivalries between
19019-484: Was caught and killed trying to escape the battle, and the shah had his skull made into a jewelled drinking goblet. In 1512, Najm-e Sani was killed during a clash with the Uzbeks, which made Ismail appoint Abd al-Baqi Yazdi as the new vakil of the empire. The active recruitment of support for the Safavid cause among the Turcoman tribes of Eastern Anatolia , among tribesmen who were Ottoman subjects, had inevitably placed
19162-673: Was commonly identified with the land of the Turks, in particular with the Uzbek Khanate of Bukhara in Central Asia . After Ismail defeated the Uzbeks, his victory was portrayed in Safavid records as a victory over the mythological Turanians. However, this fondness of Iranian legends was not only restricted to that of Ismail and Safavid Iran; Both Muhammad Shaybani , Selim I , and later Babur and his Mughal progeny, all associated themselves with these legends. Regardless of its increasing differences, Western, Central, and South Asia all followed
19305-417: Was forced to pay to the Aq Qoyunlu once Tabriz was captured. After eventually conquering Tabriz and Nakhchivan , Ismail broke the promise he had made to Constantine II, and made both the kingdoms of Kartli as well as Kakheti his vassals . In July 1501, following his occupation of Tabriz , Ismail took the title Shah of Iran ( Pādshāh-i Irān ). He appointed his former guardian and mentor Husayn Beg Shamlu as
19448-456: Was not more than a two weeks' journey from Caffa, this strongly suggests John died in April 1460. Ganchou explains the discrepancies in the rest of the evidence facilely. The year "1459" in the letter carried by the embassy of Ludovico da Bologna was an error in transcription: the original letter has not been found, and may no longer exist. The first time this letter was printed was in 1496, taken from
19591-586: 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
19734-600: 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
19877-658: Was the sheikh of the Safavid tariqa (Sufi order) and a direct descendant of its Kurdish founder, Safi-ad-din Ardabili (1252–1334). Ismail was the last in this line of hereditary Grand Masters of the order, prior to his ascent to a ruling dynasty. His mother Martha, better known as Halima Begum , was the daughter of Uzun Hasan , the ruler of the Turkoman Aq Qoyunlu dynasty, by his Pontic Greek wife Theodora Megale Komnene, better known as Despina Khatun . Despina Khatun
20020-456: Was the alliance that emerged between the ulama (the religious class) and the merchant community. The latter included merchants trading in the bazaars, the trade and artisan guilds ( asnaf ) and members of the quasi-religious organizations run by dervishes ( futuvva ). Because of the relative insecurity of property ownership in Persia, many private landowners secured their lands by donating them to
20163-525: Was the daughter of Emperor John IV of Trebizond . She had married Uzun Hassan in a deal to protect the Empire of Trebizond from the Ottoman Turks . Ismail was a great-great-grandson of Emperor Alexios IV of Trebizond and King Alexander I of Georgia . Roger Savory suggests that Ismail's family was of Iranian origin, likely from Iranian Kurdistan , and later moved to Azerbaijan where they assimilated into
20306-417: Was the proclamation of the Twelver denomination of Shia Islam as the official religion of his newly-founded Safavid Empire , marking one of the most important turning points in the history of Islam , which had major consequences for the ensuing history of Iran. He caused sectarian tensions in the Middle East when he destroyed the tombs of the Abbasid caliphs , the Sunni Imam Abu Hanifa an-Nu'man , and
20449-425: 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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