Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

Persians
(Redirected from Persian people)

The Persians (/ˈpɜːrʒənz/ PUR-zhənz or

Persians
/ˈpɜːrʃənz/ PUR-shənz) are a Western Iranian
ethnic group who comprise the majority of the ‫ایرانی‬/‫فارسی‬/‫پارسیها‬
population of Iran.[4] They share a common Total population
cultural system and are native speakers of the c. 60+ million[1]
Persian language[6][7][8] as well as of the
Regions with significant populations
languages that are closely related to Persian.[9]
51–65%[2][3][4] (also including Gilaks and
The ancient Persians were originally an ancient Iran Mazanderanis)[2] of the total population
Iranian people who had migrated to the region of Languages
Persis (corresponding to the modern-day Iranian Persian, other Iranian languages
province of Fars) by the 9th century BCE.[10][11]
Religion
Together with their compatriot allies, they
established and ruled some of the world's most Majority:
Shia Islam
powerful empires[12][11] that are well-recognized
Minority:
for their massive cultural, political, and social
Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Judaism, Baháʼí
influence, which covered much of the territory
Faith, Sunni Islam, and various others[5]
and population of the ancient world.[13][14][15]
Throughout history, the Persian people have Related ethnic groups

contributed greatly to art and science.[16][17][18] Other Iranian peoples

Persian literature is one of the world's most
prominent literary traditions.[19]

In contemporary terminology, people from Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan who

natively speak the Persian language are known as Tajiks, with the former two countries having
their own dialects of Persian known as Dari and Tajiki, respectively; whereas those in the
Caucasus (primarily in the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan and Dagestan, Russia), albeit
heavily assimilated, are known as Tats.[20][21] Historically, however, the terms Tajik and Tat
were used synonymously and interchangeably with Persian.[20] Many influential Persian figures
hailed from outside of Iran's present-day borders—to the northeast in Afghanistan and Central
Asia, and to a lesser extent within the Caucasus proper to the northwest.[22][23] In historical
contexts, especially in English, "Persian" may be defined more loosely (often as a national
identity) to cover all subjects of the ancient Persian polities, regardless of their ethnic
background.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 1 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

Ethnonym

Etymology
The term Persian, meaning "from Persia", derives from Latin Persia, itself deriving from Greek
Persís (Περσίς),[24] a Hellenized form of Old Persian Pārsa (!"#$), which evolves into
Fārs (‫ )فارس‬in modern Persian.[25] In the Bible, particularly in the books of Daniel, Esther, Ezra,
and Nehemya, it is given as Pārās (‫))ָ'ס‬.

A Greek folk etymology connected the name to Perseus, a legendary character in Greek
mythology. Herodotus recounts this story,[26] devising a foreign son, Perses, from whom the
Persians took the name. Apparently, the Persians themselves knew the story,[27] as Xerxes I
tried to use it to suborn the Argives during his invasion of Greece, but ultimately failed to do so.

History of usage
Although Persis (Persia proper) was only one of the provinces of ancient Iran,[28] varieties of
this term (e.g., Persia) were adopted through Greek sources and used as an exonym for all of the
Persian Empire for many years.[29] Thus, especially in the Western world, the names Persia and
Persian came to refer to all of Iran and its subjects.[29][10]

Some medieval and early modern Islamic sources also used cognates of the term Persian to
refer to various Iranian peoples and languages, including the speakers of Khwarazmian,[30]
Mazanderani,[31] and Old Azeri.[32] 10th-century Iraqi historian Al-Masudi refers to Pahlavi,
Dari, and Azari as dialects of the Persian language.[33] In 1333, medieval Moroccan traveler and
scholar Ibn Battuta referred to the Afghans of Kabul as a specific sub-tribe of the Persians.[34]
Lady Mary (Leonora Woulfe) Sheil, in her observation of Iran during the Qajar era, states that
the Kurds and the Leks would consider themselves as belonging to the race of the "old
Persians".[35]

On 21 March 1935, the then-king of Iran Reza Shah of the Pahlavi dynasty issued a decree
asking the international community to use the term Iran, the native name of the country, in
formal correspondence. However, the term Persian is still historically used to designate the
predominant population of the Iranian peoples living in the Iranian cultural continent.[36][37]

History
Persia is first attested in Assyrian sources from the third millennium BC in the Old Assyrian
form Parahše, designating a region belonging to the Sumerians. The name of this region was
adopted by a nomadic ancient Iranian people who migrated to the region in the west and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 2 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

southwest of Lake Urmia, eventually becoming known as "the Persians".[10][38] The ninth-
century BC Neo-Assyrian inscription of the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, found at Nimrud,
gives it in the Late Assyrian forms Parsua and Parsumaš as a region and a people located in the
Zagros Mountains, the latter likely having migrated southward and transferred the name of the
region with them to what would become Persis (Persia proper, i.e., modern-day Fars), and that
is considered to be the earliest attestation to the ancient Persian people.[39][40][41][42][43]

The ancient Persians played a major role in the downfall of the

Neo-Assyrian Empire.[44] The Medes, another group of ancient
Iranian people, unified the region under an empire centered in
Media, which would become the region's leading cultural and
political power of the time by 612 BC.[45] Meanwhile, under the
dynasty of the Achaemenids, the Persians formed a vassal state to
the central Median power. In 552 BC, the Achaemenid Persians
revolted against the Median monarchy, leading to the victory of
Cyrus the Great over the throne in 550 BC. The Persians spread
their influence to the rest of what is considered to be the Iranian
Plateau, and assimilated with the non-Iranian indigenous groups of
Ancient Persian attire worn
the region, including the Elamites and the Mannaeans.[46] by soldiers and a nobleman.
The History of Costume by
At its greatest extent, the Achaemenid Empire stretched from parts Braun & Scheider (1861–
of Eastern Europe in the west to the Indus Valley in the east, 1880).
making it the largest empire the world had yet seen.[11] The
Achaemenids developed the infrastructure to support their
growing influence, including the establishment of the cities
of Pasargadae and Persepolis.[47] The empire extended as
far as the limits of the Greek city states in modern-day
mainland Greece, where the Persians and Athenians
influenced each other in what is essentially a reciprocal
cultural exchange.[48] Its legacy and impact on the kingdom
of Macedon was also notably huge,[14] even for centuries
Map of the Achaemenid Empire at its
after the withdrawal of the Persians from Europe following
greatest extent.
the Greco-Persian Wars.[14]

During the Achaemenid era, Persian colonists settled in Asia Minor.[49] In Lydia (the most
important Achaemenid satrapy), near Sardis, there was the Hyrcanian plain, which, according
to Strabo, got its name from the Persian settlers that were moved from Hyrcania.[50] Similarly
near Sardis, there was the plain of Cyrus, which further signified the presence of numerous
Persian settlements in the area.[51] In all these centuries, Lydia and Pontus were reportedly the
chief centers for the worship of the Persian gods in Asia Minor.[51] According to Pausanias, as
late as the second century AD, one could witness rituals which resembled the Persian fire
ceremony at the towns of Hyrocaesareia and Hypaepa.[51] Mithridates III of Cius, a Persian

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 3 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

nobleman and part of the Persian ruling elite of the town of

Cius, founded the Kingdom of Pontus in his later life, in
northern Asia Minor.[52][53] At the peak of its power, under
the infamous Mithridates VI the Great, the Kingdom of
Pontus also controlled Colchis, Cappadocia, Bithynia, the
Greek colonies of the Tauric Chersonesos, and for a brief
time the Roman province of Asia. After a long struggle with
Rome in the Mithridatic Wars, Pontus was defeated; part of
it was incorporated into the Roman Republic as the province Persian warriors led by Darius III in
of Bithynia and Pontus, and the eastern half survived as a the antique Alexander Mosaic
client kingdom.

Following the Macedonian conquests, the Persian colonists in Cappadocia and the rest of Asia
Minor were cut off from their co-religionists in Iran proper, but they continued to practice the
Iranian faith of their forefathers.[54] Strabo, who observed them in the Cappadocian Kingdom in
the first century BC, records (XV.3.15) that these "fire kindlers" possessed many "holy places of
the Persian Gods", as well as fire temples.[54] Strabo, who wrote during the time of Augustus
(r. 27 BC – AD 14), almost three hundred years after the fall of the Achaemenid Persian Empire,
records only traces of Persians in western Asia Minor; however, he considered Cappadocia
"almost a living part of Persia".[55]

The Iranian dominance collapsed in 330 BC following the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire
by Alexander the Great, but reemerged shortly after through the establishment of the Parthian
Empire in 247 BC, which was founded by a group of ancient Iranian people rising from Parthia.
Until the Parthian era, Iranian identity had an ethnic, linguistic, and religious value. However, it
did not yet have a political import.[56] The Parthian language, which was used as an official
language of the Parthian Empire, left influences on Persian,[57][58][59] as well as on the
neighboring Armenian language.

The Parthian monarchy was succeeded by the Persian

dynasty of the Sasanians in 224 AD. By the time of the
Sasanian Empire, a national culture that was fully aware of
being Iranian took shape, partially motivated by restoration
and revival of the wisdom of "the old sages" (dānāgān
pēšēnīgān).[56] Other aspects of this national culture
included the glorification of a great heroic past and an
A bas-relief at Naqsh-e Rustam
archaizing spirit.[56] Throughout the period, Iranian identity depicting the victory of Sasanian
reached its height in every aspect.[56] Middle Persian, which ruler Shapur I over Roman ruler
is the immediate ancestor of Modern Persian and a variety Valerian and Philip the Arab.
of other Iranian dialects,[57][60][61][62] became the official
language of the empire[63] and was greatly diffused among
Iranians.[56]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 4 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

The Parthians and the Sasanians would also extensively interact with the Romans culturally.
The Roman–Persian wars and the Byzantine–Sasanian wars would shape the landscape of
Western Asia, Europe, the Caucasus, North Africa, and the Mediterranean Basin for centuries.
For a period of over 400 years, the Sasanians and the neighboring Byzantines were recognized
as the two leading powers in the world.[64][65][66] Cappadocia in Late Antiquity, now well into
the Roman era, still retained a significant Iranian character; Stephen Mitchell notes in the
Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity: "Many inhabitants of Cappadocia were of Persian descent
and Iranian fire worship is attested as late as 465".[67]

Following the Arab conquest of the Sasanian Empire in the medieval times, the Arab caliphates
established their rule over the region for the next several centuries, during which the long
process of the Islamization of Iran took place. Confronting the cultural and linguistic
dominance of the Persians, beginning by the Umayyad Caliphate, the Arab conquerors began to
establish Arabic as the primary language of the subject peoples throughout their empire,
sometimes by force, further confirming the new political reality over the region.[68] The Arabic
term ʿAjam, denoting "people unable to speak properly", was adopted as a designation for non-
Arabs (or non-Arabic speakers), especially the Persians.[69] Although the term had developed a
derogatory meaning and implied cultural and ethnic inferiority, it was gradually accepted as a
synonym for "Persian"[68][70][71] and still remains today as a designation for the Persian-
speaking communities native to the modern Arab states of the Middle East.[72] A series of
Muslim Iranian kingdoms were later established on the fringes of the declining Abbasid
Caliphate, including that of the ninth-century Samanids, under the reign of whom the Persian
language was used officially for the first time after two centuries of no attestation of the
language,[73] now having received the Arabic script and a large Arabic vocabulary.[74] Persian
language and culture continued to prevail after the invasions and conquests by the Mongols and
the Turks (including the Ilkhanate, Ghaznavids, Seljuks, Khwarazmians, and Timurids), who
were themselves significantly Persianized, further developing in Asia Minor, Central Asia, and
South Asia, where Persian culture flourished by the expansion of the Persianate societies,
particularly those of Turco-Persian and Indo-Persian blends.

After over eight centuries of foreign rule within the region, the Iranian hegemony was
reestablished by the emergence of the Safavid Empire in the 16th century.[76] Under the Safavid
Empire, focus on Persian language and identity was further revived, and the political evolution
of the empire once again maintained Persian as the main language of the country.[77] During the
times of the Safavids and subsequent modern Iranian dynasties such as the Qajars, architectural
and iconographic elements from the time of the Sasanian Persian Empire were reincorporated,
linking the modern country with its ancient past.[78] Contemporary embracement of the legacy
of Iran's ancient empires, with an emphasis on the Achaemenid Persian Empire, developed
particularly under the reign of the Pahlavi dynasty, providing the motive of a modern
nationalistic pride.[79] Iran's modern architecture was then inspired by that of the country's
classical eras, particularly with the adoption of details from the ancient monuments in the
Achaemenid capitals Persepolis and Pasargadae and the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon.[80] Fars,
corresponding to the ancient province of Persia, with its modern capital Shiraz, became a center
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 5 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

of interest, particularly during the annual international

Shiraz Arts Festival and the 2,500th anniversary of the
founding of the Persian Empire.[81] The Pahlavi rulers
modernized Iran, and ruled it until the 1979 Revolution.

Anthropology
In modern Iran, the Persians make up the majority of the
population.[4] They are native speakers of the modern
dialects of Persian,[82] which serves as the country's official
language.[83]

Persian language
The Persian language belongs to the western group of the
Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family.
Modern Persian is classified as a continuation of Middle
Persian, the official religious and literary language of the
Sasanian Empire, itself a continuation of Old Persian, which
was used by the time of the Achaemenid Empire.[61][57][60]
Old Persian is one of the oldest Indo-European languages
attested in original text.[60] Samples of Old Persian have
been discovered in present-day Iran, Armenia, Egypt, Iraq,
Romania (Gherla),[84][85] and Turkey.[86] The oldest
attested text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun
Inscription,[87] a multilingual inscription from the time of
One of the first actions performed by
Achaemenid ruler Darius the Great carved on a cliff in Shāh Ismā'īl I of the Safavid dynasty
western Iran. was the proclamation of the Twelver
denomination of Shīʿa Islam as the
official religion of his newly founded
Related groups Persian Empire.[75]
There are several ethnic groups and communities that are
either ethnically or linguistically related to the Persian
people, living predominantly in Iran, and also within Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, the
Caucasus, Turkey, Iraq, and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf.[88]

The Tajiks are a people native to Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan who speak Persian in
a variety of dialects.[20] The Tajiks of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are native speakers of Tajik,
which is the official language of Tajikistan, and those in Afghanistan speak Dari, one of the two
official languages of Afghanistan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 6 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

The Tat people, an Iranian people native to the Caucasus

(primarily living in the Republic of Azerbaijan and the
Russian republic of Dagestan), speak a language (Tat
language) that is closely related to Persian.[89] The origin of
the Tat people is traced to an Iranian-speaking population
that was resettled in the Caucasus by the time of the
Sasanian Empire.[90][91][92][93][94][95][96]
Old Persian inscribed in cuneiform
The Lurs, an ethnic Iranian people native to western Iran,
on the Behistun Inscription.
are often associated with the Persians and the Kurds.[97]
They speak various dialects of the Luri language, which is
considered to be a descendant of Middle Persian.[98][99][62]

The Hazaras, making up the third largest ethnic group in Afghanistan,[100][101][102] speak a
variety of Persian by the name of Hazaragi,[103] which is more precisely a part of the Dari dialect
continuum.[104][105] The Aimaqs, a semi-nomadic people native to Afghanistan,[106] speak a
variety of Persian by the name of Aimaqi, which also belongs to the Dari dialect
continuum.[82][107]

Persian-speaking communities native to modern Arab countries are generally designated as

Ajam,[72] including the Ajam of Bahrain, the Ajam of Iraq, and the Ajam of Kuwait.

The Parsis are a Zoroastrian community of Persian descent who migrated to South Asia, to
escape religious persecution after the fall of the Sassanian Empire.[108] They have had a
significant role in the development of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and also played a role in
the development of Iranian nationalism during the late Qajar years and Pahlavi dynasty.[109]
They are primarily located in the western regions of India principally the states of Gujarat and
Maharashtra, with smaller communities in other parts of India and in South and Southeast
Asia.[110] They speak a dialect version of Gujarati, and no longer speak in Persian.[111] They do
however continue to use Avestan as their liturgical language.[111] The Parsis have adapted many
practices and tendencies of the Indian groups that surrounded them, such as Indian dress
norms, and the observance of many Indian festivals and ceremonies.[111]

Culture
From Persis and throughout the Median, Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian empires of
ancient Iran to the neighboring Greek city states and the kingdom of Macedon,[112][14] and later
throughout the medieval Islamic world,[113][17] all the way to modern Iran and others parts of
Eurasia, Persian culture has been extended, celebrated, and incorporated.[114][18][113][115] This is
due mainly to its geopolitical conditions, and its intricate relationship with the ever-changing
political arena once as dominant as the Achaemenid Empire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 7 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

The artistic heritage of the Persians is eclectic and has included contributions from both the east
and the west. Due to the central location of Iran, Persian art has served as a fusion point
between eastern and western traditions. Persians have contributed to various forms of art,
including calligraphy, carpet weaving, glasswork, lacquerware, marquetry (khatam), metalwork,
miniature illustration, mosaic, pottery, and textile design.[16]

5th-century BC Ancient Iranian Sasanian marble bust.

Achaemenid gold vessels. goddess Anahita National Museum of Iran,
Metropolitan Museum of depicted on a Tehran.
Art, New York City. Sasanian silver
vessel. Cleveland
Museum of Art,
Cleveland.

17th-century Persian
potteries from Isfahan.
Royal Ontario Museum,
Toronto.

Literature
The Persian language is known to have one of the world's oldest and most influential
literatures.[19] Old Persian written works are attested on several inscriptions from between the
6th and the 4th centuries BC, and Middle Persian literature is attested on inscriptions from the
Parthian and Sasanian eras and in Zoroastrian and Manichaean scriptures from between the
3rd to the 10th century AD. New Persian literature flourished after the Arab conquest of Iran
with its earliest records from the 9th century,[116] and was developed as a court tradition in
many eastern courts.[19] The Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, the works of Rumi, the Rubaiyat of
Omar Khayyam, the Panj Ganj of Nizami Ganjavi, the Divān of Hafez, The Conference of the

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 8 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

Birds by Attar of Nishapur, and the miscellanea of Gulistan and Bustan by Saadi Shirazi are
among the famous works of medieval Persian literature. A thriving contemporary Persian
literature has also been formed by the works of writers such as Ahmad Shamlou, Forough
Farrokhzad, Mehdi Akhavan-Sales, Parvin E'tesami, Sadegh Hedayat, and Simin Daneshvar,
among others.

Not all Persian literature is written in Persian, as works written by Persians in other languages—
such as Arabic and Greek—might also be included. At the same time, not all literature written in
Persian is written by ethnic Persians or Iranians, as Turkic, Caucasian, and Indic authors have
also used Persian literature in the environment of Persianate cultures.

Architecture
The most notable examples of ancient Persian architecture are the works of the Achaemenids
hailing from Persis. Achaemenid architecture, dating from the expansion of the empire around
550 BC, flourished in a period of artistic growth that left a legacy ranging from Cyrus the Great's
solemn tomb at Pasargadae to the structures at Persepolis and Naqsh-e Rostam.[117] The Bam
Citadel, a massive structure at 1,940,000 square feet (180,000 m2) constructed on the Silk
Road in Bam, is from around the 5th century BC.[118] The quintessential feature of Achaemenid
architecture was its eclectic nature, with elements from Median architecture, Assyrian
architecture, and Asiatic Greek architecture all incorporated.[119]

The architectural heritage of the Sasanian Empire includes, among others, castle fortifications
such as the Fortifications of Derbent (located in North Caucasus, now part of Russia), the
Rudkhan Castle and the Shapur-Khwast Castle, palaces such as the Palace of Ardashir and the
Sarvestan Palace, bridges such as the Shahrestan Bridge and the Shapuri Bridge, the Archway of
Ctesiphon, and the reliefs at Taq-e Bostan.

Ruins of the Tachara, Tomb of Cyrus, Pasargadae. The Sasanian

Persepolis. reliefs at Taq-e
Bostan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 9 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

Shapur-Khwast Castle,
Khorramabad.

Architectural elements from the time of Iran's ancient Persian empires have been adopted and
incorporated in later period.[78] They were used especially during the modernization of Iran
under the reign of the Pahlavi dynasty to contribute to the characterization of the modern
country with its ancient history.[79][80]

Gardens
Xenophon, in his Oeconomicus,[120] states:

"The Great King [Cyrus II]...in all the districts he resides in and visits, takes care that
there are parádeisos ("paradise") as they [Persians] call them, full of the good and
beautiful things that the soil produce."

The Persian garden, the earliest examples of which were found throughout the Achaemenid
Empire, has an integral position in Persian architecture.[121] Gardens assumed an important
place for the Achaemenid monarchs,[120] and utilized the advanced Achaemenid knowledge of
water technologies,[122] including aqueducts, earliest recorded gravity-fed water rills, and
basins arranged in a geometric system. The enclosure of this symmetrically arranged planting
and irrigation by an infrastructure such as a palace created the impression of "paradise".[123]
The word paradise itself originates from Avestan pairidaēza (Old Persian paridaida; New
Persian pardis, ferdows), which literally translates to "walled-around". Characterized by its
quadripartite (čārbāq) design, the Persian garden was evolved and developed into various
forms throughout history,[120] and was also adopted in various other cultures in Eurasia. It was
inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List in June 2011.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 10 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

Shah Square, Isfahan. Eram Garden, Shiraz.

Tomb of Hafez, Shiraz. Shazdeh Garden, Kerman.

Carpets
Carpet weaving is an essential part of the Persian
culture,[124] and Persian rugs are said to be one of the most
detailed hand-made works of art.

Achaemenid rug and carpet artistry is well recognized.

Xenophon describes the carpet production in the city of
Sardis, stating that the locals take pride in their carpet
production. A special mention of Persian carpets is also
A Persian carpet kept at the Louvre.
made by Athenaeus of Naucratis in his Deipnosophistae, as
he describes a "delightfully embroidered" Persian carpet
with "preposterous shapes of griffins".[125]

The Pazyryk carpet, a Scythian pile-carpet dating back to the 4th century BC that is regarded as
the world's oldest existing carpet, depicts elements of Assyrian and Achaemenid designs,
including stylistic references to the stone slab designs found in Persian royal buildings.[125]

Music

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 11 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

According to the accounts reported by Xenophon, a great

number of singers were present at the Achaemenid court.
However, little information is available from the music of
that era. The music scene of the Sasanian Empire has a
more available and detailed documentation than the earlier
periods, and is especially more evident within the context of
Zoroastrian musical rituals.[126] Overall, Sasanian music
was influential and was adopted in the subsequent eras.[127] Dancers and musical instrument
players depicted on a Sasanian silver
Iranian music, as a whole, utilizes a variety of musical bowl from the 5th-7th century AD.
instruments that are unique to the region, and has
remarkably evolved since the ancient and medieval times. In
traditional Sasanian music, the octave was divided into seventeen tones. By the end of the 13th
century, Iranian music also maintained a twelve-interval octave, which resembled the western
counterparts.[128]

Observances
The Iranian New Year's Day, Nowruz, which translates to "new day", is celebrated by Persians
and other peoples of Iran to mark the beginning of spring on the vernal equinox on the first day
of Farvardin, the first month of the Iranian calendar, which corresponds to around March 21 in
the Gregorian calendar. An ancient tradition that has been preserved in Iran and several other
countries that were under the influence of the ancient empires of Iran,[129][130] Nowruz has
been registered on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists.[131] In Iran, the Nowruz
celebrations (incl. Charshanbe Suri and Sizdebedar) begin on the eve of the last Wednesday of
the preceding year in the Iranian calendar and last on the 13th day of the new year. Islamic
festivals are also widely celebrated by Muslim Persians.

See also
Demographics of Iran

References
1. "Persian, Iranian" (https://www.ethnologue.com/language/pes). Ethnologue. Retrieved
11 December 2018. Total Iranian Persian users in all countries.
2. Elling, Rasmus Christian (18 February 2013). Minorities in Iran: Nationalism and Ethnicity
after Khomeini. Springer. p. 19. ISBN 978-1-137-04780-9. "The Factbook puts 'Persian and
Persian dialects' at 58 percent, but 51 percent of the population as ethnic Persians, while
the Library of Congress states that Persian 'is spoken as a mother tongue by at least 65
percent of the population and as a second language by a large proportion of the remaining
35 percent. The 'Persian' mentioned in the latter report must thus also include Gilaki and
Mazi. However, Gilaki and Mazi are actually from a different branch of the Iranian language
subfamily than Persian, and could be as such be seen not as dialects, but as distinct
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 12 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

subfamily than Persian, and could be as such be seen not as dialects, but as distinct
languages. Suffice it here to say that while some scholars see categories such as Gilakis
and Mazandaranis as referring to separate ethnic groups due to their linguistic traits, others
count them as 'Persians' on exactly the same basis."
3. Crane, Keith; Lal, Rollie; Martini, Jeffrey (6 June 2008). Iran's Political, Demographic, and
Economic Vulnerabilities (https://books.google.com/books?id=PmlMdb5ACHEC&pg=PA38).
RAND Corporation. p. 38. ISBN 9780833045270. Retrieved 17 January 2023.
4. "Country Profile: Iran" (https://web.archive.org/web/20151007125857/https://www.loc.gov/rr/
frd/cs/profiles/Iran.pdf) (PDF). Library of Congress – Federal Research Division. May 2008.
Archived from the original (https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/cs/profiles/Iran.pdf) (PDF) on 2015-10-
07. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
5. "Goman Poll" (https://radis.org/%D9%86%D8%AA%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%AC-%DB%8C
%DA%A9-%D9%86%D8%B8%D8%B1%D8%B3%D9%86%D8%AC%DB%8C-%D8%AD%
D8%B1%D9%81%D9%87%E2%80%8C%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D8%AD%D8%AF%D9%88
%D8%AF-%D9%86%DB%8C%D9%85%DB%8C-%D8%A7%D8%B2/).
6. Beck, Lois (2014). Nomads in Postrevolutionary Iran: The Qashqa'i in an Era of Change.
Routledge. p. xxii. ISBN 978-1317743866. "(...) an ethnic Persian; adheres to cultural
systems connected with other ethnic Persians (...)"
7. Samadi, Habibeh; Perkins, Nick (2012). Ball, Martin; Crystal, David; Fletcher, Paul (eds.).
Assessing Grammar: The Languages of Lars. Multilingual Matters. p. 169. ISBN 978-1-
84769-637-3.
8. Fyre, R. N. (29 March 2012). "IRAN v. PEOPLES OF IRAN" (http://www.iranicaonline.org/art
icles/iran-v1-peoples-survey). Encyclopædia Iranica. "The largest group of people in
present-day Iran are Persians (*q.v.) who speak dialects of the language called Fārsi in
Persian, since it was primarily the tongue of the people of Fārs." "
9. Anonby, Erik J. (20 December 2012). "LORI LANGUAGE ii. Sociolinguistic Status of Lori" (ht
tp://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/lori-language-ii). Encyclopædia Iranica. "Conversely, the
Nehāvand sub-province of Hamadān is home to ethnic Persians who speak NLori as a
mother tongue. (...) The same is true of areas to the southwest, south, and east of the Lori
language area (...): while the varieties spoken there show more structural similarity to Lori
than to Persian, speakers identify themselves as ethnically Persian."
10. Xavier de Planhol (24 January 2012). "FĀRS i. Geography" (http://www.iranicaonline.org/arti
cles/fars-i). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. IX. pp. ?–336. "The name of Fārs is undoubtedly
attested in Assyrian sources since the third millennium B.C.E. under the form Parahše.
Originally, it was the "land of horses" of the Sumerians (Herzfeld, pp. 181–82, 184–86). The
name was adopted by Iranian tribes which established themselves there in the 9th century
B.C.E. in the west and southwest of Urmia lake. The Parsua (Pārsa) are mentioned there
for the first time in 843 B.C.E., during the reign of Salmanassar III, and then, after they
migrated to the southeast (Boehmer, pp. 193–97), the name was transferred, between 690
and 640, to a region previously called Anšan (q.v.) in Elamite sources (Herzfeld, pp. 169–
71, 178–79, 186). From that moment the name acquired the connotation of an ethnic region,
the land of the Persians, and the Persians soon thereafter founded the vast Achaemenid
empire. A never-ending confusion thus set in between a narrow, limited, geographical usage
of the term—Persia in the sense of the land where the aforesaid Persian tribes had shaped
the core of their power—and a broader, more general usage of the term to designate the
much larger area affected by the political and cultural radiance of the Achaemenids. The
confusion between the two senses of the word was continuous, fueled by the Greeks who
used the name Persai to designate the entire empire."
11. Sacks, David; Murray, Oswyn; Brody, Lisa R. (2005). Encyclopedia of the Ancient Greek
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 13 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

Sacks, David; Murray, Oswyn; Brody, Lisa R. (2005). Encyclopedia of the Ancient Greek
World (https://books.google.com/books?id=gsGmuQAACAAJ). Facts On File. p. 256 (at the
right portion of the page). ISBN 978-0-8160-5722-1.
12. Schmitt, R. "ACHAEMENID DYNASTY" (http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/achaemenid-d
ynasty). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. I. pp. 414–426. "In 550 B.C. Cyrus (called "the Great" by
the Greeks) overthrew the Median empire under Astyages and brought the Persians into
domination over the Iranian peoples; he achieved combined rule over all Iran as the first real
monarch of the Achaemenid dynasty. Within a few years he founded a multinational empire
without precedent—a first world-empire of historical importance, since it embraced all
previous civilized states of the ancient Near East. (...) The Persian empire was a
multinational state under the leadership of the Persians; among these peoples the Medes,
Iranian sister nation of the Persians, held a special position."
13. Farr, Edward (1850). History of the Persians (https://archive.org/details/historypersians00far
rgoog). Robert Carter. pp. 124 (https://archive.org/details/historypersians00farrgoog/page/n
134)–7.
14. Roisman & Worthington 2011, p. 345.
15. Durant, Will (1950). Age of Faith. Simon and Schuster. p. 150. "Repaying its debt, Sasanian
art exported its forms and motives eastward into India, Turkestan, and China, westward into
Syria, Asia Minor, Constantinople, the Balkans, Egypt, and Spain."
16. Burke, Andrew; Elliot, Mark (2008). Iran (https://books.google.com/books?id=gEca_4iSNCU
C). Lonely Planet. pp. 295 & 114–5 (for architecture) and pp. 68–72 (for arts).
ISBN 9781742203492.
17. Hovannisian, Richard G.; Sabagh, Georges (1998). The Persian Presence in the Islamic
World (https://books.google.com/books?id=39XZDnOWUXsC). Cambridge University Press.
pp. 80–83. ISBN 9780521591850.
18. Spuler, Bertold; Marcinkowski, M. Ismail (2003). Persian Historiography & Geography (https:
//books.google.com/books?id=rD1vvympVtsC). Pustaka Nasional Pte Ltd.
ISBN 9789971774882.
19. Arberry, Arthur John (1953). The Legacy of Persia. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 200.
ISBN 0-19-821905-9.
20. "TAJIK i. THE ETHNONYM: ORIGINS AND APPLICATION" (http://www.iranicaonline.org/art
icles/tajik-i-the-ethnonym-origins-and-application). Encyclopædia Iranica. 20 July 2009. "By
mid-Safavid times the usage tājik for 'Persian(s) of Iran' may be considered a literary
affectation, an expression of the traditional rivalry between Men of the Sword and Men of
the Pen. Pietro della Valle, writing from Isfahan in 1617, cites only Pārsi and ʿAjami as
autonyms for the indigenous Persians, and Tāt and raʿiat 'peasant(ry), subject(s)' as
pejorative heteronyms used by the Qezelbāš (Qizilbāš) Torkmān elite. Perhaps by about
1400, reference to actual Tajiks was directed mostly at Persian-speakers in Afghanistan and
Central Asia; (...)"
21. Ostler, Nicholas (2010). The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel. Penguin
UK. pp. 1–352. ISBN 978-0141922218. "Tat was known to have been used at different times
to designate Crimean Goths, Greeks and sedentary peoples generally, but its primary
reference came to be the Persians within the Turkic domains. (...) Tat is nowadays
specialized to refer to special groups with Iranian languages in the west of the Caspian
Sea."
22. Nava'i, Ali Shir (tr. & ed. Robert Devereaux) (1996). Muhakamat al-lughatain. Leiden: Brill.
p. 6.
23. Starr, S. F. (2013). Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest
to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press.
24. Περσίς (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 14 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

24. Περσίς (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=*

persi/s). Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus
Project.
25. Harper, Douglas. "Persia" (https://www.etymonline.com/?term=Persia). Online Etymology
Dictionary.
26. Herodotus. "61". Histories. Vol. Book 7.
27. Herodotus. "150". Histories. Vol. Book 7.
28. Wilson, Arnold (2012). "The Middle Ages: Fars". The Persian Gulf (RLE Iran A) (https://book
s.google.com/books?id=FocirvdZKjcC). Routledge. p. 71. ISBN 978-1136841057.
29. Axworthy, Michael (2017). Iran: What Everyone Needs to Know (https://books.google.com/b
ooks?id=IGRuDQAAQBAJ). Oxford University Press. p. 16. ISBN 978-0190232962.
30. For example, Al-Biruni, a native speaker of Khwarezmian, refers to "the people of
Khwarizm" as "a branch of the Persian tree". See: Al-Biruni (2001). Al-Athar al-Baqiyya 'an
al-Qurun al-Khaliyya [The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries]. Tehran: Miras-e Maktub.
p. 56. "‫ و إن کانوا غصنا ً من دوحة الفُرس‬،‫( و أما أهل خوارزم‬...)". (Translation: "The people of
Khwarizm, they are a branch of the Persian tree.")
31. The language used in Marzbān-nāma was, in the words of the 13th-century historian Sa'ad
ad-Din Warawini, "the language of Ṭabaristan and old, ancient Persian (fārsī-yi ḳadīm-i
bāstān)". See: Kramers, J.H. (2007). "Marzbān-Nāma" (https://referenceworks.brillonline.co
m/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/marzban-nama-SIM_4990). In Bearman, P.; Bianqui,
Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam. Brill.
Retrieved 18 November 2007.
32. 10th-century Arab Muslim writer Ibn Hawqal, in his Ṣūrat al-Arḍ, refers to "the language of
the people of Azerbaijan and most of the people of Armenia" as al-fāresīya. Yarshater, E.
(18 August 2011). "AZERBAIJAN vii. The Iranian Language of Azerbaijan" (http://www.iranic
aonline.org/articles/azerbaijan-vii). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. III. pp. 238–245.
33. Al Mas'udi (1894). De Goeje, M.J. (ed.). Kitab al-Tanbih wa-l-Ishraf (in Arabic). Brill.
pp. 77–78.
34. Ibn Battuta (2004). Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325–1354. Routledge. p. 180. ISBN 0-415-
34473-5. "We travelled on to Kabul, formerly a vast town, the site of which is now occupied
by a village inhabited by a tribe of Persians called Afghans. They hold mountains and
defiles and possess considerable strength, and are mostly highwaymen. Their principal
mountain is called Kuh Sulayman. It is told that the prophet Sulayman [Solomon] ascended
this mountain and having looked out over India, which was then covered with darkness,
returned without entering it."
35. Sheil, Lady Mary Leonora Woulfe (1856). Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia (https://ar
chive.org/details/glimpseslifeand00sheigoog). J. Murray. p. 394 (https://archive.org/details/gl
impseslifeand00sheigoog/page/n448).
36. "Persian" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Persian). Merriam-Webster. 13
August 2010. Retrieved 10 June 2012.
37. Bausani, Alessandro (1971). The Persians, from the Earliest Days to the Twentieth Century.
Elek. ISBN 978-0-236-17760-8.
38. Stearns, Peter N., ed. (2001). "The Medes and the Persians, c.1500-559". Encyclopedia of
World History (6th ed.). The Houghton Mifflin Company.
39. Schmitt, R. (21 July 2011). "ACHAEMENID DYNASTY" (http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles
/achaemenid-dynasty). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. I. pp. 414–426. "The Achaemenid clan
possibly ruled over the Persian tribes already in the 9th century B.C., when they were still
settled in northern Iran near Lake Urmia and tributary to the Assyrians. Of a king with the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 15 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

settled in northern Iran near Lake Urmia and tributary to the Assyrians. Of a king with the
name Achaemenes there is no historical evidence; but it may have been under him that the
Persians, under the pressure of Medes, Assyrians, and Urartians, migrated south into the
Zagros region, where they founded, near the Elamite borders, the small state Parsumaš
(with residence at present-day Masǰed-e Solaymān in the Baḵtīārī mountains, according to
R. Ghirshman)."
40. Strootman, Rolf; Versluys, M. J. (2017). Persianism in Antiquity (https://books.google.com/b
ooks?id=K1hEMQAACAAJ). Franz Steiner Verlag. p. 22. ISBN 9783515113823.. (footnote
53).
41. Zarinkoob, Abdolhossein. Ruzgārān: Tārix-e Irān az Āğāz ta Soqut-e Saltanat-e Pahlavi
‫ تاریخ ایران از آغاز تا سقوط سلطنت پهلوی‬:‫[ روزگاران‬Times: History of Iran from the Beginning to the
Fall of the Pahlavi Monarchy] (in Persian). Sokhan. p. 37.
42. Firuzmandi, Bahman (1996). Mād, Haxāmaneši, Aškāni, Sāsāni ‫ ساسانی‬،‫ اشکانی‬،‫ هخامنشی‬،‫ماد‬
[Median, Achaemenid, Arsacid, Sasanian]. Marlik. pp. 12–20, 155.
43. Eduljee, K.E. (2012), "Zoroastrian Heritage" (http://heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/zagr
os/index.htm), Heritage Institute, retrieved 9 April 2014
44. Oppenheim, A. Leo (1964). Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization. University
of Chicago Press. p. 49.
45. Yarshater, Ehsan (29 March 2012). "IRAN ii. IRANIAN HISTORY (1) Pre-Islamic Times" (htt
p://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iran-ii1-pre-islamic-times). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. XIII.
pp. 212–224. "Of the numerous Iranian tribes who had settled in Iranian plateau, it was the
Medes (...) who grew in power and achieved prominence. (...) Finally in 612 B.C.E. and in
alliance with the Babylonians, he attacked the Assyrian capital, Nineveh. Their combined
forces succeeded in bringing the Assyrian Empire down, thus eliminating a power that had
ruled with ruthless efficiency over the Middle East for several centuries. (...) Achaemenes
(q.v.; Haxāmaniš), eponymous ancestor of the Achaemenids according to Darius I, formed a
kingdom in the Elamite territory of Anshan in Fārs as a vassal of the Median king (...)."
46. Xavier de Planhol (29 March 2012). "IRAN i. LANDS OF IRAN" (http://www.iranicaonline.org
/articles/iran-i-lands-of-iran). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. XIII. pp. 204–212.
47. Gates, Charles (2003). Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near
East and Egypt, Greece and Rome (https://books.google.com/books?id=8aLb5pnm1j4C).
Psychology Press. p. 186. ISBN 9780415121828.
48. Margaret Christina Miller (2004). Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century BC: A Study in
Cultural Receptivity (https://books.google.com/books?id=oGXMMD5rXBQC). Cambridge
University Press. p. 243. ISBN 9780521607582.
49. Raditsa 1983, p. 105.
50. Raditsa 1983, pp. 102, 105.
51. Raditsa 1983, p. 102.
52. McGing 1986, p. 15.
53. Van Dam 2002, p. 17.
54. Boyce 2001, p. 85.
55. Raditsa 1983, p. 107.
56. Gnoli, Gherardo (30 March 2012). "IRANIAN IDENTITY ii. PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD" (http://w
ww.iranicaonline.org/articles/iranian-identity-ii-pre-islamic-period). Encyclopædia Iranica.
Vol. XIII. pp. 504–507. "The inscriptions of Darius I (...) and Xerxes, in which the different
provinces of the empire are listed, make it clear that, between the end of the 6th century
and the middle of the 5th century B.C.E., the Persians were already aware of belonging to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 16 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

the ariya "Iranian" nation (...). Darius and Xerxes boast of belonging to a stock which they
call "Iranian": they proclaim themselves "Iranian" and "of Iranian stock," ariya and ariya čiça
respectively, in inscriptions in which the Iranian countries come first in a list that is arranged
in a new hierarchical and ethno-geographical order, compared for instance with the list of
countries in Darius's inscription at Behistun (...). All this evidence shows that the name arya
"Iranian" was a collective definition, denoting peoples (...) who were aware of belonging to
the one ethnic stock, speaking a common language, and having a religious tradition that
centered on the cult of Ahura Mazdā. (...) Although, up until the end of the Parthian period,
Iranian identity had an ethnic, linguistic, and religious value, it did not yet have a political
import. The idea of an "Iranian" empire or kingdom is a purely Sasanian one. (...) It was in
the Sasanian period, then, that the pre-Islamic Iranian identity reached the height of its
fulfilment in every aspect: political, religious, cultural, and linguistic (with the growing
diffusion of Middle Persian). Its main ingredients were the appeal to a heroic past that was
identified or confused with little-known Achaemenid origins (...), and the religious tradition,
for which the Avesta was the chief source."
57. Ammon, Ulrich; Dittmar, Norbert; Mattheier, Klaus J.; Trudgill, Peter (2008). Sociolinguistics
/ Soziolinguistik (https://books.google.com/books?isbn=3110199874) (2 ed.). Walter de
Gruyter. p. 1912. ISBN 978-3110199871. "The Pahlavi language (also known as Middle
Persian) was the official language of Iran during the Sassanid dynasty (from 3rd to 7th
century A. D.). Pahlavi is the direct continuation of old Persian, and was used as the written
official language of the country. However, after the Moslem conquest and the collapse of the
Sassanids, Arabic became the dominant language of the country and Pahlavi lost its
importance, and was gradually replaced by Dari, a variety of Middle Persian, with
considerable loan elements from Arabic and Parthian."
58. Windfuhr, G. (1989). "New West Iranian". In Schmitt, R. (ed.). Compendium Linguarum
Iranicarum. Wiesbaden. pp. 251–62.
59. Asatrian, Garnik S. (28 November 2011). "DIMLĪ" (http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/dimli
). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. VI. pp. 405–411.
60. Skjærvø, Prods Oktor (29 March 2012). "IRAN vi. IRANIAN LANGUAGES AND SCRIPTS
(2) Documentation" (http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iran-vi2-documentation).
Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. XIII. pp. 348–366. "Only the official languages Old, Middle, and
New Persian represent three stages of one and the same language, whereas close genetic
relationships are difficult to establish between other Middle and Modern Iranian languages.
Modern Yaḡnōbi belongs to the same dialect group as Sogdian, but is not a direct
descendant; Bac-trian may be closely related to modern Yidḡa and Munji (Munjāni); and
Wakhi (Wāḵi) belongs with Khotanese. (...) New Persian, the descendant of Middle Persian
and official language of Iranian states for centuries, is today spoken widely in and outside
Iran in a number of variants."
61. Lazard, Gilbert (1975). "The Rise of the New Persian Language". In Frye, R. N. (ed.). The
Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 595–632.
"The language known as New Persian, which was usually called at this period by the name
of darī or parsī-i darī, can be classified linguistically as a continuation of Middle Persian, the
official, religious and literary language of Sasanian Iran, itself a continuation of Old Persian,
the language of the Achaemenids. Unlike the other languages and dialects, ancient and
modern, of the Iranian group such as Avestan, Parthian, Soghdian, Kurdish, Pashto, etc.,
Old Middle and New Persian represent one and the same language at three states of its
history. It had its origin in Fārs (the true Persian country from the historical point of view)
and is differentiated by dialectical features, still easily recognizable from the dialects
prevailing in north-western and eastern Iran."
62. Coon, C.S. "Demography and Ethnography". Iran. Encyclopaedia of Islam. Vol. IV. E.J. Brill.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 17 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

62. Coon, C.S. "Demography and Ethnography". Iran. Encyclopaedia of Islam. Vol. IV. E.J. Brill.
pp. 10–8. "The Lurs speak an aberrant form of Archaic Persian (...)"
63. Fortson, Benjamin W. (2009). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. John
Wiley and Sons. p. 242. "Middle Persian was the official language of the Sassanian dynasty
(...)"
64. (Shapur Shahbazi 2005)
65. Stillman, Norman A. (1979). The Jews of Arab Lands. Jewish Publication Society. p. 22.
ISBN 0827611552.
66. International Congress of Byzantine Studies (30 September 2006). Proceedings of the 21st
International Congress of Byzantine Studies, London, 21-26 August 2006. Vol. 1–3. Ashgate
Publishing. p. 29. ISBN 075465740X.
67. Mitchell 2018, p. 290.
68. Frye, Richard Nelson; Zarrinkoub, Abdolhosein (1975). Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 4.
London. p. 46.
69. "ʿAJAM" (http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ajam). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. I. 29 July
2011. pp. 700–701.
70. Esposito, John L. (21 October 2004). The Oxford Dictionary of Islam (https://books.google.c
om/books?id=E324pQEEQQcC). Oxford University Press. p. 12. ISBN 9780199757268.
"People unable to speak properly. Refers to non-Arabs. Connotes cultural and ethnic
inferiority. Adjectival form: ajami. Principally used to designate (and eventually synonymous
with) Persians."
71. Ngom, Fallou; Zito, Alex (2012). "Sub-Saharan African literature, ʿAjamī". In Fleet, Kate;
Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of
Islam, THREE. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_26630 (https://doi.org/10.1163%2F1573-
3912_ei3_COM_26630).
72. Ende, Werner; Steinbach, Udo (2010). Islam in the World Today: A Handbook of Politics,
Religion, Culture, and Society (https://books.google.com/books?id=-dM4hPlxMw8C).
Cornell University Press. p. 533. ISBN 9780801464898.
73. Paul, Ludwig (19 November 2013). "PERSIAN LANGUAGE i. Early New Persian" (http://ww
w.iranicaonline.org/articles/persian-language-1-early-new-persian). Encyclopædia Iranica.
74. Perry, John R. (10 August 2011). "ARABIC LANGUAGE v. Arabic Elements in Persian" (http
://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/arabic-v). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. II. pp. 229–243.
75. Masters, Bruce (2009). "Baghdad" (https://books.google.com/books?id=QjzYdCxumFcC&pg
=PA71). In Ágoston, Gábor; Masters, Bruce (eds.). Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire.
New York: Facts On File. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-8160-6259-1. LCCN 2008020716 (https://lccn.l
oc.gov/2008020716). Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20160516202344/https://books.
google.com/books?id=QjzYdCxumFcC&pg=PA71) from the original on 16 May 2016.
Retrieved 21 June 2022.
76. Savory, R.M. (1980). Iran under the Safavids. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 3.
"Why is there such confusion about the origins of this important dynasty, which reasserted
Iranian identity and established an independent Iranian state after eight and a half centuries
of rule by foreign dynasties?"
77. Matthee, Rudi (28 July 2008). "SAFAVID DYNASTY" (http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/s
afavids). Encyclopædia Iranica.
78. Hillenbrand, R. (11 August 2011). "ARCHITECTURE vi. Safavid to Qajar Periods" (http://ww
w.iranicaonline.org/articles/architecture-vi). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. II. pp. 345–349.
"Safavid inscriptions on the pre Islamic monuments (e.g., Persepolis and Bīsotūn) perhaps
presage that wholesale adoption of and identification with ancient Iran that later
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 18 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

characterized the Qajars, but there are not enough inscriptions to clinch the point. (...) An
unexpected burst of activity in secular architecture marks the 17th century. Bridges which
have wider functions than carrying traffic were built, reviving Sasanian custom (...). (...)
Qajar decoration is usually unmistakable. Simple, rather strident tiled geometric or
epigraphic designs in small glazed bricks were especially popular. The repertory of cuerda
seca tiles now included episodes from the epic and legendary past, portraits of Europeans,
scenes from modern life, and the country's heraldic blazon of the lion and the sun (...).
Pavilions and palaces bore figural paintings which revived Sasanian royal iconography
(Negārestān palace, Tehran) or betrayed the influence of European illustrated magazines or
painted postcards depicting landscapes and tourist spots (...)."
79. Amanat, Abbas (22 March 2012). "HISTORIOGRAPHY ix. PAHLAVI PERIOD (1)" (http://ww
w.iranicaonline.org/articles/historiography-ix-1). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. XII.
pp. 377–386. "Typical of comparable nationalist historiographies in the early part of the 20th
century (e.g., Greek, Italian, Egyptian, and Turkish), the state-sponsored historical narrative
under the Pahlavis decidedly favored highlighting the might and glory of the ancient Persian
empires, as supported by new archeological and textual evidences. (...) Moreover,
promotion of the ancient past as a wholesale propaganda tool in the service of the state
engendered nationalistic pride that proved detrimental to dispassionate historical inquiry.
(...) The most visible change in the nationalist historiography under Reżā Shah was
emphasis on the pre-Islamic, and particularly the Achaemenid, past."
80. Wilber, D. N. (11 August 2011). "ARCHITECTURE vii. Pahlavi, before World War II" (http://w
ww.iranicaonline.org/articles/architecture-vii). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. II. pp. 349–351.
81. Ashraf, Ahmad (24 January 2012). "FĀRS iv. History in the Qajar and Pahlavi Periods" (http:
//www.iranicaonline.org/articles/fars-iv). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. IX. pp. 341–351.
82. "Subfamily: Farsic" (http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/fars1255). Glottolog. Retrieved
1 May 2019.
83. "Iran" (https://web.archive.org/web/20120918060805/http://www.langcen.cam.ac.uk/resourc
es/persian/persian.php). University of Cambridge. Archived from the original (http://www.lan
gcen.cam.ac.uk/resources/persian/persian.php) on 18 September 2012. Retrieved 16 July
2013.
84. Kuhrt 2013, p. 197.
85. Schmitt 2000, p. 53.
86. Kent, R. G. (1950). Old Persian: Grammar Texts Lexicon. American Oriental Society. p. 6.
87. (Schmitt 2008, pp. 80–1)
88. "SociolinguistEssex X – 2005" (https://web.archive.org/web/20131014181639/http://www.es
sex.ac.uk/langling/documents/slx/slx_x_programme.pdf) (PDF). Essex University. 2005.
p. 10. Archived from the original (http://www.essex.ac.uk/langling/documents/slx/slx_x_progr
amme.pdf) (PDF) on 14 October 2013. Retrieved 29 September 2013.
89. Gruenberg, Alexander (1966). "Tatskij jazyk". In Vinogradov, V. V. (ed.). Jazyki narodov
SSSR. Vol. 1: Indoevropejskie jazyki. pp. 281–301. "The Tat language belongs to the
Southwest group of Iranian languages and is close in its grammatical structure and lexical
content to the Persian and Tajik languages."
90. Khanam, R., ed. (2005). Encyclopaedic Ethnography of Middle-East and Central Asia.
Vol. 1: P-Z. Global Vision Publishing House. p. 746. "The contemporary Tats are the
descendants of an Iranian-speaking population sent out of Persia by the dynasty of the
Sasanids in the fifth to sixth centuries."
91. Windfuhr, Gernot (1979). Persian Grammar: history and state of its study. Walter de Gruyter.
p. 4. "(...) Tat- Persian spoken in the East Caucasus (...)"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 19 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

92. Dalby, Andrew (2014). Dictionary of Languages: The Definitive Reference to More Than 400
Languages (https://books.google.com/books?id=7dHNCgAAQBAJ). Bloomsbury Publishing.
p. 109. ISBN 978-1408102145. "(...) and Tat (a variety of Persian) (...)"
93. Windfuhr, Genot (2013). Iranian Languages (https://books.google.com/books?id=QtpQZ1D
D6tEC). Routledge. p. 417. ISBN 978-1135797041. "The Northwestern outpost of Persian is
Caucasian Tat Persian (...)"
94. V. Minorsky, "Tat" in M. Th. Houtsma et al., eds., The Encyclopædia of Islam: A Dictionary of
the Geography, Ethnography and Biography of the Muhammadan Peoples, 4 vols. and
Suppl., Leiden: Late E.J. Brill and London: Luzac, 1913–38. "Like most Persian dialects, Tati
is not very regular in its characteristic features (...)".
95. Kerslake, C. (January 2010). "Journal of Islamic Studies". 21 (1). Oxford University Press
(published 4 March 2010): 147–151. "It is a comparison of the verbal systems of three
varieties of Persian—standard Persian, Tat, and Tajik (...)" {{cite journal}}: Cite
journal requires |journal= (help)
96. Borjian, Habib (2006). "Tabari Language Materials from Il'ya Berezin's Recherches sur les
dialectes persans". Iran and the Caucasus. 10 (2). Brill: 243–258.
doi:10.1163/157338406780346005 (https://doi.org/10.1163%2F157338406780346005). "It
embraces Gilani, Ta- lysh, Tabari, Kurdish, Gabri, and the Tati Persian of the Caucasus, all
but the last belonging to the north-western group of Iranian language."
97. Frye, Richard N. (1983). Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, Part 3, Volume 7. Beck.
p. 29. ISBN 978-3406093975.
98. Stilo, Donald (5 April 2012). "Isfahan xxi. PROVINCIAL DIALECTS" (http://www.iranicaonlin
e.org/articles/isfahan-xxi-provincial-dialects). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. XIV. pp. 93–112.
99. Coon, C.S. "Iran: Demography and Ethnography". Encyclopedia Of Islam. Vol. IV. E.J. Brill.
pp. 8–10.
100. "Afghanistan — The World Factbook" (https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/afgh
anistan/). Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 17 July 2015.
101. Hyder, Kamal (12 November 2011). "Hazara community finds safe haven in Peshawar" (http
://www.aljazeera.com/video/asia/2011/11/2011111284512336838.html). Al Jazeera English.
Retrieved 13 November 2011.
102. "Country Profile: Afghanistan" (https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/cs/profiles/Afghanistan.pdf) (PDF).
Library of Congress. August 2008. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
103. Kieffer, Charles M. (20 March 2012). "HAZĀRA iv. Hazāragi dialect" (http://www.iranicaonlin
e.org/articles/hazara-4). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. XII. pp. 90–93. Retrieved 5 June 2014.
104. Schurmann, Franz (1962). The Mongols of Afghanistan: An Ethnography of the Moghôls
and Related Peoples of Afghanistan. The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton. p. 17.
OCLC 401634 (https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/401634).
105. Jamal, Abedin (2010). Attitudes Toward Hazaragi (https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewconte
nt.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1224&context=theses). Theses. p. 217. Retrieved
5 May 2019.
106. Janata, A. "AYMĀQ" (http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/aymaq-turk). In Yarshater, Ehsan
(ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica (Online ed.). United States: Columbia University.
107. "Aimaq" (http://www.everyculture.com/Africa-Middle-East/Aimaq.html). World Culture
Encyclopedia. everyculture.com. Retrieved 14 August 2009.
108. Marashi, Afshin (2020-06-08). Exile and the Nation: The Parsi Community of India & the
Making of Modern Iran (https://books.google.com/books?id=IDHnDwAAQBAJ). University of
Texas Press. ISBN 978-1-4773-2082-2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 20 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

109. Ringer, Monica M. (2012), Amanat, Abbas; Vejdani, Farzin (eds.), "Iranian Nationalism and
Zoroastrian Identity" (https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137013408_13), Iran Facing Others:
Identity Boundaries in a Historical Perspective, New York: Palgrave Macmillan US,
pp. 267–277, doi:10.1057/9781137013408_13 (https://doi.org/10.1057%2F9781137013408
_13), ISBN 978-1-137-01340-8, retrieved 2023-03-17
110. Palsetia, Jesse S. (2001-01-01). The Parsis of India: Preservation of Identity in Bombay City
(https://books.google.com/books?id=R6oNt3M_yLgC). BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-12114-0.
111. Palsetia, Jesse S. (2001). The Parsis of India: Preservation of Identity in Bombay City. Brill.
p. 13.
112. Grote, George (1899). Greece: I. Legendary Greece: II. Grecian history to the reign of
Peisistratus at Athens (https://books.google.com/books?id=tJcOAAAAYAAJ). Vol. 12. P. F.
Collier. p. 106.
113. Lapidus, Ira Marvin (2002). A History of Islamic Societies (https://books.google.com/books?i
d=I3mVUEzm8xMC). Cambridge University Press. p. 127. ISBN 9780521779333.
114. Sagar, Krishna Chandra (1992). Foreign Influence on Ancient India (https://books.google.co
m/books?id=0UA4rkm9MgkC). Northern Book Centre. p. 17. ISBN 9788172110284.
115. Miller, Margaret Christina (2004). Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century BC: A Study in
Cultural Receptivity (https://books.google.com/books?id=oGXMMD5rXBQC). Cambridge
University Press. pp. 243–251. ISBN 9780521607582.
116. Skjærvø, Prods Oktor. "Iran vi. Iranian languages and scripts (2) Documentation" (http://ww
w.iranicaonline.org/articles/iran-vi2-documentation). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. XIII.
pp. 348–366. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
117. Marco Bussagli (2005). Understanding Architecture (https://books.google.com/books?id=fMf
CkY6-9joC&q=Achaemenid+architecture&pg=PA211). I.B.Tauris. p. 211.
ISBN 9781845110895.
118. Rafie Hamidpour D E Dabfe, Rafie Hamidpour (2010). Land of Lion, Land of Sun (https://bo
oks.google.com/books?id=cP__ziIW39cC&q=bam+citadel&pg=PA54). AuthorHouse. p. 54.
ISBN 9781449091491.
119. Charles Henry Caffin (1917). How to study architecture (https://archive.org/details/howtostu
dyarchi02caffgoog). Dodd, Mead and Company. p. 80 (https://archive.org/details/howtostudy
archi02caffgoog/page/n361). "Persian Architecture."
120. Penelope Hobhouse; Erica Hunningher; Jerry Harpur (2004). Gardens of Persia (https://boo
ks.google.com/books?id=AMFRyiAxZ6YC&q=Persian+garden). Kales Press. pp. 7–13.
ISBN 9780967007663.
121. Fakour, Mehrdad. "GARDEN i. ACHAEMENID PERIOD" (http://www.iranicaonline.org/article
s/garden-i). Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. X. pp. 297–298. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
122. L. Mays (2010). Ancient Water Technologies (https://books.google.com/books?id=AEzOzSZ
EAToC&q=Persepolis+irrigation&pg=PA94). Springer. pp. 95–100. ISBN 9789048186327.
123. Mehdi Khansari; M. Reza Moghtader; Minouch Yavari (2004). Persian Garden: Echoes Of
Paradise (https://books.google.com/books?id=0msdJAAACAAJ&q=Persian+garden). Mage
Publishers. ISBN 9780934211758.
124. Mary Beach Langton (1904). How to know oriental rugs, a handbook (https://archive.org/det
ails/bub_gb_YtcPAAAAYAAJ). D. Appleton and Company. pp. 57 (https://archive.org/details/
bub_gb_YtcPAAAAYAAJ/page/n57)–59. "Persian rugs."
125. Ronald W. Ferrier (1989). The Arts of Persia (https://books.google.com/books?id=G2Qkf0h2
Pj4C&q=Pazyryk+Carpet+Persia&pg=PA118). Yale University Press. pp. 118–120.
ISBN 0300039875.
126. (Lawergren 2009) iv. First millennium C.E. (1) Sasanian music, 224–651.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 21 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

126. (Lawergren 2009) iv. First millennium C.E. (1) Sasanian music, 224–651.
127. Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1987). Islamic art and spirituality (https://books.google.com/books?id
=EBu6gWcT0DsC&q=Sassanid+music&pg=PA3). SUNY Press. pp. 3–4.
ISBN 9780887061745.
128. Janet M. Green; Josephine Thrall (1908). The American history and encyclopedia of music (
https://archive.org/details/americanhistory08unkngoog). I. Squire. pp. 55 (https://archive.org/
details/americanhistory08unkngoog/page/n100)–58. "music of persia."
129. Shahbazi, A. Shapur (15 November 2009). "NOWRUZ ii. In the Islamic Period" (http://www.i
ranicaonline.org/articles/nowruz-ii). Encyclopædia Iranica (online ed.).
130. "General Assembly Recognizes 21 March as International Day of Nowruz, Also Changes to
23–24 March Dialogue on Financing for Development – Meetings Coverage and Press
Releases" (https://www.un.org/press/en/2010/ga10916.doc.htm). UN. Retrieved 20 March
2017.
131. UNCESCO (2009). "Intangible Heritage List" (http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?
RL=00282). Retrieved 9 March 2011.

Sources
Ansari, Ali M. (2014). Iran: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-
0199669349.
Boyce, Mary (2001). Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. Psychology Press.
ISBN 978-0415239028.
McGing, B.C. (1986). The Foreign Policy of Mithridates VI Eupator, King of Pontus. BRILL.
ISBN 978-9004075917.
Mitchell, Stephen (2018). "Cappadocia". In Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of
Late Antiquity. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0192562463.
Raditsa, Leo (1983). "Iranians in Asia Minor". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). The Cambridge
History of Iran, Vol. 3 (1): The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods. Cambridge
University Press. ISBN 978-1139054942.
Roisman, Joseph; Worthington, Ian (2010). A Companion to Ancient Macedonia (https://boo
ks.google.com/books?id=lkYFVJ3U-BIC). John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 978-1-4051-7936-2.
Roisman, Joseph; Worthington, Ian (2011). A Companion to Ancient Macedonia (https://boo
ks.google.com/books?id=QsJ183uUDkMC&q=Achaemenid+Persians+ruled+balkans&pg=P
A345). John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 978-1-4443-5163-7.
Van Dam, Raymond (2002). Kingdom of Snow: Roman Rule and Greek Culture in
Cappadocia. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0812236811.

External links
"Persian, Iranian" (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=pes). Ethnologue.
"Persia" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Persia).
Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). 1911. pp. 187–252.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Persians&oldid=1262455282"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 22 of 23
Persians - Wikipedia 01/01/2025, 12:35

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persians Page 23 of 23