Greater Iran
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Greater Iran or Greater Persia (Persian: ایران بزرگ, romanized: Ērān-i Buzurg), the Iranosphere, the Persosphere or Iranzamin (Persian: ایرانزمین, romanized: Ērān-zamīn), is a term used to refer to a broader cultural sphere that has been influenced by Iranian peoples and Iranian languages, and primarily includes the Iranian plateau, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent (aka, South Asia), and as far east as the Tarim Basin.[1][2][3]
The regions which make up Greater Iran are defined by having long been under the rule of various Iranian empires and dynasties,[note 1][4][5][6] during which the local populace gradually absorbed Iranian influence and assimilated it into their cultural and linguistic traditions;[note 2] or those where a considerable Iranian population settled and retained their culture,[note 3] such as in the areas surrounding the Iranian plateau.[7][8] It is referred to as the "Iranian Cultural Continent" by Encyclopædia Iranica.[9]
Throughout the 16th to 19th centuries, Iran lost many of its historical territories that had been reconquered under the Iranian dynasties of the Safavids and Qajars.[10][11] The Ottoman–Persian Wars resulted in the loss of present-day Iraq to the Ottoman Empire, as outlined in the Treaty of Amasya in 1555 and the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639.[10][12] Later, the Russo-Persian Wars resulted in the loss of the Caucasus to the Russian Empire: the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813 saw Iran cede present-day Dagestan, Georgia, and most of Azerbaijan;[13][10][14][15] the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828 saw Iran cede present-day Armenia, the remainder of Azerbaijan, and Iğdır, setting the northern boundary of Iran along the Aras River.[10][16][17] Parts of Iran, notably Herat, were lost to Afghanistan through the Treaty of Paris in 1857 and the McMahon Arbitration in 1905.[10][18][19][20]
Etymology
[edit]The name "Iran" is the New Persian continuation of the old genitive plural aryānām (Proto-Iranian, meaning "of the Aryans"), first attested in the Avesta as airyānąm (the text of which is composed in Avestan, an old Iranian language spoken in northeastern Greater Iran, or in what are now Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan).[21][22][23][24]
The proto-Iranian term aryānām is present in the term Airyana Vaēǰah, the homeland of Zoroaster and Zoroastrianism, near the provinces of Sogdiana, Margiana, Bactria, etc., listed in the first chapter of the Vidēvdād.[25][26] The Avestan evidence is confirmed by Greek sources: Arianē is spoken of as being between Persia and the Indian subcontinent.[27]
However, this is a Greek pronunciation of the name Haroyum/Haraiva (Herat), which the Greeks called 'Aria'[28] (a land listed separately from the homeland of the Aryans).[29][30]
While up until the end of the Parthian period in the 3rd century CE, the idea of "Ērān" had an ethnic, linguistic, and religious value, it did not yet have a political import. The idea of an "Iranian" empire or kingdom in a political sense is a purely Sasanian one. It was the result of a convergence of interests between the new dynasty and the Zoroastrian clergy, as we can deduce from the available evidence.
This convergence gave rise to the idea of an Ērānšahr "Kingdom of the Iranians", which was "ēr" (Middle Persian, and even New Persian equivalent of Old Persian "ariya" and Avestan "airya").[27]
Definition
[edit]Richard Nelson Frye defines Greater Iran as including "much of the Caucasus, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, with cultural influences extending to western China and northern, northwestern, and western India." According to him, "Iran means all lands and peoples where Iranian languages were and are spoken, and where in the past, multi-faceted Iranian cultures existed."[31]
Richard Foltz describes the Greater Iran as a cultural area stretching from Mesopotamia and the Caucasus into Khwarizm, Transoxiana, Bactria, and the Pamirs, including in pre-Islamic times peoples such as the Persians, Medes, Parthians, and Sogdians, among others.[32]
Medieval and early modern Persian authors, such as Qadi Baydawi, 'Abd al-Razzāq Samarqandī, Mir Khwand, and Mustawfī-e Bāfqī, typically defined Iran as extending from the Euphrates to the Oxus.[33][34][35][36] The Shahnameh of Abu Mansur describes Iran as a land stretching from the Oxus to the Nile (or the Euphrates in some readings), situated at the center of the world, surrounded by China, India, the Turks, the Khazars, the 'Barbarians,' Rome, and Egypt.[37] In the Letter of Tansar, as quoted by Ibn Isfandiyar, Iran is described as stretching from the Oxus to the furthermost borders of Azerbaijan and Persarmenia, and from the Euphrates and "the lands of the Arabs" up to Oman and Makran, and from thence to Kabul and Tokharistan.[38][39] Hamdallah Mustawfi defines Iran's geography in his Nuzhat al-Qulūb as extending from Konya in the west to the Oxus in the east, and from Basra in the south to Derbent in the north.[40][41] He proceeds to elaborate on Iran's exact geographic boundaries as follows:
Sind, Kabul, Saghaniyan, Transoxiana, and Khwarizm up to Saqsin and Bulghār, make up Iran's eastern frontiers. Niksar and Sis make up the western frontiers. Ossetia, Circassia, Alania, Rus, and the lands of the Magyars and the Burtas along the Khazar steppe, make up the northern frontiers. ... The Najd desert—connected to Syria in the west and the sea of Persia in the east—marks the southern frontier. Although some of these borderlands have been under the rule of the kings of Iran in the past—some of the cities therein having even been founded by Iranian kings—we shall not mention any more of them, for our intent here is only to describe the land of Iran.[42][43]
Background
[edit]
Greater Iran is called Eranzamin (ایرانزمین) which means "Iranland" or "The Land of Iran". Eranzamin was in the mythical times as opposed to the Turanzamin, "Turanland" or "The Land of Turan", which was located in the upper part of Central Asia.[45][verification needed]
With Imperial Russia continuously advancing south in the course of two wars against Persia, and the treaties of Turkmenchay and Gulistan in the western frontiers, plus the unexpected death of Abbas Mirza in 1833, and the murdering of Persia's Grand Vizier (Mirza AbolQasem Qa'im Maqām), many Central Asian khanates began losing hope for any support from Persia against the Tsarist armies.[10][46] The Russian armies occupied the Aral coast in 1849, Tashkent in 1864, Bukhara in 1867, Samarkand in 1868, and Khiva and Amudarya in 1873.
Many Iranians consider their natural sphere of influence to extend beyond Iran's present borders. After all, Iran was once much larger. Portuguese forces seized islands and ports in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the 19th century, the Russian Empire wrested from Tehran's control what is today Armenia, Republic of Azerbaijan, and part of Georgia. Iranian elementary school texts teach about the Iranian roots not only of cities like Baku, but also cities further north like Derbent in southern Russia. The Shah lost much of his claim to western Afghanistan following the Anglo-Iranian war of 1856–1857. Only in 1970 did a UN sponsored consultation end Iranian claims to suzerainty over the Persian Gulf island nation of Bahrain. In centuries past, Iranian rule once stretched westward into modern Iraq and beyond. When the western world complains of Iranian interference beyond its borders, the Iranian government often convinced itself that it is merely exerting its influence in lands that were once its own. Simultaneously, Iran's losses at the hands of outside powers have contributed to a sense of grievance that continues to the present day.
Iran today is just a rump of what it once was. At its height, Iranian rulers controlled Iraq, Afghanistan, Western Pakistan, much of Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Many Iranians today consider these areas part of a greater Iranian sphere of influence.
Since the days of the Achaemenids, the Iranians had the protection of geography. But high mountains and the vast emptiness of the Iranian plateau were no longer enough to shield Iran from the Russian army or British navy. Both literally, and figuratively, Iran shrank. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Afghanistan were Iranian, but by the end of the century, all this territory had been lost as a result of European military action.[49]
Regions
[edit]In the 8th century, Iran was conquered by the Arab Abbasids who ruled from Baghdad. The territory of Iran at that time was composed of two portions: Persian Iraq (western portion) and Khorasan (eastern portion). The dividing region was mostly the cities of Gurgan and Damaghan. The Ghaznavids, Seljuqs and Timurids divided their empires into Iraqi and Khorasani regions. This point can be observed in many books such as Abul Fazl Bayhqi's "Tārīkh-i Bayhaqī", Al-Ghazali's Faza'il al-anam min rasa'ili hujjat al-Islam and other books. Transoxiana and Chorasmia were mostly included in the Khorasanian region.
Caucasus
[edit]North Caucasus
[edit]
Dagestan remains the bastion of Persian culture in the North Caucasus with fine examples of Iranian architecture like the Sassanid citadel in Derbent, the strong influence of Persian cuisine, and common Persian names amongst the ethnic peoples of Dagestan. The ethnic Persian population of the North Caucasus, the Tats, remain, despite strong assimilation over the years, still visible in several North Caucasian cities. Even today, after decades of partition, some of these regions retain Iranian influences, as seen in their old beliefs, traditions and customs (e.g. Norouz).[50]
South Caucasus
[edit]According to Tadeusz Swietochowski, the territories of Iran and the republic of Azerbaijan usually shared the same history from the time of ancient Media (ninth to seventh centuries b.c.) and the Persian Empire (sixth to fourth centuries b.c.).[51][page needed]
Intimately and inseparably intertwined histories for millennia, Iran irrevocably lost the territory that is nowadays Azerbaijan in the course of the 19th century. With the Treaty of Gulistan of 1813 following the Russo-Persian War (1804–1813) Iran had to cede eastern Georgia, its possessions in the North Caucasus and many of those in what is today the Azerbaijan Republic, which included the khanates of Baku, Shirvan, Karabakh, Ganja, Shaki, Quba, Derbent, and parts of Talysh. These Khanates comprise most of what is today the Republic of Azerbaijan and Dagestan in Southern Russia. In the Treaty of Turkmenchay of 1828 following the Russo-Persian War (1826–1828), the result was even more disastrous, and resulted in Iran being forced to cede the remainder of the Talysh Khanate, the khanates of Nakhichevan and