The Persian people are defined by the use of the Persian language Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq, Bahrain, and Oman. New Persian, which usually is called also by the names of Dari, Farsi, Parsi or Parsi-Dari, can be classified linguistically as a continuation as their mother tongue. However, the term Persian has also a supra-ethnic significance and has been historically referred to a part of Iranian peoples Indigenous ethnicities and emigrant communities living in: Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia, Russia, Oman, China , Hungary, United Kingdom and United States. The origin of the Persian people is traced to the ancient Indo-Europeans (Aryans Then, in the 1830s, based on the erroneous theory that words like "Aryan" could also be found in European languages, the term "Aryan" came to be used as the term for the Indo-European language group, and by extension, the speakers of those languages. In the 19th century, "language" was still considered a property of &), who arrived in parts of Greater Iran Greater Iran refers to the regions that have significant Iranian cultural influence. It roughly corresponds to the territory surrounding the Iranian plateau, stretching from the Caucasus to the Indus River in modern day Pakistan, and conform to the historical understanding of the full territory of "Iran." circa 2000-1500 BCE. Starting around 550 BCE, from the region of Persis in southern Iran Iran (Persian: ایران [ʔiˈɾɒn]), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia. Both "Persia" and "Iran" are used interchangeably in cultural context;, encompassing the present Fars Fārs (pronounced /fɑːs/ (Persian: Fārs, Pārs) (Originally Pars) is one of the 30 provinces of Iran. It is in the south of the country and its center is Shiraz. It has an area of 122,400 km². In 2006, this province had a population of 4.34 million people, of which 61.2% were registered as urban dwellers, 38.1% villagers, and 0.7% nomad tribes province, the ancient Persians The Achaemenid Empire or Persian Empire was the successor state of the Median Empire[citation needed], ruling over significant portions of what would become Greater Iran. The Persian and the Median Empire taken together are also known as the Medo-Persian Empire, succeeding the Neo-Assyrian Empire. It was succeeded in turn by the Seleucid Empire spread their language The Old Persian language is one of the two attested Old Iranian languages . Old Persian appears primarily in the inscriptions, clay tablets, seals of the Achaemenid era (c. 600 BCE to 300 BCE). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now present-day Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Egypt the most important attestation by far being the contents of and culture to other parts of the Iranian plateau The Iranian plateau, also known as the Persian plateau is a geological formation in Southwest Asia and Southern Asia. It is the part of the Eurasian Plate wedged between the Arabian and Indian plates, situated between the Zagros mountains to the west, the Caspian Sea and the Kopet Dag to the north, the Hormuz Strait and Arabian Sea to the south through conquest and assimilated local Iranic Indigenous ethnicities and emigrant communities living in: Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia, Russia, Oman, China , Hungary, United Kingdom and United States and non-Iranic Elam was an ancient civilization located in what is now southwest Iran. Elam was centered in the far west and the southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province , as far as Jiroft in Kerman province and Burned City in Zabol[citation needed], as well as a small part of southern Iraq groups over time. This process of assimilation continued in the face of Greek Alexander III of Macedon , popularly known as Alexander the Great (Greek: Μέγας Ἀλέξανδρος, Mégas Aléxandros), was a Greeki[›] king (basileus) of Macedon who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexander received a classical Greek education under the tutorship of famed philosopher, Arab The Muslim conquest of Persia led to the end of the Sassanid Empire in 644, of the Sassanid dynasty in 651 and the eventual extirpation of the Zoroastrian religion in Persia. The Sassanid Empire was first invaded by Muslims in present day Iraq in 633 under general Khalid ibn Walid, which resulted in Muslim conquest of Iraq. Following the transfer, Mongol The Ilkhanate, also spelled Il-khanate or Il Khanate , was a Mongol khanate established in Persia in the 13th century, considered a part of the Mongol Empire. The Ilkhanate rulers, beginning with Ghazan, embraced Islam, the religion professed by most of the people living in its territories which included present-day Iran, most of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Turkic The Ghaznavids were a Persianate Muslim dynasty of Turkic mamluk origin which existed from 975 to 1187 and ruled much of Persia, Transoxania, and the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent. The Ghaznavid state was centered in Ghazni, a city in present Afghanistan. Due to the political and cultural influence of their predecessors - that of the invasions and continued right up to Islamic times The Islamization in Iran occurred as a result of the Islamic conquest of Persia. It was a long process by which Islam was gradually accepted by the majority population. On the other hand Iranians have maintained their pre-Islamic traditions including language and culture and adapted them with Islamic codes. Finally these two customs and traditions.[1][2]
Numerous dialects and regional identities emerged over time, while a Persian orientation fully manifested itself in Iran and Afghanistan by the 20th century, mirroring developments in post-Ottoman Turkey, Europe Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains (or the Kuma-Manych Depression), and the Black Sea to the southeast. Europe is bordered, the Caucasus The Caucasus or Caucas is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, including Europe's highest mountain (Mount Elbrus) and the Arab world Arab nationalism is a nationalist ideology which rose to prominence amongst Arabs from the early 20th century onwards. Its central premise is that the peoples and countries of the Arab World, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, constitute one nation and are bound together by their common linguistic, cultural, religious, and historical. With the disintegration of the final Persian Empires The Achaemenid Empire or Persian Empire was the successor state of the Median Empire, ruling over significant portions of what would become Greater Iran. The Persian and the Median Empire taken together are also known as the Medo-Persian Empire, succeeding the Neo-Assyrian Empire. It was succeeded in turn by the Seleucid Empire of the Afsharid The Afsharids were members of an Iranian dynasty of Turkic descent from Khorasan who ruled Persia in the 18th century. The dynasty was founded in 1736 by the military commander Nader Shah who deposed the last member of the Safavid dynasty and proclaimed himself King of Iran. During Nader's reign, Iran reached its greatest extent since the Sassanid and Qajar The Qajar dynasty Qajar ) (Persian: سلسله قاجاریه - or دودمان قاجار, also anglicized as Ghajar or Kadjar) was a Turco-Persian Qajar royal family who ruled Persia (the country now known as Iran) from 1794 to 1925. The Qajar family took full control of Iran in 1794, deposing Lotf 'Ali Khan, the last of the Zand dynasty, and re- dynasties,territories in the Caucasus Azerbaijan (pronounced /ˌæzərbaɪˈdʒɑːn/ ; Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan), formally the Republic of Azerbaijan (Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan Respublikası), is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the,[3] and Central Asia Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan (Tajik: Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and People's Republic of China to the east. Tajikistan also lies adjacent to Pakistan but either became independent from Iran or incorporated into the Russian Empire The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia, and the predecessor of the Soviet Union. It was the second largest contiguous empire the world has ever seen, surpassed only by the Mongol Empire, and the third largest empire the world has ever seen, surpassed.
The Persian peoples emerged as an eclectic collection of groups with the Persian language Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq, Bahrain, and Oman. New Persian, which usually is called also by the names of Dari, Farsi, Parsi or Parsi-Dari, can be classified linguistically as a continuation being the main shared legacy. Diverse populations in Central Asia, such as the Hazaras The Hazāra are a Persian-speaking ethnic group who live mainly in the central region of Afghanistan. They are overwhelmingly Shia Muslims, with a Sunni minority, and comprise the third largest ethnic group of the country with about 10% of its population. Hazaras are also found in large numbers in neighboring Pakistan, especially in the city of show traces of Mongol ancestry. As Persian was the lingua franca of the Iranian plateau (the highlands between Iraq and the Indus) it has come to be used by numerous groups as a second language including Turkic Iranian Azeris, also known as "Persian Azeris", are the native Azeri population of Iran, mainly found in the northwest provinces of East Azarbaijan, West Azarbaijan, Ardabil, Zanjan, and, in smaller numbers, in other provinces such as Kurdistan, Qazvin,Hamadan and Markazi. Many Iranian Azeris also live in Tehran, Karaj and other regions. and Arab Iranian Arabs are the Arabic-speaking peoples of Iran. Most Iranian Arabs live in the coastal regions of southern Iran by the Persian Gulf. Iranian Arab communities are also found in Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates groups. While most Persians in Iran adhere to Shia Islam Shia Islam , is the second largest denomination of Islam, after Sunni Islam. The followers of Shia Islam are called Shi'as or Shi'ites, those to the east remain followers of Sunni Islam Sunni Islam is the largest denomination of Islam. It is also referred to as Ahl as-Sunnah wa’l-Jamā‘ah (Arabic: أهل السنة والجماعة "people of the example and the community") or Ahl as-Sunnah (Arabic: أهل السنة) for short. The word Sunni comes from the word Sunnah (Arabic: سنة), which means the. Small groups of Persians continue to follow the pre-Islamic faiths of Zoroastrianism, Christianity Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament, Judaism Judaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Tanakh, and explored and explained in later texts such as the Talmud. Jews consider Judaism to be the expression of the covenantal relationship God developed with the Children of Israel—originally a group of around a dozen tribes claiming descent from and the post-Islamic Bahá'í Faith.
While a categorization of a 'Persian' ethnic group persists in the West, Persians have generally been a pan-national group often comprising regional peoples who rarely refer to themselves as 'Persians' and sometimes use the term 'Iranian' instead. The synonymous usage of Iranian and Persian persisted over the centuries despite the varied meanings of Iranian, which includes different but related languages and ethnic groups. As a pan-national group, defining Persians as an ethnic group, at least in terms used in the West, is problematic since Persians are a varied group.
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