|
|
|
|
History of the name Azerbaijan
|
| |
|
| |
Azerbaijan is the name used by the Iranian region of Azerbaijan and also by the Republic of Azerbaijan. This name originated from pre-Islamic history of Persia, derived from Atropates, a Persian satrap (governor). The article covers the etymology of this term and also territorial regions that utilized this name in the historical era as well as in modern times.
Name
According to historian Vladimir Minorsky :
According to Xavier Planhol:
According to Professor K.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'History of the name Azerbaijan' Start a new discussion about 'History of the name Azerbaijan' Answer questions from other users |
Encyclopedia
Azerbaijan is the name used by the Iranian region of Azerbaijan and also by the Republic of Azerbaijan. This name originated from pre-Islamic history of Persia, derived from Atropates, a Persian satrap (governor). The article covers the etymology of this term and also territorial regions that utilized this name in the historical era as well as in modern times.
Name
According to historian Vladimir Minorsky :
According to Xavier Planhol:
According to Professor K. Shippmann:
Pre-Islamic era
Strabo in Book 11 of his geography gives us one of the earliest accounts of the region and mentions the kingdom of Atropatene.
The Natural History of Pliny states:
Shapur I's inscription in Naqsh-e-Rostam also lists the North Western and Caucasian provinces of Sassanid Iran, amongst them Albania, Atropatene, Armenia, Iberia, Balasgan, and the gate of Alans. . E.H.
Islamic era
Various historians and geographers and travelers have given description of the region during the Islamic era and the article. Some of these are listed in chronological order here.
Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa (d. 760) a Muslim or Zoroastrian scholar and translator of Persian background is quoted by Ibn Nadeem (d. 988) as incorporating the region of Azerbaijan into the Fahla:
Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn (896-956), the Arab historian states:
Ahmad ibn Yaqubi (d. 897) in his work Al-Buldan (The Countries) writes
-
Ahmad ibn Yaqubi (d. 897) in his work Al-Tarikh (The History) writes:
Ahmad ibn Yaqubi quoted by the Arabian historian Abul Fida has stated:
Al-Istakhri, in 930, wrote:
Al-Muqaddasi (b. 945) lists the cities of Azerbaijan and Armenia and Aran:
Ibn Hawqal (943-977), the 10th century Arabian traveler gives an eyewitness account of his stay in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Aran. Fakhr ad-din Asad Gorgani, a 11th century poet, who rhymed the pre-Islamic story of Vis o Ramin into new Persian poetry, mentions Azerbaijan, Armenia and Aran in two couplets as the special domain of the princess vis ?amd-Allah ibn Abi Bakr Qazvini Mustawfi, in his Nuzhat al-qulub (d. 1339-40) also mentions Azerbaijan, Arran, Mughan, and Shirvan as different provinces.
Bala'mi (946-973), the 10th century Persian court chronicler of Samanids, translated an abridged version of Tabari's history into Persian and wrote his own additional comments. He states:
Bala'ami also states:
Ibn Rusta, a 9th/10th century Persian explorer and geographer traveled to region and has mentioned the names of the districts and provinces. He writes in his famous book al-A'laq Al-Nafisah:
The Hodud al-Alam, finished in 982, "considered Azerbaijan, Arran, and Armenia as the pleasantest of all the Islamic lands. It also states:
Ali ibn al-Athir on the Mongol invasions (1163-1233):
Zakariya ibn Muhammad Qazvini (1208/1209-1283/1284), the writer of Athar Al-Bilad wa Akhbar al-'ibad writes:
Yaqut al-Hamawi (d. 1229), a Syrian born geographer is famous for his geography bible Mu'jam Al-Buldan. He states:
Hamdollah Mostowfi (1281-1349 A.D), Persian chronicler who worked for the Ilkhanid administration and was familiar with administrative affairs of his time writes: :
The 17th century Persian dictionary/quasi-encyclopedia Burhan Qati' under the words Aras and Aran gives two definitions
In his book entitled The travels of Sir John Chardin, by the way of the Black Sea, through the countries of Circassia, Mingrelia, the country of the Abcas, Georgia, Armenia, and Media, into Persia proper, Sir John Chardin, a traveller from France who visited the Middle East at the end of the 17th century described Azerbaijan as follows:
Modern (18th, 19th, and 20th centuries)
William Jones, an English Historian and translator of Mirza Muhammad Mahdi Khan Astrabadi's Tarikh-i Jahangusha-yi Naderi (a history book written about Nader Shah) mentions Azerbaijan and its major cities in the preface, which include Tabriz and Ardabil. It also describes the major cities of Arran and Armenia, and Shirvan and Daghestan, which were Gangia and Erivan, and Baku, Shamakhi, and Derbent respectively. In A System of Geography, published in 1832, the Asiatic Caucasian provinces of Russia are called Daghistan, Shirwan, and Aran. Persia's boundary is limited to the Araxes, and the land below the Araxes is labeled as Azerbaijan.
Keith Abbot, British Consular General in Persia, wrote in the Memorandum on the Country of Azerbaijan in 1863:
Charles Anthon (d. 1888) writes:
Russian Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, published in 1890, states the following in the article called "Azerbeijan":
The Methodist Magazine and Review (d. 1900) states:
According to the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (d. 1901):
The Nuttall Encyclopædia (d. 1907) states:
The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (d. 1908) states:
Encyclopaedia Britannica (d. 1911), states the following in the article called "Azerbaijan":
Also, according to The History of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews (d. 1908), Persia: The Land of the Magi (d. 1913), and The Foreign Doctor: A Biography of Joseph Plumb Cochran, M.D. of Persia (d. 1917), Azerbaijan is described as a province of Persia. In Persian, the word is translatable to both "the treasury" and "the treasurer" of fire.
Maps
Assessments of modern scholars
According to Barrington atlas of the Greek and Roman world:
According to Vladimir Minorsky:
According to Professor Tadeusz Swietochowski:
According to C.E. Bosworth:
According to Professor Xavier De Planhol:
According to Professor Ben Fowkes:
According Professor Bert. G. Franger:
Azerbaijan as the name of an independent republic
Tadeusz Swietochowski comments on the Czarist reforms during the 19th century:
With the collapse of Tsarist Russia in 1917, the Musavat Party met in Tbilisi on May 28, 1918 and proclaimed independence of their country with the name Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. Tadsuez Swietchowski also comments on the Iranian reaction and subsequent response from the new government:
He also states:
According to Igor M. Diakonoff:
According to Vladimir Minorsky:
Vasily Bartold has stated:
Terminology today
Today the name Azerbaijan denotes both the republic of Azerbaijan and the north western provinces of Iran, which are East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Ardabil and Zanjan. During the soviet era, the name 'Southern Azerbaijan' was created and propagated throughout the USSR. The USSR also created two organizations for separating East and West Azerbaijan provinces from Iran. Today, the nomenclature South Azerbaijan is used by some politicians in the Republic of Azerbaijan and some groups advocating separatism of Iranian Azerbaijan. At the same time, the heavily Kurdish populated province of west Azerbaijan in Iran has also been called East Kurdistan(Rojhelat) by some Kurdish political groups and this nomenclature has also been used by some western sources.. Some Armenian political groups have also marked parts of Iranian Azerbaijan as greater Armenia and the term ‘’Greater Armenia’’ has been used by some western sources to refer to portions of Iranian Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijani people
Historically the Turkic-speaking people of Iranian Azerbaijan and the Caucasus often called themselves or were referred to by some neighbouring peoples (e.g. Persians) as Turks, and religious identification prevailed over ethnic identification. When Transacaucasia became part of the Russian empire, Russian authorities, who traditionally called all Turkic people Tatars, called Azeris Aderbeijani/Azerbaijani or Caucasian Tatars to distinguish them from other Turkic people, also called Tatars by Russians. Russian Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary also refers to Azerbaijanis as Aderbeijans in some articles. According to the article Turko-Tatars of the above encyclopedia, “some scholars (Yadrintsev, Kharuzin, Shantr) suggested to change the terminology of some Turko-Tatar people, who somatically don’t have much in common with Turks, for instance, to call Aderbaijani Tatars (Iranians by type) Aderbaijans”. The modern ethnonym Azerbaijani/Azeri in its present form was accepted in 1930s.
See also
|
| |
|
|
