Encyclopedia
Throughout history, Iran has been of great
geostrategic importance because of its central location in
Eurasia.
Iran is a member and co-founder of the
United Nations,
NAM, the
OIC, and
OPEC. Iran is also significant in international politics on account of its large
supply of
petroleum. The name Iran is a cognate of
Aryan and literally means "Land of the Aryans."
Name
In former ages, the names Aryana and Persis were used to describe the region which is today known as the
Iranian plateau. The earliest Iranian reference to the word , however, predates the Iranian prophet
Zoroaster and is attested in non-Gathic
Avestan; it appears as
airya, meaning noble/spiritual/elevated; as
airya dainhava meaning the land of the Aryans; and as
airyana vaejah, the original land of the Aryans.
During the
Achaemenid dynasty , the
Persian people called their provincial homeland
Parsa, the
Old Persian name for
Cyrus the Great's kingdom which belonged to the Persian tribe of the
Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranians and which can still be found in the term
Pars or
Fars as part of the heartland of Iran and for example in the map by
Eratosthenes and other historical or modern maps.
However, the country as a whole was called
Aryanam. The word
Ariya, noble/spiritual/elevated, is attested in the Inscriptions of
Darius the Great and his son,
Xerxes I; it is used both as a linguistic and a racial designation as Darius refers to this at the
Behistun inscription , which is written in Aryan language/
airyan, also known as
Old Persian. Both Darius and Xerxes state in
Naqsh-i Rustam ,
Susa , and
Persepolis :
Adam
Parsa,
Parsahya puça;
Ariya,
Ariya ciça..."I am Persian, son of a Persian, an
Aryan, having
aryan lineage.
" --Darius the Great
In
Parthian times , Aryanam was modified to
Aryan. In the early
Sassanid Period , it had already evolved to Middle Persian
Eran or
Eran Shahr which finally resulted in
New Persian Iran or
Iran Shahr.
At the time of the Achaemenid empire, the Greeks called the country
Persis, the Greek name for Pars , the central region where the empire was founded; this passed into Latin and became
Persia, the name widely used in Western countries which causes confusion as Persia is actually Pars province.
In the
20th century,
a dispute arose over whether Iran or Persia is the correct name for the country. On 21 March 1935, the ruler of the country,
Reza Shah Pahlavi, issued a decree asking foreign delegates to use the term
Iran in formal correspondence in accordance with the fact that "Persia" was a term used for a country called "Iran" in Persian.
In 1959, after some scholars protested the change of the nation's name, Reza Shah's son and successor,
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, announced that both Persia and Iran were acceptable, and could be used interchangeably. The
1979 Revolution led to the establishment of the present day theocracy that is officially called the
Islamic Republic of Iran, but the noun
Persia and the adjective
Persian are still commonly used.
History
Early History, Median and Achaemenid Empires
Iran has been inhabited by
humans since
pre-historic times and recent discoveries have begun to shed light upon what ancient culture was like in Iran, centuries before the earliest civilizations arose in nearby
Mesopotamia.
The written history of Persia begins in about 3200 BCE with the
Proto-Elamite civilization, followed by the
Elamites. The arrival of the
Aryans , and the establishing of the
Median dynasty culminated in the first
Persian Empire, the
Achaemenid Empire , founded by
Cyrus the Great.
Cyrus the Great created the
Cyrus Cylinder, considered to be the first declaration of human rights. He was the first king whose name was suffixed with the word "Great" and the first Shah of Iran to be properly called.
After Cyrus' death, his son Cambyses ruled for eight years and continued his father's work of conquest, making significant gains in Egypt. A power struggle followed Cambyses' death and, despite his tenuous connection to the royal line, Darius was declared king . He was to be arguably the greatest of the ancient Persian rulers.
Darius' first capital was at
Susa, and he started the building programme at
Persepolis. He built a canal between the
Nile and the
Red Sea, a forerunner of the modern
Suez Canal. He improved the extensive
road system, and it is during his reign that mention is first made of the
Royal Road , a great highway stretching all the way from Susa to Sardis with posting stations at regular intervals.
Major reforms took place under Darius. Coinage was introduced - the daric and the shekel - and he greatly increased the efficiency of administration. The
Old Persian language appears for the first time in royal inscriptions, written in a specially adapted version of cuneiform.
Under
Cyrus the Great and
Darius the Great, the Persian Empire eventually became the largest and most powerful empire in human history up until that point, ruling and administrating over most of the then known world.
Alexander the Great, also known in the
Zoroastrian Middle Persian
Arda Wiraz Namag as "the accursed Alexander" , conquered Persia in 333 BCE only to be followed shortly by two more vast and unified Persian empires that shaped the pre-Islamic identity of Iran and
Central Asia: the
Parthian and
Sassanian dynasties. The latter dynasties also defeated the Roman empire at the height of its power on several occasions.
The
Silk Road, connecting Persia with China was significant not only for the development and flowering of the great civilizations of
China,
ancient Egypt,
Mesopotamia,
Persia,
India and
Rome but also helped to lay the foundations of our modern world.
Another Iranian Empire: Parthian Empire
Parthia was led by the
Arsacid dynasty, who reunited and ruled over the Iranian plateau, taking over the eastern provinces of the
Greek Seleucid Empire, beginning in the late
3rd century BCE, and intermittently controlled
Mesopotamia between ca 150 BCE and 224 CE. It was the second native dynasty of ancient Iran . Parthia was the arch-enemy of the
Roman Empire in the east; and it limited Rome's expansion beyond
Cappadocia .
The Parthian armies included two types of
cavalry: the heavily-armed and armoured
cataphracts and lightly armed but highly-mobile mounted archers. For the Romans, who relied on heavy
infantry, the Parthians were too hard to defeat, as both types of cavalry were much faster and more mobile than foot soldiers. On the other hand, the Parthians found it difficult to occupy conquered areas as they were unskilled in
siege warfare. Because of these weaknesses, neither the Romans nor the Parthians were able to completely defeat each other.
The Parthian empire lasted five centuries, longer than most Eastern Empires. The end of this long lasted empire came in 224 CE, when the empire was loosely organized and the last king was defeated by one of the empire's vassals, the Persians of the
Sassanid dynasty.
Zoroastrianism and Second Persian Empire: Sassanid Empire
Before the Islamic conquest of Persia,
Zoroastrianism was the national religion of the
Sassanian Empire of Persia, and played an important role in the earlier
Achaemenid and Parthian dynasties. The Iranian Prophet
Zoroaster is considered by numerous scholars as the founder of the earliest religion based on revealed scripture. Many scholars point out that
Judaism and subsequently,
Christianity and
Islam have borrowed from
Zoroastrianism in regards to the concepts of
eschatology,
angelology and demonology. Zoroastrian monotheism has had major influence on the religions of the middle eastern monotheisms in adaptations of such concepts as heavens, hells, judgment day and messianic figures. These concepts amongst many others, reflect the
dualism of Persian culture which has influenced Eastern and
Western civilization. According to Professor Mary Boyce, who was the world's leading doyenne of
Zoroastrian studies and
Iranology, Zoroastrianism is the oldest of the revealed credal religions, and it has probably had more influence on mankind, directly and indirectly, than any other single faith. Nonetheless, claims of Zoroastrianism influencing ancient Jewish thought are disputed by some Jewish and Christian scholars.
Ardashir I, the first king
Sassanian Empire started reforming the country both economically and militarily. The empire's territory encompassed all of today's Iran,
Iraq,
Armenia,
Afghanistan, eastern parts of
Turkey, and parts of
Syria,
Pakistan,
Caucasia,
Central Asia and
Arabia. During
Khosrau II's rule in 590–628
Egypt,
Jordan,
Palestine,
Lebanon was also annexed to the Empire. The Sassanids called their empire Eranshahr "Dominion of the Iranians "
An interesting chapter of Iran's history followed after roughly 600 years of conflict with the
Roman Empire. According to historians, the war-exhausted Persians lost the
Battle of al-Qadisiyyah in Hilla, . The Persian general Rostam Farrokhzad had been criticised for his decision to face the Arabs on their own ground, suggesting that the Persians could have prevailed if they had stayed on the opposite bank of the
Euphrates. The first day of
Battle ended with Persian advances and the Arab force appeared as though it would succumb to the much larger
Sassanian army. In particular, the latter's elephants terrified the Arab
cavalry. By the third day of battle, Arab
veterans arrived on the scene and re-inforced the Arab army. In addition a clever trick whereby the Arab
horses were decorated in costume succeeded in frightening the Persian
elephants. When an Arab warrior succeeded in slaying the lead elephant, the rest fled into the rear, trampelling numerous Persian fighters. At
dawn of the fourth day, a sandstorm broke out blowing sand in the Persian
army's faces resulting in total disarray for the
Sassanian army and paving way for the Islamic conquest of Persia.
The Sassanian era, encompassing the length of the
Late Antiquity period, is considered to be one of the most important and influential historical periods in Iran, and had a major impact on the world. In many ways the Sassanian period witnessed the highest achievement of
Persian civilization, and constituted the last great Iranian Empire before the Muslim conquest and adoption of Islam. Persia influenced Roman civilisation considerably during the Sassanians times; their cultural influence extending far beyond the empire's territorial borders, reaching as far as Western Europe, Africa, China and India and also playing a prominent role in the formation of both European and Asiatic medieval art. This influence carried forward to the early
Islamic world. The dynasty's unique and aristocratic culture transformed the Islamic conquest and destruction of Iran into a Persian Renaissance. Much of what later became known as Islamic culture, architecture, writing and other skills, were taken from the Sassanian Persians into the broader Muslim world.
Islamic Persia and Islamic Golden Age of Persia
After the conquest Persians began to look for ways in which they could remain
Muslim but also define themselves as Persian and sought the "Persianisation" of Islam. In the 8 C.E. they helped
Abbassid to change Ummayad
caliph. Then they enter
Abbassid government as minister like Barmakids. Then they made dynasties in some part of Iran, which were derived legitimacy from
caliphs like Tahirid dynasty and
Samanid dynasty. One of these dynasties also conquered
Baghdad.
Also there was emerged a cultural movement during
9th and
10th centuries which is called. There was a resurgence of
Persian national identity. It was not against Islamic identity but against
Arabization of
Islam and
Muslims. The most notable effect of the movement was the survival of
Persian language, the language of the
Persians, to the present day. The movement never moved into apostacy though, and has it's basis in a verse from the
Qur'an .
Meanwhile as
Europe was in the
dark ages,
Persia and Persian scientists created an
Islamic Golden Age, becoming the heart and mind of the
World and was at this point of history the worlds scientific and cultural center with philosophers, scientists, engineers and historians contributing enormously to technology, science and medicine, leading directly to the renaissance. The late
Middle Ages however brought many critical events in the region. From 1220, Persia was again invaded and destroyed by wave after wave of calamity starting with the
Mongol invasion, followed later by
Tamerlane. During the
Mongol period more than half of the population were killed and didn't reach its pre-Mongol levels until the 20th century.
Safavid Empire, Shi'a Islam and Modern Iran
Persia's first encompassing
Shi'a Islamic state was established under the
Safavid dynasty in 1501. The Safavid dynasty soon became a major power in the world and started the promotion of tourism in Iran. Under their rule the Persian Architecture flowered again and saw many new monuments. The decline of the Safavid state in the 17th century increasingly turned Persia into an arena for rising rival colonial powers such as
Imperial Russia and the
British Empire that wielded great political influence in
Tehran under the
Qajarid dynasty. Iran however, managed to maintain its sovereignty and was never colonized, making it unique in the region. With the rise of modernization in the late 19th century, desire for change led to the
Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1911. In 1921,
Reza Shah Pahlavi staged a
coup against the weakened
Qajar dynasty. A supporter of modernization, Reza Shah initiated the development of modern
industry,
railroads, and establishment of a national
education system, but his autocratic rule and unbalanced social reforms created discontent among many Iranians.
During
World War II,
Britain and the USSR invaded Iran from August 25 to September 17, 1941, to stop an Axis-supported coup and secure Iran's petroleum infrastructure. The
Allies of World War II forced the shah to abdicate in favor of his son,
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whom they hoped would be more supportive. In 1951, an eccentric pro-democratic nationalist, Dr.
Mohammed Mossadegh rose to prominence in Iran and was elected its first
Prime Minister. As Prime Minister, Mossadegh alarmed the West by his nationalization of Anglo-Iranian Oil Company , which controlled all of the country's oil reserves. Britain immediately put an embargo on Iran. Members of the British Intelligence Service approached the
United States under President Eisenhower in 1953 to join them in
Operation Ajax, a coup against Mossadegh. President Eisenhower agreed, and authorized the CIA to assist the BIS in overthrowing Mossadegh. The Shah at first attempted to formally dismiss Mossadegh, but this backfired and Mossadegh convinced the Shah to flee to
Baghdad.
Regardless of this setback, the covert operation soon went into full swing, conducted from US Embassy in Tehran under the leadership of
Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.. Agents were hired to facilitate violence; and, as a result, protests broke out across the nation. Anti- and pro-monarchy protestors violently clashed in the streets, leaving almost 300 dead. The operation was successful in triggering a coup, and within days, pro-Shah tanks stormed the capital and bombarded the Prime Minister's residence. Mossadegh surrendered, and was arrested on 19 August 1953. He was tried for treason, and sentenced to three years in prison.
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was then reinstated as Shah. His rule became increasingly autocratic in the following years. With strong support from the US and UK, the Shah further modernized Iranian industry, but simultaneously crushed all forms of political opposition with his intelligence agency, SAVAK. Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini became an active critic of the Shah's modernization efforts and publicly denounced the government. Khomeini, who was popular in religious circles, was arrested and imprisoned for 18 months. After his release in 1964, Khomeini publicly criticized the United States government. Instead of executing Khomeini, the Shah was persuaded to send him into exile by General
Hassan Pakravan. Khomeini was sent first to
Turkey and then to
Iraq 
