به نام خداوند جان و خرد

کزین اندیشه برتر برنگذرد

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ازمند امدند و سیل اسا

در کفی تیغ و در کفی یاسا

تنگ چشمان گول نابخرد

چاروازادگان صـحرا گرد

بدسگالان کژ نهاد پلشـت

دوزخی چهرگان سفله زشت

غولهای پلید ناهنجار

اژدها وش ددان خونخوار

خیل دیوان دل سپرده به ریو

تا به گردونشان رسیده غریو

بدگهر تیره ای انیرانی

خواستاران جنگ و ویرانی

کرده اغشته تیغ ها با زهر

ارزومند فتح ایرانشهر

به گمانی که تهمتن خوابست

نقش ایران فتاده بر ابست

یا یل تیزچنگ سرکش ؛ گیو

رفت و پردخته شد جهان از نیو

یا که بیژن ؛ هژبر رزم اگاه

سرنگون اوفتاده اندر چاه

یا که ارش به تیر پرتابی

نیست شد زیر گنبد ابی

یا که شد بیدرفشت جادو چیر

بر نبرده سوار یکه ؛ زریر

یا که اسفندیار پهلو مرد

و ان نهال دلاوری پژمرد

با خیالات خام و سودایی

کرده پا در رکاب خودرایی

اتش افروز و جانشکار و جسور

مست خودکامگی ز جام غرور

مردمانی نبرده بهره ز هوش

زندگی کرده در کنار وحوش

همچو اهریمنان خوف انگیز

تاختند اسب فتنه با چنگیز

کینه ها توختند و خون راندند

خشک و تر هرچه بود سوزاندند

بی خبر زانکه ارش و بیژن

گیو و اسفندیار رویین تن

یا زریر سوار و رستم زال

و انهمه شیر سرکشیده ز یال

از کیومرث نامدار سترگ

تا به بهمن ؛ یلان خرد و بزرگ

سربسر نام گوهری فردست

که ستیهنده تر زهر مردست

گوهری ابدیده در کوره

خون تاریخ و روح اسطوره

گوهری با تباری از فرهنگ

بسته بر خصم شرزه چون پالاهنگ

گوهری شبچراغ گمراهی

مطلع افتاب اگاهی

گوهری پرورنده ی پاکی

فره ای ایزدی و افلاکی

گوهری نخلبند اندیشه

کرده در خاک معرفت ریشه

جنگ ان بدرگان خشم اور

جنگ خرمهره بود با گوهر

چالشی دیگر از گذشته ی دور

بین پروردگان ظلمت و نور

کهنه پیکار اهریمن رایی

با سبک روحی اهورایی

کارزاری که جز سیه روزی

بدگمان را نبود از ان روزی

گیر و داری که گوهر فرهنگ

زد بر ان مهر نام و داغ ننگ

مهر نامی که تا به جاویدان

می درخشد به تارک ایران

داغ ننگی که تا به رستاخیز

می کشد تار شرم ان چنگیز

(این شعر که به توسط شاعر معاصر ؛ محمد پیمان ؛ سروده شده پیوست مقاله ای بوده است . نگاه کنید به : البرز ؛ پرویز ؛ « سیری در شعر اجتماعی وانتقادی عصر مغول » ؛ مجموعه مقالات اولین سمینار تاریخی هجوم مغول ؛ ج۱ ؛ ص۸۲-۸۱)

By Garshasp

(Note this material was not checked thoroughly for grammatical/spelling mistakes due to lack of time.  The article was written in September 2007.  If some of the links given in this article do not work, please use www.archive.org and look for the 2006-2008 time frames ).

 

It is sad that in this age and day, there are people actively working to create ethnic discord, tension and animosity between groups of people due to language, religion or etc.         

 

This article clearly shows that the recent book by Alireza Asgharzadeh is unscholarly, un-academic and racist.  The book by Alireza Asgharzadeh titled: “A. Asgharzadeh, Iran and the Challenge of Diversity: Islamic Fundamentalism, Aryanist Racism, and Democratic Struggles , Palgrave Macmillan (June 12, 2007) )” is full of conspiracy theories and based upon pseudo-scholars who support conspiracy theories.  The book is incoherent and inconsistent in terms of putting forward the racist thesis of the author.  The aim of the current article is to examine the book and show the multitude of inconsistent argument, historical revisionism and selective amnesia of quoting sources by Alireza Asgharzadeh.  The current article only examines some of the falsehood and historical forgeries perpetuated by Alireza Asgharzadeh.  Had the writer of this article attempted to expose the falsehood of every single argument of Alireza Asgharzadeh, the article would simply be more than 1000 pages.  But sufficient examples are given to show that Alireza Asgharzadeh is himself an extremely racist person, supports pan-Turkism and is a historical revisionist.

 

 An important note should be made that Alireza Asgharzadeh uses the term Azerbaijani and Turk equivalently.  Thus when the author of this  article states statements such as: “X does not have anything to do with Turkic culture”, it does not mean that “X does not have anything to do with Azerbaijani culture”.  But since Alireza Asgharzadeh uses the term interchangeably, the author of this article will take a note of this.  Also some of the language used in this article might seem a bit straight forward, but when any Iranian who has not been tainted by anti-Iranian ideologies like pan-Turkism reads the book of Alireza Asgharzadeh, the response will naturally be straight forward.  After the complete response, the author will give his suggestion and strategy on confronting pan-Turkism which has risen due to the ignorance of the Islamic republic and its lack of interest in Iranian nationhood and also due to foreign influence as will be shown.  Also the author wishes to express that he has nothing against the citizens of any neighboring country including Turkey or Azerbaijan republic and does not judge humans based on their background which they have not chosen.  But there is not a shadow of doubt that there are expansionist groups in these countries which actually inhibit mutual regional development and have expressed their desire to separate NW Iran from Iran.  Thus some of the comments of this article should be seen in this defensive light.  Note: This article might be expanded slightly in the future to take into account several other falsehoods created by pan-Turkist chavaunists.

 

Three revisionist writers quoted heavily by Asgharzadeh. 5

Naser Pourpiar 5

Brenda Shaffer 12

Mohammad Taqi Zehtabi 16

Medes. 29

Parthians. 34

Other pseudo-scholars mentioned by Asgharzadeh. 34

Racist Websites. 34

Javad Heyat 35

Sadiq Mohammadzadeh. 35

Alireza Nazmi Afshar 35

Historical Turco-Iranian Encounters. 37

Irano-Turkish Relations in the Late Sasanian Period. 45

Persian language among Turkish dynasties. 51

Oghuz attack on Azerbaijan during Ghaznavids. 53

Negative view of Turks by the Ottomans. 56

Are Azeris Turks?. 58

Assimilation and Pan-Turkism in the republic of Azerbaijan and Turkey. 64

Pan-Turkist claims on Iran in the 19th and early 20th century and selective historical amnesia by Alireza Asgharzadeh. 71

Iranian nationalism in the 19th century caucus. 72

Ottomon spreading of Pan-Turkism.. 72

Response to many of the false claims of Alireza Asgharzadeh. 91

Some Introductory material from Alireza Asgharzadeh. 91

Falsification of Iran’s history by Asgharzadeh. 97

Official Language of Iran and Asgharzadeh’s hiding of the truth. 106

Bogus Census of Demographics of Iran by Asgharzadeh. 108

Another Bogus figure. 117

Mamalek Mahrooseyeh Iran does not mean what Alireza Asgharzadeh claims. 118

Babak Khorramdin, an Iranian who fought against the Caliphs and their Turkish Soldiers. 120

Foreign Interference. 122

British meddling in Khuzestan. 122

Ottomon interference and pan-Turkism.. 123

USSR interference and Pishevari: 123

Saddam Hussein and Khuzestan. 125

The republic of Azerbaijan. 125

The West 126

Cartoon issue. 130

Response to Vaziri and Joya Sa’ad Blondel 137

Yes the majority of Iranians have been victims. 140

Elamites survived 2000+ years of Aryan presence but wiped out after the Arab and Seljuqid invasionsl 140

Dede Qorqod not related to pre-Islamic Iran. 160

Two unreliable writers does not equal many Iranian historians!! 162

Cuneiform and Greek and Old Persian. 163

Cyrus, the Old Testament and the passing away of Cyrus. 164

Asgharzadeh’s mis-information and falsification of the Avesta. 193

Ferdowsi, Shahnameh and Pan-Turkism.. 213

Omission of important sentences from sources. 241

Arya/Pars. 252

Rezashah/Khiyabani/Khazal/Ferqeh. 267

Pan-Turkists, Ferqeh and Kurds. 300

Nazi Germany and the Muslim World. 307

Arran and Azerbaijan. 311

Misrepresentation of Aref Qazvini and Shahryar 334

Afghanistan and Iraq. 336

More example of pan-Turkist historiography. 337

Conclusion. 339

 

Three revisionist writers quoted heavily by Asgharzadeh

 

Three people Asgharzadeh quotes heavily are Naser Pourpirar ,  Mohammad Taqi Zehtabi and Brenda Shaffer.   Both the political background and revisionist and outright manipulation of these three writers is discussed in Section I.  Of course, if Brenda Shaffer is reading this, she might want to skip over the Naser Pourpirar section, since Naser Pourpirar is heavily used by Asgharzadeh.  At the same time, since she gave a positive review of a Pourpirar based book, she might want to read what kind of sources she is supporting and is it really in her countries (Israel’s) interest.

 

Naser Pourpiar

 

 

http://www.naria.blogfa.com/Photo/n/naria.jpg

 

(Picture taken from his blog: www.naria.blogfa.com)

 

 

The scholarly background of Naser Pourpirar is unknown.  The current author has examined Pourpirar’s weblog (www.naria.blogfa.com) and Pourpirar has never admitted at having more than a diploma and this claim is confirmed by different sources.  Of course not having more than diploma is nothing unworthy and the author only looks at the arguments of Pourpirar and not academic credentials.  But it should be noted that Pourpirar does know any ancient languages like Old Persian, Middle Persian, Soghdian, Elamite, Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Urartuian, Old Armenian, Parthian and etc.  But yet he has been heavily quoted by Asgharzadeh in pages

 

Alireza Asgharzadeh has quoted and mentioned Pourpirar in pages 8, 30, 49-52, 55, 57, 62, 79-81, 178, 198, 206, 236 and 237 of his book.  The false arguments quoted by Alireza Asgharzadeh from Pourpirar will be examined when we actually examine the book of Ali Reza Asgharzadeh in Section 4 of this article.

 

So far we have shown that the academic background of Pourpiar is unknown.  Indeed Pourpirar is famous for his anti-Semitic rhetorics and calling modern day universities as a center that propagate Jewish and Christian lies.

 

All the materials we quote are directly from Pourpirar’s writing and weblog.

 

Pourpirar's revisionism begins with the event of Purim, recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther. He believes that that Purim was a genocide committed against the native population of Iran by the Achaemenid Shah Darius I of Persia and his Jewish allies. He claims that:  after the great genocide committed by Jews in Purim, the land of Iran was completely wiped out of human beings until the beginning of Islam.

 

http://www.naria.blogfa.com/85084.aspx

 

Exact Persian:

 

از آن جا که وسعت نسل کشی یهودیان، در ماجرای پلید پوریم، سرزمین ایران راکاملا از سکنه خالی کرده بود، پس از ظهور اسلام، این سرزمین با ورود مهاجرینی از تمام همسایگان و از همه سو، به تدریج دارای کلنی های کوچک انسانی شد که کم ترین پیوند بومی با ایران کهن نداشتند و از مراتب و مناسک و فرهنگ و زبان و پوشش و باورهای پیشین سرزمین های اصلی خویش پیروی کرده اند. در این جا عمده ترین سئوال هویت شناسانه می پرسد کدام یک از مجموعه های زیستی پراکنده در سراسر ایران، در موقعیت های نخستین و کنونی و به چه دلیل و نشانه و تشابه، دنباله ی بومیان ایران کهن اند و چه همخوانی ماهوی در تولید و فرهنگ، میان ساکنان پس از اسلام و اقوام ماقبل پوریم وجود دارد؟

 

 

 

According to Pourpirar above: a few historic sites which are said to be Parthian, are indeed either clearly related to Greeks or are modern forgery. He claims all inscriptions which are said to be Sassanid are modern forgeries. He also believes that historical personalities such Mazdak, Mani, Zoroaster, Babak, Abu Moslem, Salman the Persian  were also invented by modern Jewish historians.

 

 

Actual quote of Pourpiar to one of his followers:

http://www.naria.blogfa.com/post-34.aspx

 

 

آقای یشایایی در آن مذاکره ی دراز مدت تلفنی نیز یادآور شدم که قتل عام مردم و محو تمدن و هستی شرق میانه، در ۲۵۰۰ سال پیش در ماجرای تاریخی پوریم، از نظر مورخ قابل دفاع تر از این دروغ نویسی و جعلیاتی است که مورخین و باستان شناسان یهود در تولیدات تاریخی قرن اخیر آورده اند، و برای پر کردن خلاء دراز مدت هستی در منطقه ی ما ، که حاصل گستردگی قتل عام پوریم بود، افسانه های اشکانیان و ساسانیان و زردشت و اوستا و مزدک و مانی را بر هم انباشته اند، جاعلانه کتیبه های ساسانی حک کرده اند، برای کورش در یک کشتزار چغندر، با دزدی از مصالح مسجد مسلمین، شهرک پاسارگاد ساخته اند، صدها خیانت دیگر در پراکندن اسراییلیات در میان اسناد فرهنگی مسلمین مرتکب شده اند که حاصل آن تولید شکاف و ایجاد تفرقه و دشمنی در میان مسلمین بوده است و گفتم که آن سبوی به شدت محافظت شده ی پوریم به همت تحقیقات مجموعه ی «تاملی در بنیان تاریخ ایران»، از دست یهودیان رها شده و شکسته است و اینک خردمندان منطقه ی ما از محتویات متعفن آن باخبرند.

 

 

He claims that all the history of Iran between Purim till modern day Safavids are forgeries.  Regarding reliability of Iranian dynasties he says: ‘’So everyone should know that the builders of the false historical and social lies of the last two thousand years between Purim till the Safavids were the Jews.  They wanted to hide their genocide and thus used lies by fabricating history.’’

 

Exact quote:

 

پس بدانید که سازنده ی تحرک اجتماعی دروغین، در دو هزار سال فاصله ی میان پوریم تا صفویه یهودیان اند، قصد اختفای نسل کشی کهن خویش را داشته اند و در این مورد از شگرد دروغ بافی غول آسا و غیر قابل مقاومت پیروی کرده اند ( پورپیرار/ مدخلی بر ایرانشناسی ... ( ۳۸ ) مورخ )۸/۱۲/۸۵(

 

 

The anti-Iranism of Pourpirar is so extreme that he praised Saddam Hussein as the "Great Arab hero" and the "symbol of resistance”.  Yet Asgharzadeh says about Pourpirar: Naser Poorpirar (or Pourpirar) is a very intelligent historian, and a very complex character.

 

See:

(Mazdak Bamdadan, “Jomhuriye Islami va Hoviyat Melli-e Ma”, Friday the 27th of Azar, 1383 (Pesian Hejri Calendar))

 

Of course Alireza Asgharzadeh does not mind, as long as Pourpirar throws some curses here and there against Medes, Achaemenids, Parthians, Sassanids and the Aryan (this term will be discussed in part 4) heritage of Iran.

 

 

Some more examples of Pourpirar’s revisionism from his own writing.

 

با اين توضيح کوتاه، اينک به کلمه‌ی "اورمزد" در کتيبه‌ داريوش بازمی‌گرديم که ترکيبی است توصيفی از دو واژه‌ی "اُو=اور" و "مزَد=مزدا". جزء اول اين ترکيب از واژه‌های شناخته شده و بسيار مصطلح غرب ايران و بين‌النهرين [ميان‌رودان]، به معنای شهر و سرزمين است... جزء دوم واژه ترکيبی اُرمزد، يعنی "مزد" همان کلمه‌ای است که در فارسی جديد بدل به مُزد شده است که خاورشناسان به غلط آن را "Muzd" می‌نويسند. اين کلمه در اوستايي "ميژد" آمده است که با مژده امروزين بسيار نزديک است» (دوازده قرن سکوت، ص124، سطر 22به بعد) و سپس «... و بدتر از آن متکی به متن اوستاست، که تدوین آن به همین اواخر در هند و با واژگان گجراتی باز می گردد» (همان، ص 134-135. (

 

 

Here Pourpirar on one hand is claiming to be an expert in Old Persian and saying Ahura Mazda in the Old Persian Inscription is wrongly interpreted by western scholar and it means land and country-reward.  He tries to base his idea on the wrong interpretation of the Avesta version Mizhd (which has no etymological relationship to Avesta/Old Persian Ahura Mazda).  But at the same time, 10 pages later, Pourpirar says: ‘’and worst than that is to rely on Avesta, which was recently compiled in India with Gujarat words”.   So Pourpirar relies on a non-liguistic amateurish reading of an Avesta word to misinterpret Old Persian, but later on he wants to show that Avesta was a recent creation of western scholarship!  Where-as linguist today are uniform that had it not been for the Avesta, Old Persian would not have been deciphered and anyone versed in history knows that cuneiform writing was deciphered through Old Persian.   For example we quote the Encyclopedia Encarta:

 

‘’

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761563112/Cuneiform.html

The task of deciphering the Persian cuneiform was made easier by existing knowledge of Pahlavi, a later Persian language.

The decipherment itself took well-nigh half a century, and would probably have been impossible altogether had it not been for two scholars who made significant if unwitting contributions to the process by publishing studies which, though not concerned at all with the Persepolis cuneiform inscriptions, proved to be a fundamental aid to the decipherers. One of the scholars was the Frenchman A. H. Anquetil-Duperron, who spent much time in India collecting manuscripts of the Avesta, the sacred book of Zoroastrianism, and learning how to read and interpret Old Persian, the language which it was written.  His relevant publications appeared in 1768 and 1771, and gave those attempting to decipher the Persepolis cuneiform inscriptions some idea of Old Persian, which proved most useful for the decipherment of Class I of the trilinguals once it had been postulated-because of its prominent position in the inscription that it was Old Persian.

 The other scholar was A. I. Silvestre de Sacy, who in 1793 published a translation of the Pahlavi inscriptions found in the environs of Persepolis, which although dating centuries later than the Persepolis cuneiform inscriptions revealed a more or less stereotyped pattern that might be assumed to underlie the earlier monuments as well.

‘’

 

 

Another example of Pourpirar’s revisionism.

 

http://commenting.blogfa.com/?blogid=naria&postid=307&timezone=12642

 

آقای سالح. سلسله ی هخامنشی از یک نظر به سلسله ی پهلوی در زمان ما شبیه است، از داریوش اول آغاز و به فرزندش خشایارشا ختم می شود. در اسناد موجود هخامنشی، مثلا در مجموعه ی کتیبه ها، چنان که با هیچ سال شماری آشنا نباشند، هرگز به تاریخ گذاری مسلسل برنخورده ایم. بنا بر این کشف این که مثلا خشایارشا در چند سال قبل از مسیح سلطنت اش را آغاز کرده ناممکن است. احتمالا حدس های کنونی در باب سال ظهور و سقوط سلاطین هخامنشی را با اسطرلاب تعیین کرده اند.

 

Here Pourpirar is saying that the Achaemenids are like the Pahlavids of our time.  They start with Darius I and their dynasty is ended by his son Xerxes.  There was no Achaemenid Kings after this.

 

A recent and funny theory proposed by Pourpirar is that Salman Al-Farsi, the companion of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH&HP) and Mazdak, the reformer of Zoroastrian religion are creation of Jews. 

 

http://mr-torki.blogfa.com/post-66.aspx

         

In his book, Poli bar Gozashteh (A bridge to the past), the 3rd volume, Pourpirar writes:

 

 

اينك به وظيفه تبعيت از حقيقت و خرد و نيز به قصد انسداد اين راه به ظاهر بازگشوده و هموار كرده يهود كه به نيت ايجاد شكافي وسيع تر در شرق ميانه، در اين گرماگرم نبرد يهود و مسلمانان، به تامل در بنيان باورهاي ديرين پرداخته ام و مقصدم هجوم به دو بت سنگي ايراني است كه يكي را از پيش و ديگري از پس اسلام در راه مسلماني ايرانيان غلطانده اند. دو حكيم و مصلح و خردمند دروغين، مزدك و سلمان كه به سعي قلم هايي، اينك بر تارك تاريخ ايران چون دو ابوالهول نشسته اند، سنجش صحت و يا نادرستي اسناد و شناسنامه معرفي اين دو، راه را براي به آزمايش طلبيدن ديگر عناصر پرآوازه اين گونه افسانه ها باز مي كند

 

"اينك به وظيفه تبعيت از حقيقت و خرد و نيز به قصد انسداد اين راه به ظاهر بازگشوده و هموار كرده يهود كه به نيت ايجاد شكافي وسيع تر در شرق ميانه، در اين گرماگرم نبرد يهود و مسلمانان، به تامل در بنيان باورهاي ديرين پرداخته ام و مقصدم هجوم به دو بت سنگي ايراني است كه يكي را از پيش و ديگري از پس اسلام در راه مسلماني ايرانيان غلطانده اند. دو حكيم و مصلح و خردمند دروغين، مزدك و سلمان كه به سعي قلم هايي، اينك بر تارك تاريخ ايران چون دو ابوالهول نشسته اند، سنجش صحت و يا نادرستي اسناد و شناسنامه معرفي اين دو، راه را براي به آزمايش طلبيدن ديگر عناصر پرآوازه اين گونه افسانه ها باز مي كند

 

 

 

 

It would take the author too long to discuss all the wild theories of Pourpirar’s.  But his anti-Persianism, anti-Iranic stance and anti-Semitic stance and the admiration of Alireza Asgharzadeh and other pan-Turkists for him proves that Alireza Asgharzadeh under the cover  of anti-racism is nothing but a pan-Turkism nationalist trying to weaken the Iranian and Persian identity of Iran.  Indeed enough books and articles have already debunked the revisionist theories of Pourpirar although anyone sane would not such a person seriously.  Let alone someone that is trying to publish an academic book but then again Alireza Asgharzadeh is just a lecturer at a university which is a position below assistant Professorship.  Thus perhaps the university he is affiliated with does not care what sort of non-scholarly material is used by their affiliates.

 

About the background of Pourpirar, not too much is certain except that he lacks academic credential in ancient Iranian history and does not have knowledge of any ancient languages of Persia.  What is clear is that his original name was not Naser Pourpirar but Naser Bana-Konnandeh.  He was a former member of the Tudeh party as told in the memoirs of Kiyanoori.

 

 

خاطرات نورالدين كيانوري» (انتشارات روزنامة اطلاعات، تهران، 1382) در صفحات 516 و 517، كيانوري (دبير كل وقت حزب توده)، ناصر بناكننده (پورپيرار) را اينگونه معرفي مي‏كند:

 

ناصر بنا كننده، كه «پورپيرار» امضا مي‏كرد، پس از اخراجش از حزب در سال 1358 به علت خوردن پول حزب و كلاهبرداري از شركايش در انتشارات «نيل» و بالاكشيدن حق التأليف آقاي محمود اعتمادزاده (به آذين)، با نام مستعار «ناريا» به انتشار جزوه‏هايي عليه حزب و بدگويي به شخص من، كه دستور اخراج او را داده بودم، پرداخت.

آشنايي من با بناكننده در آلمان صورت گرفت. او، حدود يك سال پيش از پيروزي انقلاب، به برلين غربي آمد و به ياد ندارم به وسيله چه فردي [؟!] تقاضاي ديدار با ما را كرد. او در اين ديدار ادعا كرد كه با هوشنگ تيزابي همكاري داشته و وسايل چاپي را كه هوشنگ با آن اولين جزوه‏هاي به سوي حزب را منتشر كرده در اختيار هوشنگ گذاشته است. خود او حروفچين چاپخانه بود و بعداً با شراكت دو نفر ديگر يك بنگاه انتشاراتي تأسيس كرده و با كلاهبرداري از همه ثروت قابل ملاحظه‏اي اندوخته بود. او در اين ديدار ادعا كرد كه نقشه‏اي براي ترور شاه دارد. او اين نقشه را چنين شرح داد كه خيال دارد زميني در جاده نياوران ـ كه شاه معمولاً از آنجا با اتومبيل به كاخ ييلاقي‏اش مي‏رود ـ خريداري كند و از آن زمين نقبي تا وسط خيابان حفر كند و در آنجا بمب نيرومندي كار بگذارد و هنگام عبور اتومبيل شاه از آن نقطه بمب را منفجر كند. او نظر مرا درباره اين طرح خواست. اولين نتيجه‏گيري من درباره او اين بود كه يا ديوانه است و يا پرووكاتور. غير عملي بودن اين طرح را توضيح دادم و گفتم كه به جاي اين نقشه‏هاي غير عملي بهتر است كه با امكاناتش به تكثير نشريات حزب در ايران بپردازد. به اين ترتيب، اولين ديدار و آشنايي ما به پايان رسيد.

پس از بازگشت به ايران و آغاز فعاليت حزب، [ پس از پيروزي انقلاب اسلامي ] بناكننده به دفتر حزب آمد و حاضر شد چاپ روزنامه مردم را در برابر پرداخت هزينه آن عهده‏دار شود. اين كار به او محول شد. پس از چندي شعبه انتشارات حزب، كه مسئول آن محمد پورهرمزان بود، به من گزارش داد كه با تحقيق روشن شده كه صورت هزينه چاپ روزنامه و كتب، كه بناكننده ارائه مي‏دهد، بسيار بيش از نرخ عادي است. به همين علت پورهرمزان خواست كه از دادن انتشارات حزب به او خودداري كنم. من موافقت كردم. اين تصميم، بناكننده را سخت عصباني كرد و من اطلاع يافتم كه او به اتاق پورهرمزان ـ در دفتر حزب ـ رفته و به شكل توهين آميزي با او صحبت مي‏كند. من از اتاق خود در طبقه بالا به اتاق پورهرمزان در طبقه پائين رفتم و شاهد برخورد اوباشانه او شدم. بلافاصله مأمورين انتظامات حزب را خواستم و گفتم كه او را از دفتر حزب بيرون كنند و ديگر راه ندهند. عليرغم اين مسئله و عليرغم انتشار جزوات توسط او عليه حزب، آقاي طبري به روابط «دوستانه» و «رفيقانه» خود با اين فرد فاسد ادامه داد و با او مكاتباتي داشت كه بعداً توسط بناكننده مورد سوء استفاده قرار گرفت. ناصر بناكننده پس از مدتي به علت ارتباط با مأمورين سياسي بلغارستان توسط جمهوري اسلامي دستگير و به زندان اوين فرستاده شد . او در دادگاه انقلاب ادعا كرده بود كه هميشه مخالف حزب بوده است! نمي‏دانم به چه مدت محكوم و كي آزاد شد.

 

Partial English translation of Kiyanoori:

 

Naser Bana-Konnandeh, who signed his name as Pourpirar was dismissed from the party (Hezb Tudeh) in 1980 due to stealing the funds of the party and the money of his business partners in the NIL publishing house. Afterwards he started to go against the Hezb and started publishing articles against me.

My acquaintance with Bana-Konnadeh took place in Germany. One year before the revolution, he came to West Berlin and I am not sure which contact it was that set up a meeting between us… In the meeting he said he has a plan for the terror of the Shah. His plan was to buy a piece of land near Niyavaran road, the road where the Shah’s automobile usually traveled on for access to his summer palace. Through this land, he described that he will dig a hole underground, and connect the hole all the way through the middle of the road and place a powerful bomb in the hole and when Shah’s car goes through that exact spot, he will detonate the bomb. Bana-Konnandeh wanted my opinion on this. I thought that he was either crazy or a provocateur. The plan’s non-practical nature was apparent to me and I explained that it was not practical and it would be better for him to publish the manuscripts of the Tudeh party. Thus, through this meeting, we became acquainted.

After coming back to Iran (after the victory of the revolution), Bana-Konnandeh came to the office of the Tudeh party and offered to publish the newspaper titled “Mardom”(People). After a while it became apparent to us that he was overcharging highly for the newspapers and books he is publishing on the parties behalf. Thus Pur-Hormozan, head of publication branch of Tudeh Party , conferred with me and it was agreed that we should not use the services of Bana-Konnandeh anymore. This decision made Bana-Konnandeh extremely angry and I heared a report that he went to the office of Pur-Hormozan in the party’s headquarters and had insulted him severely. I went upstairs to Pur-Hormozan’s room and saw at first hand the uncivil manner of Bana-Konanndeh. Immediately I called upon the party’s security member and ordered that Bana-Konnandeh is not to be allowed anymore in the headquarters of the party. Despite this matter and despite his reaction, which he started to publish against the party, Ehsan Tabari (a high ranking communist member) continued his relationship with this corrupt person and wrote letters to Bana-Konnandeh. The letters were used later on by Bana-Konnandeh to his advantage in order pursue his point of view. Bana-Konnandeh after a while later was arrested by the Islamic Republic for contacting political leaders of Bulgaria and was sent to Evin prison. In the revolutionary court, he claimed that he was against Tudeh since the beginning! I am not sure how long he was jailed and when he was released.

 

 

For responses to Pourpirar, one can refer to:

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/Pasokhbehanirani/main.htm

 

The following books have been published in response to Pourpirar's historic revisionism:

 

*The glorious Millenaries  هزاره های پرشکوه  by Dariush Ahmadi

(داریوش احمدی ، هزاره های پرشکوه، موسسه فرهنگی انتشاراتی گرگان، خيابان انقلاب، خيابان فلسطين جنوبى، مؤسسه‌ى فرهنگى - انتشاراتى فروهر، تلفن 66462704)D. Ahmadi, Hezarehaye Por Shokooh,  Foruhar Publishing House, 2007 

 

See also the book's weblog: http://www.azargoshnasp.net/Pasokhbehanirani/main.htm

 

*Twelve centuries of splendor دوازده قرن شوه by Amir Limiai and Dariush Ahmadi  (

امير نعمتي ليمايي - داريوش احمد، دوازده قرن شکوه، انتشارات اميد مهر، 1383، 120 صفحه، مركز پخش كتاب: تهران، خيابان انقلاب، خيابان فخررازي ( روبه‌روي دانشگاه تهران )، نبش فاتحي داريان، انتشارات معین)

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/Iran/shokoohdavazdahbakhshyek.htm

 

 

*Cyrus and the Bible by Houshang Sadeghi

 

( کورش و بابل   هوشنگ صادقی - کوروش و بابل، موسسه انتشارات نگاه، فروشگاه: تهران- خ 12 فروردین، شماره 21، طبقه همکف، تلفن 66480379)

 

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/Pasokhbehanirani/kurushbabolsadeghi.htm

 

*The Veracity of ancient Persian and Arya  اعتبار باستان شناختی آریا و پارس by Mohammad *Taqi 'Ataii and Ali Akbar Vahdati <ref>محمد تقي عطايي و علي اكبر وحدتي، اعتبار باستان شناختي آريا و پارس، شيرازه

 

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/Iran/etebaarbaastaanshenaasi.htm

 

*The glorious Millenaries: an website with collection of articles in response to Pourpirar http://ariya.blogsky.com

 

It should be noted that Javad Heyat, Sadiq Mohammad Zadeh and many other pan-Turkists have heavily praised Pourpirars theories and given it space in their pan-Turkist journals (Varliq : An Azeri magazine published freely in Iran showing Azeri Turkic is not banned as pan-Turkists claim).  The humorous thing is that no one really takes Pourpirar seriously except pan-Turkists and the reason pan-Turkists take Pourpirar seriously is due to the fact that they simply can not bear the creativity and dynamasim of Iranian civilization and its contribution to humanity.

 

Brenda Shaffer

 

Brenda Shaffer maintains a webpage here:

http://bcsia.ksg.harvard.edu/person.cfm?item_id=312

 

 

 

http://bcsia.ksg.harvard.edu/BCSIA_content/images/Brenda_Shaffer.jpg

According to her website:’’ Brenda Shaffer is a post-doctoral fellow at the International Security Program and the former Research Director of the Caspian Studies Project at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Shaffer's main research interests include political, social, and security trends in the Caucasus and Central Asia, with emphasis on the Republic of Azerbaijan; the Azerbaijani minority in Iran; ethnic politics in Iran; Iranian nuclear program and security policy; Russian-Iranian relations; Iranian foreign policy, with emphasis on Iran’s policy in Central Asia and the Caucasus; U.S.–Iranian relations; energy and politics, especially in the Caspian region, and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. She is also interested in the impact of newly established ethnic-based states on co-ethnics beyond those states' borders as well as the effect on collective identity of political borders that divide co-ethnics.  Dr. Shaffer received her Ph.D. from  Tel Aviv University for her work on "The Formation of Azerbaijani Collective Identity: In Light of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Soviet Breakup." She has worked for a number of years as a researcher and policy analyst for the Government of Israel and reads a number of languages, including Turkish, Russian, Azerbaijani, and Hebrew. She has served in the Israel Defense Forces. Dr. Shaffer has published in a number of scholarly journals and newspapers, including and an article in Current History entitled, “Is there a Muslim Foreign Policy?” and “Iran at the Nuclear Threshold,” (Arms Control Today   November 2003). Dr. Shaffer's op-ends have appeared in a number of newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, the International Herald Tribune, and the Boston Globe. She is the author of the books: Partners in Need: The Strategic Relationship of Russia and Iran (the Washington Institute for Near East Policy) and Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity (MIT Press, 2002). Dr. Shaffer is also the editor of  Limits of Culture: Islam and Foreign Policy (MIT Press, 2006). She frequently is consulted by government for a and international organizations on policy in the Caspian region.”

From the above it becomes apparent that Brenda Shaffer does not know Persian or Arabic, the main two languages of the region.  Specially with regards to classical history and culture, she has no access to primary sources since she lacks the necessary linguistic background.  Indeed, virtually almost all the primary sources about the history of Azerbaijan before the 20th century are in Persian and Arabic.  Perhaps if she had witnessed Naser Pourpirar’s writing at first hand, she would not have been smiling like the above picture.

 

It also becomes apparent that she is a policy analyst for the government of Israel and has served in the Israeli military.  This author does not involve himself with modern politics, but it does not take a genius to note that the government of Israel and the Islamic republic of Iran are not exactly best of friends, although this is not the case for the Jewish and Iranian people.  Indeed Persian Jews are one of the oldest Jewish communities and even the Jews of the caucus, including those of the modern day republic of Azerbaijan, speak a Persian dialect called Tati. 

 

But due to the political differences between Iran and Israel, it would be natural for people like Brenda Shaffer to make the short term mistake of supporting the anti-Semitic and anti-Iranian writings of Pourpirar and Asgharzadeh and supporting separatist tendencies in Iran.  Heck it doesn’t matter for Brenda Shaffer if Pourpirar is anti-Semite or Asgharzadeh has clear pan-Turkism tendencies (as to be demonstrated later in this article), what matters is that all three of them will work together to weaken the national identity of Iran.   Also it is interesting that Alireza Asgharzadeh constantly belittles colonialism where as Brenda Shaffer fits exactly into the definition of neocons.  And Pourpirar believes everything evil is due to Jews.  I guess when it comes to anti-Iranism, we have what is called “strange bed fellows”.

 

Now going back to Brenda Shaffer.  Some of her recent articles clearly show that she is concerned about Iran’s nuclear program,  the rest of the stuff like pan-Turkism and Pourpirar etc.. are just means and tools to put pressure on the Iranian government.

 

http://bcsia.ksg.harvard.edu/publication_list_by_person.cfm?item_id=312

 

For example:

Shaffer, Brenda. "Leaning on Iran Not to Make Nukes: A Test for the World." The International Herald Tribune (22 September 2003).

 

Shaffer, Brenda. "U.S. Policy in the South Caucasus in the Second George W. Bush Administration." Proceedings of the International Conference on the Prospects for Cooperation and Stability in the Caucasus. Conference Paper, Istanbul: Foundation for Middle East and Balkan Studies, 1 March 2005.

 

Shaffer, Brenda. "If Iran is Not Checked, Nuclear Terror is Next: America Needs a Plan." The International Herald Tribune (9 August 2004).

 

Any reader can judge that Brenda Shaffer does not care about Iranians and Azerbaijani Iranians.  But to sow the seed of ethnic discord through the likes of Alireza Asgharzadeh is a strategy to weaken Iran and thus in this era, Pourpirar, Asgharzadeh and Shaffer are united in their hatred for Iran and Iranians.  For Brenda Shaffer, it is a way to put pressure on the Iranian identity and hence the Iranian government.  We will discuss foreign interference in fomenting ethnic discord in a later section of this article.

 

According to the prestigious Harpers Magazine, in the article “Academics for Hire” by Ken Silverstein,  May 30, 2006.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/05/sb-followup-starr-2006-05-30-29929

 ‘’ In defending his own program Starr wrote in one email, “fyi: Harvard's Caspian Studies Program receives a lot of money from both the oil companies and from some of the governments.” I share Starr's concerns here, and since I briefly mentioned Harvard in my original story, and since several readers asked for more details, let me provide it here. As I had previously reported, the Caspian Studies Program (CSP) was launched in 1999 with a $1 million grant from the United States‒Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (USACC) and a consortium of companies led by ExxonMobil and Chevron. The program's other funders include Amerada Hess Corporation, ConocoPhillips, Unocal, and Glencore International.

The website of the USACC describes the Caspian Studies Program as a “joint venture” that unites Harvard's “world-renowned faculty and intellectual resources with the pragmatic talents, experience and potential of the USACC members. The Program is a unique opportunity to raise the profile of the Caspian region in the United States [and] increase the understanding of the U.S. policymaking and business communities of the region's problems.”

CSP offers “executive training programs for Azerbaijani leaders,” which bestows upon its students the title of USACC Fellows. USACC, says the website, “is proud to note that a number of young and highly-skilled Azerbaijanis have been able to benefit from these fellowships and emerge as new leaders of their country.” I'd wager that, upon entering the government, the Fellows are only too happy to help out the oil companies and other corporations that paid for their education. The CSP issues Policy Briefs, and one of its first was “Energy Security: How Valuable is Caspian Oil?” Very valuable, as it turns out, and thus, the brief suggests, the United States should make nice with Caspian governments.

Harvard's program is led by Brenda Shaffer, who is so eager to back regimes in the region that she makes Starr look like a dissident. A 2001 brief she wrote, “U.S. Policy toward the Caspian Region: Recommendations for the Bush Administration,” commended Bush for “intensified U.S. activity in the region, and the recognition of the importance of the area to the pursuit of U.S. national interests.” Shaffer has also called on Congress to overturn Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which was passed in 1992 and bars direct aid to the Azeri government. The law has not yet been repealed, but the Bush Administration has been waiving it since 2002, as a payoff for Azeri support in the “war on terrorism.”

The American historian Ralph E. Luker echoes Silversteins article, saying:

“Silverstein's second article also implicates Harvard historian Brenda Shaffer, who is research director of the University's Caspian Studies Program, in similar apologias. These programs appear to be largely funded by regional regimes, American oil and industrial investors in the region, and right-wing foundations in the United States.”( http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/25951.html History News Network)

 

 

Brenda Shaffer’s book:’’  Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity” and her plagiarism has been covered in the reviews by Dr. Touraj Atabaki and Dr. Evan Siegel (who she thanks in the introduction of her book, but what is interesting is that Professor. Siegel wrote one of the most critical and harshest reviews after the book was published).  Here are the addresses for the reviews:

 

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/recent_history/atoor/bookreviewsiegel.htm

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/recent_history/atoor/atabakishaffer.pdf

 

Evan Siegel strongly criticizes the book for being full of mistakes; inaccuracies; misinterpretation and misquoting sources and the book's failure to provide documentations to support Shaffer’s observations.   For example he writes: ‘’ Shaffer portrays the 1920 revolt of Sheikh Mohammad Khiabani along the lines of the scholarship emanating from Caucasian Azerbaijani academia, although with less control of the facts. For instance, she claims that the sheikh’s journal, Tajaddod, was bilingual, when it was actually in Persian only.  She mentions that the sheikh’s party had a branch in Azerbaijan, but does not mention its paper’s full title (which is mentioned in the sources she uses)—“Azerbaijani, an Inseparable Part of Iran.”  Along the same lines, the author mentions that the sheikh changed the name of the province he now ran to Azadestan, but neglects to provide the context that both friend and foe give: this change was adopted because the Caucasian Azerbaijanis declared their republic to be the republic of Azerbaijan, and the sheikh was thereby repudiating their northern neighbor’s invitation to join them.  There is no record that “Khiabani decreed the right to use the Azerbaijani language in the province.   Such a decree would have been met with incomprehension, since the language had never been banned.’’

 

Evan Siegel concludes: "Brethren and Borders is a highly political book on an emotional subject which needs careful, dispassionate analysis. Its chapters on the historical background is full of inaccuracies. Its chapters on current events and trends include a few interesting observations which don’t appear in the literature, but most of it is readily available elsewhere."

 

Recently I read an article where she considered Farhand from Khusraw o Shirin of Persian romance (and it is originally a Persian Sassanid romance not Turkish) as an Azeri!  Everyone knows Farhad was from Kermanshah and at that time, Azeri ethnic group was not formed today.  This example is sufficient to show the depth of her lack of knowledge with regards to Iran.  Thus as the Harper magazine accurately describes it, Brenda Shaffer is a scholar for higher who does not care about scholarly integrity.  So Brenda Shaffer as shown is paid and financed by foreign governments.  Interestingly enough, pan-Turkists have even distorted the works of Brenda Shaffer when translating her book into Persian:

 

دروغ اندر دروغ- تحریف  آمار برندا شیفر (مدافع پان ترکیستها در غرب) به قلم خود پان ترکیستهای نابکار 

 

Interestingly enough, recently in a forum I saw a report about another writer.  Charles van der Leeuw, who wrote the ''Azerbaijan: A Quest for Identity'' This work is a propaganda piece which is considered nothing more than propoganda. It received harsh reviews. A review for example: ''This combination of carelessness and inaccuracy is characteristic of the book as a whole...'' the review also traces mistakes that some of which any newbie not even well versed in the subject will find and trace. The reviewer after citing some of those writes: ''His interpretation resembles the one developped by Azerbaijani nationalists in the Soviet Era:...'' (Muriel Atkin, Russian Review, Vol. 60, No. 4. (Oct., 2001) p. 663-62.)

 

Here another review on his other work titled : Storm over the Caucasus: In the Wake of Independence. The reviewer writes: ''Rather than filling any void in the study of the Caucasus, van der Leeuw has managed to produce one of the poorest books ever written on the region in recent years...'' ''Van der Leeuw's apparent lack of Khnowledge about existing sources is one possible explanation for the numerous flaws found in his volume... '' (Hovann Simonian, Central Asia Surver (2000), 19(2) 297-303.)

 

Here, another review: ''Merely to lost the technical (to say nothing of the much more crucial factual) mistakes occuring here would take up the space normally allotted to a whole review, and so all I can do is suggest a flavour of what is in store for the reader.'' (George Hewitt, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 62, No. 3. (1999), pp. 593-594).

 

He lived in Baku since 1992 supporting the pipeline construction, his work: Oil and Gas in the Caucasus & Caspian: A History, Palgrave Macmillan (September 2, 2000) is a propaganda work.  Thus Shaffer and van der Leeuw are financed by powerful oil lobbies and governments and they are not unbiased academic scholars.

 

Mohammad Taqi Zehtabi

 

A pan-Turkist revisionist quoted by Alireza Asgharzadeh is Mohammad Taqi Zehtabi.  Some of the very absurd but non-ingenious theories of Mohammad Taqi Zehtabi, published in his book are discussed in this section.  The reason the theories are non-ingenious is that such theories have been put forth by pan-Turkists of Turkey since the advent of Ataturkism.

 

 

The political background of Zehtabi is not 100% clear although like Brenda Shaffer and Pourpirar, he comes from a deeply rooted ideological-political background. The connections with political pan-Turkism is undeniable.  According to an Iranian newspaper:

 

قابل ذکر است که محمود پناهیان(یکی از عضو بلند پایه فرقه تجزیه طلب دموکراسی) پس از فرار به شوروی ، در سالهای دهه 1350 شمسی در یک ماموریت از باکو به بغداد اعزام شد و در آنجا ضمن همکاری با رژیم بعث عراق به تاسیس یک گروه سیاسی به نام «جبهه ملی خلقهای ایران» دست زد و شعبه هایی از ان به تبلیغ قوم گرایی در آذربایجان، کردستان ، بلوچستان و خوزستان ایران پرداخت. مدتی بعد، محمد تقی زهتابی چهره شناخته شده پان ترکیست (که در شاخه جوانان فرقه دموکرات فعالیت داشت)، به پناهیان پیوست و در بغداد رادیوی گروه او به تبلیغ اندیشه های پان ترکی پرداخت و در دانشگاه بغداد نیز تدریس کرد. وی پس از سقوط شاه به ایران بازگشت و به ترویج افکار پان ترکی در تبریز مشغول شد، و همو بود که با تکیه بر نوشته های پان ترکی و تاریخ نگاری تخیلی محافل پان ترکی باکو و استانبول-انکارا، و سر هم بندی حوادث پراکنده تاریخی و تحریف انها تلاش کرد و کتابی به نام «تاریخ باستان ترکهای ایران» را از چرندیات پان ترکی ترکیه رونويسي كرد، که اصولا آذربایجان را از حوزه تمدن ایران خارج می کرد و به جهانی پان ترکی متصل می ساخت.

 

 

That is Zehtabi was part of the youth organization of the Stalin created Ferqeh party of Pishevari (more on Ferqeh will be discussed in this article).  He was either exiled from Baku for his pan-Turkism activities to Baghdad or was sent there for special reasons.  He worked with the Ba’athist regime in Baghdad under the organization “Jebhe Melli Khalgh-haayeh Iran” (The united front of Iranian peoples) which worked to increase ethnicism in Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Baluchistan and Khuzestan.  He joined Mahmud Panahiyan (a high member of Ferqeh in Baghdad) and worked in the radio program of the group, spreading pan-Turkism and also started teaching in Baghdad.  After the fall of the Shah, he moved to Tabriz and started spreading pan-Turkism political and historical revisionist.  Either way, Zehtabi’s academic background is obscure and his political background is shadowy.

 

According to Alireza Asgharzadeh, Zehtabi is ’’A well-respected Azeri scholar Mohammed Taqi Zehtabi has published a two-volume history book that traces the indigenous history of Iranian Turks well over 6, 000 years back, challenging thus the legitimacy of the dominant group's denial of indigenous history for the Turks in Iran’’(pg 177).    It is not clear where the mark “well-respected” came from, but if it means well-respected in modern academia and scholarship, the claim is certainly not true.  The first part about the claims of 6000 years backs of Turkish history in Iranian Azerbaijan is easily dismissed by reliable scholars and sources.  

 

For example Professor Tadsuez Swietchowski (who is fairly Pro-Azerbaijani source) states:

 

What is now the Azerbaijan Republic was known as Caucasian Albania in the pre-Islamic period, and later as Arran.  From the time of ancient Media (ninth to seventh centuries b.c.) and the Persian Empire (sixth to fourth centuries b.c.), Azerbaijan usually shared the history of what is now Iran.  According to the most widely accepted etymology, the name “Azerbaijan” is derived from Atropates, the name of a Persian satrap of the late fourth century b.c. Another theory traces the origin of the name to the Persian word azar (”fire”‘) - hence Azerbaijan, “the Land of Fire”, because of Zoroastrian temples, with their fires fueled by plentiful supplies of oil.

 

Azerbaijan maintained its national character after its conquest by the Arabs in the mid-seventh century a.d. and its subsequent conversion to Islam. At this time it became a province in the early Muslim empire. Only in the 11th century, when Oghuz Turkic tribes under the Seljuk dynasty entered the country, did Azerbaijan acquire a significant number of Turkic inhabitants. The original Persian population became fused with the Turks, and gradually the Persian language was supplanted by a Turkic dialect that evolved into the distinct Azerbaijani language. The process of Turkification was long and complex, sustained by successive waves of incoming nomads from Central Asia. After the Mongol invasions in the 13th century, Azerbaijan became a part of the empire of Hulagu and his successors, the Il-Khans. In the 15th century it passed under the rule of the Turkmens who founded the rival Qara Qoyunlu (Black Sheep) and Aq Qoyunlu (White Sheep) confederations. Concurrently, the native Azerbaijani state of the Shirvan-Shahs flourished.

(Swietochowski, Tadeusz, AZERBAIJAN, REPUBLIC OF,., Vol. 3, Colliers Encyclopedia CD-ROM, 02-28-1996)

 

 

 

Professor Vladimir Minorsky also states:

 

‘’ In the beginning of the 5th/11th century the G̲h̲uzz hordes, first in smaller parties, and then in considerable numbers, under the Seldjukids occupied Adharbayjan.  In consequence, the Iranian population of Adharbayjan and the adjacent parts of Transcaucasia became Turkophone.”

(Minorsky, V.; Minorsky, V. "Ad̲h̲arbayd̲j̲an " Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by: P. Bearman , Th. Bianquis , C.E. Bosworth , E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2007.)

 

 

Professor Peter Golden who has written the most comprehensive book on Turkic people, in his book (An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples by Peter B. Golden. Otto Harrasowitz (1992)).  Professor Golden confirms that the Medes were Iranians and Iranian languages like Talyshi/Tati speakers are being absorbed into Turkish speakers.  Considering the Turkic penetration in the caucus and the Turkification of Iranian Azerbaijan, Professor Golden states in pg 386 of his book:

 

Turkic penetration probably began in the Huunic era and its aftermath. Steady pressure from Turkic nomads was typical of the Khazar era, although there are no unambiguous references to permanent settlements. These most certainly occurred with the arrival of the Oguz in the 11th century. The Turkicization of much of Azarbayjan, according to Soviet scholars, was completed largely during the Ilxanid period if not by late Seljuk times. Sumer, placing a slightly different emphasis on the data (more correct in my view), posts three periods which Turkicization took place: Seljuk, Mongol and Post-Mongol(Qara Qoyunlu, Aq Qoyunlu and Safavid). In the first two, Oguz Turkic tribes advanced or were driven to the western frontiers (Anatolia) and Northern Azarbaijan(Arran, the Mugan steppe). In the last period, the Turkic elements in Iran(derived from Oguz, with lesser admixture of Uygur, Qipchaq, Qaluq and other Turks brought to Iran during the Chinggisid era, as well as Turkicized Mongols) were joined now by Anatolian Turks migrating back to Iran. This marked the final stage of Turkicization. Although there is some evidence for the presence of Qipchaqs among the Turkic tribes coming to this region, there is little doubt that the critical mass which brought about this linguistic shift was provided by the same Oguz-Turkmen tribes that had come to Anatolia. The Azeris of today, are an overwhelmingly sedentary, detribalized people. Anthropologically, they are little distinguished from the Iranian neighbors.

 

 

 

According to Professor Xavier De Planhol:

“Azeri material culture, a result of this multi-secular symbiosis, is thus a subtle combination of indigenous elements and nomadic contributions, but the ratio between them is remains to be determined. The few researches undertaken (Planhol, 1960) demonstrate the indisputable predominance of Iranian tradition in agricultural techniques (irrigation, rotation systems, terraced cultivation) and in several settlement traits (winter troglodytism of people and livestock, evident in the widespread underground stables). The large villages of Iranian peasants in the irrigated valleys have worked as points for crystallization of the newcomers even in the course of linguistic transformation; these places have preserved their sites and transmitted their knowledge. The toponyms, with more than half of the place names of Iranian origin in some areas, such as the Sahand, a huge volcanic massif south of Tabriz, or the Qara Dagh, near the border (Planhol, 1966, p. 305; Bazin, 1982, p. 28) bears witness to this continuity. The language itself provides eloquent proof. Azeri, not unlike Uzbek (see above), lost the vocal harmony typical of Turkish languages. It is a Turkish language learned and spoken by Iranian peasants.”

 

 

It is interesting to note that the Oghuz Turks who turkified Azerbaijan linguistically were not themselves pure Turks according to Mahmud Kasghari.

Turkology-expert N. Light comments on this in his Turkic literature and the politics of culture in the Islamic world (1998):

"... It is clear that he [al-Kashgari] `a priori´ excludes the Oghuz, Qipchaq and Arghu from those who speak the pure Turk language. These are the Turks who are most distant from Kâshghari's idealized homeland and culture, and he wants to show his Arab readers why they are not true Turks, but contaminated by urban and foreign influences. Through his dictionary, he hopes to teach his readers to be sensitive to ethnic differences so they do not loosely apply the term Turk to those who do not deserve it. ..."

 

N. Light further explains:

"... Kashgari clearly distinguishes the Oghuz language from that of the Turks when he says that Oghuz is more refined because they use words alone which Turks only use in combination, and describes Oghuz as more mixed with Persian ..."

 

Thus Alireza Asgharzadeh simply ignores well established academics and relies on a revisionists like those of Zehtabi and Pourpirar  to sketch the history of Iran.  The reason is that the recorded history of Iranian Azerbaijan had nothing to do with Turkic groups until the Oghuz tribes (although it should be mentioned that Babak Khorramdin fought against Turkish soldiers of the Abbassid Caliphas who were mercenaries and slaves from central Asia and Khazaria).  Even after the influx of Oghuz tribes, Turkification was not completed until the mid Safavid times.  For example Evliya Chelebi, the Ottoman traveler records that the Women of Maragheh speak Pahlavi.  The name Azerbaijan, itself going back to the Persian satrap Atropates is unrelated to the Turkic languages.

 

Interestingly enough, Zehtabi’s thesis are the anti-thesis of that of Pourpirar, since Pourpirar believes there was no living in creature in Iran after Purim till the beginning of Islam and the Sassanids, Parthians, Achaemenid dynasties are forgeries.  Where-as Zehtabi in a funny attempt at historical revisionism attempts to present the Parthians, Scythians, Medes, Elamites, Sumerians, Manneans, Lulubis, Gutis, Urartuians.. as Turks.

 

 

Let examine some of the claims of Zehtabi himself.  Zehtabi’s main source is actually the book about “Medes” from I.M. Diakonoff and also 19th century scholarship re-manufactured.    The same sort of 19th century sort of scholarship that Alireza Asgharzadeh condemns in his book.  Zehtabi not only falsifies facts in his book, but he also distorts the words of I.M. Diakonoff which he relies heavily on. 

 

 

The term ''Turanian'' was formerly used by European especially in Germany, Hungary, Slovak ethnologists, linguistics and romantics to designate populations speaking non-Indo-European, non-Semitic and non-Hamitic languages. (See: Abel Hovelacque, The Science of Language: Linguistics, Philology, Etymology , pg 144) and specially speakers of Altaic, Uralic and Dravidian languages.  Marx Muller classified the Turanian language family into different sub-branches.  The Northern or Ural-Altaic division branch compromised Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic, Samoiedic, and Finnic.  The Southern branch consisted of Dravidian languages like Tamil, Malay and other Dravidian languages.  The languages of the Caucus (Georgian, Chechen, Lezgin..) were classified as the ''scattered languages of the Turanian family”.  Muller also began to muse whether Chinese belonged to the Northern branch or Southern branch.   (See: George “van” Driem, Handbuch Der Orientalistik, Brill Academic Publishers, 2001.  pp 335-336).

 

 

The main relationship between Dravidian, Uralic and Altaic languages are basically poorly defined as typological.  According to Encyclopedia Britannica: ''Language families, as conceived in the historical study of languages, should not be confused with the quite separate classifications of languages by reference to their sharing certain predominant features of grammatical structure.''("language." Encyclopedia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 27 Apr. 2007)

 

Today languages are classified based on the method of comparative linguistics rather than their typological features.  According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Max's Muller proposal ''efforts were most successful in the case of the Semites, whose affinities are easy to demonstrate, and probably least successful in the case of the Turanian peoples, whose early origins are hypothetical''(religions, classification of." Encyclopedia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopedia Britannica Online).  Today the linguistic usage of the word Turanian is not used in the scholarly community to denote classification of language families. The relationship between Uralic and Altaic, whose speakers were also designated as part of the Turanian people in 19th century European literature is also disregarded today.

 

Pan-Turkists like Zehtabi use the wrong term “Agglutinative language ethnic groups”(Qowmhaayeh Eltesaghi Zaban)  in order to rewrite Turkic history.  They do not have the necessarily linguistic background to understand what these terms actually mean. 

Agglutinative language is a language that uses agglutination extensively: most words are formed by joining morphemes together. This term was introduced by Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1836 to classify languages from a morphological point of view.  The term is not used to denote language family let alone ethnic groups.  For example the following languages all have agglutinating features (some less and some more):

 

1)      Uralic

2)      Altaic

3)      Dravidian

4)      Aborigine languages of Australia

5)      Basque language

6)      African languages like Bantu

7)      South, North West, North East Caucasian languages

8)      North American languages including Nahuatl, Salish..

9)      South American native languages

 

 

 

According to the linguistic definition:

‘’Agglutinative is sometimes used as a synonym for synthetic, although it technically is not. When used in this way, the word embraces fusional languages and inflected languages in general. The distinction between an agglutinative and a fusional language is often not sharp. Rather, one should think of these as two ends of a continuum, with various languages falling more toward one end or the other. In fact, a synthetic language may present agglutinative features in its open lexicon but not in its case system: for example, German, Dutch.’’

 

For example even Indo-European languages show agglutinating features. 

 

In English we have many words which agglutinate (extend) to form other words.  If we take the simple word - argue - then we can agglutinate it to - argument - by sticking on a -ment suffix.  We can further agglutinate this word with other suffixes viz.: -ative giving argumentative - and even further to - argumentatively by adding a further -ly suffix.
For example in Persian one can make the long word: نوکاروارسراداران

No(New)+Kar+Van (Caravan) Sara(Place) Dar (holder)+an (plural).

 

Thus pan-turkist take one small feature in many languages and claim that these languages are Turkic.

 

This method of falsifying language families has been discussed in the following Persian Article:

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/recent_history/pan_turkist_philosophy/sumd/buqalamoonsumeri.htm

 

and in the article:

On the Idea of Sumerian-Uralic-Altaic Affinities (CA 1973)

 

Which was written as a response to a Hungarian nationalist by professional linguists.  It is not bad to present the response of Professional linguist to the likes of Zehtabi.

 

Professor Mridula Adenwala Durbin:

“The division of languages into agglutinating and inflectional refers to only one segment of the total structure of language, namely morphology. Compar­able morphology between two languages is not necessarily an indicator of their genetic affiliation”

(Comments: Current Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr., 1971) pg 216) 

Professor William H. Jacobsen

“The typological characteristic of being agglutinative, from which the argument starts, is so poorly defined as to be of little significance, as one can immediately see from its application to Caucasian languages as well as to Uralic and Altaic languages. The general structure of Sumerian is really quite different from that of Uralic in many ways. For example, in Uralic languages verb in­flection   is   exclusively   by   suffixes, whereas in Sumerian the verb complex contains, in addition to suffixes, prefixes of several different position classes, expressing pronoun objects of various kinds, as well as modal and lexical concepts. The stem in Sumerian, but not Uralic, may be reduplicated to express such categories as plurality and and intensity. In any case, typological features are at best heuristic, not pro­batory of distant relationships.

(Comments: Current Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr., 1971) pg 218)

 

Professor Johann Knobloch: 

“For example, the Indo-European language, Tocharian, is agglutinative like Sumerian and Hun­garian; yet no one would relate Tocharian with these two languages. “

(Comments: Current Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr., 1971) pg 219)

 

 

Professor W.P. Lehman:

“One of the clearest results of historical linguistic studies is the finding that genetic relationships have only minor correlations with typological characteristics. For example, the Indo-European language, Tocharian, is agglutinative like Sumerian and Hun­garian; yet no one would relate Tocharian with these two languages. If CA wants to present ideas on historical linguistics for discussion, it might review the generally held conclusions about possible correlations between genetic relationships and typological charac­terizations rather than this very dubious statement.”

(Comments: Current Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr., 1971) pg 219)

 

Professor Joe E. Piece:

 “The term "agglutinative" is only one of a large number of typological labels that can be applied to languages. The notion goes back at least to Friedrich and August von Schlegel (1808, 1818, cited repeatedly in Home 1966), and it can­not be considered an absolute term, but only a relative one. Presumably echoes of this 19th-century typology simply continue to appear in brief popular treatments of the Sumerian language such as those mentioned”

(Comments: Current Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr., 1971) pg 221)

 

Professor H.K. J. Cowan:

“As to the former: terms like "ag­glutinative, " "isolating," and "flexional" are rather dubious and do not indicate any genetic relationship. Finnish, for instance, is often regarded as typically "agglutinative, " but here we find what may be regarded as "flexional" forms, such as vesi 'water' (nominative) , but vetta (partitive) and veden (genitive); sido-n 'I bind,' sido-t 'thou bindest,' sito-o 'he binds,' etc. (Jespersen 1950: 79). Chinese is often thought to be typically "isolating," bu tKarlgren (1920) has shown that Proto-Chinese was "flexional." English, "flexional" by origin, seems on its way to "isolation." Therefore, even if we accept the terms as justified for typological classification they say nothing about genetic relation­ship”

(Comments: Current Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr., 1971) pg 222)

Professor Istvan Fodor:

“The similarity of the grammatical structure of the languages compared has no relevance at all for a common origin if the congnateness of the contrasted grammatical morphemes (of similar or different function) cannot be shown by stable sound laws.  Modern English, with its many monosyllabic roots and little formal modification is, is more like Modern Chinese(which was not always monosyllabic) with regards to some structural features than it is like Anglo-Saxon or Latin or Russian.  In any case, major structural linguistic types are not numerous and the 3000 or more languages of the world can be divided into a few groups independently of their origin.  Furthermore, one Sumerologist (Kluge 1921) is that of the opinion that Sumerian cannot be compared structurally with the Finno-Ugric stock, but should instead be compared with Hamitic and many Sudanic languages.  By the way, meinhoff(1914- 1915) made the first observation concerning some Sumerian and African(Bantu and Hamitic) structural and lexical parallels.”(CA vol 17 No. 1  , March 1976)”(Istvan Fodor Current Anthropology, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Mar., 1976), pp. 115-118)

Professor. Gerard Caluson:

“I have reached as result of many years of study of a good many languages regarding the time-honoured but now discredited trichotomy of agglutinating, flexinal and isolating languages.  It seems to me that these are, at most, stages through which languages may, perhaps must, pass over the centuries, and that they way in which a language is categorized depends primarily on the characteristics which are selected as decisive.  English is now, for example, regarded as an isolating language, but it is conceded that it was earlier a flexional language and that traces of this still survive in the cojungation of verbs.  But if attention is concentrated on such groups of words as “parent, parenthood,” , “man, manly, manliness”, and “rest, restless and restlessness” it is hard to deny it the status of an agglutinating language in the classical sense of the term.”

(Gerard Clauson Current Anthropology, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Oct., 1973), pp. 493-495)

 

 

‘’The division of languages into agglutinating and inflectional refers to only one segment of the total structure of language, namely morphology.  Comparing morphology between two languages is not necessarily indicator of their genetic affiliations.  For example African languages like Bantu, Swahili, Dravidian languages like Tamil, Malay, Aboriginal Australian languages, the language of native Americans, the Caucasian languages like Georgian, Laz, Chchen, the Indo-European language like Tocharian as well as to a lesser extent German, Uralic and Altaic languages and Polynesian languages  are all agglutinating, but they are placed in different language groups.   For example, the Indo-European language, Tocharian, is agglutinative like Sumerian and Hungarian, yet no one would relate Tocharian with these two languages.’’

 

‘’ I have reached as result of many years of study of a good many languages regarding the time-honored but now discredited trichotomy of agglutinating, flexional and isolating languages.  It seems to me that these are, at most, stages through which languages may, perhaps must, pass over the centuries, and that they way in which a language is categorized depends primarily on the characteristics which are selected as decisive.  English is now, for example, regarded as an isolating language, but it is conceded that it was earlier a flexional language and that traces of this still survive in the conjugation of verbs.  But if attention is concentrated on such groups of words as “parent, parenthood,” , “man, manly, manliness”, and “rest, restless and restlessness” it is hard to deny it the status of an agglutinating language in the classical sense of the term.”

 

‘’ The typological characteristic of being agglutinative, from which the argument stats, is so poorly defined as to be of little significance, as one can immediately see from its application to Caucasian languages as well as to Uralic and Altaic languages.  Sumerian is really quite different from that of Uralic in many ways.  For example, in the Uralic

Languages verb inflection is exclusively by means of suffixes, whereas in Sumerian the verb complex containing, in addition to suffixes, prefixes of several different position classes, expressing pronoun objects of various kinds, as well as modal and lexical concepts.  In any case, typological features are at best heuristic, not probatory of distant

Relationships. (William H. Jacobsen, J.R., Vol 12. No 2)’’

 

 

‘’ The similarity of the grammatical structure of the languages compared has no relevance at all for a common origin if the cognateness of the contrasted grammatical morphemes (of similar or different function) cannot be shown by stable sound laws.  Modern English, with its many monosyllabic roots and little formal modification is, is more like Modern Chinese(which was not always monosyllabic) with regards to some structural features than it is like Anglo-Saxon or Latin or Russian.  In any case, major structural linguistic types are not numerous and the 3000 or more languages of the world can be divided into a few groups independently of their origin.  Furthermore, one Sumerologist (Kluge 1921) is that of the opinion that Sumerian cannot be compared structurally with the Finno-Ugric stock, but should instead be compared with Hamitic and many Sudanic languages.  By the way, meinhoff(1914-1915) made the first observation concerning some Sumerian and African(Bantu and Hamitic) structural and lexical parallels.”(CA vol 17 No. 1  , March 1976)’’

 

Furthermore, Sumerian uses liberally both suffixes and prefixes in its morphology. In this sense, it differs from other Asiatic agglutinative languages like Ural-Altaic (Uralic and Altaic), Dravidian, Japanese and Korean, which use almost exclusively suffixes in the conjugation of the verb and declension of nouns and pronouns.

 

John Hayes, University of California, Berkeley who wrote a recent book titled:

 

 “Sumerian”  2nd printing June 1999, Languages of the World/Materials 68,
LINCOM EUROPA, Paul-Preuss-Str. 25, D-80995 Muenchen, Germany.

In the introduction he says:


”Sumerian has the distinction of being the oldest attested language in
the world. Spoken in the southern part of ancient Mesopotamia, the
Iraq of today, its first texts date to about 3100 BCE. Sumerian died
out as a spoken language about 2000 BCE, but it was studied in the
Mesopotamian school system as a language of high culture for almost
two thousand more years. A language-isolate, Sumerian has no
obvious relatives.  Typologically, Sumerian is quite different from
the Semitic languages which followed it in Mesopotamia. It is
basically SOV, with core grammatical relationships marked by affixes
on the verb, and with adverbial relationships marked by postpositions,
which are cross-referenced by prefixes on the verb. It is split
ergative; the perfect functions on an ergative basis, but the
imperfect on a nominative-accusative basis.  Because Sumerian is an isolate,

 and has been dead for thousands of years, special problems arise in trying to elucidate its
grammar. There are still major challenges in understanding its
morphosyntax, and very little is known about Sumerian at the discourse
level. This volume will describe some of the major questions still to
be resolved.”

 

 

Unlike Turkish, Sumerian is an Split-Ergative language.  Pahlavi (and Miiddle Iranian in general) was split-ergative, like modern Kurdish.  In Middle Iranian (as in Middle Indo-Aryan [and modern Hindi, Punjabi,Rajasthani, Marathi and Sindhi]), the original Indo-European past tenses (imperfect, perfect, aorist) had been abandoned in favour of a construction involving the past participle passive.  For transitive verbs, this means that "I hit him" was replaced by "He (was) hit by me", resulting in an ergative construction, with the object in the direct (nominative) case, and the subject in the indirect case (old genitive in Iranian, old instrumental in Indo-Aryan).

 

Zehtabi’s fallacy is like calling Sumerian language as Kurdish, because Sumerian language shares with Kurdish the split-ergative features.  And then from the split-ergativity feature of Kurdish, calling both Kurds and Sumerians :”Split-ergative ethnic groups”.  As absurd as this would sound, this sort of non-technical and absurd argument is sowed by pan-Turkists and taken seriously by the likes of Alireza Asgharzadeh to distort Irans history! And also falsely and ridiculously attempt to show Turks had 6000 years of history in Iran!  Actually even Sumerians where from about 5000 years ago so I guess in such wild theories so I guess for pan-Turkists Turks are the oldest group in the world.

 

The people claimed by Zehtabi to have been Turks include Scythians, Parthians, Medes, Sumerians, Elamites, Mannaeans, Urartuians, Hurrians and dozens of groups.  It is interesting that Alireza Asgharzadeh also supports these assertions about Medes.  So the case of the Medes needs to be discussed in details.  Some of these groups like Elamite and Sumerian are not classified in the same language family (for example Elamite and Sumerian are both considered language isolates), but yet Zehtabi claims all of them were Turks!

 

 

Many pan-Turkists on the internet too claim that Sumerian and Turkish are related.  They bring examples of faulty wordlists.  For example a pan-Turkism by the name of Polat Kaya has brought a Sumerian-Turkish list:

http://www.compmore.net/~tntr/sumer_turk1of5.html

 

Just examining the first word: “All”.. the author through a series of sound changes believes that the Sumerian word all is related to the Turkish words “Tamam” and “Har Kas” and “Hami”.  The approach has multiple problems, the least of them being that the word Tamam is Arabic and the word “Hars Kas” and “Hami” are Persian.

 

The author Polat Kaya also in another article claims that the words “Genocide, Holocaust, annihilation, cancellation, abrogation, eradication, homicide..” are not Latin words but Turkish words.

http://www.compmore.net/~tntr/cide.html

 

 

Such words lists comparing Sumerian to other modern languages have been brought by other sort of nationalist groups:

 

Sumerian and PIE

 

Sumerian and PIE 2

 

Sumerian and proto-Indo-European Lexical Equivalence - Latvian Comparison 1

 

Sumerian and proto-Indo-European Lexical Equivalence - Latvian Comparison 2

 

Lexical Correspondences between Sumerian and Dravidian

 

Sumerian si-in and Old Tamil cin: A study in the Historical Evolution of the Tamil Verbal System

 

Sumerian :TAMIL  of the First CaGkam

 

Sumerian and Basque

 

Austric relationship of Sumerian Language

 

But are not taken seriously by scholarship. 

 

An example of Zehtabi’s scholarship:

 

http://www.golha.net/urmu/tarix/045.htm?u=Hamed

 

زبان خوزی-ایلامی، نه تنها در قرون اولیهء اسلامی وجود داشته، بلکه حتی امروز نیز متکلمان آن در خوزستان و اطراف شهر شوش که پایتخت ایلامیان بوده است به حیات و بقای خود ادامه میدهند.

 

Translation:

The language of Khuz-Elami, not only did not die out during the first centuries of Islam, but even till today it’s speakers are leaving  near the city of Shusha which was the capital of Elamites!

 

Thus Zehtabi’s false claims that Elamite is not a dead language and its speakers may be found near the city of Shusha.

 

 

Therefore as can be seen, both Zehtabi and Pourpirar have zero reliability and credibility but Alireza Asgharzadeh uses them for the majority of histography in his work.   Also there is nothing ingenious about Zehtabi’s work as he has just recycled pan-Turkism historical revisionism of Turkey.  For example the Turkish pseudo-scholar Tankut in a two volume book much like Zehtabi’s pushes historical revisionism to new levels:

 

‘’ He Turkifies Sumerian, Hittite, reckons the races of the Euphrates and India as

"among the principal races of these (Turkish) yurts."

Alongside Sumerian and Indian inhabitants, the Akkadians, Elamitcs, Anzani, Kassitcs, Carians, Protohittites, Hittites, Mitanni, Hurians, Luwians, Saka,

"...each one of these peoples used a similar language and were Turkish by race."

 As for the great family of Semitic languages it too was Turkish:

"As there is no independent Semitic tongue so there is not an independent Arab language. Each one of these in its turn, from Sumerian and Akkadian... are languages born of ancient Turkish.”( Speros Vryonis, Jr., Turkish State and History
Clio Meets the Gray Wolf , Institute for Balkan Studies; 2nd edition (September 1992), The, pg 85)

 

Even recently, the Turkish cultural minister claimed that the Prophet of Islam was a Turk and the news was posted all over the internet:

 

Former [Turkish] Minister of Culture Namik Kemal Zeybek has claimed that the Prophet Muhammad was a Turk.

Speaking at a conference on “The New World Order and Turkey” held at the Alanya Turkish Hearth, Namik Kemal Zeybek said that the most important nation in the world’s eight thousand years of history are the Turks, and that it was the Turks that taught civilization to humanity.

Claiming that the roots of the Turkish Nation extend back to the Sumerians, Zeybek said that “Our Prophet Muhammad’s origins also go back to the Sumerians. Consequently, the Prophet Muhammad was also a Turk.”

 

Medes

 

Zehtabi through the manipulation of I.M. Diakonoff’s work tries to prove that the Medes were actually Turkic speakers.  This position is also taken up by Alireza Asgharzadeh.  But Diakonoff is very clear that the Medes were Aryans.

 

«تنها مورد استعمال مجاز اصطلاح آريايي درباره اقوامي است كه در ازمنه باستاني خود، خويشتن را آريا مي ناميدند. هنديان[12] و ايرانيان (پارسيان)[13] و مادها[14] و اسكيت ها[15] و آلان ها[16] و اقوام ايراني زبان آسياي[17] ميانه خود را آريا مي خواندند»

(ا. م. دياكونوف: «تاريخ ماد»، ترجمه كريم كشاورز، انتشارات علمي و فرهنگي، 1380، ص 142، سطرهاي 5 تا 9).

 

Translation:

 

The only correct usage of the term Aryan is for ancient groups that called themselves Aryans.  Indians, Iranians (Persians), Medes, Scythians, Alans and other Iranian groups of Central Asia (Diakonoff then gives reference to Parthians) called themselves Aryans.

 

It does not get clearer than this, yet Zehtabi claims Medes, Scythians, Parthians (see the same page of Diaknoff where Aryan Parthian names are discussed)  are Turks.

 

Professor. Diakonoff gives a background on his writing of the book of Media and he clearly states as he always had maintained that the Medes were Iranians.

 

http://www.srcc.msu.su/uni-persona/site/ind_cont.htm

 

I.M. Dyakonoff. (1915- 1999)

Publisher: «إâًîïهéٌêèé نîى» (European House), Sankt Petersburg, Russia, 1995

700 copies

ISBN – n/a

 

The book of memoirs

 

Last Chapter (After the war)
pp 730 - 731 

Our faculty at the University, as I already mentioned, was closed "for Zionism". There was only one position left open (“History of the Ancient East") which and I have conceded to Lipin, not knowing for sure then, that he was an (secret service - AB) informer, and was responsible for death of lovely and kind Nika Erschovich. But Hermitage salary alone was not enough for living, even combined with what Nina earned, and I, following to an advice from a pupil of my brother Misha, Lesha Brstanicky, [signed a contract and] agreed to write "History of the Media" for Azerbaijan.


All they searched for more aristocratic and more ancient ancestors, and Azerbaijanis hoped, that Medes were their ancient ancestors.

 

The staff of Institute of history of Azerbaijan resembled me a good panopticon. All members had appropriate social origin and were party members (or so it was considered); few could hardly talk Persian, but basically all were occupied by mutual eating (office politics - AB). Characteristic feature: once, when we had a party (a banquet) in my honor at the Institute director’ apartment (who, if I am not wrong, was commissioned from a railway related-job), I was amazed by fact that in this society consisted solely of Communist party members, there were no women. Even the mistress of the house appeared only once about four o'clock in the morning and has drunk a toast for our health with a liqueur glass, standing at the doors.
 
The majority of employees of the Institute had very distant relation to science. Among other guests were my friend Lenja Bretanitsky (which, however, worked at other institute), certain complacent and wise old man, who according to rumors, was a red agent during Musavatists time, one bearer of hero of Soviet Union medal, arabist, who later become famous after publication of one scientific historical medieval, either Arabic, or Persian manuscript, from which all quotes about Armenians were removed completely; besides that there were couple of mediocre archeologists; the rest were [Communist] party activists, who were commissioned to scientific front.

 

Shortly before that celebrations of a series of anniversaries of great poets of the USSR people started. Before the war a celebration of Armenian epos hero of David of Sassoon anniversary took place (epos’ date was unknown, though). I caught only the end of the celebrations in 1939 while participating in the expedition, excavating Karmir Blur [in Armenia]. And it was planned an anniversary of the great poet Nizami celebration in Azerbaijan. There were slight problems with Nizami - first of all he was not Azeri but Persian (Iranian) poet, and though he lived in presently Azerbaijani city of Ganja, which, like many cities in the region, had Iranian population in Middle Ages.  Second, according to the ritual, it was required to place a portrait of the poet on a prominent place, and whole building in one of the central areas of Baku was allocated for a museum of the paintings illustrating Nizami poems.

Problem was that the Koran strictly forbids any images of alive essences, and nor a Nizami portrait, neither paintings illustrating his poems never existed at all.

So Nizami portrait and paintings illustrating his poems were ordered three months before celebrations start.  The portrait has been delivered to the house of Azerbaijan Communist party first secretary Bagirov, local Stalin. He called a Middle Ages specialist from the Institute of History, drew down a cover from the portrait and asked:
- Is it close to original?
- Who is the original? - the expert has shy mumbled. Bagirov has reddened from anger.
- Nizami!
- You see, - the expert told, - they have not created portraits in Middle Ages in the East...

All the same, the portrait occupied a central place in gallery. It was very difficult to imagine more ugly collection of ugly, botched work, than that which was collected on a museum floor for the anniversary.

I could not prove to Azeris, that Medes were their ancestors, because, after all, it was not so. But I wrote "History of the Media", big, detailed work.   Meanwhile, according to the USSR law a person could not have more than one job, so I was forced to leave (without a regret) Azerbaijan Academy of sciences, and, alas, the Hermitage, with its scanty earnings. For some period I worked at Leningrad’s office of History museum…

 

(It should be noted that Diakonoff here considers Azeris as equivalent to a Turkic group, where-as in this author’s opinion, Azeri’s have a considerable Iranic heritage and thus the Medes and their civilization are part of the broader Iranic heritage).

 

http://www.srcc.msu.su/uni-persona/site/authors/djakonov/posl_gl.htm

 

Original Russian:

 

В Университете нашу кафедру, как я уже говорил, закрыли «за сионизм». По специальности «история Древнего Востока» оставили одну ставку – и я уступил ее Липину, не зная еще тогда достоверно, что он стукач, и на его совести жизнь милого и доброго Ники Ерсховича. Но на одну эрмитажную зарплату было не прожить с семьей, даже с тем, что зарабатывала Нина, и я, по совету ученика моего брата Миши, Лени Брстаницкого, подрядился написать для Азербайджана «Историю Мидии». Все тогда искали предков познатнее и подревнее, и азербайджанцы надеялись, что мидяне – их древние предки. Коллектив Института истории Азербайджана представлял собой хороший паноптикум. С социальным происхождением и партийностью у всех было все в порядке (или так считалось); кое-кто мог объясниться по-персидски, но в основном они были заняты взаимным поеданием. Характерная черта: однажды, когда в мою честь был устроен банкет на квартире директора института (кажется, переброшенного с партийной работы на железной дороге), я был поражен тем, что в этом обществе, состоявшем из одних членов партии коммунистов, не было ни одной женщины. Даже хозяйка дома вышла к нам только около четвертого часа утра и выпила за наше здоровье рюмочку, стоя в дверях комнаты. К науке большинство сотрудников института имело довольно косвенное отношение. Среди прочих гостей выделялись мой друг Леня Бретаницкий (который, впрочем, работал в другом институте), один некий благодушный и мудрый старец, который, по слухам, был красным шпионом, когда власть в Азербайджане была у мусаватистов, один герой Советского Союза, арабист, прославившийся впоследствии строго научным изданием одного исторического средневекового, не то арабо-, не то ирано-язычного исторического источника, из которого, однако, были тщательно устранены все упоминания об армянах; кроме того, были один или два весьма второстепенных археолога; остальные вес были партработники, брошенные на науку. Изысканные восточные тосты продолжались до утра. Незадолго перед тем началась серия юбилеев великих поэтов народов СССР. Перед войной отгремел юбилей армянского эпоса Давида Сасунского (дата которого вообще-то неизвестна) – хвостик этого я захватил в 1939 г. во время экспедиции на раскопки Кармир-блура. А сейчас в Азербайджане готовился юбилей великого поэта Низами. С Низами была некоторая небольшая неловкость: во-первых, он был не азербайджанский, а персидский (иранский) поэт, хотя жил он в ныне азербайджанском городе Гяндже, которая, как и большинство здешних городов, имела в Средние века иранское

 

население. Кроме того, по ритуалу полагалось выставить на видном месте портрет поэта, и в одном из центральных районов Баку было выделено целое здание под музей картин, иллюстрирующих поэмы Низами. Особая трудность заключалась в том, что Коран строжайше запрещает всякие изображения живых существ, и ни портрета, ни иллюстрацион картин во времена Низами в природе не существовало. Портрет Низами и картины, иллюстрирующие его поэмы (численностью на целую большущую галерею) должны были изготовить к юбилею за три месяца.

Портрет был доставлен на дом первому секретарю ЦК КП Азербайджана Багирову, локальному Сталину. Тот вызвал к себе ведущего медиевиста из Института истории, отдернул полотно с портрета и спросил:

– Похож?

– На кого?... – робко промямлил эксперт. Багиров покраснел от гнева.

– На Низами!

– Видите ли, – сказал эксперт, – в Средние века на Востоке портретов не создавали...

Короче говоря, портрет занял ведущее место в галерее. Большего собрания безобразной мазни, чем было собрано на музейном этаже к юбилею, едва ли можно себе вообразить.

Доказать азербайджанцам, что мидяне – их предки, я не смог, потому что это все-таки не так. Но «Историю Мидии» написал – большой, толстый, подробно аргументированный том. Между тем, в стране вышел закон, запрещающий совместительство, и мне пришлось (без сожаления) бросить и Азербайджанскую Академию наук, и, увы, Эрмитаж с его мизерным заработком. Некоторое время работал с Ленинградском отделении Института истории, созданном на руинах разгромленного уникального музея истории письменности Н.П.Лихачсва, а одно время числился почему-то по московскому отделению этого же Института истории."

I guess Zehtabi did not have access to this 1994 published writing of Diakonoff and even if he did, he probably would have considered Medes to be Turkic anyways.

 

Diakonoff is very clear in his article in Cambridge history of Iran, published in 1985:

‘’It is pretty certain that pastoral tribes with subsidiary agriculture who created the archeological Srubnya(Kurgan) and Andorovo cultures of steppes of Eastern Europe, Kazakhistan, and Soviet Central Asia in the 2nd millennium B.C. were the direct precursors of the Scythians and the Sacae, i.e. of the “Eastern” Iranians.  But this means that the division of the tribes speaking Indo-Iranian (Aryan), into Indo-Aryan and Iranians, must have antedates the creation of these two archeological cultures.  It also means that the ancestors of the speakers of Indo-Aryan and “Western” Iranian idioms(Median, Persian and Parthian) must have reached the south-western part of Central Asia and Easter Iran already earlier, by the end of the 3rd or the beginning of the 2nd millennium B.C.  During the 2nd millennium a considerable part of the population of the Iranian Plateau must already have spoken Indo-Iranian languages, perhaps even Old Iranian languages.’’

 

Thus Zehtabi’s manipulation of Diakonoff’s scholarly writing shows a clear lack of disrespected for academic scholarship.

 

Indeed classical authors have stated very clearly that the Medes are Arian.

 

Herotodus (7.62) : The Medes had exactly the same equipment as the Persians; and indeed the dress common to both is not so much Persian as Median. They had for commander Tigranes, of the race of the Achaemenids. These Medes were called anciently by all people Arians.

 

Herodotus for example records the word Spaka (dog) in Median.  Interestingly enough this is related to the  modern Persian Sak/Sag, Talyshi Sipi.  Indeed one of the phonetic differences between Old Persian and Median is the transformation of sp->s.  So where-as the Median word for horse is Aspa, the old Persian is Asa.  Both terms are seen in Old Persian inscriptions. 

 

 

Strabo in his geography clearly states (15.8):

 

‘’ the name of Ariana is further extended to a part of Persia and of Media, as also to the Bactrians and Sogdians on the north; for these speak approximately the same language, with but slight variations."

 

The idea that the Medes had any relationship with the discredited theory of Turanian language is a 19th century idea proposed by some Orientalists of the 19th century.  The reason was that the  Elamite trilingual inscription of Bistun was not yet deciphered, and the Old Persian reading was at an early stage and some Orientalists were not sure about the nature of the Elamite inscription and had guessed it was Median.  Zehtabi does not discuss this fact in his book and just cherry picks the 19th century authors that suits his revisionist agenda. 

 

Indeed to quote a website describing mid 19th century research:

 

At the very beginning of the deciphering adventure, when Grotefend, Rawlinson, Westergaard and de Saulcy wrote about the language of the so-called second kind, they did not know they were dealing with Elamite. They named it Median. Why was Elamite called Median? Which is the link between a written language and his name, and the people who spoke it? How did Median become today Elamite?

As soon as the first kind was connected to the language of Avesta, which was known since the second half of the 18th century and supposed to be located in Bactria, it was named Old Persian and therefore located in Persia. Then the languages of the second and third kind could be related to «the neighbouring countries of ancient Media and Susiana». As to the language of the second kind, the name 'Median' was preferred, even if Westergaard was aware that doing so, he disregarded the testimony of Strabo «who plainly tells us –I am quoting Westergaard- that the Medes and Persians spoke nearly one and the same language». It was in 1844 and Westergaard referred to Rawlinson as 'oriental scholar'.

http://digilander.libero.it/elam/elam/second_column_speech.htm

 


Thus Zehtabi simply rehashes obsolete or false theories and other pan-Turkists like Asgharzadeh, simply quotes revisionist works in their books.

 

On some of the other Median words that have survived and clearly show the Iranian nature of the language, one may refer to:

 

Kent, Roland G. (1953). Old Persian. Grammar, Texts, Lexicon, 2nd ed., New Haven: American Oriental Society.  pp. 8-9.

 

 

"Ancient Iran::The coming of the Iranians". Encyclopedia Britannica Online. (2007).

 

Schmitt, Rüdiger (1989). Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum. Wiesbaden: Reichert. 

 

"Ancient Iran::Language". Encyclopedia Britannica Online. (2007).

 

And many other references can be found through google books.

 

http://books.google.com/books?q=%22medes%22+%22Iranian+people%22&btnG=Search+Books

 

It should be mentioned that many scholars including Vladimir Minorsky have connected the Medes with Kurds.  Besides the common Indo-Iranian language, some of the oldest Kurdish writings are preserved by Armenian church documents.  In these documents, Kurdish is explicitly called the “Median Language”.  See here for an example:

 

Language of Medians

David Mackenzie (1959)

 

Parthians

 

There is sufficient manuscripts from Parthian, the Parthian calendar, Parthian inscription of Nisa, Tang Sarvak, …etc. to show that Parthians was Iranian language.

For example, see:

Schmitt, Rüdiger (1989). Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum. Wiesbaden: Reichert. 

Some other scholarly references are given here:

 

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/history/Parthians/parthianmain.htm

 

Since the examples of Parthians are much more than Median, the author will simply refer to the above sources and other modern references:

http://www.parthia.com/

 

http://books.google.com/books?q=Parthian+%22Iranian+tribe%22&btnG=Search+Books

 

 

Other pseudo-scholars mentioned by Asgharzadeh

 

Racist Websites

 

Asgharzadeh’s list of unreliable pseudo-scholars and racist websites goes on.  He cites websites like:

http://www.shamstabriz.com/index.htm

 

The site is full of articles expressing hatred against Armenians, Kurds and Iranians.  For example:

 

http://www.shamstabriz.com/tabrizly-kord1.htm

 

Talks about kicking Kurds out of their native land although as shown in the above, the Medes are native inhabitants of Azerbaijan.  Same with Armenians.  Yet Alireza Asgharzadeh’s racist mind does not know any limit in pursuing his pan-Turkist ethnic agenda

 

 

Javad Heyat

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

 

جواد هيئت در يکي از کتابهايش مي نويسد:"سلطان محمود غزنوي به علت علاقه اي که به زبان فارسي داشت دربارش مرکز شعراي فارسي زبان مانند منوچهري ، فرخي ، اسدي طوسي ، فردوسي و غيره بود و براي اشاعه زبان فارسي در ايران و هندوستان از هيچ اقدامي فرو گذار نکرد. زبان فارسي را در قلمرو حکومت خود رسمي کرد و به گفته مورخين چهل و پنچ هزار معلم براي ياد دادن فارسي به مناطق مختلف ايران گسيل داشت...." ((جواد هيئت، سيري در زبان لهجه هاي تركي، تهران، نشر نو)

 

Translation: Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi because of his strong liking of the Persian language had many Persian poets at his court including Manuchehri, Farrokhi, Asadi Tusi and Ferdowsi and for the spread of the Persian language, he did all he could.  He made Persian official in his court and according to historians, sent out 45000 Persian teachers to different parts of Iran!

 

Interestingly enough, Ferdowsi was not a court poet.  But more interestingly, Dr. Heyat does not provide any source for his absurd claim that Sultan Mahmud sent 45000 Persian tutors to different parts of Iran.  It should be noted that Javad Heyat runs a pan-Turkist journal in Iran called Varliq where the writings of pseudo-scholars like Purpirar and Zehtabi are given prominence.  More interestingly the journal is written in large part in Azerbaijani yet pan-Turkists claim Azerbaijani Turkic is banned in Iran!

 

 

Sadiq Mohammadzadeh

 

Another pan-Turkism pseudo-scholar, revisionist and falsifier is Sadiq Mohammazadeh.  Interestingly enough, just like Javad Heyat and Zehtabi, Sadiq Mohammadzadeh was also educated in a pan-Turkism country (Turkey).  The following is a sufficient example of the absurd beliefs of Sadiq Mohammadzadeh:

 

« البته‌ زبان‌ اوستايي‌ خود يك‌ زبان‌ التصاقي‌ است‌ و 70% از مخزن‌ واژگان‌ اوستايي‌،تركي‌ است‌ كه‌ براي‌ شرح‌ اين‌ موضوع‌ فرصت‌ و مجالي‌ ديگر لازم‌ است‌.»

 

Of course Avesta is an agglutinative language and 70% of the vocabulary of Avesta is Turkish.  This fact can be explained in another opportunity.

 

Alireza Nazmi Afshar


Alireza Nazmi Afshar is another pan-Turkism separatist.  Alireza Asgharzadeh mentions a very interesting comment in baybak.com (a distortion of the Persian name Babak Khorramdain in order to turn an ancient Persian figure into a Turkic figure)

 

http://www.en.baybak.com/?p=266

 

Alireza Asgharzadeh writes:

‘’ Dr Alireza Nazmi-Afshar, a well-known Azerbaijani activist, warns the Azerbaijanis that the independence of South Azerbaijan from Iran will eventually lead to the independence of Kurds from Turkey, which in his view, would be disastrous to the Turks all over the world. As he puts it,

The Azerbaijanis’ demand for independence from Iran, no matter how reasonable and rightful, will legitimize similar demands on the part of PKK Kurds in Turkey and Dashnak Armenians in Qarabagh… Is this really what we want? By saying this perhaps I will be accused of Pan-Turkism. But if this kind of responsibility towards other Turks and their national interests…is Pan-Turkism…then I am a Pan-Turkism. I am a Pan-Turkism. I am a Pan-Turkism.’’

Interesting enough, the ulterior motive of Alireza Asgharzadeh by agreeing with Alireza Nazmi Afshar is shown.  They know that there are more Kurds in Turkey (20 million+) than Azeris in Iran (despite the pan-Turkism wild claim of 30 million Azeris, it will be shown below how pan-turkists like Asgharzadeh and Nazmi Afshar manipulate statistics and the actual number of Turkic speaking groups is at most 20% of Iran.) and this will cause major headaches for their backers. 

 

A response to one of Alireza Nazmi Asher’s manipulation of ethnic populations in Iran has been given here:

 

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/Pasokhbehanirani/moshtaaghaandighalim2.htm

 

It should be noted that West Azerbaijan (75% Kurdish), Qazvin (mainly Persian), Hamadan (a mixture of different ethnic groups with Azeri’s being 25%), Arak (mainly Persian), from Astara to Rasht (mainly Talysh and Gilak speaking) have been included in the pan-Turkist expansionist map of Nazmi Afshar and supported by Pan-Turkists like Asgharzadeh.  Indeed the fact that West Azerbaijan province is a predominantly Kurdish province has created much headaches for pan-Turkists since it forms a natural border against expansion from Turkey.

 

Thus Asgharzadeh knows that Turkey and Azerbaijan republic will be put in poor shape if Azeris separate.  So he is careful to spread pan-Turkism gradually.  He wants Kurds and Armenians to be taken out first before dealing with the rest of Iranians.  Unfortunately for Alireza Asgharzadeh, that West Azerbaijan and Eastern Turkey is virtually all Kurdish and as he points out, ultimately Turkey will be a big loser in the pan-Turkism again.   Armenia also has shown that is not going to watch for another genocide.   Thus the dream of the pan-Turkism grand union will not be coming any time soon and the Pan-Turkists like Nazmi Afshar and Asgharzadeh will just have to dream about the fake ethnic maps they draw:

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/Pasokhbehanirani/moshtaaghaandighalim2.htm

Another pan-Turkist by the name of Reza Beraheni who also reviews Asgharzadeh’s book was recently very distressed by an accurate map from the BBC and tried to use false statistics in order to enlarge the number of ethnic Azeris:

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/Pasokhbehanirani/pasokhbehberahani.htm

 

All these pan-Turkists have land claims on Iran and any means necessary is used in order to achieve them.  Weather hiding under words such as “racist, anti-racist, colonialism, democtratic struggles” or fascist words like those of Grey wolf)

 

 

 

Historical Turco-Iranian Encounters

 

In this article, we do not deal extensively with Historical Turco-Iranian relations.  It is this author’s belief that these historical encounters had both positive and negative impacts.  But Iranian civilization lost much more where-as Turkish civilization gained from these encounters.  Nevertheless as stated in the beginning, the author does not judge any person by their background.  The discussion brought in this section is historical and should be viewed only in the context of history.  The reason an overview of this historical material is necessary is exactly because the likes of Zehtabi/Purpirar/Asgharzadeh would want to rewrite history.  But that is futile attempt and history can not be changed.  Thus it is important to give a sketch and outline of Turco-Iranian encounters from scholarly materials for two reasons.  The first reason is that many people are not aware of the relationship between these two groups before the 19th century and the era of pan-Turkism.  The second reason is that any reader who is interested in dealing with pan-Turkism (as exemplified by Alireza Asgharzadeh, Zehtabi, Nazmi Afshar and etc.) and Iran should know when Turks came to Iran (the author will refer to the likes of Asgharzadeh, Zehtabi, Afshar and etc. as Turks, but Iranian Azeris who are aware of their Iranian heritage and are not anti-Iran are referred to as Iranian Azerbaijanis). 

 

Most scholars believe Turo-Iranian encounters date back to the Sassanid times.  According to C.E. Bosworth, a well known historian who has written multitude of books and articles on Islamic dynasties, ’’In early Islamic times Persians tended to identify all the lands to the northeast of Khorasan and lying beyond the Oxus with the region of Turan, which in the Shahnama of Ferdowsi is regarded as the land allotted to Fereydun's son Tur. The denizens of Turan were held to include the Turks, in the first four centuries of Islam essentially those nomadizing beyond the Jaxartes, and behind them the Chinese (see Kowalski; Minorsky, “Turan”). Turan thus became both an ethnic and a geographical term, but always containing ambiguities and contradictions, arising from the fact that all through Islamic times the lands immediately beyond the Oxus and along its lower reaches were the homes not of Turks but of Iranian peoples, such as the Sogdians and Khwarezmians.’’.( Encyclopedia Iranica, "CENTRAL ASIA: The Islamic period up to the mongols", C. Edmund Bosworth)

 

Similaly he states:

‘’ The collapse of the native Iranian dynasties of the north-east (Iranian regions of central asia) was followed within a few decades by a major migration of Turkish peoples, the Oghuz, from the outer steppes.’’(C.E. Bosworth, The Political and Dynastic History of the Iranian World (A.D. 1000-1200) in Camb. Hist. Iran V)

 

One of the calamities brought by Turks against the indigenous Iranian Civilizations of Central were the total erasable of Soghdians and Khwarzmians as well as Iranian nomads like those of the Alans, Sakas and etc. 

According to Bosworth:

‘’At the opening of the 5th/11th (Islamic and Christian dates respectively) century, the Iranian world still extended far beyond the Oxus, embracing the regions of Khwarazm, Transoxiana (called by the Arabs Ma ward9 al-nahr, "the lands beyond the river"), and Farghana. In pre-Christian and early Christian times the Massagetae, the Sakae, the Scyths, the Sarmatians, and the Alans—all Indo-European peoples— had roamed the Eurasian steppes from the Ukraine to the Altai.’’ (C.E. Bosworth, The Political and Dynastic History of the Iranian World (A.D. 1000-1200) in Camb. Hist. Iran V).

 

Indeed Rene Grouse consider the constant attacks on Iranian civilization from the Altaic nomads of central wonders: “For us it is very hard to imagine why the civilization of Iranians after so many calamities did not come to an end”.  See below:

رنه گروسه («ايران ونقش تاريخی آن» ترجمه غلامعلی سيار - مجله هستی - تابستان ۱۳۷۲، ص 105) نیز به حمله بیابانگردان آسیای میانه به ایران اشاره می کند و در پايان نكته ي مهمي را نيز متذكر مي گردد:

« ... لکن در سال ۱۳۸۳ ميلادی تيمور لنگ با نقشه قبلی اين ايالت (= سيستان) را منهدم کرد، به اين طريق که - بار ديگر تکرار می کنم- شبکه آبياری را که عامل باروری زمين بود نابود ساخت و قنوات را کور کرد و در نتيجه، آنها به مرداب مبدل شدند و با برکندن درختان و نيستانها و درختان گز که مانع پيشروی کوير در اراضی مزروعی می شدند اين اراضی به شنزار مبدل نمود.  هيات علمی هاکن(Hakckin) فيلمی که از ساروتار (Sar-Otar) برداشته نشان می دهد که چگونه تاتاران زمين را نابود کرده، نهر آبی که آن را مشروب می کرد مسدود ساخته و آن منطقه را به صحرايی بی آب و علف مبدل کرده اند...و بدين طريق يکی از انبارهای غله ايران تهی از همه چيز گشت تا اين که بعدها قنوات سابق از نو تعبيه شوند. برای ما تصور اين نکته دشوار است که چگونه عمر تمدن ظريف ايرانی، پس از چنين فاجعه هايی به سر نيامد».

 

 

 

 

Victor Hugo, the French philosopher also had a negative view of the nomadic attack on civilization: ‘’ Wherever the Turkish hoof trods, no grass grows.’’.  This author neither condemns or condones such a statement in its own time (not today) but demonstrates that similar examples exist in Persian.

 

In Persian the word Tork-taazi ( Turkish attack) became equivalent to pillage/massacre.

 

Like other civilizations that suffered from invaders and expansion (those of Greece, Armenia....), Iranians poets and writers have also shown hostility to the nomadic encroachment.   We will bring examples of these from Persian literature.  Such excerpts clearly show that Iranians suffered from nomadic Turkic invasions:

 

قطران تبريزی نيزدر بسياری از چکامه هايش ترکان را شايسته سرزنش دانسته و انان را سخت نکوهش کرده است .

نمونه هايی از ان ابيات در ذيل می ايد :

اگر بگذشت از جيحــون گروه ترکمانـــان را // ملک محمـــــــود کــاو را بود زابل کان در سنجر

....

زمانی تازش ايشان به شروان اندرون بودی // زمانـــی حملـــه ايشان بــــه اذربايگــــان انــدر

نبود از تازش ايشان کسی بر چيز خود ايمن // نبود از حمله ايشان کسی بر مال خود سرور (شهرياران گمنام، 1377، ص۱۶۰)

شده چون خانه زنبور با غم از ترکان // همی خلند به فرمان ما چو زنبورم (همان، ص۱۹۷)

قطران در يکی از سروده هايش به هنگام ستايش يکی از فرمانروايان بومی اذربايجان عامل عدم پيشرفت کار او را حضور ترکان برشمرده است :

گر نبودی آفت ترکان به گيتی در پديد // بستدی گيتی همه چون خسروان باستان ( همان، ص۱۹۷)

قطران در بدگويی و مذمت ترک تباران چنان سخن گفته که حتی انان را موجب ويرانی ايران زمين برشمرده و اين مفهوم به روشنی از بيت زير که در ستايش اميری از اميران اذربايجان سرايش يافته برمی ايد :

اگر چه داد ايران را بلای ترک ويرانی // شود از عدلش ابادان چون يزدانش کند ياری ( همان، ص۱۹۷)

اين شاعر اذربايجانی در يکی ديگر از چکامه هايش که در قالب قصيده سروده است ترکان را خونخوار و جرار و غدار و مکار خوانده است :

کمــــر بستند بهــــر کيــن شه ترکان پيکاری // همـــه يکـرو به خونخواری همه يکدل به جراری

يکی ترکان مسعودی به قصد خيل مسعودان // نهاده تن به کين کاری و دل داده به خونخواری

....

چــه ارزد غـدر با دولت، چه ارزد مکـر با دانش // اگـرچـه کــــار ترکان هست غــداری و مکــاری( همان، ص۱۷۲)

 

بنابراین چنان که ملاحظه گرديد، یک شاعر برخاسته از آذربایجان در زماني پیش از ترک زبان شدن آذربایجان، حسي بسیار منفی نسبت به ترکان اغوز آن دوران داشته است.  حال به چه دلیلی این بخش از تاریخ ایران و آذربايجان را جناب رزمی نادیده می گیرد؟

سعدی شيرازی که نزديک به سی سال سير و سفر در در اين سوی و ان سوی سرزمينهای اسلامی کرده بود، علت خارج شدن خود از ايران زمين را نا به سامانی های بر امده از خشونت ترکان بر شمرده است :

ندانی کــــه مـن در اقاليم غربت // چـــرا روزگاری بــکـــــــردم درنــگــــی

برون رفتم از ننگ ترکان که ديدم // جهان درهم افتاده چون موی زنگی

همــــه ادمی زاده بودند ليکــــــن // چـو گرگــان بخونخوارگی تيزچنگی

چــو باز امـدم کشور اسوده ديدم // پـلـنگـــــان رهـــا کرده خوی پلنگی (گلستان سعدی، ص۳۸)

 

عنصری سمرقندی درباره ترکان اغوز و ویرانی های آنان در سمرقند می نویسد:


بر سمرقند اگر بگذري اي باد سحر
نامه اهل خراسان به بر خاقان بر
نامه اي مطلع آن رنج تن و آفت جان
نامه اي مقطع او درد دل و سوز جگر
نامه اي بر رقمش آه غريبان پيدا
نامه اي در شكنش خون شهيدان مضمر
نقش تحريرش از سينه مظلومان خشك
سطر عنوانش از ديده محرومان تر
ريش گردد ممر صوت از او گاه سماع
خون شود مردمك ديده از او وقت نظر
تا كنون حال خراسان و رعايا بوده ست
بر خداوند جهان، خاقان، پوشيده مگر
...
كارها بسته بود بي شك در وقت و كنون
وقت آن است كه راند سوي ايران لشكر
باز خواهد ز غزان كينه كه واجب باشد
خواستن كين پدر بر پسر خوب سير
....
قصه اهل خراسان بشنو از سر لطف
چون شنيدي ز سر رحم در ايشان بنگر
اين دل افگار جگر سوختگان مي گويند
كاي دل و دولت و دين از تو به شادي و ظفر
خبرت هست كه از اين زير و زبر شوم غزان
نيست يك تن ز خراسان كه نشد زير و زبر
خبرت هست كه از هر چه در او خير بود
در همه ايران امروز نمانده ست اثر
بر بزرگان زمانه شده دونان سالار
بر كريمان جهان گشته لئيمان مهتر
بر در دونان احرار، حزين و حيران
در كف رندان, ابرار اسير و مضطر
شاد، الا به در مرگ نبيني مردم
بكر جز در شكم مام نبيني دختر
مسجد جامع هر شهر ستورانشان را
پايگاهي شده، ني نقشش پيدا و نه در
خطبه نكنند به هر خطه غزان، از پي آنك
در خراسان نه خطيب است كنون نه منبر
كشته فرزند گراميش اگر نا گاهان
بيند از بيم خروشيد نيارد مادر
بر مسلمانان زان شكل كنند استخفاف
كه مسلمان نكند صد يك از آن بر كافر...
رحم كن رحم كن بر آن قوم (=ايرانيها) كه جويند جوين
از پس آن كه بخوردند ز انبان شكر
رحم كن رحم كن بر آن قوم كه نبود شب و روز
در مصيبتشان جز نحوه گري كار دگر
رحم كن رحم كن بر آنها كه نيابند نمد
از پس آن كه ز اطلس شان بودي بستر.....

 

خاطرات نجم الدين رازي معروف به دايه نیز گواه خوبی در اين باره است.  وي يکي از رهبران مهم صوفيه و نثر نويس پخته اين روزگار است که تا سال 653 زنده بوده است. او شاگرد نجم الدين کبري است که در حمله مغولان به خوارزم در ميدان جنگ کشته شده است. مهم ترين اثر وي، کتاب مرصاد العباد است که راه هاي سلوک عرفاني را به زبان پارسي دري شرح داده است. دربخشي از اين متن به حمله ترک و مغول و گريز خود اشاره کرده است. با هم اين بخش را مي خوانيم:
«در تاريخ شهور سنۀ سبع و عشر و ستمائه (617) لشکر مخذول ِ کفار تتار استيلا يافت بر آن ديار ، و آن فتنه و فساد و قتل و اسر و هدم و حرق که از آن ملاعين ظاهر گشت، در هيچ عصر و ديار کفر و اسلام کس نشان نداده است و در هيچ تاريخ نيامده الا انچه خواجه(پيغمبر) عليه الصلوة و السلام از فتنه هاي آخر الزمان خبر باز داده است و فرموده: لا تَقومُ السٌاعة حتي تُقاتِلوا التٌُرک صغارَ الاعين حُمرَ الوجوه ذلف الانوف کان وجوههم المجان المطرقة ، صفت اين کفار ملاعين کرده است و فرموده که ، قيامت برنخيزد تا آنگاه که شما با ترکان قتال نکنيد، قومي که چشم هاي ايشان خرد باشد و بيني هايشان پهن بود و روي هاي ايشان سرخ بود و فراخ همچون سپر پوست در کشيده. و بعد از آن فرموده است: و يکثر الهرج، قيل: يا رسول الله! ما الهرج؟ قال:القتل ، القتل. فرمود که قتل بسيار شود. به حقيقت، اين واقعه آن است که خواجه عليه الصلوة و السلام به نور نبوت پيش از ششصد و اند سال باز ديده بود. قتل ازين بيشتر چگونه بود که از يک شهر ري که مولد و منشـأ اين ضعيف است و ولايت آن قياس کرده اند ، کما بيش پانصد هزار آدمي به قتل آمده و اسير گشته. و فتنه و فساد آن ملاعين بر جملگي اسام و اساميان از آن زيادت است که در حٌيز عبارت گنجد... عاقبت چون بلا به غايت رسيد و محنت به نهايت و کار به جان رسيد و کارد به استخوان...اين ضعيت از سهر همدان که مسکن بود به شب بيرون آمد با جمعي از درويشان و عزيزان در معرض خطري هرچ تمام تر ، در شهور سنۀ ثمان عشر و ستمائه به راه اربيل و بر عقب اين فقير خبر چنان رسيد كه كفار ملاعين..به شهر همدان آمدند و حصار دادند و اهل شهر به قدر و وسع بكوشيدند و چون طاقت مقاومت نماند - كفار دست يافتند و شهر بستند و خلق بسيار كشند و بسي اطفال را و عورات را اسير بردند و خرابي تمام كردند و اقرباي اين ضعيف را كه به شهر بودند٬ بيشتر شهيد كردند.
باريد به باغ ما تگرگي
وز گلبن ما نماند برگي»

افلاکی شاگرد مولانا جلال الدین از زبان مولانا نقل میکند:

همچنان حکايت مشهورست که روزي حضرت شيخ صلاح الدين (منظورش صلاح الدين زرکوب است) جهت عمارت باغ خود مشاقان ترکي بمزدروي گرفته بود; حضرت مولانا فرمود که افندي یعنی خدواند صلاح الدين در وقت عمارتي که باشد مشاقان رومي بايد گرفتن و در وقت خراب کردن چيزي مزدوران ترک;  چه عمارت عالم مخصوص است بروميان و خرابي  جهان مقصودست به ترکان; و حق سبحانه و تعالي چون ايجاد عالم ملک فرمود ..گروه ترکان آفريد تا بي محابا و شفقت هر عمارتي که ديدند خراب کردند و منهدم گردانيدند، و هنوز مي کنند و همچنان يوما بيوم تا قيامت خراب خواهند کردن...

 

غم مخور از دي و غز و غارت

وز در من بين کارگزاري

(ديوان شمس)

 

آن غزان ترک خون ريز آمدند

بهر يغما بر دهي ناگه زدند

دو کسي از عيان ده  يافتند

در هلاک آن يکي بشتافتند

(مثنوي)

در دیوان سلطان ولد از سلجوقیان ایرانی-تبار و ایرانی-شده خواسته میشود که سلسله متعصب ترکان قرمانی را نابود کنند.  سلسله قرمانی که بر ترکیت خود تعصبات خاصی داشته زبان دربار خود را ترکی کزده بودند و گویا با ادیبان و شاعران فارسی گوی میانه ای نداشتند.  از آثار مولانا و سلطان ولد و تمامی نویسندگان طریق مولوی در نیمه اول قرن چهاردهم میلادی (برای نمونه افلاکی) چنین بر می‌آید که آنان بکلی مخالف عصیان‌های ترکمن‌های آناطولی بر علیه سلجوقیان بودند.  در مکتوبات مولانا و دیوان سلطان ولد و مناقب افلاکی، پیروان مولویه نسبت به ترکمانان قرامان اوغلو و اشرف اوغلو دشمنی نشان داده و آثار مختلف به جای گذاشته‌اند.

 

بعد از مرگ محمد‌بیک قرامانلو و شکست ترکمانان، سلطان غیاث‌الدین مسعود دوم به قونیه آمد و بر تخت نشست.  سلطان ولد سه منظومنه درباره جلوس و تهنیت او سروده و اظهار وجد و سرور کرده است.  او در یکی از منظومه‌ها از سلطان درخواست می‌کند که نسبت به ترکانی که از پیش سلطان فرار کرده و از ترس جان به کوهها و غارها پناه برده‌اند، ترحم نکند و جمله را به فصاص رسانیده و زنده نگذارد.

 

به دولت شاه شاهانی به صولت شیر شیرانی

همه ترکان ز بیم جان شده در غار و کُه پنهان

چو نبود شیر در بیشه رود از گرگ اندیشه

پلنگ اکنون بشد موشی، چو آمد شیر حق غٌران

چو ماران رفته در کُه‌خا در آن بیشه به انده‌ها

همه چون روز می‌دانند که خواهی کوفت شرهاشان

همه در گریۀ ناله، بخون در غرق چون لاله

گهی بر موت خود گریان، گهی بر خوف خان و مان

چو رنجوران بی‌درمان به‌شسته دستها از جان

به اومیدی طم کرده که بوک از شه رسد غفران

گذشت از حد‌این زحفت مکن شاها توشان رحمت

حیات خلق اگر خواهی بکن آن جمله را قربان

لکم اندر قصاص خلق حیات و این شنو از حق

قصاص چشم چشم آمد به داندان هم بود دندان

حیات اندر قصاص آمد جهانرا ازین خلاص آمد

نبودی هیچکس زنده برین گر نامدی فرمان

خوارج را مهل زنده اگر میرست اگر بنده

که خونی کشتنی باشد به شرع آیت قرآن

ولد کردست نفرین‌ها برون از چرخ و پروین‌ها

که یارب زین سگان بد ببر هم جان و هم ایمان

 

(لازم به ذکر است که فریدون نافذ اوزلوک مترجم دیوان سلطان ولد به ترکی، در نخستین بیت منظومه فوق، به جای «همه ترکان» لغت خوارج را گمارده است.  ایشان به این اقدام بی‌مورد تحرق آشکار، حس کینه و نفرت سلطان ولد را نسبت به ترکان پرده‌پورشی کرده و از چشم خوانندگانی که فارسی نمی‌دانند پنهان داشته است).

 

 

سلطان ولد در منظومۀ دیگر که ار پیروزی سلطان مسعود بر ترکان سخن رانده است.

 

ترکان عالم سوز را از غار و کوه بیشه‌ها

آورده در طاعت خدا چون شاه ما مسعود شد

 

 

ناصر شمس معروف به کافرک غزنین:

تا ولایت به دست ترکان است

مرد آزاده بی زر و نان است

 

خاقانی شیروانی می سراید:

آشنای دل بيگانه مشو / آب و نان از در بيگانه مخور

 نان ترکان مخور و بر سرخوان /  با ادب نان خور و ترکانه مخور

خون خوری ترکانه کاین از دوستی است//
خون مخور ، ترکی مکن ، تازان مشو //
کشتیم پس خویشتن نادان کنی//
این همه دانا مکش ، نادان مشو//

نظامی گنجوی در لیلی و مجنون می سراید:

تُرکی صِفَت وَفای ما نيست // تُرکانِه سُخن سِزای ما نيست// آن کز نَسَبِ بُلَند زايد// او را سُخن بُلند بايد// به نِفرين تُرکان زَبان بَرگُشاد

 

در اسکندرنامه نیز دوباره به بی وفایی ترکان اشاره میکند:

 // که بی فِتنِه تُرکی زِ مادَر نَزاد//زِ چينی بِجُز چينِ اَبروُ مَخواه //ندارند پِيمان مردم نِگاه // سُخن راست گُفتند پيشينيان // که عَهد و وَفا نيست در چينيان // همه تَنگ چِشمی پَسنديده اند// فَراخی به چَشمِ کَسان ديده اند// خبر نی که مهر شما کين بُوَد// دل تُرکِ چين پُر خَمُ و چين بُوَد// اگر تُرکِ چينی وَفا داشتی // جهان زيرِ چين قَبا داشتی

و این دو شاعر  (خاقانی و نظامی) فردوسی بزرگ را چندین بار ستاییده اند.  برای نمونه از خاقانی: شمع جمع هوشمندان است در دیجور غم// نکته ای کز خاطر فردوسی طوسی بود// زادگاه طبع پاکش جملگی حوراوش اند// زاده حوراوش بود چون مرد فردوسی بود//

و نظامی گنجوی گوید: سخن گوی پیشینه دانای طوس// که آراست روی سخن چون عروس//

 

 

سنائی غزنوی که بارها از طرف مولانا و سلطان ولد و پدر مولانا بهاالدین ولد و یکی از دیگر آموزگاران برهان الدین ترمذی ستاییده شده است در مورد ترکان می‌گوید:

 

می‌نبینید آن سفیهانی که ترکی کرده‌اند

همچو چشم تنگ ترکان گور ایشان تنگ و تار

بنگرید آن جعدشان از خاک چون پشت کشف

بنگرید آن رویشان از چین چو پشت سوسمار

سر به خاک آورد امروز آنکه افسر بود دی

تن به دوزخ برد امسال آنکه گردن بود پار

ننگ ناید مر شما را زین سگان پر فساد

دل نگیرد مر شما را زین خران بی‌فسار

پاسبانان تو اند این سگ پرستان همچو سگ

هست مرداران ایشان هم بدیشان واگذار

..

زشت باشد نقش نفس  خوب را از راه طبع

گریه کردن پیش مشتی سگ پرست و موشخوار

اندر این زندان  بر این دندان‌زنان سگ‌صفت

روزکی چند ای ستمکش صبر کن، دندان فشار

تا ببینی روی آن مردمکُشان چون زعفران

تا ببینی روی این محنت کشان چون گل انار

گرچه آدم صورتان سگ‌صفت مستولی‌اند

هم کنون بینند کز میدان دل عیاروار

جوهر آدم برون تازد بر آرد ناگهان

از سگان آدمی کیمخت خر مردم دمار

..


تا ببینی موری آن خس را که می‌دانی امیر

تا بینی گرگی آن سگ را که می‌خوانی عیار

 

 

یکی از ریشه تعبیر عرفانی مفهوم ترک (غارتگري) را می توان در این چند بیت خواجه عبدالله انصاری جست:
عشق آمد و دل كرد غارت
اي دل تو بجان بر اين بشارت
تركي عجب است عشق داني
كز ترك عجيب نيست غارت
بنابراين مي توان گفت كه تركان اصيل چنان به تاراجگري و ويرانگري شهره و انگشت نما بوده اند كه در ادب و عرفان ايراني، تركان به نماد ويراني وتاراج مبدل مي شوند، به طوري كه در زبان فارسي به تهاجم و غارتگري «ترك تازي» گفته مي شود.

 

حتی عبدالرحمان جامی که یکی از شاعران بزرگ بوده است و در زمان سلاطین ترک-تبار میزیسته، این شعر را سروده است:

این شنيدستي که ترکي وصف جنت چون شنيد این

گفت با واعظ که انجا غارت و تاراج هست ؟
گفت ني ، گفت بدتر باشد زدوزخ ان بهشت
کاندرو کوته بود از غارت و تاراج دست

شاعري به نام قاسم و متخلص به مادح كه حماسه جهانگيري را محتملا در پايان سده ششم هجري سروده درباره تركان غز مي گويد:

«همه پهن رويان كوتاه قد
همه رويشان بود بي خط و خد
همه تنگ چشمان بيني دراز
همه بد دهانان و دندان گراز
همه تندخويان و با كين و خشم
به مال يتيمان سيه كرده چشم
همه تيره راي و همه بدگمان
كمر بسته در غارت مردمان
...»

حمدالله مستوفي، مورخ نام‌دار سده‌ي هشتم قمري، در منظومه‌ي خود به نام «ظفرنامه» توصيفي گويا از جنايت‌ها و ويران‌گري‌هاي مغول (لازم به ذکر است که اغلب سربازان و قبایل اتحادیه امپراتور مغول ترک تبار بودند)  در زادگاه خود، شهر «قزوين» ارائه كرده است:
مغول اندر آمد به قزوين دلير // سر همگنان آوريدند زير // ندادند كس را به قزوين امان // سر آمد سران را سراسر زمان // هر آن كس كه بود اندر آن شهر پاك // همه كشته افكنده بُد در مغاك // ز خرد و بزرگ و ز پير و جوان // نماندند كس را به تن در روان // زن و مرد هر جا بسي كشته شد // همه شهر را بخت برگشته شد // بسي خوب‌رويان ز بيم سپاه // بكردند خود را به تيره تباه // ز تخم نبي بي‌كران دختران // فروزنده چون بر فلك اختران // ز بيم بد لشكر رزم‌خواه // نگون درفكندند خود را به چاه // به هم برفكنده به هر جايگاه // تن كشتگان را به بي‌راه و راه // نماند اندر آن شهر جاي گذر // ز بس كشته افكنده بي‌حد و مر // ز بيم سپاه مغول هر كسي // گريزان برفتند هر جا بسي // برفتند چندي به جامع درون // پر اندوه جان و به دل پر ز خون // چو بودند از آن دشمن انديشه‌ناك // فراز مقرنس نهان گشت پاك // به مسجد، مغول اندر آتش فكند // زمانه برآمد به چرخ بلند // به آتش سقوف مقرنس بسوخت // وز آن كار كفر و ستم برفروخت.

 

Despite the constant attacks on Iranian civilization by Turkish nomads and today by the likes of Ali Reza Asgharzadeh and other pan-Turkists, the influence of Iranian civilization on Turkish civilization is undeniable, irrefutable and extremely heavy.  Numerous books have written on this matter.  Iranian civilization ultimately had a heavy influence in brining culture to Turks and to a large extent Iranizing many Turkic groups and dynasties.

 

A good source on pre-Islamic influence of Iranian civilizations on Turks is written by the Turkologist Annemarie Von Gabain in : (Irano-Turkish relations in the late Sasanian period," in Camb. Hist. Iran III/1, 1983, pp. 613-24).

This source may be obtained here:

Irano-Turkish Relations in the Late Sasanian Period

Professor. Annemarie Von Gabain

 

In the source above, we read:

 

“There are many borrowings from Middle Iranian in Turkish culture to be mentioned.  Although the Turks learned writing soon after the foundation of their empire, their oldest inscription, as we have seen, was in Sogdian, the lingua franca of the time and in the Sogdian script, as is shown in the inscription near Bugut.  Only with the beginning of the nationalism at the start of the 8th century did the Kok-Turks, and later the Uigur Qaghans in the 9th century, write their inscription in their own language alongside a version in Chinese or Chinese and Sogdian.  The script used for these inscriptions, the so-called Kok-Turks “Runic” writing, was a lively adaptation, perhaps by a Sogdian, of cursive Aramaic, and indeed the Sogdian, “Uigur” and Manichaen scripts can all be attributed to the ephigraphical inventiveness of Sogdians.

 

…

 

From this large number of Middle Iranian elements in fundamental Uigur Buddhism it is clear that it was neither the Indians nor the Chinese but the Sogdians who first brought about the conversion of the Turks to their religion.

 

 

Nestorian Christianity must have been preached to the Turks not only by Syriac monks but also by Sogdian missionaries, for many Christian texts both in Syriac and in Sogdian have been found in the village of Bulayiq (in the oasis of Turfan), together with a few Turkish fragments.

 

Manichaeism came to the Uigurs through the Sogdians of Ch'ang-an.

…

 

 

In the middle of the 9th century, the Uigur Qaghan of the steppe, with the intention of introducing the nomad Turks gradually to the sedentary life, gave orders for a number of Chinese as well as of Sogdians to build him a "rich town".  To a Central Asian people the concept of "town" was specifically Iranian, being represented by kent ( < Sog. knhh), although it is also covered by a genuine Turkish word balt'q.

“

 

A Chinese source reports on Turks: "The Turks themselves are simple-minded and short-sighted, and dissension may have been roused among them. Unfortunately many Sogdians live among them who are cunning and insidious; they teach and instruct the Turks."  (Sergey G. Klyastorniy and Vladimir Aronovic Livsic, "The Sogdian Inscription of Bugut Revised," Acta Orientalia Hungarica, 20 (1972), pp. 69-102.)

 

As we can see the Soghdians, an Iranian people, made major contributions to Turkish civilization and brought Christianity, Buddhism, Manichaeism to Turks.  The role of Iranians in brining Islam to Turkish and Iranizing many nomadic Turkic dynasties is well know and will be expounded upon later.

 

Mahmud al-Kasbgari, a central Asian  Turkish philologist of the eleventh century, who quoted

the Turkish proverb tats'iz tiirk bolmas, bass'iz bork bolmas, "without Iranians, the Turks amount to nothing, without a head, a cap is nothing."( Mahmud al-Kasgari, Compendium of the Turkic Dialects (Diwan Lughat at-Turk, 3 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1982-5, I, p. 273, II, p. 103.

 

Furthermore, al-Kashghari reports that because the Oghuz had mingled a lot with the Persians, they had forgotten many of their own words and had replaced them with Persian words.  (Mehmed Fuad Koprulu's , Early Mystics in Turkish Literature, Translated by Gary Leiser and Robert Dankoff , Routledge, 2006, pg 149)

 

 

Unlike racists like Alireza Asgharzadeh, there are Turkish speaking scholars who have wide fame and are known to be more balanced.  Mehmad Fuad Koprulu also speaks about the pre-Islamic and post-Islamic Iranian influence on Turks:

 

‘’On Pre-Islamic influence, one must mention Soghdians who influenced Eastern Turks greatly. 

Because of their geographical location, the Turks were in continuous contact with China and Iran from very ancient times. The early Chinese chronicles, which are reliable and comprehensive, show the relationship of the Turks with China fairly clearly. The early relationship of the Turks with Iran, however, only enters the light of history - leaving aside the legends in the Shahname — at the time of the last Sasanid rulers. After the Turks had lived under the influence of these two civilizations for centuries, Iran, which had accepted Islam, gradually brought them into its sphere of influence.  Even during the development of the Uighur civilization, which was the {Turkish civilization} most strongly influenced by China, the attraction of the Turks to Iranian civilization, which had proven its worth in art, language, and thought, was virtually unavoidable, especially after it was invigorated with a new religion.

 

Even before it drew the Turks into its sphere of influence, Iranian civilization had had, in fact, a major effect on Islam. With respect to the concept of govern­ment and the organization of the state, the Abbasids were attached not to the traditions of the khulafa al-rashidun {the first four caliphs} but to the mentality of the Sasanid rulers.  After Khurasan and Transoxiana passed into the hands of native Iranian — and subsequently highly Iranized Turkish — dynasties with only nominal allegiance to the Abbasids, the former Iranian spirit, which the Islamic onslaught was not able to destroy despite its ruthlessness, again revealed itself. In the fourth/tenth century, Persian language and literature began to grow and develop in an Islamic form. This PersoTslamic literature was influenced, to a large extent, by the literature of the conquerors. Not only were a great many words brought into the language via the new religion, but new verse forms, a new metrical system, and new stylistic norms were also adopted in great measure from the Arabs. Indeed, almost nothing remained of the old Iranian syllabic metrical system, the old verse forms, or the old ideas about literature. Still, the Iranians, as heirs of an ancient civilization, were able to express their own personality in their literature despite this enormous Arab influence. They adopted from the carud meters only those that suited their taste. They created or, perhaps, revived the ruba'i form {of verse}.   They also introduced novelties in the qasida form {of verse}, which can be considered an old and well known product of Arabic literature, and in the ghazal {lyric "love song"}.  Above all, by reanimat­ing {their own} ancient mythology, they launched an "epic cycle" that was completely foreign to Arabic literature.  These developments were on such a scale that the fifth/eleventh century witnessed the formation of a new Persian literature in all its glory.

 

The Turks adopted a great many elements of Islam not directly from the Arabs, but via the Iranians. Islamic civilization came to the Turks by way of Transoxiana from Khurasan, the cultural center of Iran. Indeed, some of the great cities of Transoxiana were spiritually far more Iranian than Turkish. Also, the Iranians were no strangers to the Turks, for they had known each other well before the appearance of Islam. For all these reasons, it was the Iranians who guided the Turks into the sphere of Islamic civilization. This fact, naturally, was to have a profound influence on the development of Turkish literature over the centuries.  Thus, we can assert that by the fifth/eleventh century at least, TurkoTslamic works had begun to be written in Turkistan and that they were subject to Perso-Islamic influence. If Iranian influence had made an impact so quickly and vigorously in an eastern region like Kashghar, which was a center of the old Uighur civilization and had been under continuous and strong Chinese influence, then naturally this influence must have been felt on a much wider scale in regions further to the west and closer to the cities of Khurasan. But unfortunately, ruinous invasions, wars, and a thousand other things over the centuries have destroyed the products of those early periods and virtually nothing remains in our possession. Let me state clearly here, however, that such Turkish works that imitated Persian forms and were written under the influence of Persian literature in Muslim centers were not widespread among the masses. They were only circulated among the learned who received a Muslim education in the madrasas {these colleges of Islamic law began to spread in the fifth/eleventh century}.

 

….

 

{As they emigrated to the west,} the Oghuz Turks who settled in Anatolia came into contact with Arab and Muslim Persian civilization and then, in the new region to which they had come, encountered remnants of ancient and non-Muslim civilizations. In the large and old cities of Anatolia, which were gradually Turkified, the Turks not only encountered earlier Byzantine and Armenian works of art and architecture, but also, as a result of living side by side with Christians, naturally participated in a cultural exchange with them. The nomadic Turks {i.e. Turkmen}, who maintained a tribal existence and clung to the way of life they had led for centuries, remained impervious to all such influences. Those who settled in the large cities, however, unavoidably fell under these alien influences.

At the same time, among the city people, those whose lives and livelihoods were refined and elevated usually had extensive madrasa educations and harbored a profound and genuine infatuation with Arab and Persian learning and literature. Thus, they cultivated a somewhat contemptuous indifference to this Christian civilization, which they regarded as materially and morally inferior to Islamic civilization. As a result, the influence of this non-Muslim civilization on the Turks was chiefly visible, and then only partially, in those arts, such as architecture, in which the external and material elements are more obvious. The main result of this influence was that life in general assumed a more worldly quality.

If we wish to sketch, in broad outline, the civilization created by the Seljuks of Anatolia, we must recognize that the local, i.e. non-Muslim, element was fairly insignificant compared to the Turkish and Arab-Persian elements, and that the Persian element was paramount/The Seljuk rulers, to be sure, who were in contact with not only Muslim Persian civilization, but also with the Arab civiliza­tions in al-jazlra and Syria - indeed, with all Muslim peoples as far as India — also had connections with {various} Byzantine courts. Some of these rulers, like

the great 'Ala' al-Dln Kai-Qubad I himself, who married Byzantine princesses and thus strengthened relations with their neighbors to the west, lived for many years in Byzantium and became very familiar with the customs and ceremonial at the Byzantine court. Still, this close contact with the ancient Greco-Roman and Christian traditions only resulted in their adoption of a policy of tolerance toward art, aesthetic life, painting, music, independent thought - in short, toward those things that were frowned upon by the narrow and piously ascetic views {of their subjects}. The contact of the common people with the Greeks and Armenians had basically the same result.

{Before coming to Anatolia,} the Turks had been in contact with many nations and had long shown their ability to synthesize the artistic elements that thev had adopted from these nations. When they settled in Anatolia, they encountered peoples with whom they had not yet been in contact and immediately established relations with them as well. Ala al-Din Kai-Qubad I established ties with the Genoese and, especially, the Venetians at the ports of Sinop and Antalya, which belonged to him, and granted them commercial and legal concessions.'' Mean­while, the Mongol invasion, which caused a great number of scholars and artisans to flee from Turkistan, Iran, and Khwarazm and settle within the Empire of the Seljuks of Anatolia, resulted in a reinforcing of Persian influence on the Anatolian Turks.   Indeed, despite all claims to the contrary, there is no question that Persian influence was paramount among the Seljuks of Anatolia. This is clearly revealed by the fact that the sultans who ascended the throne after Ghiyath al-Din Kai-Khusraw I assumed titles taken from ancient Persian mythology, like Kai-Khusraw, Kai-Ka us, and Kai-Qubad; and that. Ala' al-Din Kai-Qubad I had some passages from the Shahname inscribed on the walls of Konya and Sivas. When we take into consideration domestic life in the Konya courts and the sincerity of the favor and attachment of the rulers to Persian poets and Persian literature, then this fact {i.e. the importance of Persian influence} is undeniable.  With- regard to the private lives of the rulers, their amusements, and palace ceremonial, the most definite influence was also that of Iran, mixed with the early Turkish traditions, and not that of Byzantium. (Mehmed Fuad Koprulu's , Early Mystics in Turkish Literature, Translated by Gary Leiser and Robert Dankoff , Routledge, 2006, pg 149)

 

 

From the above, it is perfectly clear that many Turkic dynasties that initially conquered Iran and did great damage to its cities and infrastructure eventually gave up their nomadic ways and were Iranized to a large extent.   The reason these dynasties also adopted the Persian language is not because they loved Iranians, but simply because they lacked a sophisticated court and poetic languages and their culture was not as ancient as that of Iranians.  Thus despite imposing themselves on Iranian (which in modern term would be considered colonialism and  imperialism and all the mumbo-jumbo words used by Alireza Asgharzadeh to describe ethnic groups in Iran), Iranians to a large extent resisted Turkification and were able to impose Iranian culture on them.  Some of these dynasties like Ghaznavids for example even claimed Sassanid descent and more interestingly, there is not a single piece of Turkish writing under the Ghaznavids and many other Turkic dynasties.  We shall talk about the status of the Persian language, the national language of Iran, in a later section and expose the false claims of pan-turkists chauvinists like Alireza Asgharzadeh.

 

Thus the reason pan-Turkism chauvinists like Ali Reza Asgharzadeh write mumbo-jumbo about 6000 years of Turkish history in Iran is because they dislike Iranian civilization and its contribution to humanity.  Indeed one asks, why would a group with 6000 years of civilization be nomadic and then later on Iranized.  Indeed eyewitness accounts of the conditions of Turkish Nomads one thousand years ago shows the invalidity of the ideas of Zehtabi, Pourpirar, Asgharzadeh and other revisionists.  For example Ibn Fadlan, a 10th century Arab traveler who visited Central Asia has clearly described the conditions of Turkish nomads at that time.  Although this part will not be translated into English, the Persian readers are provided with a translation:

 

سفرنامه ابن فضلان (ترجمه سيد ابوالفضل طباطبائي، انتشارات شرق، 1345): «چون راه مزبور طي شد به قبيله اي از ترك ها به نام غزها (الغزيه) رسيديم. آنان مردمي صحرانشين هستند و خانه موئي يا سياه چادر دارند و هميشه در حركت اند... اين مردم زندگي صحرایی دارند و در رنج و مشقت به سر مي برند.در عين حال مانند الاغ گمراه اند، به خدا ايمان ندارند و فاقد عقل و شعورند و هيچ چيز را نمي پرستند. فقط بزرگان خود را ارباب مي خوانند. وقتي يكي از ايشان بخواهد با ریيس خود در كاري مشورت كند مي گويد:«اي خدا، در فلان كار چه كنم؟» ايشان در كار خويش با يكديگر مشورت مي كنند اما وقتي در امري اتفاق نمودند و روي آن تصميم گرفتند، يكي از پست ترين و فرومايه ترين آنان از ميان شان برخاسته، قرارشان را بر هم مي زند!

موضوع لواط نزد ايشان بسيار مهم است. مردي از اهل خوارزم به منطقه «گوذركين» كه جانشين پادشاه ترك است، وارد شد و چندي براي خريد گوسفند نزد دوست خود اقامت نمود. ميزبان ترك پسر بي ريشي داشت. مرد خوارزمي همچنان به او اظهار علاقه مي نمود تا او را به ميل خود حاضر و تسليم ساخت.

... فرداي آن روز با مردي از ترك ها كه بسيار زشت و بدقيافه و رذل و پليد بود و لباس ژنده اي را در بر داشت برخورديم. آن روز باران سختي ما را گرفته بود.آن مرد گفت:«بايستيد.» تمام قافله كه شامل قريب سه هزار چهارپا و پنج هزار مرد بود از حركت ايستاد.آن گاه گفت:«هيچ يك از شما حركت نكند». همگي دستور او را اطاعت نموده ايستاديم و به او گفتيم: «ما دوستان گوذركين هستيم.» او پيش آمده خنده اي كرد و گفت: «گوذركين كيست! ريدم به ريش گوذركين.» سپس گفت: «پكند». به زبان خوارزمي يعني نان. من چند گرده نان به او دادم و آن ها را گرفت وگفت: «برويد به شما رحم كردم»  ...

نزد قبيله باشقرد: اين جماعت شرورترين و كثيف‌ترين ترك‌ها و سخت‌ترين ايشان در آدم‌كشي مي‌باشند. [ناگهان مي‌بينيد] مردي مرد ديگر را به زمين انداخته سر او را مي‌بُرد و آن را برمي‌دارد و بدن‌اش را رها مي‌كند. آن‌ها ريش خود را مي‌تراشند و شپش مي‌خورند. بدين شكل كه درزهاي نيم‌تنه‌ي خود را جست‌وجو كرده، شپش‌ها را با دندان جويده، مي‌خورند … هر يك از ايشان تكه چوبي به شكل آلت مردي تراشيده و به گردن خويش مي‌آويزند و چون قصد سفر يا برخورد با دشمن كند، آن را مي‌بوسد و بر آن سجده مي‌گذارد و مي‌گويد: «خدايا با من چنين و چنين بكن!» من به ترجمان گفتم از يكي از ايشان بپرس دليل آن‌ها براي اين كار چيست و چرا اين آلت را خداي خود ساخته‌اند؟ گفت: «زيرا من از مانند آن بيرون آمده‌ام و براي خود آفريينده‌اي جز آن نمي‌شناسم»..

 

Thus falsifying the truth is a necessity for the spread of pan-Turkism chauvinism and racism.   Pan-Turkist chauvinists today have problems with not only Iranians (Kurds, Persians, Talysh, Iranian Azeris who are patriotic), but also with Armenians, Greeks, Arabs, Russians, Slavs and other groups of people.  To deny the ancient Iranian civilization, pan-Turkist racists like Ali Reza Asgharzadeh have no choice but to avail themselves to the revisionist material of Purpirar in order to deny Iran’s history and the revisionist materials of Zehtabi in order to create mythical and unfounded Turkic history.  Such childish behavior will not change the truth and as shown and has just further damaged the credibility of anti-Iranian pan-Turkist racists.  Although there was never any credibility to begin with.

 

Persian language among Turkish dynasties

Due to the fact that the Turks who conquered Iran were nomadic and did not have literary language and also due to the fact that many court ministers in their courts were Iranians, the Turkic dynasties adopted the Persian language and became highly Iranized. 

 

According to Professor Xavier De Planhol:  ‘’Thus Turkish nomads, in spite of their deep penetration throughout Iranian lands, only slightly influenced the local culture. Elements borrowed by the Iranians from their invaders were negligible.’’  (X.D. Planhol, LANDS OF IRAN in Encyclopedia Iranica)

 

According to Hodgson:

“The rise of Persian (the language) had more than purely literary consequence: it served to carry a new overall cultural orientation within Islamdom. Henceforth while Arabic held its own as the primary language of the religious disciplines and even, largely, of natural science and philosophy, Persian became, in an increasingly part of Islamdom, the language of polite culture; it even invaded the realm of scholarship with increasing effects. It was to form the chief model of the rise of still other languages. Gradually a third ‘’classical’’ tongue emerged, Turkish, whose literature was based on Persian tradition.”( Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, Volume 2: The Expansion of Islam in the Middle Periods (Venture of Islam, Chicago, 1974) page 293.)

Arnold J. Toynbee's assessment of the role of the Persian language is worth quoting in more detail:

‘’ In the Iranic world, before it began to succumb to the process of Westernization, the New Persian language, which had been fashioned into literary form in mighty works of art. . . gained a currency as a lingua franca; and at its widest, about the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of the Christian Era, its range in this role extended, without a break, across the face of South-Eastern Europe and South-Western Asia from the Ottoman pashalyq of Buda, which had been erected out of the wreckage of the Western Christian Kingdom of Hungary after the Ottoman victory at Mohacz in A.D. 1526, to the Muslim "successor-states" which had been carved, after the victory of the Deccanese Muslim princes at Talikota in A.D. 1565, out of the carcass of the slaughtered Hindu Empire of Vijayanagar. For this vast cul¬tural empire the New Persian language was indebted to the arms of Turkish-speaking empire-builders, reared in the Iranic tradition and therefore captivated by the spell of the New Persian literature, whose military and polit¬ical destiny it had been to provide one universal state for Orthodox Christendom in the shape of the Ottoman Empire and another for the Hindu World in the shape of the Timurid Mughal Raj. These two universal states of Iranic construction on Orthodox Christian and on Hindu ground were duly annexed, in accordance with their builders' own cultural affinities, to the original domain of the New Persian language in the homelands of the Iranic Civilization on the Iranian plateau and in the Basin of the Oxus and the Jaxartes; and in the heyday of the Mughal, Safawi, and Ottoman regimes New Persian was being patronized as the language of litterae humaniores by the ruling element over the whole of this huge realm, while it was also being employed as the official language of administration in those two-thirds of its realm that lay within the Safawi and the Mughal frontiers.’’(Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History,V, pp. 514-15)

 

E. J. W. Gibb, author of the standard A Literary History of Ottoman Poetry in six volumes, whose name has lived on in an important series of publications of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish texts, the Gibb Memorial Series. Gibb classifies Ottoman poetry between the Old School, from the fourteenth century to about the middle of the nineteenth, during which time Persian influence was dominant; and the Modern School, which came into being as a result of the Western impact. According to him in the introduction (Volume I):

‘’ the Turks very early "appropriated the entire Persian literary system down to its minute detail, and that in the same unquestioning and wholehearted fashion in which they had already accepted Islam.’’

The Saljuqs had, in the words of the same author:

‘’ attained a very considerable degree of culture, thanks entirely to Persian tutorage. About the middle of the eleventh century they [that is, the Saljuqs] had overrun Persia, when, as so often happened, the Barbarian conquerors adopted the culture of their civilized subjects. Rapidly the Seljuq Turks pushed their conquest westward, ever carrying with them Persian culture ... So, when some hundred and fifty years later Sulayman's son [the leader of the Ottomans] . . . penetrated into Asia Minor, they [the Ottomans] found that although Seljuq Turkish was the everyday speech of the people, Persian was the language of the court, while Persian literature and Persian culture reigned supreme. It is to the Seljuqs with whom they were thus fused, that the Ottomans, strictly so called, owe their literary education; this therefore was of necessity Persian as the Seljuqs knew no other. The Turks were not content with learning from the Persians how to express thought; they went to them to learn what to think and in what way to think. In practical matters, in the affairs of everyday life and in the business of government, they preferred their own ideas; but in the sphere of science and literature they went to school with the Persian, intent not merely on acquiring his method, but on entering into his spirit, thinking his thought and feeling his feelings. And in this school they continued so long as there was a master to teach them; for the step thus taken at the outset developed into a practice; it became the rule with the Turkish poets to look ever Persia-ward for guidance and to follow whatever fashion might prevail there. Thus it comes about that for centuries Ottoman poetry continued to reflect as in a glass the several phases through which that of Persia passed....So the first Ottoman poets, and their successors through many a generation, strove with all their strength to write what is little else than Persian poetry in Turkish words. But such was not consciously their aim; of national feeling in poetry they dreamed not; poetry was to them one and indivisible, the language in which it was written merely an unimportant accident.’’

 

 

Even during the Qajar era, Qajar kings praised Persian at the cost Turkish.  An example of this can be seen in the exchange between the Qajar and a poet by the name of Mo’jaz Shabestari:

 

معجز شبستری که يک شاعر ترکي‌سرا شناخته‌ای است و بين ۱۸۷۳ تا ۱۹۳۴ مي‌زيست نامه‌ای به پادشاه قجر مي‌نويسد

 

ديليم ترکی٬ سوزی ساده اوزوم صهبايه دلداده

منيم تک شاعرين البت اولار کاساد بازی

دونن شعر یله بیر نامه آپار دیم شاه ایرانه

دیدی ترکی نمی‌دانم٬ مرا تو بچه پنداری؟

اوزی ترک اوغلی ترک او اما دیر ترکی جهالتدور

خدایا مضمحل قیل تختدن بو آل قاجاری

 

ترجمه

 

 

زبانم ترکی٬گفتارم ساده است٬ خودم دلداده (عاشق) هستم

 متاع این چنین شاعری البته خریداری ندارد

یعنی کسی از اهل ادب دنبال شعر و ادب ترکی نمیرفت

دوش به محضر شه٬ نامه‌آی به شعر ترکی بردم

بگفتا: ترکی نمی‌دانیم٬ مرا تو بچه پنداری؟

ترکست و ترک‌زاده٬ گوید ترکیست جهالت

خدایا مضمحل گردن تاج و تخت آل قاجار را

 

Thus the Qajar kings considered Turkish to be Jehalat (ignorance).  Therefore the role of new Persian being the national language of Iranians was initiated with the Iranian Samanid and Saffarid dynasties.  In Western Iran too, the native Kurdish dynasties like those of Shaddadid, Rawwadid and the Persianized dynasty of the Shirvananshahs (these were originally Arabs of the ‘Azd tribe who intermarried with Iranian dynasties) also heavily supported new Persian.  After this brief period of Iranian rule, the invasion of Turkic nomads did not change this heritage.  This has partly to due with the fact that the majority of the population under the rule of the invaders were Iranians (Iranian speaking with a an old national heritage dating back at least to Sassanid times as shown below).  The other reason as mentioned before was that the Turkish nomads did not have a high culture (Tourkhan Gandjei, BSOAS, University of London, Vol. 49, No. 1) and many of the officials in their court were Iranians.  Having Iranian officials again was not by choice, but by necessity, since Iranians had administrative experience in running a country.  It should be noted that some of these dynasties, specially the Seljuqs, were regarded highly by Iranians, especially Iranians who were Sunni Hanafite Muslims.  Thus it was not orientalists that gave Iranians a cultural advantage over Turks as pan-turkists like Alireza Asgharzadeh claim throughout their book.  In reality, it was the robustness of Iranian culture in resisting the nomads and Iranizing their culture.  This fact upsets pan-Turkist racists like Alireza Asgharzadeh.

 

Oghuz attack on Azerbaijan during Ghaznavids

 

An important epoch of the history of Iran and Azerbaijan is the Oghuz attack on Western Iran, specially the areas of Kurdistan and Azerbaijan and Caucus.  The terrifying massacres committed by these bands of Oghuz Turks against native Iranians has been documented by different historians.

C.E. Bosworth gives an overview of the description of the Kurdish Rawwadid dynasty and the Oguz attack during their reign:

 

The Rawwadids (latterly the form "Rawad" is commoner in the sources) were another product of the upsurge of the mountain peoples of northern Iran; their domain was Azarbaijan, and particularly Tabriz. Strictly speaking, the Rawwadid family was of Azdl Arab origin, but by the 4th/10th century they were accounted Kurdish. At the opening of the 'Abbasid period Rawwad b. Muthanna had held a fief which included Tabriz. Over the course of the next two centuries his descendants became thoroughly Kurdicized, and the "Rawwadi Kurds" emerged with Iranian names, although the local poet Qatran (d. c. 465/1072) still praised them for their Arab ancestry. Early in the 4th/10th century the Sajid line of Arab governors in Azarbaijan collapsed, and the region became politically and socially disturbed. A branch of the Musafirids of Tarum first emerged there, but despite Buyid help the Musafirid Ibrahim b. Marzban was deposed in c. 370/ 980-1, probably by the Rawwadid Abul-Haija Husain b, Muhammad (344-78/955-88); certainly it was the Rawwadids who succeeded to all of the Musafirid heritage in Azarbaijan.

 

The most prominent member of the dynasty in the 5th/nth century was Vahsudan b. Mamlan b. Abfl-Haija (1019-54). It was in his reign that the Oghuz invaded Azarbaijan. These were some of the first Turkmen to come westwards, being the so-called " 'Iraqis', or followers of Arslan Israeli, expelled from Khurasan by Mahmud of Ghazna (see pp. 58 and 40-1). Vahsudan received them favourably in 419/1028, hoping to use them as auxiliaries against his many enemies, such as the Christian Armenians and Georgians and the rival Muslim dynasty of Shaddadids. He even married the daughter of an Oghuz chief, but it still proved impossible to use the anarchic nomads as a reliable military force.   In 429/1037 they plundered Maragheh and massacred large numbers of Hadhbani Kurds.  Vahsudan allied with his nephew, the chief of the Hadhbanis, Abul-Haija' b. Rahib al-Daula, against the Turkmen; many of them now migrated southwards to­wards Iraq, and in 432/1040-1. Vahsudan devised a stratagem by which several of the remaining leaders were killed. The rest of the Oghuz in Azarbaijan then fled to the territory of the Hakkari Kurds south-west of Lake Van. Vahsudan's capital, Tabriz, was destroyed by an earth­quake in 434/1042, and fearing that the Saljuqs would take advantage of his resulting weakness, he moved to one of his fortresses; but the city was soon rebuilt, and Nasir-i Khusrau found it populous and flourishing. (C.E. Bosworth, The Political and Dynastic History of the Iranian World (A.D. 1000-1200) in Camb. Hist. Iran V)

 

 

 

The Persian poet Qatran Tabrizi was alive at that time and has described the unruliness and massacares commited by the nomadic Oghuz tribes.  At the time of Qatran Tabrizi, the inhabits spoke a Persian dialect slightly distinct from the Dari Persian dialect of Khorasan.  Naser Khosrow, himself from Khorasan mentions the slight dialect differences between the two places.  This difference is also examined in this article:

دقیقی، زبان دری و لهجه ی آذری

دکتر جلال متینی

 

The slight dialect different is mentioned by the following verse of Qatran where he contrasts Parsi with Dari (Persian of Khorasan which through time became the main medium of communication after Islam):

 

 

در بيتي از قطران تبريزي هم كه «پارسي» را در برابر دري آورده، پارسي در مورد زبان آذربايجان به كار رفته، در برابر دري خراسان:
بلبل به سان مطرب بيدل فراز گل//
گه پارسي نوازد، گاهي زند دري//

 

قطران تبريزی نيزدر بسياری از چکامه هايش ترکان را شايسته سرزنش دانسته و انان را سخت نکوهش کرده است .

نمونه هايی از ان ابيات در ذيل می ايد :

اگر بگذشت از جيحــون گروه ترکمانـــان را // ملک محمـــــــود کــاو را بود زابل کان در سنجر

....

زمانی تازش ايشان به شروان اندرون بودی // زمانـــی حملـــه ايشان بــــه اذربايگــــان انــدر

نبود از تازش ايشان کسی بر چيز خود ايمن // نبود از حمله ايشان کسی بر مال خود سرور (شهرياران گمنام، 1377، ص۱۶۰)

شده چون خانه زنبور با غم از ترکان // همی خلند به فرمان ما چو زنبورم (همان، ص۱۹۷)

قطران در يکی از سروده هايش به هنگام ستايش يکی از فرمانروايان بومی اذربايجان عامل عدم پيشرفت کار او را حضور ترکان برشمرده است :

گر نبودی آفت ترکان به گيتی در پديد // بستدی گيتی همه چون خسروان باستان ( همان، ص۱۹۷)

قطران در بدگويی و مذمت ترک تباران چنان سخن گفته که حتی انان را موجب ويرانی ايران زمين برشمرده و اين مفهوم به روشنی از بيت زير که در ستايش اميری از اميران اذربايجان سرايش يافته برمی ايد :

اگر چه داد ايران را بلای ترک ويرانی // شود از عدلش ابادان چون يزدانش کند ياری ( همان، ص۱۹۷)

اين شاعر اذربايجانی در يکی ديگر از چکامه هايش که در قالب قصيده سروده است ترکان را خونخوار و جرار و غدار و مکار خوانده است :

کمــــر بستند بهــــر کيــن شه ترکان پيکاری // همـــه يکـرو به خونخواری همه يکدل به جراری

يکی ترکان مسعودی به قصد خيل مسعودان // نهاده تن به کين کاری و دل داده به خونخواری

....

چــه ارزد غـدر با دولت، چه ارزد مکـر با دانش // اگـرچـه کــــار ترکان هست غــداری و مکــاری( همان، ص۱۷۲)

As can be seen by the above, Qatran complains heavily about the plundering, destruction and savagery of the nomadic Turks who ravaged and plundered Azerbaijan.  He calls these nomads Khoonkhaar (blood suckers), bringers of Viran (ruin) to Iran, kin-kaar (workers of hatred), covenant breakers (Ghadar), Makar (Charlatan and deceiver).

Qatran Tabrizi also praises the Sassanids heavily and thus Qatran is an example of the Iranian culture of  the region and the resistance of Iranians to Turks. 


این جهان بودست دایم ملک ساسانیان                  خواست سالارش خدا در ملک ساسان کند
نیست کست در گوهر ساسانیان چون لشکری     تا پس آن چون نیاکان شاهی ایران کند
همچو افريدون بگيرد ملك عالم سر بسر               و آنگهي تدبير ملك خيل فرزندان كند
روم و گرجستان به فرمان منوچهر آورد                  هند و تركستان بزير حكم نوشروان آورد
او بتخت ملک ايران بر نشيند در سطخر              کهترين فرزند خود را مهتر آران کند
تا همی فرمان داور خاک را ساکن کند                 تا همی تقدير يزدان چرخ را گردان کند
ملک او را از زوال ايمن همی گردون کند                جان او را از فنا ایمن همی یزدان کند
شاد بنشيند بکام دل بر ايوان شهی                     وز فروغ روی خويش آراسته فرمان کند

 

Indeed Qatran was soaked and emerged in his ancient Iranian culture:

 

نخستین سند ادبی ارتباط آذربایجان و شاهنامه

سجاد آیدئلو

 

Another example of Persian/Iranian who fought against the half Turkish Caliph Muta’sim and his Turkish soldiers is Babak Khorramdin and this will be discussed in a later secion.

 

Despite the claim of pan-Turkists like Chehregani that Azerbaijanis are “pure Oghuz Turks” or the likes of other pan-turkists like Alireza Asgharzadeh who completely disregard the historical ties of Azerbaijan with the rest of Iran (for example Qatran Tabrizi), it will be shown that Azerbaijanis are not “pure Oghuz Turks”.

 

 

Negative view of Turks by the Ottomans

 

During the Ottoman era, peasants and villagers were called Turks, while nobles were called Ottomans.  For the Ottomans, the term Turk meant peasant and uncivilized.

 

Ziya Gokalp a prominent pan-Turkist writes:

 

http://www.gencturkhaber.com/v1/haber.php?id=110106

 

Bu konuda Ziya Gökalp’ın ifadesi çok daha serttir, çünkü ona göre Osmanlı her zaman Türk’e yönelik olarak “eşek Türk” sözünü kullanırmış (Gökalp, 1990: 33, 43)

 

Ziya Gokalp's saying about this(negative view about Turks in Ottomon empire)is more fierce. He thought that every time the Ottoman's wanted to mention the Turks, they used the title "donkey Turks".

 

 

In the book Organised Crime In Europe: Concepts, Patterns and Control Policies in the European Union and Beyond By Cyrille Fijnaut, Letizia Paoli(Published 2004, Springer, pg 206), this matter is also pointed to:

 

“The third structural problem had to do with the ethnic hierarchy that prevailed throughout the empire (Ottomon empire). In the Seljuq periods, the authorities viewed Georgians. Iranians and Slavs as the top ranking peoples, and Turks and Turkmens as the lowest.  Turkish was a language only to be spoken by people of humble descent, and it is not difficult to find offensive and racist comments in the writings of Seljuq authors: 'Bloodthirsty Turks [...] If they get the chance, they plunder, but as soon as they see the enemy coming, off they run'.' Matters were not much different in the Ottoman period, even though the empire was governed by a small elite at the court, which was Turkish itself. According to Cetin Yetkin, one of the major Turkish authors on the Seljuq and Ottoman periods. 'In the Ottoman Empire, though Turks were a "minority", they did not have the same rights as the other minorities' (Yerkin, 1974: 175). In fact the term 'Turk' was a pejorative. Ottoman historian Naima, who also wrote a book about the Anatolian rebels, uses the following terms for the Turks: Tiirk-i bed-lika (Turk with an ugly face), nadan Turk (ignorant Turk) and etrak-i bi-idrak (Turk who knows nothing).”

 

 

According to Turkish history Handan Nezir Akmeshe, who describes the attempt to ingrain self-conscioussness to Turks of the Ottomon empire prior to WWI  ( Handan Nezir Akmeşe, The Birth Of Modern Turkey: The Ottoman Military And The March To World War I, I.B.Tauris, 2005. pg 50): (One consequence was to reinforce these officers sense of their Turkish nationality, and a sense of national grievance arising out of die contrast between the non-Muslim communities, with their prosperous, European-educated elites, and "the poor Turks [who] inherited from the Ottoman Empire nothing but a broken sword and an old-fashioned plough."  Unlike the non-Muslim and non-Turkish communities, they noted with some bitterness, the Turks did not even have a proper sense of their own national identity, and used to make fun of each other, calling themselves “donkey Turk”)

 

According to Alfred J. Rieber and Alexei Miller( Alfred J. Rieber, Alexei Miller,Imperial Rule, Central European University Press, 2005. pg 33: (In the Ottoman Em­pire the very name 'Turk' was even rather insulting and was used to denote backwoodsmen, bumpkins, illiterate peasants in Anatolia ' etraki-bi-idrak in an Ottoman (Arabic) play on words 'the stupid Turk'.)

 

Ozay Mehmet in his book Islamic Identity and Development: Studies of the Islamic Periphery mentions,(Ozay Mehmet, Islamic Identity and Development: Studies of the Islamic Periphery, Routledge, 1990. pg 115) (The ordinary Turks did not have a sense of belonging to a ruling ethnic group. In particular, they had a confused sense of self-image. Who were they: Turks, Muslims or Ottomans? Their literature was sometimes Persian, sometimes Arabic, but always courtly and elitist. There was always a huge social and cultural distance between the Imperial centre and the Anatolian periphery. As Bernard Lewis expressed it: ‘’in the Imperial society of the Ottomans the ethnic term Turk was little used, and then chiefly in a rather derogatory sense, to designate the Turcoman nomads or, later, the ignorant and uncouth Turkish-speaking peasants of the Anatolian villages.’’(Lewis 1968: 1)  In the words of a British observer of the Ottoman values and institutions at the start of the twentieth century:  The surest way to insult an Ottoman gentleman is to call him a 'Turk'. His face will straightway wear the expression a Lon­doner's assumes, when he hears himself frankly styled a Cockney. He is no Turk, no savage, he will assure you, but an Ottoman subject of the Sultan, by no means to be confounded with certain barbarians styled Turcomans, and from whom indeed, on the male side, he may possibly be descended. (Davey 1907: 209((

 

 

 

An Ottomon poet by the name of Faqiri writes:

ندر کملر درر بلد نمی رومی

قیل حاصل ظرافته علومی

کمی منشی در ایله کمی شاعر

ظرافتدن قلرلر سحر ساهر

ولی ایتدو کجه صحبت اتفاقی

چله لر بر بوینه نفاقی

 

Translation: Do you know who in this world is a Turk?

One that wears a peaseants clothing and hat

He does not know religion nor faith nor virtue

He does not wash his face, does not wash himself for prayer or cleanliness

The people of religion have this expression:

O God, please protect us from oppressive and pain brining shepeard

 

The phrases like “Stupid Turk” were common during the Ottomon era.  An excellet overview of the viewpoint of Ottomons on Turks and Turkish language is given here:

 

نظریات عثمانیان درباره ترک و زبان ترکی

دکتر فیروز منصوری

 

 

Despite the false claim by Alireza Asgharzadeh that negative views on Turks is due to Rezashah!, we can clearly see that Seljuqs, Qajars, Ottomons, Persian poets from Azerbaijan like Qatran (prior to the linguistic Turkification of Tabriz) and many others had a negative view.  Even the phrase “Donkey Turk” which Alireza Asgharzadeh tries to ascribe to the Pahlavid era had wide currency in the Ottomon empire.  Of course such negative views were expressed during their own time due to either nomadic invasion of Turks or that the Ottomons/Seljuqs adopted Iranian or other cultures and disassociated themselves from Turks for variety of reasons.  Either way, by trying to blame the Pahlavid era for the negative views expressed for more than a thousand years, Alireza Asgharzadeh and other pan-turkists like him are proving their intellectual dishonesty.  The negative historical views expressed above about Turks in their own historical era are neither condoned nor condemned by this author but just demonstrated for the sake of historical accuracy.  Simply in their own time, given the destruction wrought by Turkish nomads (who linguistically Turkified the region without that much of genetic influence) on variety of Iranian civilizations (Khorasan, Khwarzm, Soghd, Azerbaijan..) such negative views arose a they are demonstrated through the above historical records.  Although it should be mentioned that positive of view of some Turks like the Seljuqids can be seen by some Iranians and this could have religious reason as many Iranian Sunnis supported the Seljuqids.  Also at least from the time of Shahnameh, central Asiatic Turks who have been described as “tang-cheshm” (literally:narrow-eyes) have been praised for their beauty.  In Sufic Persian poetry, the term Turk and Hindu have gone together many times where the most common symbolic meaning is the contrast of light and dark.  Nevertheless when it comes to the actual material destruction brought by Turks, Persian poets, Seljuqids, Ottomons, and others had an extremely negative view.  Thus Alireza Asgharzadeh conveniently ignores this epoch of history in order to initiate its beginning to 1925!

 

 

Are Azeris Turks?

 

The definition of Turk is not clear (Someone who is a Turkic speaker? Or has Turkic history? Or his ancestors were originally Turkic? Or was Turkified?) but what is clear is that prior to the Turkification of Iranian Azerbaijan, the language of the area was Iranic dialects.  Sufficient sources for this has already been brought from world class scholars like Vladimir Minorsky.  The reader can also refer to some of the samples of the pre-Turkic language of Azerbaijan that has been collected here:

 

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/languages/Azari/azarimain.htm

 

Some new genetic studies (2007 March 2) suggest that recent erosion of human population structure might not be as important as previously thought, and overall genetic structure of human populations may not change with the immigration events and thus in the Azerbaijani case; the Azeris of Azerbaijan republic most of all genetically resemble to other Caucasian people like Armenians Testing hypotheses of language replacement in the Caucasus and people the Azerbaijan region of Iran to other Iranians Is urbanisation scrambling the genetic structure of human populations?

 

According to a genetic study done on Yakuts of Siberia

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12942638&query_hl=3

 

In total, 67 haplotypes of 14 haplogroups were detected. Most (91.6%) haplotypes belonged to haplogroups A, B, C, D, F, G, M*, and Y, which are specific for East Eurasian ethnic groups; 8.4% haplotypes represented Caucasian haplogroups H, HV1, J, T, U, and W.

Yakuts showed the lowest genetic diversity (H = 0.964) among all Turkic ethnic groups.

Phylogenetic analysis testified to a common genetic substrate of Yakuts, Mongols, and Central Asian (Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uigur) populations.

 

In Persian literature, when Turks are described, they are described with the physical feature of the Turks of Central Asia and Yakuts.  For example this statue of an ancient Turkish King of the Gok-Turks Kul Tegin exemplifies this http://www.ulkuocaklari.org.tr/kulturedebiyat/grafik/kultigin.jpg

 

 

http://www.ulkuocaklari.org.tr/kulturedebiyat/grafik/kultigin.jpg

 

Here is a picture of Seljuq Prince:

The image “http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/7/7b/Seljuk_prince.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.


حافظ:
به تنگ چشمي ان ترك لشكري نازم**************كه حمله بر من درويش يك قبا آورد

نظامي:
سرآينده ترك با چشم تنگ**************فروهشته گيسو به گيسوي چنگ

مولوي:
ترك خنديدن گرفت از داستان**********چشم تنگش گشت بسته آن زمان

مولوي:
دو چشم ترك خطا را چه ننگ از تنگي*********چه عار دارد سياح جهان از اين عوري

گفت كاي تنگ چشم تاتاري******صيد ما را به چشم مي ناري؟

قاصرات الطرف في حجب الخيام************حال تركان است گويي والسلام
............
..........
.........
تنگ چشمانند ليكن دوربين***********خوبرويانند ليكن خويش كام

سنايي غزنوي:

مي نبيند آن سفيهاني كه تركي كرده اند****همچو چشم تنگ تركان گور ايشان تنگ و تار

سنايي غزنوي:
باش تا چون چشم تركان تنگ گردد گور تو***********گر چه خود را كور سازي در مسافت صد كري



خاطرات نجم الدين رازي معروف به دايه
وي يکي از رهبران مهم صوفيه و نثر نويس پخته اين روزگار است که تا سال 653 زنده بوده است. او شاگرد نجم الدين کبري است که در حمله مغولان به خوارزم در ميدان جنگ کشته شده است. مهم ترين اثر وي، کتاب تصوف مرصاد العباد است که سلوک عرفاني را به زبان پارسي دري شرح داده است. دربخشي از اي متن به حمله ترک و مغول و گريز خود اشاره کرده است. با هم اين بخش را مي خوانيم:

«در تاريخ شهور سنۀ سبع و عشر و ستمائه (617) لشکر مخذول ِ کفار تتار استيلا يافت بر آن ديار ، و آن فتنه و فساد و قتل و اسر و هدم و حرق که از آن ملاعين ظاهر گشت، در هيچ عصر و ديار کفر و اسلام کس نشان نداده است و در هيچ تاريخ نيامده الا انچه خواجه(پيغمبر) عليه الصلوة و السلام از فتنه هاي آخر الزمان خبر باز داده است و فرموده: لا تَقومُ السٌاعة حتي تُقاتِلوا التٌُرک صغارَ الاعين حُمرَ الوجوه ذلف الانوف کان وجوههم المجان المطرقة ، صفت اين کفار ملاعين کرده است و فرموده که ، قيامت برنخيزد تا آنگاه که شما با ترکان قتال نکنيد، قومي که چشم هاي ايشان خرد باشد و بيني هايشان پهن بود و روي هاي ايشان سرخ بود و فراخ همچون سپر پوست در کشيده. و بعد از آن فرموده است: و يکثر الهرج، قيل: يا رسول الله! ما الهرج؟ قال: القتل ، القتل. فرمود که قتل بسيار شود. به حقيقت، اين واقعه آن است که خواجه عليه الصلوة و السلام به نور نبوت پيش از ششصد و اند سال باز ديده بود. قتل ازين بيشتر چگونه بود که از يک شهر ري که مولد و منشـأ اين ضعيف است و ولايت آن قياس کرده اند ، کما بيش پانصد هزار آدمي به قتل آمده و اسير گشته. و فتنه و فساد آن ملاعين بر جملگي اسام و اساميان از آن زيادت است که در حٌيز عبارت گنجد... عاقبت چون بلا به غايت رسيد و محنت به نهايت و کار به جان رسيد و کارد به استخوان...اين ضعيت از سهر همدان که مسکن بود به شب بيرون آمد با جمعي از درويشان و عزيزان در معرض خطري هرچ تمام تر ، در شهور سنۀ ثمان عشر و ستمائه به راه اربيل و بر عقب اين فقير خبر چنان رسيد كه كفار ملاعين..به شهر همدان آمدند و حصار دادند و اهل شهر به قدر و وسع بكوشيدند و چون طاقت مقاومت نماند - كفار دست يافتند و شهر بستند و خلق بسيار كشند و بسي اطفال را و عورات را اسير بردند و خرابي تمام كردند و اقرباي اين ضعيف را كه به شهر بودند٬ بيشتر شهيد كردند.

باريد به باغ ما تگرگي
وز گلبن ما نماند برگي
»

ملاحظه کنيد:
«قومي که چشم هاي ايشان خرد باشد و بيني هايشان پهن بود و روي هاي ايشان سرخ بود و فراخ همچون سپر پوست در کشيده»

 

Furthermore, scholars today agree that Azerbaijani’s are Turkified Iranian speakers and the Oguz Turks did not change the genetic makeup of the region.

 

 

 

According to the eminent historian Vladimir Minorsky:

 In the beginning of the 5th/11th century the G̲h̲uzz hordes, first in smaller parties, and then in considerable numbers, under the Seljuqids occupied Azarbaijan. In consequence, the Iranian population of Azarbaijan and the adjacent parts of Transcaucasia became Turkophone.

(Minorsky, V.; Minorsky, V. "( Azarbaijan). Encyclopaedia of Islam. Edited by: P. Bearman , Th. Bianquis , C.E. Bosworth , E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill)

According to Professor. Richard Frye:

The Turkish speakers of Azerbaijan (q.v.) are mainly descended from the earlier Iranian speakers, several pockets of whom still exist in the region. A massive migration of Oghuz Turks in the 11th and 12th centuries not only Turkified Azerbaijan but also Anatolia.

(R.N. Frye, Peoples of Iran in Encyclopaedia Iranica)

According to The Languages and Literatures of the Non-Russian Peoples of the Soviet Union:

The language spoken prior to the Turkic people's coming to Azarbayjan was Persian in its diverse forms: Ghillani, Kurdi, and Dari.

(The Languages and Literatures of the Non-Russian Peoples of the Soviet Union By Canada Council, George Thomas, McMaster University Interdepartmental Committee on Communist and East European Affairs, published in 1977, page 45)

 

According to Professor Xavier De Planhol:

Azeri material culture, a result of this multi-secular symbiosis, is thus a subtle combination of indigenous elements and nomadic contributions, but the ratio between them is remains to be determined. The few researches undertaken (Planhol, 1960) demonstrate the indisputable predominance of Iranian tradition in agricultural techniques (irrigation, rotation systems, terraced cultivation) and in several settlement traits (winter troglodytism of people and livestock, evident in the widespread underground stables). The large villages of Iranian peasants in the irrigated valleys have worked as points for crystallization of the newcomers even in the course of linguistic transformation; these places have preserved their sites and transmitted their knowledge. The toponymy, with more than half of the place names of Iranian origin in some areas, such as the Sahand, a huge volcanic massif south of Tabriz, or the Qara Dagh, near the border (Planhol, 1966, p. 305; Bazin, 1982, p. 28) bears witness to this continuity. The language itself provides eloquent proof. Azeri, not unlike Uzbek (see above), lost the vocal harmony typical of Turkish languages. It is a Turkish language learned and spoken by Iranian peasants.

…

Thus Turkish nomads, in spite of their deep penetration throughout Iranian lands, only slightly influenced the local culture. Elements borrowed by the Iranians from their invaders were negligible.

(X.D. Planhol, LANDS OF IRAN in Encyclopedia Iranica)

According to Professor Tadeusz Swietochowski:

The original Persian population became fused with the Turks, and gradually the Persian language was supplanted by a Turkic dialect that evolved into the distinct Azerbaijani language. The process of Turkification was long and complex, sustained by successive waves of incoming nomads from Central Asia

(Colliers Encyclopedia Vol. 3).

 

According to Encyclopedia Britannica:

The Azerbaijani are of mixed ethnic origin, the oldest element deriving from the indigenous population of eastern Transcaucasia and possibly from the Medians of northern Persia. This population was Persianized during the period of the Sasanian dynasty of Iran (3rd–7th century AD), but, after the region's conquest by the Seljuq Turks in the 11th century, the inhabitants were Turkicized, and further Turkicization of the population occurred in the ensuing centuries.

(Azerbaijani." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 5 Apr. 2007)

 

According to Grand Dictionnaire Encyclopedique Larousse:

Azeris are descendants of older Iranophone inhabitants of the Eastern Transcaucasia, turkicized since 11th century.

(French: “Larousse Great Encyclopaedic Dictionary”), French encyclopaedia published in Paris (1982–85) by Librairie Larousse and based on earlier editions of Larousse encyclopaedias dating back to the Grand Dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle (“Great Universal Dictionary of the 19th Century”), inaugurated by the editor and lexicographer Pierre Larousse (1817–75).)

 

Professor Peter Golden who has written the most comprehensive book on Turkic people, in his book (An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples by Peter B. Golden. Otto Harrasowitz (1992)).  Professor Golden confirms that the Medes were Iranians and Iranian languages like Talyshi/Tati speakers are being absorbed into Turkish speakers.  Considering the Turkic penetration in the caucus and the Turkification of Iranian Azerbaijan, Professor Golden states in pg 386 of his book:

 

Turkic penetration probably began in the Huunic era and its aftermath. Steady pressure from Turkic nomads was typical of the Khazar era, although there are no unambiguous references to permanent settlements. These most certainly occurred with the arrival of the Oguz in the 11th century. The Turkicization of much of Azarbayjan, according to Soviet scholars, was completed largely during the Ilxanid period if not by late Seljuk times. Sumer, placing a slightly different emphasis on the data (more correct in my view), posts three periods which Turkicization took place: Seljuk, Mongol and Post-Mongol(Qara Qoyunlu, Aq Qoyunlu and Safavid). In the first two, Oguz Turkic tribes advanced or were driven to the western frontiers (Anatolia) and Northern Azarbaijan(Arran, the Mugan steppe). In the last period, the Turkic elements in Iran(derived from Oguz, with lesser admixture of Uygur, Qipchaq, Qaluq and other Turks brought to Iran during the Chinggisid era, as well as Turkicized Mongols) were joined now by Anatolian Turks migrating back to Iran. This marked the final stage of Turkicization. Although there is some evidence for the presence of Qipchaqs among the Turkic tribes coming to this region, there is little doubt that the critical mass which brought about this linguistic shift was provided by the same Oguz-Turkmen tribes that had come to Anatolia. The Azeris of today, are an overwhelmingly sedentary, detribalized people. Anthropologically, they are little distinguished from the Iranian neighbors.

 

 

 

 

Even the US congress studies of Iran concludes:

 

The life styles of urban Azarbaijanis do not differ from those of Persians, and there is considerable intermarriage among the upper classes in cities of mixed populations. Similarly, customs among Azarbaijani villagers do not appear to differ markedly from those of Persian villagers.

 

Thus the mainstream Academic opinion with regards to Azerbaijanis is that they are Turkic speaking but culturally and antrophologically they differ little from other Iranians.  And indeed, if we take the claim that Azerbaijanis are Turks like Asgharzadeh and Beraheni and other pan-turkists would want us to believe, then the story of Persian oppression of Azerbaijanis is one of the biggest jokes in history given the constant and continuous destruction brought by Turkish nomads (should not be confused with Azerbaijanis) on Iranian lands and also the linguistic Turkification of a previously Iranic speaking area (including Azerbaijan).

 

 

Assimilation and Pan-Turkism in the republic of Azerbaijan and Turkey

 

Two of the countries highly admired by Alireza Nazmi Afshar and also Alireza Asgharzadeh (who writes for semi-nationalist magazines in the republic of Azerbaijan and constantly criticizes Iran) are the republic of Azerbaijan and Turkey.  Thus we are forced to examine the human rights of these countries.

 

In the case of Turkey, the Armenian Genocide, the Greek Genocide and the Kurdish Genocide are well known to academia.  On the Armenian Genocide, Iranian writer Mohammad Hossein Jamalzadeh provides an eyewitness account:

 

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/history/Armenian/jamal.gif

 

The republic of Azerbaijan on the other hand is less well known due to its minor size as well as its less important position.  Nevertheless pan-Turkism and assimilation of Iranian speaking and Caucasian speaking minorities has been a key policy in the last 90 years.

 

Svante, Cornell, who is pro-Azerbaijan republic source states:

In Azerbaijan, the Azeri presently make up over 90 per cent; Dagestani peoples form over 3 per cent, and Russians 2.5 per cent. 6 These figures approximate the official position; however, in reality the size of the Dagestani Lezgin community in Azerbaijan is unknown, officially put at 200,000 but according to Lezgin sources substantially larger. The Kurdish population is also substantial, according to some sources over 10 per cent of the population; in the south there is a substantial community of the Iranian ethnic group, of Talysh, possibly some 200,000 –400,000 people.

…

Where as officially the number of Lezgins registered as such in Azerbaijan is around 180,000 the Lezgins claim that the number of Lezgins registerd in Azerbaijan is much higher than this figure, some accounts showing over 700,000 Lezgins in Azerbaijan. These figures are denied by the Azerbaijani government, but in private many Azeris acknowledge the fact that the Lezgins – for that matter the Talysh or the Kurdish-population of Azerbaijan is far higher than the official figures...

For the Lezgins in Azerbaijan, the existence of ethnic kin in Dagestan is of high importance. Nariman Ramazanov, one of the Lezgin political leaders, has argued that whereas the Talysh, Tats, and Kurds of Azerbaijan lost much of their language and ethnic identity, the Lezgins have been able to preserve theirs by their contacts with Dagestan, where there was naturally no policy of Azeri assimilation. …. The Lezgin problem remains one of the most acute and unpredictable of the contemporary Caucasus. This said, the conditions for a peaceful resolution of the conflict are present. No past conflict nor heavy mutual prejudices make management of the conflict impossible; nor has ethnic mobilization taken place to a significant extent. Hence there are no actual obstacles to a de-escalation of the conflict at the popular level. At the political level, however, the militancy of Sadval and the strict position of the Azeri government give cause for worry, and may prevent the settlement of the conflict through a compromise such as a freetrading zone. The Lezgin problem needs to be monitored and followed in closer detail, and its continued volatility is proven by the tension surrounding a recent Lezgin congress in Dagestan.

(Cornell, Svante E. Small Nations and Great Powers : A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus . Richmond, Surrey, , GBR: Curzon Press Limited, 2000.)

 

According to Professor Douglass Blum:

Finally, Azerbaijan presents a somewhat more ambiguous picture. It boasts a well-established official national identity associated with claims of a unique heritage based on an improbable blend of Turkism, Zoroastrianism, moderate Islam, and its historical function as 'bridge' between Asia and Europe along the Silk Road. At the same time there remain strong local allegiances and ethnic distinctions, including submerged tensions between Azeris, Russians, and also Lezgins and Talysh (besides Armenians), as well as stubborn religious cleavages (roughly two thirds of the Islamic population is Shi'ite one third Sunni). This persistence of parochialism is hardly surprising inasmuch as there has been little historical basis for national identity formation among Azeri elites, who were significantly affected by russification and are still generally lukewarm in their expressions of pan-Turkism.

 

)Doِuglass Blum, ‘’Contested national identities and weak state structures in Eurasia ’’(pp in Sean Kay, S. Victor Papacosma, James Sperling, Limiting institutions?: The Challenge of Eurasian Security Governance, Manchester University Press, 2003.).

 

According to Thomas de Waal:

Smaller indigenous Caucasian nationalities, such as Kurds, also complained of assimilation. In the 1920s, Azerbaijan's Kurds had had their own region, known as Red Kurdistan, to the west of Nagorny Karabakh; in 1930, it was abolished and most Kurds were progressively recategorized as "Azerbaijani." A Kurdish leader estimates that there are currently as many as 200,000 Kurds in Azerbaijan, but official statistics record only about 12,000.

…

Although there are no discriminatory policies against them on the personal level, the Lezghins campaign for national-cultural autonomy is vehemently rejected by the Azerbaijani authorities. Daghestani Lezghins fear that the continued existence of their ethnic kin in Azerbaijan as a distinct community is threatened by what they consider Turkic nationalistic policies of forceful assimilation. Inter-ethnic tensions between Lezghins and Azeris spilled over from Azerbaijan to Daghestan also. They started in 1992 when the Popular Front came to power in Azerbaijan, but reached a peak in mid-1994, the time of heavy losses on the Karabakh front. In May that year violent clashes occurred in Derbent (Daghestan), and in June in the Gussary region of Azerbaijan.

 (Thomas de Waal. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War. , New York: New York University Press, 2003)

 

 

According to the 1998 book “Linguistic Minorities in Central and Eastern Europe:

In 1993 there was an attempt officially to restore the Latin script; very few people advocated the Arabic script. Kryzi and Khinalug speakers, as well as most Tsakhurs, are bilingual and tend to assimilate with the Azeris. The same is true of the Tat speakers, and slightly less about the Talysh. At least there is no official recognition, teaching or publishing in these languages in any form. Lezghins in Azerbaijan are struggling very determinedly for their linguistic revival, but with little success. Generally there is a prevailing policy of forceful assimilation of all minorities, including the Talysh, Tat, Kurds and Lezgins. There is little or no resistance to assimilation from the Kryzi, Khinalug, Tsakhurs or Tat, and not much resistance from the Talysh. There are some desperate efforts of resistance from the Udin, stubborn resistance from the Kurds, and an extremely active struggle from the Lezgins, who want to separate Lezgin populated districts both from Dagestan and Azerbaijan in order to create an autonomous republic with Lezgin as the state language.( Christina Bratt (EDT) Paulston, Donald Peckham (eds.), Linguistic Minorities in Central and Eastern Europe, Multilingual Matters publisher, 1998. pg 106)

 

 

According to  Hema Kotecha:

 

The suppression of Talysh identity (predominant in the south) during the Soviet period led to a situation in which the Talysh ethnicity is unquantifiable (yet the population with the largest growth rate in the country). This is also partly due to a reluctance to claim Talysh identity (influenced by a stigma against publicly pronouncing non-Azerbaijani identity) and the diminishing use of Talysh language, except in places which are relatively remote and unintegrated. Nationalists seem fairly marginalised.

 

...

The identification of people with their Talysh ethnicity was strongly suppressed under the Soviets, however, an apparently small cadre of so-called ‘nationalists’ seek to preserve and re-introduce the Talysh language and are demanding ‘cultural rights’.

The Talysh language is Indo-Persian; ‘Talysh people’ cover a region straddling the Iranian border. According to the Talysh Cultural Centre in Lenkoran, 60% of Masalli is Talysh, only two villages in Lenkoran are Turkic, Astara is entirely Talysh and in Lerik only two villages are ‘Turkic’. There are also several Talysh-speaking settlements in Baku and on the Absheron peninsula as in the 19th century they migrated for employment in the oil industry and fisheries (according to the Lenkoran Talysh Cultural Centre a third of Sumgait is also Talysh).

The ‘territory’ on which the Talysh are considered indigenous is described by one website as bounded by the river Viliash in the north, the river Sefidrud in the south and the west frontier, the Talysh mountains. They also state that the Talysh came under Turkish influence during the Middle Ages, but established a khanate (presumably headed by a Talysh) in the 17th century, with the capital first in Astara and later in Lenkoranon territory that was later divided along the Arexes between Russia and Iran in the early 19th century. In 1918 Lenkoran was the centre of a Russian military base which was created separate from the rest of the country on the sensitive border with Iran. Those who speak of ‘separatism’ describe this as its first instance, as the first Russian-sponsored autonomous region.

In the early Soviet period there were Talysh-medium schools, a newspaper called ‘Red Talysh’, and several hundred Talysh language books published. By the end of the 1930s these schools closed and the ethnicity did not appear in official statistics; nationality was officially ‘Azerbaijani’. Representatives of the Talysh intelligentsia that were repressed (as were many through the Soviet Union) are remembered.   During Elchibey’s short presidency each ‘rayon’ had its own Talysh cultural centre which are now almost all dissolved.

....

 

 

According to a 1926 census, there were 77,039 Talysh in Azerbaijan SSR.   From 1959 to 1989, the Talysh were not included as a separate ethnic group in any census, but rather they were included as part of the Turkic-speaking Azerbaijani's, although the Talysh speak an Iranian language. In 1999, the Azerbaijani government claimed there were only 76,800 Talysh in Azerbaijan, but this is believed to be an under-representation given the problems with registering as a Talysh. Some claim that the population of the Talysh inhabiting the southern regions of Azerbaijan is 500,000.

 

 

(Hema Kotecha, Islamic and Ethnic Identities in Azerbaijan: Emerging trends and tensions, OSCE, Baku, July 2006

http://www.osce.org/documents/ob/2006/08/23087_en.pdf)

 

 

 

It is very interesting to note that the republic of Azerbaijan claims the number of Talysh today is around 80,000 which is exactly like the 77,039 of 1926!  There are really two options to describe this situation.  A) Either the republic of Azerbaijan is lying about its census.  B) The Talysh have been forcefully assimilated during the USSR and post-USSR era.  The above report also contains information on Lezgins.

 

 

Professor. Vartan Gregorian, a well recognized academic has given a detail

 

 

سرنوشت تلخ تالشي ها در آذربايجان شوروي

ادغام داوطلبانه! يا تقلب و تزوير

اثر: وارطان گريگوريان

 

He mentions that in 1931, the number of Talysh in the official census (excluding Lenkoran which is heavily populated by Talysh) was 89,398.  One wonders how is there less Talysh today officially in the republic of Azerbaijan than 1931!! 

 

Tadeusz Swietochowski, a more pro-Azerbaijan republic source claims:

“TALYSHIS.
An ethnic group inhabiting the southeastern border area of Azerbaijan and northern Iran, estimated at 250,000. Members speak a language (Talyshi) that belongs to the northwestern group of Iranian languages and has several dialects. Almost all of the Talyshis living in Azerbaijan speak Azeri as well, which is their literary language. They are predominantly Shi'ite in religion. Today the Talyshis have largely been assimilated into the Azeri population. In the post-Soviet period the Talysh People's Party headed by Ali Akram Gumbatov raised demands for autonomy and federal restructuring of the Republic of Azerbaijan. In support of its claims, the party began to organize armed squads. It ceased its activities after Haidar Aliyev came to power, and Gambatov joined the Azeri émigré politicians in Moscow.”

(Tadeusz Swietochowski and Brian C. Collins.  Historical dictionary of Azerbaijan.  Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press, 1999.)

 

 

 

It should be noted that according to the Golestan-e-Aram, a 19th century book written in transcaucasia, Shirvan and its surrounding villages were mainly Persian speaking speaking the Persian dialect of Tati.

 

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/geography/azararan/Azarbaijankojastaliabdoli.htm

 

Yet today the number of Tati speakers is estimated at 10,000 officially. 

 

The Karabagh conflict (without taking sides or blaming any sides) shows that the republic of Azerbaijan has major ethnic problems.  The conflict has recently spilled over into distortion and removal of sentences from historical texts:

 

See:

http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/armenian/sas/bour.html

 

(George A. Bournoutian, Rewriting History: Recent Azeri Alterations of Primary Sources Dealing with Karabakh)

 

In the above link, it is clearly shown that passages that contain the word Armenian have been removed from historical texts.

 

As well destruction of historic Armenian monuments in order to erase the past history of Armenians:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZu2zqFE_gI

 

Tragedy on the Araxes

 

http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/djulfa/index.html

 

Thus the countries of Turkey and republic of Azerbaijan (both very admired by Asgharzadeh and Chehregani and etc.) have major human rights issues.  Their violations of ethnic rights has been much worst than Iran in the past 100 years.

 

Thus we can see that Alireza Asgharzadeh and Alireza Nazmi Afshar as promoters of pan-Turkism have little moral ground for criticizing Iran and Iranians.  Nazmi Afshar as stated clearly by himself does not mind being called pan-Turkist and admiringly considers the interest of the republic of Azerbaijan and Turkey above those of Iranians.  The genocides of Armenians, Greeks, Kurds in Turkey and the forceful assimilation of Kurds, Talysh, Lezgis in the republics of Azerbaijan as well as the destruction of Armenian monuments are clear examples of ethnic problems in these countries.   It is this authors opinion that these problems are due to pan-turkism followed by the elites.  Pan-turkists have many times argued for the right of what they consider “Azerbaijan” to separate from Iran.  But the same pan-Turkists will never grant Armenians the same right in Karabagh.  Such a policy of double standards clearly shows the hypocrisy and duplicity of pan-Turkists.

 

Pan-Turkist claims on Iran in the 19th and early 20th century and selective historical amnesia by Alireza Asgharzadeh

 

Anti-Iranism started in the caucus in the 19th century when due to the influence of pan-Turkism and also Russian influence, Azerbaijanis were slowly discouraged to use Persian and also classical literarily Azerbaijani which was a heavily Persianized language.

 

Hassan Bey Zardabi was one the foremost anti-Iranians in the caucus.  His newspaper Akinchi contained much anti-Iranian phobia.  According to Tadeusz Swietochowski:

 

“The Akinchi was written in a simple style, with few Persian and Arabic words for which new terms were being introduced, often coined by Zardabi himself. Those literati whose preferred language of expression was Persian re­acted with hostility to his insistence on using the "unprintable" idiom of common folk. Boycotted by the traditionalists and in­accessible to the mostly illiterate peasantry, the Akinchi inevitably became a forum for the intelligentsia. The circle of its contrib­utors consisted mainly of Sunnis like Zardabi, whose innuendos that Persia was a backward, fanatical, and inhuman country pro­voked widespread indignation.”( Tadeusz Swietochowski. Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition. p 29. ISBN: 0231070683)

 

According to Professor. Evan Siegel:

 

From this he concluded that the unity of the Russian Muslims was dependent on the unity of the Turkish language, and so efforts should be made to find a common language for the Russian Turks. This required a minimizing of the use of Persian, which entailed a struggle with the clergy's influence over the language, these being identified as a primary source of Persianization.  As a subsequent article pointed out, it also implied the Turkification of the Muslim linguistic minorities, i.e. the speakers of Persian (Tats) and the speakers of various Caucasian languages.

(http://www.geocities.com/evan_j_siegel/Akinji/Akinji.html)

 

It was in Akinchi that Zardabi called the Persian language, poetry and literature as the “braying of a donkey”.  (Jeyhoun Bey Hajibely: “The Origin of the National Press, in: Azerbaijan, The Asiatic Review, Vol. 26, 14e an. No. 88, July-Oct 1930, p 757 based on : Homa Nateq, Payamad Tanzimaat; Bohran Farhangi, Bukhara Magazine, Volume Veven, Mordad and Shahrivar, 1378 (Persian Solar Calendar)).

 

During the Czarist era, the Persian language was weakened in part due to pan-Turkism, in part due to Russian encouragement of disuse of Persian language and in part due to a new Turkish language that was developed under Ottoman and Russian influences.  Swietchowski comments:

 

The hold of Persian as the chief literary language in Azerbaijan was bro­ken, followed by the rejection of classical Azerbaijani, an artifi­cial, heavily Iranized idiom that had long been in use along with Persian, though in a secondary position.  This process of cultural change was initially supported by the tsarist authorities, who were anxious to neutralize the still-wide­spread Azerbaijani identification with Persia. In doing so, the Russians resorted to a policy familiar in other parts of the em­pire, where Lithuanians, for example, were sporadically en­couraged to emancipate themselves from Polish cultural influences, as were the Latvians from German and the Finns from Swedish.( Tadeusz Swietochowski. Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition. p 29. ISBN: 0231070683)

 

 

Iranian nationalism in the 19th century caucus

 

Despite the fact that Alireza Asgharzadeh wants us to believe that modern Iranian nationalism started in 1925, this is not so.  As an example, one can mention Fathali Akhunzadeh.

According to Professor Tadeusz Swietochowski:

 

In his glorification of the pre-Islamic greatness of Iran, before it was destroyed at the hands of the "hungry, naked and savage Arabs, "Akhundzada was one of the forerunners of modern Iranian nationalism, and of its militant manifestations at that. Nor was he devoid of anti-Ottoman sentiments, and in his spirit of the age-long Iranian Ottoman confrontation he ventured into his writing on the victory of Shah Abbas I over the Turks at Baghdad. Akhundzadeh is counted as one of the founders of modern Iranian literature, and his formative influence is visible in such major Persian-language writers as Malkum Khan, Mirza Agha Khan and Mirza Abd ul-Rahim Talibof. All of them were advocates of reforms in Iran. If Akhundzadeh had no doubt that his spiritual homeland was Iran, Azerbaijan was the land he grew up and whose language was his native tongue. His lyrical poetry was written in Persian, but his work that carry messages of social importance as written in the language of the people of his native land, Turki. With no indication of split-personality, he combined larger Iranian identity with Azerbaijani - he used the term vatan (fatherland) in reference to both.( Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition (New York: Columbia University Press), 1995, page 27-28)

 

 

It would be embarrassing for Alireza Asgharzadeh to admit the above fact that an Azerbaijani was one of the forerunners of modern Iranian nationalism at least 50 years before Reza Shah.  Thus he does not examine the roots of modern Iranian nationalism which was defensive and was mainly formulated by Iranian Azerbaijans, partly as a reaction to pan-turkism.

 

Ottomon spreading of Pan-Turkism

 

Despite the fact that Alireza Asgharzadeh wants us to believe that modern Iranian nationalism started in 1925 due to orientalist influence, this again is not so.  Iranian Azerbaijanis before Reza Shah reacted to the threats of pan-Turkism and were strongpromoters of modern Iranian nationalism.  In this case, Professor. Touraj Atabaki has written a very detailed article which is included in this response article.

Before the advents of the Pahlavi era, the Ottomon empire briefly captured Azerbaijan in order to promote pan-Turkism and detach Iranian Azerbaijan from Iran.  According to Dr. Touraj Atabaki(Touraj Atabaki, “Recasting Oneself, Rejectingthe Other: Pan-Turkism and Iranian Nationalism” in Van Schendel, Willem(Editor). Identity Politics in Central Asia and the Muslim World: Nationalism, Ethnicity and Labour in the Twentieth Century. London, GBR: I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited, 2001.)

We will quote some important statements from this article which Alireza Asgharzadeh conviently ignores.  Alireza Asgharzadeh ignores the pan-Turkist attacks on Iranian nationality prior to Reza Shah because he wants to deceive users that Iranian nationalism is aggressive whereas Iranian nationalism has been totally defensive.

Dr. Atabaki remarks:

As far as Iran is concerned, it is widely argued that Iranian nationalism was born as a state ideology in the Reza Shah era, based on philological nationalism and as a result of his innovative success in creating a modern nation-state in Iran. However, what is often neglected is that Iranian nationalism has its roots in the political upheavals of the nineteenth century and the disintegration immediately following the Constitutional revolution of 1905– 9. It was during this period that Iranism gradually took shape as a defensive discourse for constructing a bounded territorial entity – the ‘pure Iran’ standing against all others. Consequently, over time there emerged among the country’s intelligentsia a political xenophobia which contributed to the formation of Iranian defensive nationalism. It is noteworthy that, contrary to what one might expect, many of the leading agents of the construction of an Iranian bounded territorial entity came from non Persian-speaking ethnic minorities, and the foremost were the Azerbaijanis, rather than the nation’s titular ethnic group, the Persians.

..

Soon after the outbreak of World War I, the Ottoman Empire, with the encouragement of Enver Pasha, the Ottoman minister of war, sided with Germany.  The ultimate strategic objective for the Ottomans was to capture the Baku oilfields and northern Iran in order to penetrate Central Asia and Afghanistan, not only as a threat to British India, but also to extend the Ottoman Empire to what were referred as its natural boundaries

..

After World War I, the political arena in Anatolia as well as the Caucasus was significantly altered. The tsarist empire had been swept away by the winds of revolution and the Ottomans were striving to put together the jigsaw pieces of their empire. If during their first short-lived invasion the Ottomans had not had time to disseminate their pan-Turkist propaganda among the Iranian Azerbaijanis, as a result of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the fall of their old foe,

the CUP were now able to initiate a new pan-Turkist campaign in northern Iran. As noted by a member of the British diplomatic service: Turkey are hand in glove with the Tatars of Transcaucasia (Baku) and these have put in claims to Azerbaijan on their own account. . . . Northern Persia is essential to Turkey as a link with the

..

In the middle of April 1918, the Ottoman army invaded Azerbaijan for the second time. Yusuf Zia, a local coordinator of the activities of the Teshkilat-i Mahsusa (Special Organization) 30 in the region, was appointed political adviser to the Ottoman contingent in Iran. Soon, the Teshkilaˆt-i Mahsusa introduced a small pan-Turkist party in Tabriz(31), together with the publication of an Azerbaijani-language newspaper called Azarabadegan, which was the Ottomans’ main instrument for propagating pan-Turkism throughout the province. The editorship of the newspaper was offered to Taqi Rafat, a local Azerbaijani who later became known for his vanguard role in effecting innovations in Persian literature.   Contrary to their expectations, however, the Ottomans did not achieve impressive success in Azerbaijan. Although the province remained under quasi-occupation by Ottoman troops for months, attempting to win endorsement for pan-Turkism ended in failure.

…

In the recently born state of Turkey, the Turk Ocagi activists strove to find a new home under the self-restrained Kemalist regime. In 1923, the Turkish magazine Yeni Mecmu’a (the New Journal) reported on a conference about Azerbaijan, held by Turk Ocagi in Istanbul. During the conference, Roshani Barkin, an ex-member of Teshkilat-I Mahsusa and an eminent pan-Turkist, condemned the Iranian government for its oppressive and tyrannical policies towards the Azerbaijanis living in Iran.  He called on all Azerbaijanis in Iran to unite with the new-born Republic of Turkey.

 

In response to pan-Turkism of the Ottomons, two journals called Iranshahr and Yandeh, run and published by Iranian Azerbaijanis Hassan Kazemzadeh Iranshahr and Mahmud Afshar, published nationalistic responses.  According to Dr. Atabaki(Touraj Atabaki, “Recasting Oneself, Rejectingthe Other: Pan-Turkism and Iranian Nationalism” in Van Schendel, Willem(Editor). Identity Politics in Central Asia and the Muslim World: Nationalism, Ethnicity and Labour in the Twentieth Century. London, GBR: I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited, 2001.):

In reply Iranshahr (Land of Iran), a journal published in Berlin and the Tehran-based journal Ayandeh (The Future) ran a series of articles denouncing pan-Turkism and became the pioneers of the newly launched titular nationalism in Iran. While Iranshahr attempted to provide historical underpinning, Ayandeh took on the task of propounding the necessary conditions for the ‘unification’ and ‘Persianization’ of all Iranians as one nation.

Further, Reza Shah, himself an illiterate general and half Azerbaijani, endorsed the political blueprints of these Azerbaijani nationalists(Touraj Atabaki, “Recasting Oneself, Rejectingthe Other: Pan-Turkism and Iranian Nationalism” in Van Schendel, Willem(Editor). Identity Politics in Central Asia and the Muslim World: Nationalism, Ethnicity and Labour in the Twentieth Century. London, GBR: I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited, 2001.):

With the passage of time, the proponents of this form of revivalist nationalism became the founders of a trend in Iranian historiography known above all for its emphasis on continuity in Iranian culture and its concern to uphold the country’s pre-Islamic values.  Furthermore, by adopting the Western European model of modern nation-state-building under an absolutist ruler, the Iranian nationalists in their manifesto advocated bureaucratic efficiency, clear territorial demarcation, and a homogenized and territorially fixed population, who were to be taxed, conscripted into the army and administered in such a way as to be transformed into modern ‘citizens’. When Reza Shah ascended the throne, he wholeheartedly endorsed all the demands voiced by these nationalists. Indeed, the blueprint for his ‘one country, one nation’ project was already on his desk.

According to Dr. Atabaki, given the threat of pan-Turkism by Ottomons, the reaction of romantic nationalism was adopted by Azerbaijani democrats (followers of Khiyabani and constitutional revolutionists) and Azerbaijani intellectuals in Iran. 

In Iran after the Constitutional movement romantic nationalism was adopted by the Azerbaijani Democrats as a reaction to the irredentist policies threatening the country’s territorial integrity. In their view, assuring territorial integrity was a necessary first step on the road to establishing the rule of law in society and a competent modern state which would safeguard collective as well as individual rights. It was within this context that their political loyalty outweighed their other ethnic or regional affinities.  The failure of the Democrats in the arena of Iranian politics after the Constitutional movement and the start of modern statebuilding paved the way for the emergence of the titular ethnic group’s cultural nationalism. Whereas the adoption of integrationist policies preserved Iran’s geographic integrity and provided the majority of Iranians with a secure and firm national identity, the blatant ignoring of other demands of the Constitutional movement, such as the call for formation of society based on law and order, left the country still searching for a political identity.(Touraj Atabaki, “Recasting Oneself, Rejecting the Other: Pan-Turkism and Iranian Nationalism” in Van Schendel, Willem(Editor). Identity Politics in Central Asia and the Muslim World: Nationalism, Ethnicity and Labour in the Twentieth Century. London, GBR: I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited, 2001.)

It is worth quoting all of the article of Dr. Atabaki.

 

Van Schendel, Willem(Editor). Identity Politics in Central Asia and the Muslim World: Nationalism, Ethnicity and Labour in the Twentieth Century.

London, , GBR: I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited, 2001. p 80.

 

 

Recasting Oneself, Rejecting the Other: Pan-Turkism and

Iranian Nationalism

By: Dr. Touraj Atabaki

 

 

Twentieth-century historiography on nation– state correlation and

nationalism has to a large extent been shaped by a eurocentric ethnolinguistic

discourse, where ‘ethnicity and language’ become the

central, increasingly the decisive or even the only, criteria of potential

nationhood, (1) or as Karl Renner asserts:

 

once a certain degree of European development has been reached,

the linguistic and cultural communities of people, having silently

matured throughout the centuries, emerge from the world of

passive existence as people (Passiver Volkheit). They become conscious

of themselves as a force with historical destiny. They

demand control over the state, as the highest available instrument

of power, and strive for their political self-determination. The

birthday of the political idea of the nation and the birth-year of

this new consciousness, is 1789, the year of the French Revolution.(2)

 

 

However, what this perception of the nation-state largely neglects is

the fact that the construction of a bounded territorial entity (or what

is generally referred to as nation-state-building) has often entailed

components other than ethnic or linguistic bonds. Collective imagination,

political allegiances, reconstructing and reinterpreting history,

the invention of necessary historical traditions to justify and give

coherence to the emerging modern state: all these are often major

factors in bringing groups of people together and strengthening or

even forming their common sense of identity and political solidarity.

 

In some cases the mere application of ancient, historically resonant

names and traditions is enough to evoke a consensus of political legitimacy.

Consequently, the social connotations of certain key socio-political

phrases, as well as geographic terms, become an important

element in reshaping the geographic boundaries of emerging sovereign

states.

 

As far as Iran is concerned, it is widely argued that Iranian nationalism

was born as a state ideology in the Reza Shah era, based on

philological nationalism and as a result of his innovative success in

creating a modern nation-state in Iran. However, what is often

neglected is that Iranian nationalism has its roots in the political

upheavals of the nineteenth century and the disintegration immediately

following the Constitutional revolution of 1905– 9. It was during

this period that Iranism gradually took shape as a defensive discourse

for constructing a bounded territorial entity – the ‘pure Iran’ standing

against all others. Consequently, over time there emerged among the

country’s intelligentsia a political xenophobia which contributed to the

formation of Iranian defensive nationalism. It is noteworthy that,

contrary to what one might expect, many of the leading agents of the

construction of an Iranian bounded territorial entity came from nonPersian-speaking

ethnic minorities, and the foremost were the Azerbaijanis,

rather than the nation’s titular ethnic group, the Persians.

The intention of this essay is to throw further light on the complex

origins of Iranian nationalism. While examining the various loyalties

of the Iranian non-Persian intelligentsia, I shall sketch the measures

adopted by such groups when defending their real or imagined identities

against the early-twentieth-century irredentist ideology of neighbouring

states.

 

 

The Outbreak of World War I

 

 

For many Iranians the thirteen months of ‘lesser despotism’ of June

1908– July 1909 which followed Muhammad ’Ali Shah’s coup was the

most crucial period of their country’s constitutional history: the entire

country, except for Azerbaijan, was subjugated to the new regime. By

sending in the army and imposing economic restrictions, the central

government strove to bring the Azerbaijanis, too, to their knees.

However, while famine spread across the province, the Azerbaijani

constitutionalists set up barricades in Tabriz and prepared to offer

 

armed resistance. When the government in Tehran was eventually

overthrown, the constitutionalists found themselves in a nearly unique

position with the attention of the entire nation fixed on them. Gradually

the belief arose among Iranians that, although the Constitutional

Revolution had been born in Tehran, it had been baptized in Tabriz

and the Constitution had no chance of surviving without Azerbaijan.

Moreover, Azerbaijan was seen as the most important centre where

any future progressive political changes would originate. This

appraisal of the cardinal role played by the Azerbaijanis in restoring

constitutionalism in Iran left Azerbaijani constitutionalists with a

strong consciousness of being the protectors of the country’s territorial

integrity, a consciousness which still persists.

When World War I erupted, political chaos and confusion swept

across Iran. Successive governments proved incapable of solving the

country’s escalating problems and implementing fundamental reforms.

Indeed, not only did the outbreak of the war fail to stop political

disintegration in Iran, but increased foreign pressure caused the longstanding

rift in Iranian politics to widen. As early as October 1910,

Britain had delivered an ultimatum to Iran concerning the security of

southern Iran. In so doing, Britain set an example for the Russians to

follow. Russian troops had already occupied the northern provinces.

In November 1911 the tsarist government presented its own ultimatum

to Iran, which amounted to nothing less than an attempt to

reduce the north of the country to the status of a semi-dependent

colony. (3) However, while the Iranian parliament, which enjoyed the

support of the crowds in the street, resisted the Russian ultimatum,

the fragile Iranian government decided to accept it and dissolve

the parliament. This seemed the only effective measure available

to the deputies in the face of the crisis that had arisen. (4) Meanwhile,

the occupation of the north and south of Iran by Russian and British

troops was to provoke the Ottoman forces to invade western and

north-western Iran early in the war. If we add to this list of disasters

the activities of German agents, especially among the southern tribes,

we begin to get an idea of how impotent the Iranian government was

during this period.

The Iranian government’s reaction to the outbreak of the war was

to declare Iran’s strict neutrality in the farman of 1 November 1914.

On the other hand, what sense was there in the government’s announcing

its neutrality when a sizeable part of Iran’s territory was occupied

by the Entente forces? When Mostowfi ol-Mamalik,

the prime minister, approached the Russian authorities and asked that they withdraw

their troops from Azerbaijan because their presence gave the

Turks a pretext for invading Iran, ‘the Russian minister appreciated

the Iranian viewpoint but inquired what guarantees could be given

that after the withdrawal of Russian forces, the Turks would not

bring in theirs.’ (5) Consequently, Azerbaijan became one of the major

battlefields of the war. As part of their military strategy, the Russians,

British and Ottomans all pursued policies which aimed at stirring up

or aggravating the existing animosities between the different ethnic

and religious groupings in the province. Promises were made with

regard to setting up a sovereign state for Kurds, Assyrians, Armenians

and Azerbaijani Muslims. Such demagogic manipulations led to the

most bloody and barbaric confrontations among these ethnic and religious

groups.

Soon after the outbreak of World War I, the Ottoman Empire, with

the encouragement of Enver Pasha, the Ottoman minister of war, sided

with Germany. Enver Pasha, judged that doing so gave the Ottomans a

good chance of surviving and perhaps even of making some gains from

Russia. He also declared a jihad, inciting Muslims to rise up against

British and Russian rule in India, Iran, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

To him, the Russians were not only kafir (infidels), but also invaders

who had occupied areas south of the Caucasus which were considered

part of the Islamic– Turkic homeland. Enver Pasha played a leading

part in negotiating a secret German– Ottoman treaty, signed on 2

August 1914; in October the Ottoman fleet entered the Black Sea,

bombarded Odessa and the Crimean ports, and sank Russian ships. In

addition, Ottoman forces were deployed along the Caucasus frontier

with Russia, where severe fighting began in the harsh mountain terrain.

The ultimate strategic objective for the Ottomans was to capture

the Baku oilfields and northern Iran in order to penetrate Central Asia

and Afghanistan, not only as a threat to British India, but also to

extend the Ottoman Empire to what were referred as its natural

boundaries:

 

 

We should not forget that the reason for our entrance into the

world war is not only to save our country from the danger threatening

it. No, we pursue an even more immediate goal – the realization

of our ideal, which demands that, having shattered our

Muscovite enemy, we lead our empire to its natural boundaries,

which would encompass and unite all our related people. (6)

 

In December 1914, a Russian advance towards Erzurum was countered

by the Ottomans, but, in battles at Sarikamish¸ in January 1915

the Ottomans, ill-clad and ill-supplied for the Caucasian winter,

suffered their greatest defeat of the war.

In the south, other Ottoman forces, which had invaded the city of

Maraghan in late November 1914, moved to Tabriz on 14 January.

Since the Russian army was still stationed in Tabriz, confrontation

between two armies seemed inevitable. Although the Russian troops

avoided a military confrontation and evacuated Tabriz, the Ottomans

were unable to maintain their hold on the city and were expelled by a

Russian counter-invasion in March 1915.(7) The defeat at Sarikamish¸

was indeed a turning-point in the Ottomans’ policy of expanding east.

Throughout the remaining years of the war they adopted a low profile

in the region. It was only at the end of the World War I, and

following the Russian Revolution, that the Ottomans were able to

return to Iran.

 

Pan-Turkism and Iran’s Response to It

 

 

Although it took some years for the Ottomans to realize their dream of

installing themselves in the region north as well as south of the Araxes

river, the pan-Turkist uproar reached Baku as early as 1908, when the

Young Turk Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) launched their

coup, which brought an end to the despotic era of Abdulhamid.

When Abdulhamid abdicated, pan-Islamism, which he had supported,

was flavoured throughout the heartland of the empire by Turkic

national sentiment. Like the people who initiated pan-Turkism, the

pioneers of propagating pan-Turkism among the Turkic peoples came

from the Russian Empire, having been influenced by the model of

nineteenth-century pan-Slavism.

 

As early as 1904, Yusuf Akc¸ uroglu (later known as Yusuf Akchura),

a Tatar from the Russian Empire, published a pamphlet called Uch¸

Tarz-i Siyaset (Three Kinds of Policies), which soon came to be

known as the manifesto of the pan-Turkists. In this famous declaration,

which was originally printed in Cairo by Turks in exile, Akc¸ ura

discussed the inherent historical obstacles blocking the advance of

pan-Ottomanism and pan-Islamism and advocated Ittihad-i Etrak

(Unity of Turks), or as he later called it, Turkculuk (Turkism), (8) as the

sole concept capable of sustaining the Turk milleti (Turkish nation).

 

 

He admitted that he ‘does not know if the idea still had adherents

outside the Ottoman Empire’, especially in Qafqaziya ve shimali Iran

(the Caucasus and northern Iran), but he hoped that in the near

future his views on Turkish identity would attract the support of

many Turks wherever they lived. (9)

 

Ittihad-i Etrak was soon adopted as a policy by political parties and

‘cultural organizations’ in the Ottoman Empire. In 1908, Turk Dernegi

(the Turkish Society) was founded in Istanbul to study the ‘past and

present activities and circumstances of all the people called Turk.(10) In

its declaration issued on 25 December 1908, the society pledged to

‘encourage the use of Ottoman-Turkish among foreign peoples. At

first, Turks in the Balkan states, Austria, Russia, Iran, Africa, Central

Asia and China will be familiarized with Ottoman-Turkish’. Furthermore,

‘languages in Azerbaijan, Kashgar, Bukhara, Khiva, etc., will be

reformed to be like Ottoman-Turkish for the benefit of Ottoman

trade’.(11)   Turk Dernegi was followed by another society called Turk

Ocagi (Turkish Hearth). In its manifesto, written in 1912, this society

proclaimed as its chief aim ‘to advance the national education and

raise the scientific, social and economic level of the Turks who are the

foremost of the peoples of Islam, and to strive for the betterment of

the Turkish race and language’.(12)

 

The pioneers of pan-Turkism in Caucasian Azerbaijan, however,

were those of the Azerbaijani elite living in Istanbul who were disillusioned

by the stagnation of the Iranian constitutional movement, the

failure of the Russian revolution of 1905, and the crisis in the

European social democratic movement. Some, who were sympathetic

to the Iranian reformist movement, turned their gaze from Tabriz and

Tehran to Istanbul. The Istanbul of the Young Turks, with its call

for unity among the Turkic peoples, was a new haven for such elites

from tsarist Russia. With a growing sense of their isolation, they

turned to studying ethnic culture and history and its accompanying

political importance. The outlook of Ali Husaynzade, Ahmad Aghayev

and, later, Muhammad Amin Rasulzade was immediately welcomed

by the CUP, and some of them were even given government positions

in the new Ottoman regime. When Turk Yurdu (Turkish Homeland),

the main journal propagating pan-Turkism in the Ottoman Empire

was launched in Istanbul, they were among the most prominent

contributors to it. In one of his editorials Ahmad Aghayev even

reproached the Ottomans for calling the Iranian Azerbaijanis,

Iranians, rather than Turks. (13) Muhammad Amin Rasulzade in a series

of articles entitled ‘Iran Turkleri’ (the Iranian Turks), contributed a

descriptive analysis of the Iranian Turkic minorities and their distinctive

national identities. (14)

 

During the war, pan-Turkist activities in Baku, which was still

under tsarist rule, were mainly confined to the publication of certain

periodicals. While maintaining their absolute loyalty in the tsarist

cause in the war, periodicals such as Yeni Fuyuzat (New Abundance)

and Salale (Cascade), adopted as their chief mission the purification of

the Azerbaijani language, Arabic and Persian vocabulary was to be

purged, and words of pure Turkic origin were to be substituted, as

was being done in nationalist circles in the Ottoman Empire. Whereas

news about the activities of pan-Turkist organizations in the empire

was often covered in editorials by ‘Isa Bey Azurbeyli, the editor of

Salale , the question of Iranian Azerbaijan remained neglected by such

periodicals, and it seemed that in their hidden agenda the forging of

firmer ties with the Ottomans had priority over unification with the

Iranian Azerbaijanis. (15)

 

 

However, the attitude toward Turkism in the Caucasus was somewhat

altered when in 1913 an amnesty was declared in Baku on the

occasion of the three hundredth anniversary of the Romanov dynasty.

Political activists such as the committed social democrat Rasulzade,

who some years earlier had launched the leading newspaper Iran-e

Now in Tehran, were then able to return to live within tsarist territory.

On his return to Baku, Rasulzade began to publish his own

newspaper. The first issue of Achiq Soz (Candid Speech) appeared in

October 1915 and publication continued until March 1918. Under the

tsars the newspaper called itself ‘a Turkish political, social and literary

paper’ and adopted a standpoint close to that of the tsarist empire,

endorsing the latter’s war policy. At the same time, it paid a certain

amount of attention to Iran and Iranian Azerbaijan. When it had

occasion to cover Iranian news, it voiced its sympathy for the Iranian

Democrats. 16 After the Russian Revolution, however, it changed its

attitude, and abruptly adopted an openly pro-Ottoman policy, calling

for turklame´, islamlame´ va mu‘ asirllame´ (Turkicization, Islamicization

and modernization).

 

On 18 October 1917, a branch of Turk Ocagi was founded in Baku.

Among the aspirations of the new society, which claimed that its

activities were confined exclusively to the cultural domain, was the

desire to ‘acquaint the younger generation with their historical Turkic

heritage and to consolidate their Turkic consciousness through setting

up schools, organizing conferences and publishing books’.(17) Achiq Soz

not only welcomed the new society but reported extensively on its

activities, covered its frequent gatherings in Baku, and published

lectures delivered at its conferences. Most of these lengthy articles

were on different aspects of the history and culture of the Muslim

peoples of the southern Caucasus. It seems that at this stage no one in

Baku was interested in applying the term ‘Azerbaijan’ to the territory

south of the Caucasus. ‘Tu¨rk milleti’ and ‘Qafqaziya mu¨salman Xalqi’

(the Muslim people of the Caucasus) were often employed to designate

the inhabitants of the region. The first Constituent Assembly,

which was established in Baku on 29 April 1917, was even called the

General Assembly of the Caucasian Muslims.

 

One result of the political upheavals in Moscow, which eventually

ended with the Bolshevik takeover in October 1917, was the creation

of a power vacuum in the Caucasus. A month later, the Transcaucasian

Commissariat was established in Tblisi, and it proclaimed ‘the

right of Caucasian nations to self-determination’. By then it was

obvious that the Armenian Dashnakists and Georgian Mensheviks

were poised to establish their power over a large part of the region.

The Baku Musavatists, who enjoyed an absolute majority in the Baku

Constituent Assembly, realized that the time had come for swift political

action. With the old tsarist empire gone, the Musavatists were

counting on the Ottomans, who were now viewed as the uncontested

dominant power in the region. The goal of the Musavatists in their

contest with the Armenians and the Georgians was to win control

over as much territory as possible. They claimed ‘besides the Baku

and Ganja province, the Muslim population of Daghestan, the

northern Caucasus, the Georgian-speaking Muslim Inghilios of Zakataly,

the Turkish inhabitants of the province of Erivan and Kars, and

even the Georgian-speaking Muslim Ajars of the southern shore of

the Black Sea’.(18) Furthermore, since the majority of Azerbaijani speaking

people lived in a large region within northern Iran, their ultimate

hope was to persuade the Azerbaijani leaders in Iran to support

their proposed project for unity. Consequently, in October 1917 an

emissary arrived in Tabriz, approached the local politicians and advocated

that they separate from Iran and join with Baku in a great

federation. However, their proposal was rejected by the Azerbaijani

Democrats. (19)

 

 

Following this failure, in an editorial published in Achiq Soz, in

January 1918 the Musavatists for the first time tackled the question of

Iranian Azerbaijan. In a rather haughty style, the author defined the

historical boundaries of Azerbaijan as stretching to the Caucasian

mountains in the north and to Kirmanshah in the south, with Tbilisi

forming the western frontier and the Caspian Sea the eastern. The

Russian expansionists and the Iranian ruling class were blamed for

having adopted policies that resulted in the dismemberment of the

nation of Azerbaijan. Furthermore, according to the author, it was the

‘natural right of the south Caucasian Muslims to call their territory

Azerbaijan’ and to hope that ‘one day their brothers in the south

could join them’.(20)

Interestingly enough, the first reaction to this irredentist propaganda

came from a group of Iranian Democrats residing in Baku.

Since the beginning of the century, the flourishing economy of the

Caucasus had attracted many Iranians, most of whom were Azerbaijanis

or Azerbaijani-speakers from the north of Iran. But although

they spoke the same language, they did not readily assimilate.

Throughout the Caucasus region they were known as ‘hamshahri’

(fellow countrymen) and they maintained a sense of separate identity

which marked them out as different from the local population. (21)

 

Of the various organizations that existed among the Iranian

community in Baku, the local branch of the Iranian Democrat Party

was the most eminent and active. The party’s Baku Committee was

founded in 1914 and its members were recruited from the Iranian

community in Baku and the adjacent regions. In their perception the

view expounded in the Achiq Soz editorial was nothing less than a

pan-Turkist plot which menaced Iran’s sovereignty and territorial

integrity. Disturbed by such attempts to undermine Iranian unity,

they soon inaugurated their own political campaign in the region. On

10 February 1918, the Democrats launched the publication of a bilingual

newspaper, Azarbayjan, Joz’-e la-yanfakk-e Iran (Azerbaijan, an

Inseparable Part of Iran). (22) ‘Azarbayjan’ was printed in big letters on

the masthead with ‘Joz’-e la-yanfakk-e Iran’ printed in much smaller

letters inside the ‘n’ of Azarbayjan’. Later on Salamullah Javid, a political

activist in Baku, acknowledged that ‘the decision to publish the

newspaper was taken by the Democrats at the local level and was a

direct response to irredentist propaganda initiated by Achiq Soz’.(23)

 

In addition to promoting political change and reform in Iran, the

newspaper declared as its task ‘displaying the country’s glorious past

and its historical continuity’,(24) as well as ‘hindering any attempt to

diminish the national consciousness of Iranians’.(25) While glorifying

the name of Azerbaijan and its ‘key position in Iranian history’, the

publication frequently referred to ‘the many centuries during which

Azerbaijan governed all of Iran’. Similarly, it stressed that Azerbaijan

had a shared history with the rest of Iran, and strove to foster selfconfidence

and the feeling of belonging to territorial Iran. Pointing to

the geographical front-line position of the province, the newspaper

‘declared it to be the duty of Azerbaijanis’ to confront the hostile

outsiders, and to safeguard the country’s ‘national pride’ and ‘territorial

integrity’. Though the newspaper never named these outsiders,

or ‘intruders’, as they were called, it considered that ‘their intention

has always been to undermine Iran’s territorial integrity and political

sovereignty’. Moreover, by representing Azerbaijanis as the main

champions of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, it attempted to

portray them as the sole guardians of Iran as a bounded territorial

entity.

 

In a multi-ethnic society like Iran, where Persians form the titular

ethnic group, a minority of Azerbaijanis living outside Iran, but

within their linguistic territory, promoted a sense of Iranian state patriotism

and territorial nationalism rather than their own ethno-nationalism.

Their political loyalty and attachment to a constructed

political reliability therefore took precedence over their other loyalties,

in particular their ethnic loyalty. Likewise, they apparently believed in

the nineteenth-century notion of a ‘historical nation’ in which the

Staatsvolk (state-people) was associated with the state. In their view,

the Iranians, just as the dispersed members of a Greater Russia or a

Greater Germany did, made up a community associated with a territorial

state. Consequently they attempted to uphold their territorial/

Iranian identity in the face of pan-Turkist propaganda by ‘shaping a

significant and unbroken link with a seminal past that could fill the

gap between the nation’s origin and its actuality’.(26) For them, as

Nipperdey has correctly pointed out, romantic nationalism provided

the driving force for political action: ‘cultural identity with its claims

for what ought to be, demanded political consequences: a common

state, the only context in which they [the people] could develop, the

only force that could protect them and the only real possibility for

integrating individuals into a nation’.(27)

 

With a persuasive political agenda, Azarbayjan, Joz’-e la-yanfakk-e

Iran pursued what in its first issue it had proclaimed to be its duty,

and continued to publish even after the takeover of Baku by the

Bolsheviks known as the Baku Commune. However, it was forced to

close down in May 1918 when the Musavatists regained power and

formed their national government. In their turn the Musavatists, who

had been obliged to stop publishing Achiq Soz during the previous

five months, in September 1918 launched their new gazette Azerbayjan.

By adopting the same name for their publication that the

Iranian Democrats in Baku had used four months earlier, the Musavatists

demonstrated their firm attachment to the name they intended to

give their future independent state.

 

The Return of the Ottomans

 

After World War I, the political arena in Anatolia as well as the

Caucasus was significantly altered.  The tsarist empire had been swept

away by the winds of revolution and the Ottomans were striving to

put together the jigsaw pieces of their empire. If during their first

short-lived invasion the Ottomans had not had time to disseminate

their pan-Turkist propaganda among the Iranian Azerbaijanis, as a

result of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the fall of their old foe,

the CUP were now able to initiate a new pan-Turkist campaign in

northern Iran. As noted by a member of the British diplomatic

service: Turkey are hand in glove with the Tatars of Transcaucasia

(Baku) and these have put in claims to Azerbaijan on their own

account. . . . Northern Persia is essential to Turkey as a link with the

Turanians of Central Asia. (28)

 

In the middle of April 1918, the Ottoman army invaded Azerbaijan

for the second time. Yusuf Zia, (29) a local coordinator of the activities

of the Teskilat-i Mahsusa (Special Organization) (30) in the region, was

appointed political adviser to the Ottoman contingent in Iran. Soon,

the Teskilat-i Mahsusa introduced a small pan-Turkist party in

Tabriz(31), together with the publication of an Azerbaijani-language

newspaper called Azarabadegan, which was the Ottomans’ main

instrument for propagating pan-Turkism throughout the province.

The editorship of the newspaper was offered to Taqi Rafcat, a local

Azerbaijani who later became known for his vanguard role in effecting

innovations in Persian literature.

 

Contrary to their expectations, however, the Ottomans did not

achieve impressive success in Azerbaijan. Although the province

remained under quasi-occupation by Ottoman troops for months,

attempting to win endorsement for pan-Turkism ended in failure.

 

The Ottomans had never enjoyed the support of local political parties,

ever since their arrival in Tabriz, and their relations with the local

Democrats had been particularly strained. With the passage of time

relations with the Democrats deteriorated to the point, where the

Ottomans went as far as to arrest the Democrats’ popular radical

leader, Muhammad Khiyabani, together with his two comrades

Nowbari and Badamchi, and sent them to Kars in exile. (32) Khiyabani

being accused of ‘collaborating with the Armenians against the forces

of Islam’,(33) the immediate result of their intervention was to whip up

serious anti-Ottoman sentiment among the Democrats, who were

preparing to take control of the province.

 

The summer of 1918 appeared to be a honeymoon period for the

Ottomans after stationing their troops on Iranian soil. Occupying the

area north of the Araxes was the next logical step on their agenda.

With the seizure of Baku in September 1918, it seemed that their

Turanian dream was gradually being realized: the region both north

and south of the Araxes was now under their control. However, with

the end of the war approaching, and an escalating political problem at

home, not to mention the food crisis, the CUP leadership was obliged

to give priority to the centre of its envisaged empire rather than to the

periphery. A direct consequence of the large-scale export of cattle and

grain from the newly occupied territories to the Ottoman interior was

a mounting resentment among the local population. On 23 September

1918, an Ottoman– German protocol was signed, confirming the territorial

integrity of Iran, but the Ottomans suffered a setback on their

western front when Bulgaria was forced to surrender on 30 September.

It was then obvious that pursuing the war any further was impossible

for the Ottomans. On 9 October, the CUP government fell and the

new government of Izzet Pasha signed an armistice with the Allies.

Returning to Tabriz from exile on 24 June 1920, Khiyabani

announced the formation of a local government. The announcement

took place with pomp and ceremony in the ‘Ali Qapi’, the central

government’s provincial headquarters. In a country where the political

culture was dominated by xenophobia, one of the key issues for

Khiyabani and his fellow Democrats was how to dissociate themselves

as completely as possible from the foreign powers. Their relations

with the Ottomans, in view of the latter’s actions against Khiyabani,

remained cold and distant. But what concerned them even more

urgently was how to defend their position in face of the political

upheavals sweeping through the Caucasus.

 

On 27 May 1918, when the new Republic of Azerbaijan was

founded on the territory north of the Araxes River and south-east of

Transcaucasia, the adoption of the name ‘Azerbaijan’ caused consternation

in Iran, especially among Azerbaijani intellectuals.  Khiyabani

and his fellow Democrats, in order to dissociate themselves from the

Transcaucasians, decided to change the name of Iranian Azerbaijan to

Azadistan (Land of Freedom). (34) By way of justifying this decision,

they referred to the important ‘heroic role’ Azerbaijan had played in

the struggle to establish the Constitution in Iran which, in their view,

warranted adopting the name Azadistan. (35)

 

From Territorial to Titular Nationalism

 

The fall of the Musavatists in 1920s, which was a result of close collaboration

between the Bolsheviks and the CUP leadership, caused

considerable disillusion among the Azerbaijani pro-Ottoman intelligentsia.

However profitable this cooperation was for the Bolsheviks,

the old guard of the Ottoman Unionists in the region, by adopting

different measures, were still striving to realize their old dream. As an

intelligence British office remarked:

 

It will be remembered that the unfortunate ‘Musavat’ government

of Baku was successfully overturned by the Communists mainly as

a result of the assistance given by the numerous Turkish Unionists.

The infiltration of Unionists in the Turkish Communist Party

in Baku still continues; they thus seek to establish complete control

in course of time, and to gain control of Georgia and Azerbaijan in

order to connect them up with their schemes in Central Asia. . . .

The Unionists’ plan therefore is to continue the alliance with

Russia so long as it enables them to advance their own plans,

which are being energetically pursued. (36)

 

The final consolidation of Soviet power in the Caucasus, which was

eventually realized by the subjugating of Georgia on March 1921,

paved the way for a shift in diplomatic maneuvering by the newly

born Soviet administration. In February the Soviet– Iranian Treaty

was concluded, and it was followed by the signing of a peace treaty

with Turkey in March 1921. Having extended its southern border to

the Araxes river, the Soviet regime adopted a restrained policy towards Iran,

officially forbidding any nationalist claims on Iranian territory.

 

The tragic outcome of Khiyabani’s revolt, which was followed by

the suppression of the uprisings in Khorasan and Gilan, left the

Democrats in Iran in total disarray. A group of them, mainly from

non-Azerbaijani background, were enthralled by pan-Islamism, as

propagated by the late Ottomans as a means of winning over a non-Turkic

people in the region. Another tendency within the Democrats

found it difficult to subscribe to the regional movement launched by

their party comrades. Subsequently, a new group of reform-minded

intellectuals gradually emerged on the Iranian political scene.  Their

mode of understanding society was based on socio-political ideas of

West European origin. Despite the diversity of their political views,

what singled out them from the home-grown variety of educated or

learned individuals was the model of society that they took for

granted. The West European model presupposed a coherent, class-layered

society, which by definition was organized around the distinctive

concepts of nation and state. They were convinced that only a

strong centralized government based in the capital would be capable

of implementing reform throughout Iran, while preserving the

nation’s territorial integrity. Likewise they believed that modernization

and modern state-building in Iran would require low cultural

diversity and a high degree of ethnic homogeneity. Only when Iran

fulfilled the preconditions for a nation-state as defined by them, when

‘empirically almost all the residents of a state identify with the one

subjective idea of the nation, and that nation is virtually contiguous’,(37)

could they realistically cherish hopes of safeguarding Iranian territorial

integrity.

 

In the recently born state of Turkey, the Turk Ocagi activists strove

to find a new home under the self-restrained Kemalist regime. In

1923, the Turkish magazine Yeni Mecmu’a (the New Journal) reported

on a conference about Azerbaijan, held by Turk Ocagi in Istanbul.

During the conference, Roshani Barkin, an ex-member of Teshkilat-i

Mahsusa and an eminent pan-Turkist, condemned the Iranian

government for its oppressive and tyrannical policies towards the

Azerbaijanis living in Iran.  He called on all Azerbaijanis in Iran to

unite with the new-born Republic of Turkey. (38)

 

In reply Iranshahr (Land of Iran), a journal published in Berlin,

and the Tehran-based journal Ayandeh (The Future) ran a series of

articles denouncing pan-Turkism and became the pioneers of the

newly launched titular nationalism in Iran. While Iranshahr attempted

to provide historical underpinning, Ayandeh took on the task of

propounding the necessary conditions for the ‘unification’ and ‘Persianization’

of all Iranians as one nation. (39( Advocating the elimination of

regional differences in ‘language, clothing, customs and suchlike’,

Ayandeh demanded ‘national unity’ based on the standardized, homogeneous

and centrally sustained high culture of the titular ethnic

group:

 

Kurds, Lors, Qashwa’is, Arabs, Turks, Turkmens, etc., shall not

differ from one another by wearing different clothes or speaking a

different language. In my opinion, until national unity is achieved

in Iran, with regard to customs, clothing, and so forth, the possibility

of our political independence and geographical integrity being

endangered will always remain.(40)

 

 

Their insistence on raising the status of Persian above that of a lingua

franca and cleansing its vocabulary of loan words, especially those

from Turkish and Arabic, provided the newly constructed sentiment

with a form of philological nationalism. Later, philologists were to be

inspired to create grotesque and far-fetched neologisms such as ‘kas

nadanad-sikhaki’, to replace ‘mahramana-mostagim’ (direct-confidential).

Moreover, their campaign of purification naturally went beyond

the linguistic field and pervaded the realm of Iranian history as well.

By rewriting history, a ‘pure Iran’ with a long historical identity was

created, an Iran purged of all ‘foreign’ and ‘uncivilized elements’

within its borders. Such an identity ultimately depended on negative

stereotypes of non-Iranians. The Turks and later the Arabs, who were

referred in nationalist discourse as the ‘yellow and green hazards’,(41)

served as the indispensable ‘others’ in the construction of the new

Iranian identity. With the passage of time, the proponents of this

form of revivalist nationalism became the founders of a trend in

Iranian historiography known above all for its emphasis on continuity

in Iranian culture and its concern to uphold the country’s pre-Islamic

values.

 

Furthermore, by adopting the Western European model of modern

nation-state-building under an absolutist ruler, the Iranian nationalists

in their manifesto advocated bureaucratic efficiency, clear territorial

demarcation, and a homogenized and territorially fixed population,

who were to be taxed, conscripted into the army and administered in

such a way as to be transformed into modern ‘citizens’. When Reza

Shah ascended the throne, he wholeheartedly endorsed all the

demands voiced by these nationalists. Indeed, the blueprint for his

‘one country, one nation’ project was already on his desk.

 

Conclusion

 

The most important political development affecting the Middle East

at the beginning of the twentieth century was the collapse of the

Ottoman and the Russian empires. The idea of a greater homeland for

all Turks was propagated by pan-Turkism, which was adopted almost

at once as a main ideological pillar by the Committee of Union and

Progress and somewhat later by other political caucuses in what

remained of the Ottoman Empire. On the eve of World War I, pan-Turkist

propaganda focused chiefly on the Turkic-speaking peoples of

the southern Caucasus, in Iranian Azerbaijan and Turkistan in

Central Asia, with the ultimate purpose of persuading them all to

secede from the larger political entities to which they belonged and to

join the new pan-Turkic homeland. Interestingly, it was this latter

appeal to Iranian Azerbaijanis which, contrary to pan-Turkist intentions,

caused a small group of Azerbaijani intellectuals to become the

most vociferous advocates of Iran’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

If in Europe ‘romantic nationalism responded to the damage likely

to be caused by modernism by providing a new and larger sense of

belonging, an all-encompassing totality, which brought about new

social ties, identity and meaning, and a new sense of history from

one’s origin on to an illustrious future’,(42) in Iran after the Constitutional

movement romantic nationalism was adopted by the Azerbaijani

Democrats as a reaction to the irredentist policies threatening the

country’s territorial integrity. In their view, assuring territorial integrity

was a necessary first step on the road to establishing the rule of

law in society and a competent modern state which would safeguard

collective as well as individual rights. It was within this context that

their political loyalty outweighed their other ethnic or regional affinities.

The failure of the Democrats in the arena of Iranian politics

after the Constitutional movement and the start of modern state-building

paved the way for the emergence of the titular ethnic group’s

cultural nationalism. Whereas the adoption of integrationist policies

preserved Iran’s geographic integrity and provided the majority of

Iranians with a secure and firm national identity, the blatant ignoring

of other demands of the Constitutional movement, such as the call for

formation of society based on law and order, left the country still

searching for a political identity.

 

Notes/References (click)

 

 

 

 

As proven, Azerbaijani Iranian nationalists were the main promoters of Iranian nationalism.  Rezashah, himself illiterate and also half Caucasian (his mother was from the caucus) just implemented some of the integrationist ideas of Azerbaijanis like Kazemzadeh Iranshahr and Mahmud Afshar.  Thus if Alireza Asgharzadeh has a problem with modern Iranian nationalism he needs to blame pan-Turkists for causing a Iranian Azerbaijani reaction to their design during WWI.  It is of course very convienient for Asgharzadeh to simply ignore all this historical material.  It would make it extremely embarrassing for him to defend it.  Then he will be forced to take into account that Azerbaijanis were the main components and supporters of modern Iranian nationalism and also he needs to analyze the pan-turkist attacks on Iran before 1925.  He will be forced to take into account how the grandfather of Javad Heyat himself was allied with the Ottomon invaders during WWI.  All of these facts he simply simply ignores because all of his false theories about “suffering of Azeris” will simply be shattered.

 

The humorous aspect of this is that Asgharzadeh in a recent interview considered Irans regime as apartheid regime.  What kind of regime has its supreme leader (Khaemeni) as an Azeri and is considered an apartheid regime?  Or what kind of history is this that almost all the proponents of modern Iranian nationalism before Rezashah were Azerbaijanis.  Where Blacks in South Africa the major proponents of White Apartheid (assuming this false comparison of Asgharzadeh)!  Or where they the supreme leader of the country!?


Response to many of the false claims of Alireza Asgharzadeh

 

In order to respond to the false claims of Asgharzadeh, the necessary background above was needed and some of it has been provided in the previous sections.  The author of this article will now examine many of the false claims and inaccuracies of Alireza Asgharzadeh. 

 

Some Introductory material from Alireza Asgharzadeh

Asgharzadeh as usual starts his work with conspiracy theories.  He attempts to question all of western historical scholarship because the term Aryan was misused as a racial term in the 19th century.  Today the term Aryan is used simply as an ethnic group. 

 

According to the online etymology dictionary:

Aryan:

1601, as a term in classical history, from L. Ariana, from Gk. Aria name applied to various parts of western Asia, ult. from Skt. Arya-s "noble, honorable, respectable," the name Sanskrit-speaking invaders of India gave themselves in the ancient texts, originally "belonging to the hospitable," from arya-s "lord, hospitable lord," originally "protecting the stranger," from ari-s "stranger." Ancient Persians gave themselves the same name (O.Pers. Ariya-), hence Iran (from Iranian eran, from Avestan gen. pl. airyanam). Aryan also was used (1861) by Ger. philologist Max Müller (1823-1900) to refer to "worshippers of the gods of the Brahmans," which he took to be the original sense. In comparative philology, Aryan was applied (by Pritchard, Whitney, etc.) to "the original Aryan language" (1847; Arian was used in this sense from 1839, but this spelling caused confusion with Arian, the term in ecclesiastical history), the presumed ancestor of a group of related, inflected languages mostly found in Europe but also including Sanskrit and Persian. In this sense it gradually was replaced by Indo-European (q.v.) or Indo-Germanic, except when used to distinguish I.E. languages of India from non-I.E. ones. It came to be applied, however, to the speakers of this group of languages (1851), on the presumption that a race corresponded to the language, especially in racist writings of French diplomat and man of letters J.A. de Gobineau (1816–82), e.g. "Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines," 1853–55, and thence it was taken up in Nazi ideology to mean "member of a Caucasian Gentile race of Nordic type." As an ethnic designation, however, it is properly limited to Indo-Iranians, and most justly to the latter.

 

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=aryan&searchmode=none

 

 

An essay written a while back also describes the term Aryan in more detail

(As the dictionary correctly asserts Aryans means the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-Europeans. 

Let us review some of the old sources that explicitly establish why Iran (the land of Arya) and Iranians are Aryans (Iranians) and why the Academia still uses this terms for the Indo-Iranians.  HERODOTUS in his Histories remarks that: “These Medes were called anciently by all people Arians; “ (7.62).  So here we have a foreign source that refers to part of the Iranians as Arya. 

 

Native sources also describe Iranians by this ethnonym.  Old Persian which is a testament to the antiquity of the Persian language and which is related to most of the languages/dialects spoken in Iran including modern Persian, Kurdish, Gilaki and Baluchi makes it clear that Iranians referred to themselves as Arya.  The term Ariya appears in the royal inscriptions in three different context: As the name of the language of the Old Persian version of the inscription of Darius the Great in Behistun; as the ethnic background of Darius in inscriptions at Naqsh-e-Rostam and Susa (Dna, Dse) and Xerxes in the inscription from Persepolis (Xph) and as the definition of the God of Arya people, Ahuramazda, in the Elamite version of the Behistun inscription.  For example in the Dna and Dse Darius and Xerxes describe themselves as “An Achaemenian, A Persian son of a Persian and an Aryan, of Aryan stock”.  Note that first they describe their clan (Achaemenid) and then tribe/group (Persian) and then their ethnicity Arya.  So here we have good references that both the Medes and Persians referred to themselves as Aryans.  The Medes and Persians were people of western Iranian stock.  Western Iranian languages and dialects including Kurdish, Persian, Baluchi have their roots in the Old Persian and Median languages and are prevalent languages of Iran today.  The OP inscriptions date back approximately to 400-500 B.C.

 

 

Concurrently, or even prior to Old Persian, the word Airya is abundant used in the Avesta and related Zoroastrian literature whose origin lies with the eastern Iranian people.  The Avestan airya always has an ethnic value.  It appears in Yasht literature and in the Wideewdaad.  The land of Aryans is described as Airyana Vaejah in Avesta and in the Pahlavi inscription as Eran-wez.  The Avesta archer Arash (Arash-e-Kamangir) is called the hero of Airya people.  Zoroaster himself is described from the Airya people.  The examples of the ethnic name of Airya in Avesta are too many to enumerate here and the interested reader is referred to the following site: www.avesta.org

 

Let us now briefly touch upon some more pre-Islamic evidence.  The ostraca (an inscribed potsherd) from Parthian Nisa time period (approx. 2100 years ago) provides us with numerous Parthian names related.  Parthian, like Persian, is a Western Iranian language.  Some of the names of the people at that time that begin with prefix Arya are given by:


Aryabām – Aryabānuk –Aryabarzan-Aryabōžan-Aryaxšahrak-Aryanīstak-Aryafriyānak
-Aryasāxt-Aryazan

 

The etymology of such names is fairly known.  The documents from Nisa as well as other Parthian documents prove that the Parthians employed the Zoroastrian calendar.  The names of the months back then is exactly what we use today with a slight modification in pronounciation:

Farwartīn- Artewahišt-Harwatāt-Tir- Hamurtāt-Xšahrewar-Mihr-Āpāxwinī- Ātar –Daθuš- Wahman- Spandāmard

 

 

Strabo, the Greek Geographer and traveler of the Parthian times also mentions the unity of the various Iranian tribes and dialects:

“and the name of Ariana is further extended to a part of Persia and of Media, as also to the Bactrians and Sogdians on the north; for these speak approximately the same language, with but slight variations”.  Moses of Khorenat’si the Armenian historian of 5th century A.D. also denotes the Parthians, Medes and Persians collectively as Aryans.  So ancient neighboring people have consistently referred to Iranians as Aryans.  Both Armenian and Greeks are Indo-Europeans but only Indo-Iranians have been known as Aryans throughout history.

 

From the Parthian epoch we transition into the Sassanid era.  Ardeshir the first, the founder of the Sassanid dynasty, on the coins minted during his era describes himself as Shahan shah Aryan (Iran).  Where Aryan exactly means the “land of the Arya” which is synonymous with land of Iranians.  His son Shapur, whose triumphs over his enemies are the stuff of legends minted coins with the inscription: “Shahan shah aryan ud anaryan” (The king of Kings of  Iran and Non-Iran).  The reason for anaryan is that he expanded the empire beyond the Aryan lands.  The trilingual inscription erected by his command gives us a more clear description.  The languages used are Parthian, Middle Persian and Greek.  In Greek the inscription says: “ego … tou Arianon ethnous despotes eimi”  which translates to “I am the king of the Aryans”.  In the Middle Persian Shapour says: “I am the Lord of the EranShahr” and in Parthian he says: “I am the Lord of AryanShahr”.  Both AryanShahr/EranShahr here denote the country of Iran.  The name IranShahr has been widely referenced after the Arab conquest by many authors including Tabari the great historian and Abu Rayhan Biruni the great scholar.  So the word Eran actually is derived from Arayanam of the Avesta and it means the place Ary/Er (Parthian and Middle Persian respectively).  As the suffix “an” denotes a place holding for example Gil+an means the land of the Gil (Gilak) who are an Aryan ethnic group of modern Iran.  It was mentioned that Darius the Great referred to his language as Aryan.  The Bactrian inscription of Kanishka the founder of the Kushan empire at Rabatak, which was discovered in 1993 in an unexcavated site in the Afghanistan province of Baghlan clearly refers to this Eastern Iranian language as Arya.  Interestingly enough, Bactrian(Bakhtari) was written using Greek alphabets.

 

 

In the post-Islamic era one can see a clear usage of the term Aryan(Iran) in the work of the 10th century historian Hamzeh Esfahani.  In his famous book “the history of Prophets and Kings” he writes: “Aryan which is also called Pars is in the middle of these countries and these six countries surround it because the South East is in the hands China, the North of the Turks, the middle South is India, the middle North is Rome, and the South West and the North West is the Sudan and Berber lands”.

 

 

What has been touched upon so far is just some of the evidence that clearly establishes that Iran and Aryan are the same and furthermore that Iranians have always referred to themselves as Arya in history.  The term Arya has never been applied to other branches of Indo-European people.  This term exclusively denotes the Iranians and Indians.  The eminent linguist Emile Benviste asserts that the Old Iranian Arya is documented solely as an ethnic name.  Aryan denotes a cultural-linguistic community.  Racial anthropology on the other hand points to the fact that Iranians as well as many other Aryan speakers like Kurds and Afghans are part of Caucasoid Mediterranean subtype commonly referred to as Irano-Afghan. 

 

It is very well known fact that Aryan languages (Indo-Iranian) predominate the Iranian plateau but, what is not well known is that, Persian is just one of the Aryan languages.  For example languages and dialects like Baluchi, Kurdish, Talyshi, Gilaki, Laki, Gurani and Luri are also Aryan languages linguistically grouped under Iranian languages and are closely tied to Persian.  Furthermore Persian speakers actually are a slim majority in Iran, but speakers of other languages related to Persian and which are also Aryan languages make another 20-25% of the population (Encyclopedia Britannica, National Geographic, CIA fact book, world Almanac and official government statistic of 1991).  But the term Persian in the western literature is equivalent to Iranian and has a more geographical denotation. 

 

So both the Aryan origin of Iranians as well as the Persian Empire are historical facts that are part of our heritage.  The area of the major non-Aryan language in Iran, which is Azarbaijan, was a center of the Medes who spoke Aryan languages.  The people there today are not different culturally from the rest of Iranians.  The language replacement in that area is a recent phenomenon due to the invasion by Altaic Turco-Mongol speaking tribes.  Such language replacements are common as is the case of English in Ireland and Spanish in Mexico and Turkish in Turkey.  Most of the writers and poets from that area have historically written their work in Persian.  Despite the prevalence of the non-Aryan language—the numerous fire-temples, common culture, common history and common religion and Zoroastrian evidence including the name Azarbaijan (meaning land of Fire in Persian) itself has tied the destiny of this important region of Iran with the rest of Iran.  For further reference see:

 

How old is this common Iranian identity, which has continuously evolved in its present state? In my opinion an identity starts with its oldest common substantial heritage that is shared by its people and continuously preserved.  Archeology has shown that the recently excavated Jiroft civilization of Iran could be at least five thousand years old, and all Iranians and indeed all mankind are proud to share this common heritage.  But the discovery of this civilization and similar civilizations are endeavors of recent times.   The Avesta on the other hand has been preserved continuously amongst Iranians since Zoroaster.  The dating of Avesta has been problematic and scholars give a date of around 3700-3000 years for the Old Avesta and about 500-1000 years later for the Young Avesta.  So it is clear that Iranians have at least 3000 years of continuity in language and literature and culture.  The name Zoroaster and Zoroastrianism permeates in the Shahnameh and other folkloric stories of Iranian people.  The Gathas of Zoroaster is indeed a remarkable part of our Iranian heritage and even as a non-Zoroastrian; all Iranians can appreciate the timelessness of its divine message.  Indeed all humans appreciate it as part of their common heritage.  Iranians have also contributed a great deal to the common Islamic heritage and this part our heritage is equally important.  There has always been a cultural dualism between the pre-Islamic and post-Islamic past, but this was no problem for Ferdowsi who was both a Muslim and Iranian. Based on the solid foundation of one of mankind’s ancient heritage, Iranians of the new millennium should integrate new values and adapt to new ideals while passing down their ancient heritage to the next generation.

 

 

 

 

MacKenzie D.N. Corpus inscriptionum Iranicarum Part. 2., inscription of the Seleucid and Parthian periods of Eastern Iran and Central Asia. Vol. 2. Parthian, London, P. Lund, Humphries 1976-2001

 

MacKenzie D.N. “Some names from Nisa”.  Peredneaziatskij Sbornik, IV, Moskva (Fs.

 

N. Sims-Williams.  “Further notes on the Bactrian inscription of Rabatak, with an Appendix on the names of Kujula Kadphises and Vima Taktu in Chinese” Proceedings of the Third European Conference of Iranian Studies(Cambridge, September 1995), Part 1: Old and Middle Iranian Studies, N. Sim-Williams, ed. Wiesbaden, pp.  79-92.

 

R.G. Kent. Old Persian. Grammer, texts, lexicon. 2nd ed., New Haven, Conn.

 

R.W. Thomson. History of Armenians by Moses Khorenat’si.  Harvard University Press, 1978.)

 

So Asgharzadeh is simply rehashing what is currently known in scholarship although he tries to take credit for the fact that Aryan is not a race anymore but an ethnic group.  A more detailed study of the ethnic term Aryan and hence the modern name Iran will be given in another section.

 

Asgharzadeh writes about his own work:

 

It analyzes the relationships among European racist ideas, the creation of the Indo-European language family, and the emergence of modern racism in Iran, interrogating the construction of notions such as Aria, Aryan race, and Aryanism in an Iranian context.(pg 2)

 

 

Thus Asgharzadeh is claiming that the concept of Indo-European language was a racist idea!  Indeed the overuse of the word “racist” by such a racist as Alireza Asgharzadeh bores the reader as he fails to provide any proof for racism.  Indeed all Iranians with the exception of perhaps Turkomens are Caucasoid and there is no racial difference between say an Iranian Persian speaker and an Iranian Kurd and an Iranian Azeri.  Thus the profuse utilization of the term “race” and “racism” in a Iranian context is simply meaningless unless Azeris are considered a separate race than other Iranians!  Also today there is no doubt about the existence of an Aryan ethnic group.  It should be noted that the Persian word Nezhad  نژاد  does not mean race in its primary meaning.  Indeed, it’s more established classical meaning is origin and background. 

For example in the Shahnameh we read:

ز تخم فریدون و از کیقباد

فروزنده تر زین نباشد نژاد

 

کسی که از نژاد سیاوش بود

خردمند و بیداد و خامش بود

Also the term Pak – Nezhad (pure origin) in Dehkhoda’s dictionary is described as:

نجیب، کسی که خاندان و اصل آن پاک و خوب و از آلایش و دنائت و رذالت دور باد.

Thus Pak-Nezhad means chivalrous and humble and someone who is virtues. 

 

Thus the term “Nezhad Pak Ariyai” in Persian literature simply means humbe/virtuous/chivalrous/pure(as in virtue and manner) Aryan origin and should not be used interchangeably with the English term “Aryan Race” which at one time was meant to denote a racial group.  Such blatant ignorance and invalid juxtaposition shown by Alireza Asgharzadeh is due to the fact that he wants to connect more than 3000+ years of Iranian history with that of Nazi Germany and other groups that have abused the term Aryan. 

 

Asgharzadeh, after praising Edward Said, quotes Bernard Lewis in order to support his theories (Indeed one aspect of Asgharzadeh is that he will use any source, no matter how disgraceful like Purpirar and Zehtabi in order to prove a certain point):

 

Bernard Lewis maintains that a rediscovery of Iran's past became only possible in the third-quarter of the nineteenth century, when "Iranian intellectuals read European scholarship and literature, and began to realize that they too had an ancient and glorious past to which they could lay claim"(pg 3)

 

The above is actually not true and more than likely misinterpreted. Iranians were always aware that they had a pre-Islamic past.  Indeed the Persian epic literature of Shahnameh and the Persian epics of Khusraw o Shirin and Bahram Gur by another Iranian poet Nizami clearly show that Iranians were aware of their past.   Indeed the story of Dara and Eskandar as recounted by Persian poets such as Ferdowsi and Nizami also show awareness of Iran’s pre-Islamic past.  The influence of European literature was simply to refine the awareness of the Iranian past by subtracting the mythical portion that had been intertwined with Irons past history.    The perfect proof is simply the profound impact of Shahnameh and other Sassanid and Parthian stories (Vis o Ramin) and even stories partly based on the Achaemenid past (Darab Nameh) have had on Iranian culture and literature.  So Iranians where always aware of their past and mythology.  Zoroaster is mentioned in the Shahnameh.  In a later section, the author will say more on the mythification of Iranian history by Iranians themselves.

Asgharzadeh then blames Europeans and writes:

 

‘’ One of the overall objective of this study is to show how the above-mentioned tendencies have come together to maintain the privileged status of the Persian ethnic group and its language while at the same time minori-tizing, foreignizing, and vilifying all the other ethnicities, nationalities, and languages.”(pg 6)

 

In actuality, as shown in the previous Chapters, Persian had a special status which Turkish did not during Irons history.  If there was any mineralization going on it was because of Turkish dynasties.  Also Asgharzadeh fails to discuss the impact of pan-Turkist meddling in Iranian Affairs during WWI and the subsequent negative viewpoint of Turkish by Iranian Azerbaijanis.  None of these facts have anything to do with Western historians and are simply historical facts ignored by Alireza Asgharzadeh.

 

Falsification of Iran’s history by Asgharzadeh

Asgharzadeh starts his falsification and selective viewpoint of Iranian history and tries to inject modern terms of political correctness in order to gain an emotional perspective on scientific issues:

 

“The history of what is now known as Iran is a history of various ethnic groups, languages, and cultures coexisting amongst one another from time immemorial. For as long as history can remember, ever since the establish­ment of the first Elamite civilization around 5000 BC, Iran has been a multiracial, multicultural, and multilingual society”(pg 8)

 

Here Asgharzadeh has off shooted by at least 2000 years and identified the Elamite civilization as from 5000 BC!  According to the Encyclopedia Britannica:

 

“Whereas the Iranian plateau did not experience the rise of urban, literate civilization in the late 4th and early 3rd millennia on the Mesopotamian pattern, lowland Khuzestan did. There Elamite civilization was centered. Geographically, Elam included more than Khuzestan; it was a combination of the lowlands and the immediate highland areas to the north and east.”

(Iran, ancient. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-32102)

 

Thus Elam at best contained 1/4 the of the land of modern Iran.  It should be noted that the Elamite civilization had nothing to do with Turks.  Alireza Asgharzadeh, influenced by the revisionist material of Zehtabi claims:

“They had their own unique alphabet, and they spoke an agglutinative, non-Indo-European, non-Semitic language.”(pg 8)

 

It should be noted that taking one grammatical feature of Elamite and comparing to another language and claiming affinity is not the standard method of linguistics.  Elamite is considered almost universally as an isolate language although some have suggested that it belongs to the Elamo-Dravidian family.  Thus Alireza Asgharzadeh in the above sentence intentionally forgets to mention that Elamite is also a non-Altaic and non-Turkic language.

 

Asgharzadeh continues his revisionism on the same page:

 

The first wave of these Indo-European immigrants arrived in Iran around 2000 BC. Finding the area extremely rich and resourceful, they encouraged other Aryan nomadic groups to join them. Around 1200 BC these new immi­grants had reached western and central parts of current Iran. The first Indo-European state was created in Iran in 550 BC through the disintegration and subsequent replacement of the Median dynasty by the Achaemenians (see also Dandamaev, 1989; Dandamaev and Lukonin, 1989).(pg 8)

 

In actuality, as shown extensively in the previous chapter under the origin of the Medes, the Medes are considered an Aryan ethnic group by all modern scholars.  Neither Dandamaev or Lukonin has ever claimed that the Medes are not Aryan.  Asgharzadeh, knows this and does not provide a page either.  Indeed even before the Medes, one can show that the Indo-Iranian Mitanni established a state with an Aryan ruling class:

 

Indo-Iranian empire centered in northern Mesopotamia that flourished from about 1500 to about 1360 BC. At its height the empire extended from Kirkuk (ancient Arrapkha) and the Zagros Mountains in the east through Assyria to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. Its heartland was the Khabur River region, where Wassukkani, its capital, was probably located.

("Mitanni." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.)

 

Another civilization that was party Aryan and partly either isolate or Hurrian was the Manneans.

 

According to Professor Zadok:

“it is unlikely that there was any ethnolinguistic unity in Mannea. Like other peoples of the Iranian Plateau, the Manneans were subjected to an ever increasing Iranian (i.e., Indo-European) penetration.”

Furthermore analyzing onomastic samples, he states:

“Like other peoples of the Iranian plateau, the Manneans were subjected to an ever increasing Iranian (i.e., Indo-European) penetration. Boehmer's analysis of several anthroponyms and toponyms needs modification and augmentation. Melikishvili (1949, p. 60) tried to confine the Iranian presence in Mannea to its periphery, pointing out that both Daiukku (cf. Schmitt, 1973) and Bagdatti were active in the periphery of Mannea, but this is imprecise, in view of the fact that the names of two early Mannean rulers, viz. Udaki and Aza, are explicable in Old Iranian terms.”

MANNEA by R. Zadok in Encyclopaedia Iranica

 

Asgharzadeh continues his revisionism by bashing Sassanids (not pointing out anything positive although in another article he claims absurdly that the Sassanid story of Khusraw and Shirin is part of Turkic culture! Whereas we know it is Persian/Iranian culture)

 

Thus Alireza Asgharzadeh’s attempt at de-Iranization of the Medes and Mitanni civilizations is simply part of the pan-Turkist attack on Iranian history.  It would be out of the scope of this review to write about the resistance of Iranians against Arab invasions during the Sassanid era.  Many historians now agree that the Sassanid defeat was a military defeat and there was Iranian resistance.  Indeed the assassination of the 2nd caliph Omar by Abu LuLu Majoosi (Piruz Nahavandi) shows that Iranian resistance existed.

 

Alireza Asgharzadeh then tries to make a hidden point:

 

Such important Iranian scholars as Al-Razi (d. 932), Al-Khawrizmi (780-850), Al-Biruni (973-1048), and Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (973-1037) produced their major works in Arabic.(pg 9)

 

 

He conviently ignores the fact that both Ibn Sina and Al-Biruni have also produced major works in Persian.  For example Avicenna wrote the Daneshnaameyeh ‘Alai in Persian which is a major encyclopedic work.  Interestingly enough, many pan-turkists have attempted to simply appropriate Avicenna and Al-Biruni as Turkic although it is clear that these two giant figures were Iranians.

 

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/Pasokhbehanirani/pursinabahmanyar.htm

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/famous/biruni_khwarazmi/birunipasokhbehanirani.htm

 

Although certaintly true that Arabic at the time was the scientific language and preferred by Iranian scientists, it is worth reviewing here a portion of Al-Biruni’s writing in Persian from the book Al-Tafhim which clearly displayes awareness of an ancient Iranian nationhood and sense of identity and past.

 

«ابوريحان بيروني» دانش‌مند نام‌دار ايراني (440-362 ق) در كتاب پارسي خود «التفهيم لاوائل صناعت التنجيم» گزارشي بسيار رسا و شيوا و حاوي نكاتي بي‌نظير و ارزش‌مند از جشن‌هاي ايرانيان عرضه داشته است. وي مي‌نويسد (2):
«نوروز چيست؟
- نخستين روز است از فروردين ماه و از اين جهت، روز نو نام كرده‌اند؛ زيرا كه پيشاني سال نو است و آن چه از پس اوست از اين پنج روز [= پنج روز اول فروردين] همه جشن‌هاست. و ششم فروردين ماه را «نوروز بزرگ» دارند؛ زيرا كه خسروان بدان پنج روز حق‌هاي حشم و گروهان و بزرگان بگزاردندي و حاجت‌ها روا كردني، آن گاه بدين روز ششم خلوت كردندي خاصگان را. و اعتقاد پارسيان اندر نوروز نخستين آن است كه اول روزي است از زمانه و بدو، فلك آغازيد گشتن.
تيرگان چيست؟
- سيزدهم روز است از تيرماه. و نام‌اش تير است هم نام ماه خويش، و همچنين است به هر ماهي آن روز كه همنام‌اش باشد، او را جشن دارند. و بدين تيرگان گفتند كه «آرش» تير انداخت از بهر صلح منوچهر كه با افراسياب تركي كرده است بر تير پرتابي از مملكت…
مهرگان چيست؟
- شانزدهم روز است از مهرماه و نام‌اش مهر. و اندر اين روز «افريدون» ظفر يافت بر «بيوراسپ» جادو، آن كه معروف است به ضحاك. و به كوه دماوند بازداشت و روزها كه سپس [= پس از] مهرگان است، همه جشن‌اند بر كردار (= مانند) آن چه از پس نوروز بود. و ششم آن مهرگان بزرگ بود و «رام» روز نام است و بدين دانندش.
پروردگان چيست؟
- پنج روز پسين اندر آبان ماه [است] و سبب نام كردن آن چنان است كه گبركان [= زرتشتيان] اندرين پنج روز خورش و شراب نهادند روان‌هاي مردگان را. و همي گويند كه جان مرده بيايد و از آن غذا گيرد. و چون از پس آبان ماه پنج روز افزوني بوده است، آنك [= اينك] «اندرگاه» خوانند. گروهي از ايشان پنداشتند كه اين روز «پروردگان» است و خلاف به ميان آمد و اندر كيش ايشان مهم چيزي بود. پس هر دو پنج [روز] را به كار بردند از جهت احتياط را. و بيست و ششم روزِ آبان ماه، فروردگان [= پروردگان] كردند و آخرشان، آخر دزديده. و جمله فروردگان ده روز گشت. (3)
برنشستن كوسه [= سوار شدن مرد بدون موي صورت] چيست؟
- آذر ماه به روزگار خسروان، اولِ بهار بوده است (4). و نخستين روز از وي - از بهر فال - مردي بيامدي كوسه، برنشسته بر خري و به دست كلاغي گرفته و به بادبيزن خويشتن باد همي‌زدي و زمستان را وداع همي‌كردي و از مردمان بدان چيزي يافتي. و به زمانه‌ي ما به شيراز همي‌كرده‌اند و ضريبت [= خراج] پِذرفته از عامل،‌ تا هر چه ستاند از بامداد تا نيمروز به ضريبت دهد و تا نماز ديگر [= نماز عصر] از بهر خويشتن را بستاند (5) و اگر از پسِ نماز ديگر بيابندش، سيلي خورد از هر كسي.
بهمنجه چيست؟
- بهمن روز است از بهمن ماه [= دومين روز ماه]. و بدين روز، بهمن [= برف] سپيد به شير خالص پاك خورند و گويند كه حفظ [= حافظه] فزايد مردم را و فرامشتي [= فراموشي] ببرد. و اما به خراسان مهماني كنند بر ديگي كه اندر او از هر دانه‌ي خوردني كنند [= بريزند] و گوشت هر حيواني و مرغي كه حلال‌اند و آن چه اندر آن وقت بدان بقعت [= ناحيه] يافته شود از تره و نبات.
سده چيست؟
- آبان روز است از بهمن ماه و آن دهم روز بود. و اندر شب‌اش كه ميان روز دهم است و ميان روز يازدهم، آتش زنند به گوز [= درخت گردو] و بادام و گرد بر گرد آن شراب خورند و لهو و شادي كنند. و نيز گروهي از آن بگذرند بسوزانيدن جانوران. اما [وجه تسميه‌ي سده] چنان است كه از او [= روز سده] تا نوروز، پنجاه روز است و پنجاه شب. و نيز گفتند كه اندرين روز از فرزندان پدر نخستين [= گيومرث]، صد تن تمام شدند (6).
گهنبار چيست؟
- روزگار سال، پارها كرده است زرادشت و گفته است كه به هر پاره‌اي [از سال]، ايزد تعالي گونه‌اي [از مخلوقات] را آفريده است؛ چون آسمان و زمين و آب و گياه و جانور و مردم، تا عالم به سالي تمام آفريده شد. و به اول هر يكي از اين پاره‌ها، پنج روز است، نام‌شان «گهنبار» (Gahanbar)».

 

يادداشت‌ها:
1 - براي كسب آگاهي‌هاي بيش‌تر درباره‌ي جشن‌هاي ايرانيان، نگاه كنيد به: «تاريخ ايران [كمبريج]»، جلد سوم، بخش دوم، گردآورنده: احسان يارشاطر، ترجمه‌ي حسن انوشه، انتشارات اميركبير، 1377، فصل بيست و يكم (ب)
2 - برگرفته از: «گنجينه‌ي سخن»، تأليف دكتر ذبيح الله صفا، انتشارات اميركبير، 1370، جلد يكم، ص 292-289
3 - در برهه‌هايي از تاريخ ايران، نخستين ماه سال، آذر بود و نوروز در آغاز اين ماه جشن گرفته مي‌شد و جشن فروردگان نيز در ده روز آخر سال، يعني پنج روز آخر آبان ماه به علاوه‌ي پنج روز اضافه‌ي حاصل از شمارش كبيسه‌ها، برگزار مي‌شد. بعدها كه نوروز به و فروردين ماه منتقل شد، جشن فروردگان نيز در روزهاي واپسين اسفند ماه برگزار گرديد.
4 - نگاه كنيد به يادداشت شماره 3
5 - پول‌هايي كه كوسه در طي اين مراسم از هنگام بامداد تا ظهر، از مردم مي‌گيرد، به عامل خراج شهر مي‌دهد و پول‌هايي را كه از ظهر تا عصر مي‌گيرد، براي خود برمي‌دارد.
6 - درباره‌ي ريشه‌شناسي نام «سده» نگاه كنيد به: «جستاري چند در فرهنگ ايران»، دكتر مهرداد بهار،‌ انتشارات فكر روز، 1374، ص 244-237

 

 Thus Asgharzadeh conviently ignores the Persian works of these two giants of Irano-Islamic history in order to deny Iranian heritage as much as possible.  Similar to Naser Purpirar who will claim that all the above is written by Jews in the last century!

Asgharzadeh then remarks on the Safavids:

In the year 1501, Shah Ismail Safavi of Ardabil was able to bring together the local dynasties of Qaraqoyunlu and Aqqoyunlu and found the Safavid dynasty. (pg 10)

 

In actuality Shah Ismail Safavi fought brutal war against the Aq-Qoyunlu.  The Qaraqoyunlu had already been taken over by the Aq-Qoyunlu before Ismail’s birth!  So unlike the false claim of Alireza Asgharzadeh, the Qaraqounlu and Aq-Qoyunlu where not brought together by Ismail I!  And Ismail I simply defeated a force of 30,000 Qaraqoynlu under Alwand, and shortly afterwards entered Tabriz (R.M. Savory, Safavids, Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edition).

The Safavid succeeded in establishing Shi'ism as the national religion of Iran and uniting the country from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, and from Mesopotamia to India and Central Asia. Under the Safavids, various tribes and ethnic groups remained relatively autonomous in practicing their traditions, cultures, and languages within the loosely governed empire (Mazzaoui, 1972; Woods, 1976; Savory, 1980).(pg 10)

 

Again Asgharzadeh falsifies history and does not show exactly where any of these scholars made such claims.  During the Safavid era numerous Zoroastrian and Sunni Muslims were simply massacared and wiped out.  The following article details this sufficiently:

http://www.vohuman.org/Article/Islamic%20era%20histroy%20of%20Zoroastrians%20of%20Iran.htm

 

Asgharzadeh in one of his anti-Iranian rants in a Azerbaijani republic magazine writes:

“ The Orientalist historiography of the region paints a positive image of the cruel Achaemenid rulers”!!

 

It is very important to note that for pan-turkist nationalists like Asgharzadeh, the Safavids were Turks (in actuality they were not as will be shown) and were tolerant (which they were not)!  and there was no ethnic rivalry! (which is not true).  Part of the reason why Sunni Kurds do not like the Safavids is due to the persecution of Sunnis during the Safavid era.   Although Cyrus the Great for example did not persecute anyone for their religion like Ismail I did, for a racist like Asgharzadeh, Cyrus the great deserves to be derided because he is Persian whereas Ismail I deserves praises because he might have been Turkic or wrote Turkic.  Also it is important to note that during the Safavid era, there was a Irano-Turko rivalry. 

 

While Orientalists and the dominant Pars-centered literature attempted to present the Safavids as Persians, the fact remained that they were of Turkic origin and Azeri-Turkic was the main language of Shah Ismail's court, fol­lowed by Farsi and Arabic, respectively. Moreover, Shah Ismail was a great lover of poetry and literature. Under the pen name Khatayi, he produced his famous "Divani Xetayi" in Azeri-Turkic (see Birdogan, 2001). A unique liter­ary style known as Qoshma was also introduced in this period, utilized, and developed by Shah Ismail and later on by his successor Shah Tahmasp. (pg 8)

In actuality not only orientalists and Iranian literature, but even unbiased Turkish scholars consider the Safavid male lineage to be of Iranian-Kurdish origin.  Also since the Safavid rules an empire that was mainly Iranian in speech, and their center was Isfahan, it is natural to consider them a Persian empire.  Their geographical area after all was Persia.  It should be noted that unlike what Asgharzadeh claims, the Safavids were not of Turkic origin.  Any dynasty including Seljuqids, Ghaznavids and Abbassid etc. are known by their male line in histography. 

On the Safavid it is worth reviewing why the majority opinion considers them to be of Iranian and non-Turkic origin.

According to Professor Roger Savory, the eminent Safavid historian:

The origins of the Safawid family are shrouded in some mystery, and the mystery is compounded by falsifications which were perpetrated, probably during the reign of Ismā_īl I and certainly during that of  Tahmāsp I, in order to produce an “official” Safawid genealogy. (R.M. Savory, Safavids, Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edition)

 

 

Similarly Professor Savory concludes:

“There seems now to be a consensus among scholars that the Safavid family hailed from Persian Kurdistan, and later moved to Azerbaijan, finally settling in the 5th/11th century at Ardabil.”

(R.M. Savory, Safavids, Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edition)

 

Any Safavid historian knows that oldest extant book on the genealogy of the Safavid family and the only one that is pre-1501 (before the establishment and political conquest of the dynasty) is titled “Safwat as-Safa”.  This book was written by Ibn Bazzaz.  Ibn Bazzaz, himself a disciple of Shaykh Sadr-al-Din Ardabili, the son of the Shaykh Safi ad-din Ardabili.  In the oldest extant manuscript of Ibn Bazzaz, the Shaykh is a descendant of a noble and famous Kurdish men named Firuz Shah Zarin Kolah the Kurd of Sanjan (in Kurdistan).   فیروز شاه زرین کلاه الکرد السنجانی

 

The Turkish Scholar Zeki Velid Togan examined the two oldest extant manuscripts of the Safwat as-Safa and compared two pre-1501 manuscripts with a manuscript after 1501. All references to the Sunnism of the Shaykh and '''Kurdish origin of Firuz''' were removed in the post-1501 manuscripts.  For example the words: “Since the ancestry of Firuz was Kurdish”  are clearly mentioned in the two oldest extant manuscript of the Safwat As-Safa (both of them pre-1501).

چون نسبت پیروز با کرد رفت

چون نسبت پیروز کرد رفت

(Z. V. Togan, "Sur l’Origine des Safavides," in Melanges Louis Massignon, Damascus , 1957, III, pp. 349.)

 

Professor.  Zeki Velid Togan remarks: "II ne fait aucun doute que les souverains Shah Isma'il et Shah Tahmasb se sont donne toutes les peines du monde pour effacer de l'histoire leur origin e kurde, pour attribuer au kurde Firouz la qualité de descendant du Prophète, et pour faire valoir que le Shaykh Safi ètait un shaykh turc shiite, auteur de poèmes turcs." Translation: There is not any doubt that the sovereigns Shah Ismail and Shah Tahmasb gave each other all the sorrows of the world to erase their history, their Kurdish origin, to allot to Kurdish Firouz the quality of descendant of the Prophet, and to make the point that Shaykh Safï was a Turkish shaykh shiite and Turkish author of poems)(Z. V. Togan, "Sur l’Origine des Safavides," in Melanges Louis Massignon, Damascus , 1957, III, pp. 345-57).

 

Now is it Professor Togan or orientalist or Kasravis fault that the oldest extant manuscript point to a non-Turkic and Iranian origin for the Safavids?

 

Professor Roger Savory remarks on the Safwat As-Safa:

 

“Ebn Bazzaz completed this voluminous work (over 800 folios) around 759/1358, only twenty-four years after the death of Shaikh Safi-al-Din. It is written in a straightforward style, without much rhetorical embellishment.  Ideologically-motivated alterations were already present in a manuscript dated 914/1508, during the reign of Shah Esmail I. Shah Tahmasb (930-84/1524-76) ordered Mir Abul-Fatha Hosayn to produce a revised edition of the Safwat al-Safa.  This official version contains textual changes designed to obscure the '''Kurdish origins of the Safavid family''' and to vindicate their claim to descent from the Imams.”

 

(R.M. Savory. Ebn Bazzaz. Encyclopedia Iranica)

 

Indeed in none of the Safavid manuscripts, even after 1501, do we hear about Turkic lineage of the Safavid family, since the Safavid were intent on claiming to be descendants of Imams.  For example in the silsilat an-Nasab, written almost 300 years after the Safwat as-Safa, one of the ancestors of the Shaykh by the name Abu bakr was dropped (due to Abu Bakr being a Sunni name mainly) and the mention of the Kurdishness of Firuz was erased and the Safavids were connected to the holy prophet of Islam.   Even in this book, the ancestry of the Safavid family is traced to Hijaz.  Thus the reason the Safavids are considered Iranic in origin despite the linguistic turkification of the family is due to the fact that their ancestry is Kurdish and dynasties are known by their male lineage.

 

Many scholars seem to agree on the Iranian origin of Firuz Shah Zarin Kolah.

 

According to Professor Richard Tapper(Tapper, Richard, FRONTIER NOMADS OF IRAN. A political and social history of the Shahsevan. Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997. pp 39.)

 

“The Safavid Shahs who ruled Iran between 1501 and 1722 descended from Sheikh Sari ad-Din of Ardabil (1252 1334). Sheikh Safi and his immediate successors were renowned as holy ascetic Sufis. Their own origins were obscure: '''probably of Kurdish or Iranian extraction''', they later claimed descent from the Prophet. They acquired a widespread following at first among the Local Iranian population, and later among die Turkic tribes people who had been advancing from Central Asia into Azarbaijan and Anatolia from the eleventh century onwards.”

 

Professor Heinz Halm declares (Heinz Halm, ''Shi'ism'', translated by Janet Watson. New Material translated by Marian Hill, 2nd edition, Columbia University Press, pp 75):

 

The eponymous forfather of the later Safavid dynasty, Shakh Safi al-din Ishaq was a dervish probably '''of Kurdish origin''' who enjoyed high religious prestige in his home town of Ardabil in Azarbayjan)

Professor Ehsan Yarshater also opines:

“the early Safavids, originally an '''Iranian-speaking clan''' (as evidenced by the quatrains of Shaikh Safi-al-Din, their eponymous ancestor, and by his biography), became Turkified and adopted Turkish as their vernacular...”

(E. Yarshater, ''Encyclopaedia Iranica'', "The Iranian Language of Azerbaijan")

Professor Kathryn Babayan of Michigian University did her thesis in Princeton University on the Safavids and is the author of the book titled
Mystics, Monarchs and Messiahs: Cultural Landscapes of Early Modern Iran. In her book, she also alludes to the oldest and only pre-1501 biography of Shaykh Safi ad-Din:

 “It is true that during their revolutionary phase (1447-1501), Safavi guides had played on their descent from the family of the Prophet.  The hagiography of the founder of the Safavi order, Shaykh Safi al-Din Safvat al-Safa written by Ibn Bazzaz in 1350-was tampered with during this very phase.  An initial stage of revisions saw the transformation of Safavi identity as Sunni Kurds into Arab blood descendants of Muhammad.”(Kathryn Babayan, Mystics, Monarchs and Messiahs: Cultural Landscapes of Early Modern Iran, Cambridge, Mass. ; London : Harvard University Press, 2002. pg 143)

 

"From the evidence available, at the present time, it is certain that the Safavid family was of indigineous Iranian stock, and not of Turkish ancestry as it is sometimes claimed. It is probable that the family originated in Persian Kurdistan, and later moved to Azerbaijan, where they adopted the Azari form of Turkish spoken there, and eventually settled in the small town of Ardabil sometimes during the eleventh century.”( Sigfried J. De Laet. History of humanity: scientific and cultural development. Taylor & Francis. 2005. pg 259)

Besides the tati poetry and the only pre-1501 Safavid geneology that has survived, another parameter that makes the Iranian origin of the Shaykh more clear is that he was of Shafi’i persuasion.  Shafi’i is one of the four schools of thought in Sunni Islam.  Hamdullah Mustaufi who lived during the time of Shaykh Safi ad-din Ardabili writes on the city of Ardabil:

اکثر (مردم) بر مذهب شافعی اند،  مرید شیخ صفی الدین علیه الرحمه اند

Indeed, if one looks throughout history, the Sunnism espoused by Turkic groups has always been of Hanafi (another Sunni sect) extraction.  Although Iranians mainly in Khorasan were of Hanafi persuasion those in the west of Iran prior to Turkification were mainly Shafii like the Shaykh.  The Ottomons and Seljuqs were Hanafi.  Togrul the Seljuq ordered all the leaders of Shafii Islam to be imprisoned and many of them were exiled.  This aspects of Hanafism and their embryonic connections to Turkic groups is fully describe by C.E. Bosworth. (C.E. Bosworth, The Political and Dynastic History of the Iranian World (A.D. 1000-1200) in Camb. Hist. Iran V.  pp 40-50)

 

Today too all Sunni Turkish speakers (Anatolia) and Turks (Central Asia) are followers of the Hanafi school of thought.  But all Sunni Kurds consistently follow Shafii Sunni Islam.

 

So putting all these factors together, it should not surprise Alireza Asgharzadeh that the Iranic origin of Shaykh Safi ad-din Ardabili is more probable and taken more seriously in the scholarly community than the Turkic origin and even a famous Turkish speaking scholar like Zekki Velid Togan admits it.

 

Also approximately 50 verses of the poetry of Shah ismail I has also survived. 

Sam Mirza, the son of Ismail I was himself a poet and composed his poetry in Persian.   He also compiled an anthology of contemporary poetry.( Emeri “van” Donzel, Islamic Desk Reference, Brill Academic Publishers, 1994, pp 393) and refers to his fathers Persian poetry. 

 

Shah Ismail I was also deeply influenced by the Persian literary tradition of Iran, particularly by the “Shahnama” of Ferdowsi, which probably explains the fact that he named all of his sons after Shāhnāma-characters. Dickson and Welch suggest that Ismāil's "Shāhnāmaye Shāhī" was intended as a present to the young Tahmāsp(M.B. Dickson and S.C. Welch, The Houghton Shahnameh 2 vols (Cambridge Mmssachusetts and London. 1981. See: pg 34 of Volume I)).   After defeating Muhammad Shaybāni's Uzbeks, Ismāil asked Hātefī, a famous poet from  Khorasan to write a Shāhnāma-like epic about his victories and his newly established dynasty. Although the epic was left unfinished, it was an example of Mathnawis in the heroic style of the Shāhnāma written later on for the Safavid kings.( R.M. Savory, Safavids, Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edition)

 

 

Also according to Roger Savory:

 

Friction was inevitable because, as Minorsky put it, the Qiizilbash “were not

party to the national Persian tradition. Like oil and water, the Turcomans and the Persians did not mix freely, and the dual character of the population profoundly affected both the military and civil administration.  Each faction saw the other in terms of racial stereotypes.  The Persians saw the Qizilbash as fighting men of only moderate intelligence. The Qizilbash considered the Persians effete, and referred to them by the pejorative term “Tajik” i.e. non-Turk. (R.M. Savory, Safavids, Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edition)

 

Furthermore he states:

 

Between 1508 and 1524, the year of Esmail death, the shah appointed five successive Persians to the office of wakil. Of the five, the first died a year or so after his appointment, and one chronicle makes the significant statement that he "weakened the position of the Turks"

 (R.M. Savory, Encyclopedia Iranica. Ismail Safavi)

 

 

Vladimir Minorsky remarks:

“Shah Ismail, even though he must have been bi-lingual from birth, was not writing for his own heart's delight.  He had to address his adherents in a language fully intelligible to them, and thus the choice of the Turcoman Turkish became a necessity for him.  Shah Isma/il's son Sam-mirza states that his father wrote also in Persian, and as a sample quotes one single verse. Some traces of Persian poetry are found in one Paris MS. ; but with this exception, all the known copies of Khatais divan are entirely in Turkish.

 

The question of the language used by Shah Ismail is not identical with that of his "race" or "nationality". His ancestry was mixed: one of his grandmothers was a Greek princess of Trebizond. Hinz, Aufstieg, 74, comes to the conclusion that the blood in his veins was chiefly non-Turkish. Already, his son Shah Tahmasp began to get rid of his Turcoman praetorians.”( V. Minorsky, The Poetry of Shah Ismail, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 10, No. 4. (1942), pp. 1053). 

 

Alireza Asgharzadeh intentionally forgets that the Safavids supported and patronized the Shahnameh (something pan-turkists would never be able to do).  Indeed while Asgharzadeh in a recent interview has called the stories of the Shahnameh as Mumbo-Jumbo (although the only Mumbo-Jumbo so far is the book of Asgharzadeh), we can clearly see that the Safavids considered themselves attached to Shahnameh and Iranian/Persian traditions.  One wonders why the Safavids, if they were such Turkic nationalists as pan-turkists want us to believe did not support and patronize Turkic mythology?  Why did the Safavid kings from Ismail I attempted to weaken the Qizilbash forces from the beginning?  Why did Shah Tahmasp and Abbas tried to weaken the Qizilbash forces?  So Safavids, who were of mixed origin with a Kurdish fatherline were not the “Turkic nationalist” dynasty that pan-Turkists want us to believe.

 

Official Language of Iran and Asgharzadeh’s hiding of the truth

 

 

Alireza Asgharzadeh remarks:

At this time, the country was ruled by the Azeri-speaking Qajars, whose language and ethnic policies were not discriminatory and exclusionary, based on language or ethnicity. Under the Qajars, no single language was elevated to the status of official/national language of the country,(pg 11)

 

The above again shows the intentional falsification of facts by Alireza Asgharzadeh.  This time I am forced to show a source with an anti-Iran bias to prove Asgharzadeh wrong.  Persian was officially recognized in 1906 way before 1925 and during the Qajar administration through the constitutional revolution.  The same constitutional revolution which Azerbaijanis had a large role to play in.

 

In the book “The Kurds: Culture and Language Rights” we read:

 

“The first constitution of Iran, adopted in 1906, by the Qajar dynasty (1779-1925), proclaimed that Persian  was the official language of the multilingual country, although it was not until the Pahlavi dynasty came to power in 1925 that the central government was able to implement this stipulation effectively.

 

In 1923, Government offices were instructed to use Persian in all written and oral communications.  A Circular sent by the Central Office of Education of Azerbaijan province to the education offices of the region, including that of the Kurdish city of Mahabad, provided that:”On orders of the Prime Minister it has been prescribed to introduce the Persian language in all provinces especially in schools.  You may therefore notify all the schools under your jurisdiction to fully abide by this and conduct all their affairs in Persian language..and the members of your office must follow the same while talking’’(Kerim Yildiz, Georgina Fryer, Kurdish Human Rights Project, ‘’The Kurds: Culture and Language Rights’’, Kurdish Human Rights Project, 2004, pg 72)

 

 

 

Professor Tasduez Swietchowski, a relative pro-Azerbaijan republic writes:

 

“The crisis in Iran came to a head in December 1905, when the Russian Revolution had already crested. A long series of disturbances, including the bast, an act of taking sanctuary, in this case on the grounds of the British legation, forced the Shah, Muzaffar al-Din (1896-1907), to yield to popular demands, much as Nicholas II had to do in Russia: on August 5, 1906, he signed a law proclaiming a consti­tution under which the Majlis (parliament) was to be elected on the basis of a restricted franchise that benefited primarily the interests of the clergy and the bazaar merchants. The constitution included the provision that made Persian the official language, an acknowledge­ment of the historical rivalry of Persian and Turkic elements and a departure from the long tradition of their symbiosis in Iran.” ( Tadeusz Swietochowski. Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition. p 29. ISBN: 0231070683)

 

 

Indeed according to the same author:

“The hold on of Persian as the chief literary language in (caucasus) Azerbaijan was broken, followed by rejection of classical Azerbaijani, an artificially heavily Iranized idiom that had long been in use along with Persian, though in a secondary position’’( T. Swietochowski, Russian Azerbaijan, 1905-1920: The Shaping of National Identity. in a Muslim Community, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp 26 )

 

Thus it was natural for Persian, which had the oldest continous tradition and most expansive literature to become an official language of Iran in 1906.  Classical Azerbaijani also was never on equal terms with Persian during the Qajar era.  It should be noted that Persian was the standard language of education in Iran during the Qajar era.  For example in the autobiography of Ayatollah Mohammad Hosayn Tabataba’I, himself from Tabriz, we read:

 

“The present writer, Mohammad Hosayn Tabataba’i was born into a family of scholars in Tabriz in 1271 A.H. solar/1892 A.D.  I lost my mother when I was five years old, and my father when I was nine.  To provide for our support, our gaurdian (the executor of my father’s estate) placed my one younger brother and myself in the care of a servant and maidservant.  Shorly after our father’s death, we were sent to primary school, and then, in time, to secondary school.  Eventually, our schooling was entrusted to a tutor who made home visits; in this way we studied Farsi and primary subjects for six years”

 

There was in those days no set program for primary studies.  I remember that, over the period from 1290/1911 to 1296/1917, I studied the Noble Qur’an, which normally was taught before all else, Sa’adi’s Golestan and Bustan, the Illustrated Nesab and Akhlaq, the Anvar-e Sohayli, the Tarikh-e Mo’jam, the writing of Amir-e- Nezami, and the Irshad al-Hisab.” (Allameh Sayyed Mohammad Hosayn Tabataba’I, “Islamic Teachings an Overview”, Translated by R. Campbell, Printed and bound in Beirut –Lebanon, Second Prining: 1991)

 

As we can see, the normal education of that time consisted of Persian and Arabic for the literate class.  There was no mass teaching of Turkish in Azerbaijan or anywhere.  The language of intellectuals in Iran was Persian.  None of these facts have been mentioned by Asgharzadeh, simply because for pan-Turkists, such simple facts are unbearable.

 

The bogus lie that the Pahlavids made Persian an official language is repeated again and again by Alireza Asgharzadeh. Indeed not only Azerbaijanis (one of the main if not the main components of the constitutional revolution) accepted and made Persian the official language of Iran, but they were the major proposers of modern Iranian nationalism and centralization and integrationist policies. 

 

Another lie that is propagated by pan-turkists and Alireza Asgharzadeh is that Turkish is banned in Iran.  That is completely false.  Turkish is simply not the official language as was the case in 1906 when it was not an official language.  Today in Iran there are Azeri newspapers, summer   class, university level courses, television, radio, music etc.. broadcast in Iran.  More will be written with regards to this matter.  Also Qajar’s were disliked by many people and tribes in Iran including Kurds, Lurs, Bakhtiaris and Baluchs.  Had Qajars been so great as Alireza Asgharzadeh describes them, they would not be known as incompetent and disliked by most Iranians. 

 

The only issue is that Azeri Turkish is simply not the official language of Iran.  Given the fact that it is only the majority language in 3 provinces of Iran and it is concentrated mainly in NW Iran and is spoken by less than 20% of the population, it seems natural that it is not an official language.  We will show in the next section how pan-turkists like Alireza Asgharzadeh try to makeup demographic data in order to expand pan-Turkist policies.

 

But the unending lie that Persian was made official in 1925 or that Rezashah imposed Persian is continuously smattered throughout the hate book of Asgharzadeh.

 

Bogus Census of Demographics of Iran by Asgharzadeh

 

 

Alireza Asgharzadeh claims that Azerbaijanis are 37% of Iran's population.  Then he refers to these sources:

The above estimates are taken from a variety of sources, including Ethnologue, (2002); HRW (1997); Hassanpour (1992a); Aghajanian (1983); Nyrop (1978); Abrahamian (1970); and Aliev (1966).

 

Firstly we should remember that the term “Persian” has various meanings.  In terms of ethnic group, one may argue that a “Persian” ethnic group encompasses all Iranic speakers who are a heir to the Sassanid, Shahnameh mythology and Zoroastrian civilizations.  Modern Persian “Dari” speakers are a branch of the ancient Iranians with admixture from Old Persians, Medes, Parthians and other Iranic groups of the past.  In another definition, the term Persian and Iranian have been used equivalently.  For example, the definition of Persian according www.dictionary.com gives:

“

1) of or pertaining to ancient and recent Persia (now Iran), its people, or their language.

2) a member of the native peoples of Iran, descended in part from the ancient Iranians.

3) a citizen of ancient Persia.

4) an Iranian language, the principal language of Iran and western Afghanistan, in its historical and modern forms. Compare Old Persian, Pahlavi, Farsi.

5) Architecture. a figure of a man used as a column.

(Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.)

 “

 

For Alireza Asgharzadeh, the term Persian is equivalent to Farsi speakers.  This author takes this definition since the Median, Achaemenid, Parthian and Sassanid heritage is part of the greater Iranian heritage.

 

Despite the difference, modern Persian speakers are the largest group in Iran and if we take speakers of other Iranian dialects that are close to Persian, we obtain approximately 80% of Irans modern population.

 

Alireza Asgharzadeh has claim to use a variety of sources.  But none of them with the exception of one have taken his false claim.  And the one source that agrees with Asgharzadeh is actually faulty as shown below.

 

It should be noted that Hassanpour, Abrahamian and Aghajanian were checked by this author and none of them claim the false census of Asgharzadeh.  HRW (Human rights watch) has no representatives in Iran and has never done a census in Iran. 

For example Hassanpour claims 10% of Iran is Kurdish and does not claim anywhere that Azeris are 37%!.

 Abrahamian assigns less than 27% for the Turkic speaking population of Iran.

(Ervand Abrahamian,Iran between two revolutions, Princeton University, 1982, pg 384)

 

In another source Ervand Abrahamian again clearly states(Ervand Abrahamian, Communism and Communalism in Iran: The Tudah and the Firqah-I Dimukrat, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 1, No. 4. (Oct., 1970), pp. 291-316):

“The second largest group, Turkic, constitute another 26% and are subdivided nto the sedentary Azaris, the vast majority of Azarbayjan and a significant minority in the northern towns and tribal Turkmens, Qashqayis, Shahsavans, and Afshars, who form distinct entities in the north and southern province of Fars”.

 

Thus the only source for Asgharzadeh’s false claim is ethnologue.com

 

Unfortunately for Asgharzadeh, this author has already contacted ethnologue and they have admitted that their census is false.

 

After contacting Mr. Ray Gordon, the main editor of ethnologue about the wrong number of Azeris, ethnologue.com responded:

 

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I am not able to locate the original source from 1997.  In line with your calculations we agree that the figure is likely closest to 11,000,000. We will do further research and update our figures for the next edition

Yours, Ray Gordon Ethnologue, Research“

Indeed the inconsistent nature of ethnologue.com can be seen here from their 1996 to 2000 to 2006 editions.

 

http://www.christusrex.org/www3/ethno/Iran.html

In their 1996 edition we read

FARSI, WESTERN (PERSIAN, PARSI) [PES] 25,300,000 in Iran, 50.2% of the population (1993), including 800,000 Dari in Khorasan; 26,000 in Tajikistan (1979 census); 500,000 in Turkey; 8,000 in Turkmenistan (1993); 31,300 in Uzbekistan; 65,550 in Qatar; 48,000 in Bahrain; 185,700 in Iraq; 25,000 in Oman (1993); 900,000 in USA; 2,000 in Austria (1995); 15,000 in Canada; 90,000 in Germany; 10,000 in Greece; 102,000 in Saudi Arabia; 80,000 in United Arab Emirates (1986); 9,000 in Denmark (1993); 5,000 in Netherlands; 12,000 in United Kingdom; 26,523,000 in all countries. Central and south central Iran. Also in Israel. Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Western, Southwestern, Persian. Dialects: QAZVINI, MAHALLATI, HAMADANI, KASHANI, ISFAHANI, SEDEHI, KERMANI, ARAKI, SHIRAZI, JAHROMI, SHAHRUDI, KAZERUNI, MASHADI (MESHED), BASSERI. All schools use Farsi. The literary language is virtually identical in Iran and Afghanistan, with very minor lexical differences. Zargari may be a dialect used by goldsmiths (also see Balkan Romani in Iran). Dialect shading into Dari in Afghanistan and Tajiki in Tajikistan. National language. Typology: SOV. Mainly Shi'a Muslim. Braille code available. Bible 1838-1995. NT 1815-1979. Bible portions 1546-1965.

 

Ethnologue.com as shown by the above e-mail has no source for their data.  They have never been to Iran.  As a person that is writing a book, it is expected that Alireza Asgharzadeh will do some research instead of attributing false numbers to Ervand Abrahamian or Amir Hassanpour or making up false numbers based on unreliable websites!

 

Another Iranian author (by the pen name Mazdak Bamdadan) has also written to ethnologue.com seeking their explanation.  They were not also able to provide a source:

 

Dear Mazdak,
Sorry we cannot help you further with this question. This information was posted by a previous editor, and it probably came from his personal communication with someone else, and was therefore not documented.
Regards, Conrad Hurd

 

http://politic.iran-emrooz.net/index.php?/politic/more/13089/

 

 

Indeed the last source used by ethnologue is from 1988.  Long before their 1996 edition!

 

Interestingly enough, ethnologue which is not even a 3rd rate source has been accused of political meddeling and manipulations.

 

The following information found on the internet about SIL (ethnologue is publication and endevour of SIL international) is noteworthy:

SIL has been accused of being involved in moving indigenous populations in South America from their native lands to make way for exploitation schemes of North American and European oil corporations. The most well known example is the case of the Huaorani people in Ecuador, which resulted in many deaths and the moving of the people into reservations controlled by the missionaries.

In 1975, thirty anthropologists signed "The Denouncement of Pátzcuaro", alleging that SIL was a "tool of imperialism", linked to the CIA and "divisions within the communities that constitutes a hindrance to their organization and the defence of their communal rights".  In 1979, SIL's agreement with the Mexican government was officially terminated, but it continued to be active in that country (Clarke, p. 182). The same happened in 1980 in Ecuador (Yashar 2005, p. 118), although a token presence remained. Remnants of SIL presence were protested in every subsequent Indian uprising. In the early 1990s, the newly-formed organisation of indigenous people of Ecuador CONAIE once more demanded the expulsion of SIL from the country.  At a conference of the Inter-American Indian Institute in Merida, Yucatan, in November 1980, delegates denounced the Summer Institute of Linguistics for using a scientific name to conceal its religious agenda and capitalist worldview that was alien to indigenous traditions.

John Perkins provides an example of criticism of SIL activity:

I had heard that (Jaime Roldos, President of Ecuador, 1979-81) accused The Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), an evangelical missionary group from the United States, of sinister collusion with the oil companies. I was familiar with SIL missionaries from my Peace Corps days. The organization had entered Ecuador, as it had in so many other countries, with the professed goal of studying, recording, and translating indigenous languages.  SIL had been working extensively with the Huaorani and Matsés tribes in the Amazon basin area, during the early years of oil exploration, when a disturbing pattern appeared to emerge. While it might have been a coincidence (and no link was ever proved), stories were told in many Amazonian communities that when seismologists reported to corporate headquarters that a certain region had characteristics indicating a high probability of oil beneath the surface, SIL went in and encouraged the indigenous people to move from that land, onto missionary reservations; there they would receive free food, shelter, clothes, medical treatment, and missionary-style education. The condition was that they had to deed their lands to the oil companies.

Rumors abounded that SIL missionaries used an assortment of underhanded techniques to persuade the tribes to abandon their homes and move to the missions. A frequently repeated story was that they had donated food heavily laced with laxatives - then offered medicines to cure the diarrhea epidemic. Throughout Huaorani territory, SIL airdropped false-bottomed food baskets containing tiny radio transmitters; The rumor was that receivers at highly sophisticated communications stations, manned by U.S. military personnel at the army base in Shell [a frontier outpost and military base hacked out of Ecuador’s Amazon jungle to service the oil company whose name it bears], tuned into these transmitters. Whenever a member of the tribe was bitten by a poisonous snake or became seriously ill, an SIL representative arrived with antivenom or the proper medicines - often in oil company helicopters."

SIL was allegedly financed initially by expatriate coffee processors in Guatemala, and later by the Rockefellers, Standard Oil, the timber company Weyerhauser, and USAID. [...] By the 1980s, SIL was expelled from Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, and Panama, and restricted in Colombia and Peru.  Today, according to SIL's annual report, funds are donations from individuals, churches, and other organizations, channelled to SIL by the Wycliffe Bible Translators.

 

 

It would not surprise the writer of this article that someone like Asgharzadeh probably provided ethnologue with false numbers which they can not locate and justify.  Also it should be noted that ethnologue has been

 

Indeed using the false number of ethnologue is one of the biggest tricks of pan-Turkists in the last 5 years or so:

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/Pasokhbehanirani/dorooghbaazibaamaarberaheni.htm

 

Ethnologue.com is not a professional site, it is a site run by missionaries who translate the bible in other languages.  It has never done a census in Iran and as admitted by their main editor, they have no idea where the number was taken from and believe that the population of Azerbaijanis in Iran is closer to 11 million.  

 

Indeed the numbers for ethnologue do not add and are short by millions:

 

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/Pasokhbehanirani/ethnologue_figuremissing.xls

 

Kurdish Iranian scholar, Ehsan Houshmand who did a total calculation based on the book Farhang Joqrafiye-e Iran under the Razm-Ara has provided interesting statistics from 1947.

http://www.magiran.com/magtoc.asp?mgID=1929&Number=43&Appendix=0

 

 

براساس سرشماری  کشور در سال 1335 که داده های آن در کتاب : فرهنگ جغرافیای ایران تحت نظارت سرتیبپ حسینعلی رزم آرا تدوین گشت، جمعیت ایران در سال 1335 حدود 14 ملیون نفر بود.  از این 14 ملیون تعداد جمعيت مناطق ترکی زبان 2451061 و تعداد مناطق دوزبانه فارسی-ترکی 877627 و تعداد مناطق سه زبان فارسی-ترکی-کردی 187464 نفر و تعداد مناطق ترکمنی 97491 بوده است. اگر دست بالا را بگیریم و تمام مناطق ترکمنی و فارسی-ترکی و فارسی-ترکی-کردی را با تمام مناطق ترکی زبان بنا بر اطلاعات این کتاب جمع بندی کنیم، حدود 23 تا 24%  جمعیت ايران ترکی زبان می شوند.

(بنگرید به مقاله: نگاهی دیگر به داده های زبانی و مذهبی ایران معاصر، احسان هوشمند، فصلنامه گفتگو، شماره 43، مهر 1384) http://www.magiran.com/magtoc.asp?mgID=1929&Number=43&Appendix=0

 

 

According to this book, Iran’s Turkic speaking population is between 16-23%.

 

Indeed in another actual statistics done in 1991, approximately all child bearers of the Persian month Mordad were asked about their mother tongue.  Iranic languages were 76% while Turkic languages were 21%.

 

 

در سال 1370 آمارگيري بسيار مستندي در مورد جمعيت ايران انجام گرفته است كه شرح آن را در مقالات زير مي توان يافت:

http://khabarnameh.gooya.com/society/archives/010245.php

http://asre-nou.net/1383/ordibehesht/20/m-mohsenian.html

 

"در مرداد 1370، هنگام صدور شناسنامه براي نوزادان، درباره زبان ٤٩ هزار و ٥٥٨ مادر در سطح كشور سوال مطرح شد كه نتيجه حاكي از سهم حضور ٥٣٬٨ درصدي زبان هاى غيرفارسي در ايران بود. بر اساس نمونه گيري مذكور، توزيع سهم هر يك از زبان ها (به درصد) به اين شرح بود: ٤٦٬٢ فارسي؛ ٢٠٬٦ تركي آذربايجاني؛ ١٠ كردي؛ ٨٬٩ لري؛ ٧٬٢ درصد گيلكي و شمالي؛ ٥٬٣ عربي ؛ ٢٬٧ بلوچي؛ ٠٬٦ تركمني؛ ٠٬١ ارمني؛ و ٠٬٢ ساير زبان ها ".  پس اگر گويش‌ها و زبان‌هاي هم خانواده با  فارسي را با آمار فوق جمع شود٬ زبان‌هايي كه "آريايي (ايراني)" خوانده مي شوند حدود ۷۶٪ ايران را  دربرمي گيرند. 

 

 

 

 

Another source for population statistics is the 1996 census taken throughout the country.

http://www.statoids.com/uir.html

 



Province

HASC

ISO

Dom

FIPS

Population

Area(km.²)

Area(mi.²)

Capital

Ardebil

IR.AR

03

Ar

IR32

1,168,011

17,881

6,904

Ardebil

Bushehr

IR.BS

06

Bu

IR22

743,675

23,168

8,945

Bushehr

Chahar Mahall and Bakhtiari

IR.CM

08

Cb

IR03

761,168

16,201

6,255

Shahr-e-Kord

East Azarbaijan

IR.EA

01

As

IR33

3,325,540

45,481

17,560

Tabriz

Esfahan

IR.ES

04

es

IR28

3,923,255

107,027

41,323

Esfahan

Fars

IR.FA

14

fr

IR07

3,817,036

121,825

47,037

Shiraz

Gilan

IR.GI

19

gl

IR08

2,241,896

13,952

5,387

Rasht

Golestan

IR.GO

27

gs

IR37

1,426,288

20,893

8,067

Gorgan

Hamadan

IR.HD

24

hm

IR09

1,677,957

19,547

7,547

Hamadan

Hormozgan

IR.HG

23

hr

IR11

1,062,155

71,193

27,488

Bandar-e-Abbas

Ilam

IR.IL

05

il

IR10

487,886

20,150

7,780

Ilam

Kerman

IR.KE

15

kr

IR29

2,004,328

181,714

70,160

Kerman

Kermanshah

IR.BK

17

ks

IR13

1,778,596

24,641

9,514

Kermanshah

Khuzestan

IR.KZ

10

kz

IR15

3,746,772

63,213

24,407

Ahvaz

Kohgiluyeh and Buyer Ahmad

IR.KB

18

kb

IR05

544,356

15,563

6,009

Yasuj

Kordestan

IR.KD

16

kd

IR16

1,346,383

28,817

11,126

Sanandaj

Lorestan

IR.LO

20

lr

IR23

1,584,434

28,392

10,962

Khorramabad

Markazi

IR.MK

22

mr

IR34

1,228,812

29,406

11,354

Arak

Mazandaran

IR.MN

21

mz

IR35

2,602,008

23,833

9,202

Sari

North Khorasan

IR.KS

31

kh

IR43

676,333

 

 

Bojnurd

Qazvin

IR.QZ

28

qz

IR38

968,257

15,491

5,981

Qazvin

Qom

IR.QM

26

qm

IR39

853,044

11,237

4,339

Qom

Razavi Khorasan

IR.KV

30

kh

IR42

4,991,818

247,622

95,607

Mashhad

Semnan

IR.SM

12

sm

IR25

501,447

96,816

37,381

Semnan

Sistan and Baluchestan

IR.SB

13

sb

IR04

1,722,579

178,431

68,893

Zahedan

South Khorasan

IR.KJ

29

kh

IR41

319,878

 

 

Birjand

Tehran

IR.TH

07

th

IR26

10,343,965

19,196

7,412

Tehran

West Azarbaijan

IR.WA

02

ag

IR01

2,496,320

37,463

14,465

Orumiyeh

Yazd

IR.YA

25

yz

IR40

810,401

128,811

49,734

Yazd

Zanjan

IR.ZA

11

zn

IR36

900,890

21,841

8,433

Zanjan

30 provinces

60,055,488

1,629,807

629,272

 

 

 

The provinces that are Azeri speaking majorities are East Azerbaijan, Ardabil and Zanjan.  The total population of these provinces relative to the country is 8.9%.  West Azerbaijan is about 75% Kurdish but if we count 50% Azeri, this will make 11% of the country.  There are Azerbaijanis in Gilan, Hamadan, Arak, Ghazvin but they are minority.  The maximum number of  Azerbaijanis in these provinces is no more than 1 million.  Indeed this author has seen how Pan-turkists from Tabriz have claimed Ghazvin and Hamadan to be Turkic speaking in online sites but were refuted by Hamadanis and Ghazvinis themselves.  But let us say for the sake of an over-estimate that there are 2 million Azerbaijanis in these provinces.  Also everyone knows that Tehran has a large Azerbaijani population, but most of these Azerbaijanis become integrated within Tehran and speak Persian.   Even so, we will estimate 3 million Azerbaijanis in Tehran.  Such an over conservative estimate leads to 19% Azerbaijani and nothing close to what Asgharzadeh is claiming.

 


The CIA fact book (24% Azeri)

Encyclopedia Britannica says:

About one-fifth of Iranians speak a variety of Turkic languages. The largest Turkic-speaking group is the Azerbaijani, a farming and herding people who inhabit two border provinces in the northwestern corner of Iran. Two other Turkic ethnic groups are the Qashqa'is in the Shiraz area to the north of the Persian Gulf and the Turkmen of Khorasan in the northeast.

 

Encyclopedia of Orient,

Persian
33,000,000 49%

 

Azeri
12,000,000 18%

Kurd
6,600,000 10%

Gilaki
3,700,000 6%

Lor
3,000,000 4%

Mazandarani
2,700,000 4%

Baluchi
1,600,000 2.4%

Arab
1,600,000 2.4%

Bakhtiari
1,300,000 1.9%

Turkmen
1,100,000 1.6%

Armenian
400,000 0.6%

 

 

Encyclopedia Encarta:

 

Ethnic Groups

Iran’s population is made up of numerous ethnic groups. Persians migrated to the region from Central Asia beginning in the 7th century bc and established the first Persian empire in 550 bc. They are the largest ethnic group, and include such groups as the Gilaki, who live in Gilān Province, and the Mazandarani, who live in Māzandarān Province. Accounting for about 60 percent of the total population, Persians live in cities throughout the country, as well as in the villages of central and eastern Iran. Two groups closely related to the Persians both ethnically and linguistically are the Kurds and the Lurs. The Kurds, who make up about 7 percent of the population, reside primarily in the Zagros Mountains near the borders with Iraq and Turkey. The Lurs account for 2 percent of the population; they inhabit the central Zagros region. Turkic tribes began migrating into northwestern Iran in the 11th century, gradually changing the ethnic composition of the region so that by the late 20th century East Azerbaijan Province was more than 90 percent Turkish. Since the early 1900s, Azeris (a Turkic group) have been migrating to most large cities in Iran, especially Tehrān. Azeris and other Turkic peoples together account for about 25 percent of Iran’s inhabitants. The remainder of the population comprises small communities of Arabs, Armenians, Assyrians, Baluchis, Georgians, Pashtuns, and others.

 

and even pan-Turkist sympathizer and Iran hater Brenda Shaffer all estimate the population of Azerbaijanis to be 16-25%.  Another Christian missionary site for example has:

 

Composition of Peoples

(OPW)
Peoples: Over 65 ethnic groups, many of which are small nomadic groups.
Indo-Iranian 75.6%. Persian 25,300,000; Kurds 4,670,000; Luri-Bakhtiari 4,280,000; Mazanderani 3,265,000; Gilaki 3,265,000; Dari Persian 1,600,000; Balochi 1,240,000; Tat 620,000; Pathan 113,000; Talysh 112,000.
Turkic 18.8%. Azerbaijani 8,130,000; Turkoman 905,000; Qashqai 860,000; Hazara 283,000; Teymur 170,000; Shahseven 130,000.
Arab 2.2%. Mainly in southwest.
Christian minorities 0.4%. Reduced from 1.5% in 1975 due to emigration. Armenian 170,000; Assyrian 40,000; Georgian 10,000.
Other 3%. Gypsy (Nawar and Ghorbati) 1,188,000; Brahui 149,000; Jews 68,000.
Refugees: Afghans 1.5 million, but decreasing; Iraqi Kurds 120,000 (at one stage in 1991 there were 1.2 million); Shi'a Arabs from Iraq.

 

 

Actual statistics done also clearly shows 15-20% .  Lord Cruzon, who in 1890 did an estimate of Iran’s ethnic population based on Russian sources estimated that 1 million out of the 6 million population of Iran is Tatar (Azeri, Turkomen..).  Recently, a good trick to defeat pan-Turkists claims has been used by some Iranians by proposing a logic in the form: “If 35 million Azeris live in Iran according to pan-Turkists, why should they separate and join a country that has only 8 million Azeris!. Where-as logicially it would be the other way around”.  Thus the pan-Turkist inflation of number of Azerbaijanis is not taken seriously by scholars or average Iranians. 

 

Unlike the Talysh in Azerbaijan whose numbers have officially not risen in 90 years, the Turkic speaking population of Iran since 115  years has not seen a decrease percentage wise relative to the total population.    As shown, the three provinces where Azerbaijani predominates is 8.9% of the population of this country.   The figure of close to 6% outside of these provinces as shown is reasonable.  Thus Alireza Asgharzadeh is way off the ball park and his only source turned out to be false and without any authority.  Also Alireza Asgharzadeh counts Qashqai and Azeris as the same ethnic group.  This is not even done in ethnologue.com which is his faviorate site.  At the same time, disregarding the invalid numbers from ethnologue.com (as admitted by the editor of ethnologue.comthat they can not locate their source and the figure of 11 million Azeris is more closer to the truth), the site clearly states that 10% of Iran is Kurdish :

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=IR

and Luri, Bakhtiari, Laki are more than 80-90% mutually comprehensible with Tehrani Persian (what ethnologue.com calls Western Farsi).  So the choice of counting Qashqai’s as Azeri by Asgharazadeh and at the same time reducing the number of what he calls “Persians” (probably speakers of Tehrani Persian) is simply sinister.

Gerhard Doerfer, a famous turkologist very liked also by pan-Turkists also states in his article (DIE TURKSPRACHEN IRANS) that about only one in six person in Iran speaks a Turkic language.  This statistics matches well with the provincial statistics.

 

Indeed it is well know that Azerbaijani’s have a larger share in the politics and governments and economy of Iran than their actual population.  In the Pahlavid regime, Rezashah’s mother was from caucus, his wife was a Qajar, Mohammad Reza Shah’s wife was Azerbaijani.  Reza Shah himself spoke Turkish very well:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ql0Oe42Nk8

 

He was half Persian (in actuality from Mazandaran) and half from caucus and as can be seen by the video above, spoke Turkish well.  Despite pan-Turkist claims, the bulk of the army of Reza Shah was Azerbaijani.

 

In the current regime (also called an apartheid regime by pan-turkist Asgharzadeh!), the supreme leader is Azerbaijani.  If there is any apartheid in Iran, it is against Sunnis, Zoroastrians, Christians and etc.  Let us not forget that it was mainly Azerbaijani’s who  officialized Persian in 1906!  It was Azerbaijani nationalists who reacted against pan-turkism and promoted centralism.  Iranians do not see such acts as centeralization or declaration of official language in 1906 as an ethno-centeric act to be blamed on one group or another.  But people who want to divide Iranians like pan-turkists demonize different groups like Persians, Kurds, Armenians and etc.   The fact that the country has one official language is nothing racist since many countries in the world which are multi-ethnic have one official language.

 

Of course pan-turkists like Alireza Asgharzadeh being extremely anti-Persian and anti-Iranian in general will like to reduce the Iranic speaking population of Iran in order to expand the influence of pan-Turkism.  But such disfigurement of actual population census is a useless effort.  Anyone that travels to Iran knows the reality and people like Nazmi Afshar can makeup fanciful bogus maps:

 

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/Pasokhbehanirani/moshtaaghaandighalim2.htm

 

but they can’t change the reality on the ground.

 

It is worth mentioning that there are more Kurdish speakers in Turkey than Azeri speakers in Iran and given the higher birth rate of Kurds in west Azerbaijan, pan-Turkists like Chehregani have officially complained to the Khatami administration and have written letters to Khatami asking him to reduce the birth rate of Kurds!!  This is the typical racist mindset of pan-turkists.  No other group in Iran has ever for example complained about the recent Azerification of Astara or large number of Azeris migrating to Tehran.  But pan-turkists have been crying (or howling) wolf with regards to the Kurdish population of West Azerbaijan.  Thus falsifying and attempting to change demographic realities is one of the strategies of pan-Turkist expansionism. 

 

It is unfortunate that the author of this article had to delve into demographics of iran since he believes anyone inside Iran is Iranian.  But Alireza Asgharzadeh and other pan-Turkist chavaunists have been using this falsified figure for a while in their writing and there was no choice but to expose this falsification.

 

Another Bogus figure

 

Asgharzadeh either quotes himself or another ethnic chavaunist by the name Azizi Bani Torof and says:

“during the 8 years of the Rafsanjani president' investment in Kerman province (the president's home province) was 300 times of that in East and West Azerbaijan, Zanjan and Ardebil—all with Azeri majorities.”

 

This is yet another lie of pan-turkists.  If that was the case, the earthquake in Bam Tehran which many pan-turkists were overjoyed with on the internet:

 

Would not have been such that all the homes of the people were destroyed.  There was absolutely not even one earthquake resistance structure in the whole city.  Note that Asgharzadeh does not provide any detail or source for such an absurd claim.  In recent years pan-turkists have made many absurd claims that have all turned false:

a)      UNESCO has declared Turkish to be the third most powerful language and Persian as the 34th dialect of Arabic!

b)      The Turkish works of Nizami Ganjavi were found in Egypt!

c)      Avesta is 70% Turkish.

d)     There are 40 million Azeris in Iran! (2006)

 

 

 

It should be noted that given the fact that Rafsanjani is from Kerman, he might have invested in Kerman as any other president from any other province does the same.  But there are many poor Persian speaking provinces like Southern Khorasan, Kerman, Bushehr, Fars, Sistan..etc. whose economic situation is much worst than Azeri provinces.  Unfortunately, in order to support his thesis, Alireza Asgharzadeh profusely uses false statistics like that of ethnologue to support his thesis.   Indeed if we are to take government statistics (there are no other statistics and no one takes madeup pan-turkist statistics seriously), unemployement in Kerman is much higher than any of those provinces.

 

http://www.iribnews.ir/Default.aspx?Page=MainContent&news_num=99554

 

Mamalek Mahrooseyeh Iran does not mean what Alireza Asgharzadeh claims

 

Alireza Asgharzadeh claims:

 

The Qajar era of "Mamalek-e Mahruseh-ye Iran" (independent kingdoms of Iran) was a recognized multiethnic, multicultural, and multilingual society governed through a loose form of federalism where all ethnic groups were free to use, study, and develop their languages, literatures, cultures, traditions, and identities … until the reign of Reza Shah it was mainly referred to as Protected Countries/kingdoms of Iran, signifying thus the autonomous status of various regions (pg 10,14).

 

This is obviously a falsification of history.  The Qajars massacred many different people in Iran but more importantly illiteracy was 99% during the Qajar era.  The Qajars not only took out the eyeballs of inhabitants of Kerman from their eye sockets, but they were so cruel in Baluchistan that today the term Shi’ite and Qajar are equivalent in those lands and are used as insult.  The only schools at the time were the traditional religious Maktab schools where Arabic and Persian were thought at an early age. 

 

But the abuse is of the term “Mamalek-e Mahruseh-ye Iran” and mistranslation of this term is the subject of this section.  According to the Dehkhoda dictionary: “Mamalek-e- Mahruseh-ye Iran” is equivalent to all the Ayalat o Velayat (provinces and districts) of Iran.  Thus the term can easily mean “protected districts and provinces of Iran”.  Another meaning for Mamalek is given as Sarzamin (land) in the Dehkhoda dictionary.  “Protected lands of Iran” is another reasonable definition in English.

 

The pan-turkists would like to claim that Azerbaijan itself was a country and that is why the term Mamalek is used.

 

But this notion is clearly false.  The invalidity of this notion has been discussed in this article. 

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/Iran/iran_ai/iran_ai1.htm

 

Indeed the term “Mamalek-e Azerbaijan” occurs frequently in Qajar and Afsharid literature.  For example in the book Alem Araayeh Naderi written during the era of Nader shah:

 

 

 

به گفتة محمدکاظم وزیر مروی در عالم آرای نادری، نادرشاه برادرش ابراهيم‏خان ظهيرالدوله را به عنوان فرمانده کل قوای آذربایجان برگزيده و به تمام حکمرانان «از مرز قافلانکوه تا ارپه چای و حدود داغستان و گرجستان» دستور داد از او اطاعت کنند. نادر به ابراهیم‏خان دستور داد تا با «سپاه کینه خیز کل ممالک آذربایجان عازم قره‏باغ شود».

 

 

This translates to: “The whole heartened army of the Mamalek-e-Azerbaijan is to move into Karabagh”.  Note if take Mamalek-e Azerbaijan, then the pan-Turkist claim that Azerbaijan was one country is totally invalid and we would have to translate this term into “Countries of Azerbaijan”.

 

Another example:

 

زمین لرزه های سال 1313 هجری قمری برابر بوده با روز چهارم و ششم ژانویه سال 1896 میلادی

در روزنامه ناصری تبریز شرح این زمین لرزه را چنین آورده است :

شب جمعه هفدهم شهر رجب المرجب در شهر دارالسلطنه زلزله خفیفی بوقوع پیوست که چندان شدت نداشت و شب یکشنبه نوزدهم شهر مزبور در ساعت سه این داهیه دهشت انگیز مجددا بطور شدت واقع شد ولی شکر خدا را موجب خرابی و خسارت نشد . لیکن بموجب خبری که از بلاد آذربایجان رسیده این بلیه غیبی را در ممالک آذربایجان عمومیتی بوده، چنانچه بموجب تلگرافی که از اردبیل مخابره شده ، در آنجا نیز شب هفدهم بطور خفیف و شب نوزدهم زلزله سختی شده و قلعه حکومتی را صدمه زده است و همچنین بعضی ابنیه قدیمیه شهر را نیز خراب کرده است.

 

The above describes the earthquake of Tabriz in 1896.  The terms used are Balad-e-Azerbaijan and Mamalek-e-Azerbaijan.  Thus if we are to take Asgharzadehs claim seriously, then Azerbaijan had several countries and Iran had several countries within it!  Where-as the term Mamalek in its simplest form simply means land and this definition is in Dehkhoda’s dictionary. 

 

 

Just another instance from Astarabadi during the time of Nader Shah:

به نوشته استرآبادی، نادر: «سپهسالاری و اختیار کل ممالک آذربایجان را به ظهیرالدوله ابراهیم خان برادر والاگهر خود عنایت و مقرر داشتند"

Mamalek-e- Fars, Mamalek-e-Khorasan and etc.. are also used in this era and none of them mean lands with defined ethnic boundaries who are self autonomous countries!

 

 

 

در سالگرد درگیریهای ارامنه قره باغ با آذریهای جمهوری آذربایجان ، عده ای ناشناس با اتوبوس به محل خلیفه گری ارامنه در تبریز آورده شدند و به این محل مذهبی تعرض کردند. سایتهای جدایی طالبان آذربایجانی نما نسبت به بازداشت متعرضین شدیدا اعتراض نموده اند.
اگرفرض کنیم که دولت ارمنستان واقعا علیه آذریها جنایت روا داشته است ؛ جای این پرسش باقی است که یک اقلیت مذهبی تابع کشور ایران [ارامنه] چرا باید تاوان اعمال یک دولت [دولت ارمنستان] را بپردازند؟ آیا هیچگاه در تاریخ معاصر ایران ، حتی در هنگامه جنگ و انقلاب ، مردم ایران به بهانه اعمال دولت اسرائیل ، اقلیت کلیمی ایرانی را مورد تعرض قرار دادند یا خیر؟

جریانی که در ظاهر خود را حامی اقلیت میشناساند (قوم پرستی ترک ) چطور خود با خشونت غیرقابل توجیه با یک اقلیت دینی روبرو میشود؟

آیا امثال این وقایع صحت گفته های ما را ثابت نمیکند که همزیستی و همدلی اقوام ، گروه های مختلف دینی ، سیاسی و طبقاتی تنها در سایه باوربه ملیت ایرانی قابل تحقق است؟

 

 

Babak Khorramdin, an Iranian who fought against the Caliphs and their Turkish Soldiers

In the last 5 years or so, pan-turkists have all the sudden found Baba Khorramdin in Iranian history and have attempted to appropriate him into Turkic history.  They claim that hundreds of thousands (and some sites millions) of people show up every year in the Babak ceremony.  The fact of the matter is that the area is very narrow and can not hold million or even one hundred thousand people.  We have already seen exaggeration of demographic figures, other exaggerations by pan-turkists are normal.  Referring to the pan-Turkist ceremony, Asgharzadeh writes:


“A glaring manifestation of this resurgent movement can be witnessed in powerful displays of strength, mobilization, and determination that have been taking place for the past decade in commemoration of die birth­day of ancient Azeri hero, Babak Khorramdin.”(pg 19)

 

 

The fact of the matter is that Babak was not a Turkic hero.  He was Persian.  This has been clearly explained in the article below:

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/famous/babak_khorramdin/babakpasokhbehanirani.htm

 

 

Indeed it is worth reviewing some primary and secondary sources.

 

Oxford scholar and Professor M. Whittow states:

 

''Azerbaijan was the scene of frequent anti-caliphal and anti-Arab revolts during the eighth and ninth centuries, and Byzantine sources talk of Persian warriors seeking refuge in the 830s from the caliph's armies by taking service under the Byzantine emperor Theophilos. [...] Azerbaijan had a Persian population and was a traditional centre of the Zoroastrian religion. [...] The Khurramites were a [...] Persian sect, influenced by Shiite doctrines, but with their roots in a pre-Islamic Persian religious movement.''(The Making of Byzantium: 600-1025"'', Berkley: University of California Press, pp. 195, 203, 215)

 

Armenian historian  Vardan Arewelts’i, ca. 1198-1271 notes:

 

In these days, a man of the PERSIAN race, named Bab, who had went from Baltat killed many of the race of Ismayil(what Armenians called Arabs) by sword and took many slaves and thought himself to be immortal.  ..Ma'mun for 7 years was battling in the Greek territorties and ..came back to mesopotamia.  (La domination arabe en Armènie, extrait de l’ histoire universelle de Vardan, traduit de l’armènian et annotè , J. Muyldermans, Louvain et Paris, 1927, pg 119: ''En ces jours-lá, un homme de la race PERSE, nomm é Bab, sortant de Baltat, faiser passer par le fil de l’épée beaucoup de la race d’Ismayēl tandis qu’il..''.  Actual Armenian Grabar:

Havoursn haynosig ayr mi hazkes Barsitz Pap anoun yelyal i Baghdada, arganer zpazoums i sour suseri hazken Ismayeli, zpazoums kerelov. yev anser zinkn anmah. yev i mium nvaki sadager yeresoun hazar i baderazmeln youroum ent Ismayeli)

 

Ibn Hazm (994-1064), the Arab historian  mentions the different Iranian revolts against the Caliphate in his book Al-fasl fil al-Milal wal-Nihal.  He writes: ''The Persians had the great land expanse and were greater than all other people.. Among their leaders were Sanbadh, Muqanna', Ostadsis and Babak and others.”

See here for the actual Arabic quote:

http://www.azargoshnasp.net/famous/babak_khorramdin/babakpasokhbehanirani.htm

 

More interestingly, the people who fought against Babak were mainly Turks themselves.  Most of the soldiers of the caliphates were recruited from Turkish mercernaries and slaves from Central Asia and Khazaria.  The number of Turkic soldiers in the caliphs service is estimated to be at least 70,000 for that time.  Amongst these Turkish soldiers were Bugha, Ashnas, Aytakh and according to some sources even Afshin.  Babak Khorramdin in one of his letters writes to emperor Theophilus:

 

One of his comments to the Byzantine emperor Theophilus (r. 829-42) reads:

“Mo’atem has no one else left, so he sent his tailor and his Turkish cook to fight me”

(Encyclopedia Iranica, "Babak Khorrami" by G.H. Yusofi)

 

Indeed to delve into half Turkish caliphs like Mot’asem and their use of Turkish mercenaries in Iran and caucasia is outside of the scope of this article.  For example one Armenian author writes:

 

“The caliph sent a new army, under the command of Bugha, a barbarous general, who ravaged the country, massacred tens of thousands of people, and deported most of the Armenian nobles to Samarra.”

(A. J. (Agop Jack) Hacikyan, Nourhan Ouzounian, Gabriel Basmajian, Edward S. Franchuk, The Heritage of Armenian Literature, Wayne State University Press, 2002. pg 38)

 

So Babak Khorramdin being used as an icon of pan-Turkism is similar historical distortion to the use of Medes as an icon for pan-Turkism.  These sort of distortions simply show that ethnic fascism will distort the history of any historical figure in order to achieve its aim.

 

The slogans in the Babak Khorramdin castle and foreign flags carried there in leaves no doubt that such an event had foreign guidance.  Why else would there be flags raised that are not the flags of Iran?  Or why else would there be slogans against Persians, Armenians, Kurds, Russians? 

 

 

Foreign Interference

 

Despite the claim of Alireza Asgharzadeh that there is no foreign influence in inciting ethnic groups towards ethnic hatred in Iran, examples of foreign interference are abundant.

 

British meddling in Khuzestan

Elton L. Daniel comments on the British support of Shaykh Khazal( Elton L. Daniel, The History of Iran, Greenwood Press, 2000, pg 133):

“The British certainly regarded him as a key protege in the web of petty emirates they had created around their interests in the Persian Gulf . Khazal had refused to pay taxes, written the Majles to complain that Reza Khan was a menace to the shah, and plotted to have Khuzistan incorporated as part of the British mandate in Iraq ; Britain warned Reza Khan against intervening and sent gunships to the area. Unintimidated, Reza Khan called the bluff and marched on Mohammareh in person. In the end, the British were more concerned about damage to their oil in¬stallations than Sheikh Khazal's autonomy and did nothing to defend him. He quickly surrendered and was later arrested and sent into a com¬fortable exile in Tehran . Probably no other event so enhanced Reza Khan's reputation as his willingness to confront the British lion in one of its chief lairs.”

 

Sir Dennis Wright, an honorary fellow of St. Edmund Hall and St. Antony’s college and the British ambassador to Iran from 1963-1971 describes the British meddling in Iranian affairs through the support of Shaykh khazal(Sir Denis Wright, The English Amongst the Persians: Imperial Lives in Nineteenth-Century Iran, I.B.Tauris, 2001):

“The Persian Government were less impressed. They had long been distrustful of the Shaikh's close relations with the British, whose ships, as they steamed up the Shatt al-Arab past his palace, had for years fired a salute in memory of some helpful action by his father. Shaikh Khazal, who had no love for the Persian authorities, had deliberately neglected seeking the permission of the Shah, whose subject he was, before accepting his British decoration. Not surprisingly the Tehran press were critical of his behavior while the Persian Govern¬ment correctly suspected that, in addition to the K.C.I.E., he had reached some understanding with the British for the protection of his semi-independent position. When in December 1910, three months after the investiture, the Persian Minister for Foreign Affairs asked the British Minister in Tehran whether it was true that the Shaikh enjoyed the British Government's protection, he was told that the Shaikh was not a British Protected Person but that the British had special relations with him and in the event of any encroachment on his rights they would give him their support. The Persian Government were at the time far too weak to react strongly to this admission of British support for one of their more independent and powerful tribal chiefs. For their part the British had given their assurances reluctantly to an importunate Shaikh in the knowledge that without his goodwill Britain 's political and commercial interests in southern Persia were at risk, since the authority of the Tehran Government in those parts was totally ineffective. In 1919, at the end of World War I, the British Government presented the Shaikh with a river steamer for his services during the war: they also gave him 3,000 rifles and ammunition to enable him to protect the installations of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and cover die withdrawal of British forces from Khuzistan. But neither these nor the 1910 promise, albeit carefully qualified of support ‘in the event of any encroachment by the Persian Government your jurisdiction and recognised rights, or on your property in Persia' were of any avail against the determined centralising policy of Reza Shah, in whose hands Shaikh Khazal died a virtual prisoner in 1936.”

Ottomon interference and pan-Turkism

 

As already noted by Professor. Atabaki(Touraj Atabaki, “Recasting Oneself, Rejecting the Other: Pan-Turkism and Iranian Nationalism” in Van Schendel, Willem(Editor). Identity Politics in Central Asia and the Muslim World: Nationalism, Ethnicity and Labour in the Twentieth Century. London, GBR: I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited, 2001.)”: In the middle of April 1918, the Ottoman army invaded Azerbaijan for the second time. Yusuf Zia, a local coordinator of the activities of the Teshkilat-i Mahsusa (Special Organization) 30 in the region, was appointed political adviser to the Ottoman contingent in Iran. Soon, the Teshkilaˆt-i Mahsusa introduced a small pan-Turkist party in Tabriz(31), together with the publication of an Azerbaijani-language newspaper called Azarabadegan, which was the Ottomans’ main instrument for propagating pan-Turkism throughout the province. The editorship of the newspaper was offered to Taqi Rafat, a local Azerbaijani who later became known for his vanguard role in effecting innovations in Persian literature.   Contrary to their expectations, however, the Ottomans did not achieve impressive success in Azerbaijan. Although the province remained under quasi-occupation by Ottoman troops for months, attempting to win endorsement for pan-Turkism ended in failure.

…

In the recently born state of Turkey, the Turk Ocagi activists strove to find a new home under the self-restrained Kemalist regime. In 1923, the Turkish magazine Yeni Mecmu’a (the New Journal) reported on a conference about Azerbaijan, held by Turk Ocagi in Istanbul. During the conference, Roshani Barkin, an ex-member of Teshkilat-I Mahsusa and an eminent pan-Turkist, condemned the Iranian government for its oppressive and tyrannical policies towards the Azerbaijanis living in Iran.  He called on all Azerbaijanis in Iran to unite with the new-born Republic of Turkey.”

 

USSR interference and Pishevari:

 

The Ferqeh democrat will be dealt with in another chapter.  But it is worth a mention here.

 

For example, in a cable sent on July 6th 1945 by the ''Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union'', the Secretary of the Communist Party of Soviet Azerbaijan was instructed as such:

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=va2.document&identifier=5034F21E-96B6-175C-91FB9BFAF40CE44F&sort=Collection&item=1945-46%20Iranian%20Crisis

 



TOP SECRET

To Cde. Bagirov

Measures to Organize a Separatist Movement in Southern Azerbaijan and Other Provinces in Northern Iran

1. Consider it advisable to begin preparatory work to form a national autonomous Azerbaijan district [oblast’] with broad powers within the Iranian state.
At the same time develop a separatist movement in the provinces of Gilyan, Mazandaran, Gorgan, and Khorasan.

2. Establish a democratic party in Southern Azerbaijan under the name “Azerbaijan Democratic Party” with the objective of guiding the separatist movement. The creation of the Democratic Party in Southern Azerbaijan is to be done by a corresponding reorganization of the Azerbaijani branch of the People’s Party of Iran and drawing into it supporters of the separatist movement from all strata of the population.

3. Conduct suitable work among the Kurds of northern Iran to draw them into the separatist movement to form a national autonomous Kurdish district.

4. Establish in Tabriz a group of responsible workers to guide the separatist movement, charging them with coordinating [kontaktirovat’] their work with the USSR General Consulate in Tabriz.
Overall supervision of this group is entrusted to Bagirov and Yakubov.

5. Entrust the Azerbaijan CP(b) CC (Bagirov and Ibragimov) with developing preparatory work to hold elections in Southern Azerbaijan to the 15th Convocation of the Iranian Majlis, ensuring the election of deputies who are supporters of the separatist movement on the basis of the following slogans:

a) Allotment of land to the peasants from state and large landowning holdings and awarding long-term monetary credit to the peasants;

b) Elimination of unemployment by the restoration and expansion of work at enterprises and also by developing road construction and other public works;

c) Improvement of the organization of public amenities of cities and the public water supply;

d) Improvement in public health;

e) Use of no less than 50% of state taxes for local needs;

f) Equal rights for national minorities and tribes: opening schools and publication of newspapers and books in the Azerbaijani, Kurdish, Armenian, and Assyrian languages; court proceedings and official communications in local institutions in their native language; creating a provincial administration, including the gendarmerie and police, from local national elements; formation of regional, district, and city enjumens [and] local self-governing bodies.

g) Radical improvement in Soviet-Iranian relations.

 

 

According to Taduesz Swietochowski: ''As it turned out, the Soviets had to recognize that their ideas on Iran were premature. The issue of Iranian Azerbaijan became one of the opening skirmishes of the Cold War, and, largely under the Western powers' pressure, Soviet forces withdrew in 1946. The autonomous republic collapsed soon afterward, and the members of the Democratic Party took  refuge in the Soviet Union, fleeing Iranian revenge..  In Tabriz, the crowds that had just recently applauded the autonomous republic were now greeting the returning Iranian troops, and Azerbaijani students publicly burned their native-language textbooks. The mass of the population was obviously not ready even for a regional self-government so long as it smacked of separatism.''(Swietochowski, Tadeusz 1989. "Islam and the Growth of National Identity in Soviet Azerbaijan", Kappeler, Andreas, Gerhard Simon, Georg Brunner eds. Muslim Communities Reemerge: Historical Perspective on Nationality, Politics, and Opposition in the Former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 46-60.)

 

Saddam Hussein and Khuzestan

 

Professor Efraim Kash states:”Nor did Saddam’s territorial go beyond the Shatt al-Aran and a small portion of the southern region of Khuzestan, where he hoped, the substantial Arab minority would rise against their Iranian “Oppressors”.  This did not happen.  The underground Arab organization in Khuzestan proved to be a far cry from the mass movement anticipated by the Iraqis, and Arab masses remained conspicuously indifferent to their would-be liberators”(Efraim Karsh, The Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988, Osprey Publishing, 2002, pg 27.)

 

According to Amanda Roraback(Amanda Roraback, Iran In A Nutshell, Enisen Publishing, pg 30):

“The Islamic Revolution posed a great threat to the regime of Saddam Hussein who had become president in July 1979. Its religious overtones threatened Hussein's secular government and he feared that the revolutionary spirit would provoke ethnic Kurds in the north and Iraq 's majority Shi'ite population in the south to rise up against his Sunni Baathist regime. To thwart such an uprising, Hussein exiled thousands of Iraqi Shi'iles to Iran and quickly and brutally suppressed any dissension among the Kurds.  At the same time. Hussein saw an opportunity to lake advantage of Iran 's instability during its political transition and the weakness of its military (which had been decimated through regular purges of military officers once loyal to the former regime) in order to seize Iran 's oil-rich, primarily Arab-populated Khuzestan province. Hussein had wrongly expected the Iranian Arabs to join the Arab Iraqi forces and win a quick victory for Iraq.”

 

Separatist Arab groups condemened Iran and cried when Saddam was executed by the will of the Iraqi people.  After the demise of Saddam and given the fact that Kurds and Shi’ites are strong in modern Iraq, pan-Arabism has seen less support in Iran although other backers might come by.  It should be noted that Arabic is thought as a mandatory subject (both classical and modern) to all Iranian pupils but pan-Turkists never complain about this mandatory subject and their whole aim is the Persian language which was made official through the democtratic process of 1906.

 

The republic of Azerbaijan

 

According to the Pro-Azerbaijani republic source, Svante Cornell mentions:

 

As the leader of Azerbaijani Popular Front (APF), the historian Abulfazl Elchibey, came to power in June 1992, Azerbaijan turned increasingly towards Turkey. Indeed, Elchibey was decidedly Pro-Turkish, secularly oriented, pan-Azeri and vehemently anti-Iranian. This meant that Tehran had exactly the kind of government in Baku that it did not wish to have. President Elchibey did not show any diplomatic tact either. On several occasions, he blasted Iran as a doomed state and predicted that within five years, Azerbaijan would be reunited. It remains clear that during the Elchibey's rule, Iran drifted towards close contacts with Armenia.

(Svante Cornell, "Small nations and great powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus", Richmond : Curzon Press, 2001)

 

The West

 

Brenda Shaffer has already been mentioned.  It is worth mentioning the clandestine Israeli backed radio “voice of South Azerbaijan” which has been exposed in this article:

 

http://www.qsl.net/yb0rmi/vosa.htm

 

The article is quoted in this response since it is a clear example of foreign interference to agitate ethnic discord in Iran.

 

http://www.qsl.net/yb0rmi/cri.jpg

Investigative Report:

Voice of Southern Azerbaijan

By Nick Grace C., March, 1998

Revised April, 1998

 

http://www.qsl.net/yb0rmi/fnisa.jpg

 
The Voice of Southern Azerbaijan (VOSA), active since 1996 with broadcasts against Iran from an undisclosed transmitting location, is quickly becoming an intriguing story.  A story that not only includes oil and politics, but also espionage, the Mossad, and players from the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980's.
 
When it was first heard, radio monitors assumed that it was broadcasting from Turkmenistan, however, an Israeli connection slowly came to light as more people tuned in.  According to monitor Nikolai Pashkevich in Russia, "when I tuned in my receiver to this channel I found an open carrier with 'Reshet Bet'... on the background and then VOSA signing on" (CDX 180). Reshet Bet  is, of course, a news service of Israel Radio.  The German Telecommunications department has also pinpointed VOSA's location to be somewhere around Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia (BCDX 351.)  Cumbre DX founder Hans Johnson notes in Cumbre 179 that the station "switches to DST the same time that Israel does," marking Israel as the primary target (CDX 179.)
 

http://www.qsl.net/yb0rmi/rashet.jpg

Rashet Bet office (courtesy of Rashet Bet)

 
Further evidence surfaced in April 1998 when a "mixing product" was observed between VOSA programs and KOL Israel transmissions.  A "mixing product" is an extraneous signal that is produced when two transmissions are made in close physical proximity.  This "product" has been heard on 21425 kHz.  Wolfgang Bueschel states in DX Window 111 that at the same time VOSA is on the air between 1530 and 1630 UTC, KOL Israel transmits on 17535, 15650, and 11605 kHz.  When the first KOL frequency is multiplied twice and then subtracted by the "product" frequency, VOSA frequency mathmetically appears: 13645 kHz. (DXW 111)  Of all the evidence, this is clearly the most compelling.
 
If this is the case, then VOSA is clearly supervised and arranged by Israel's intelligence agency: the Mossad.  Both Kai Ludwig and this author made the connection after reports began to surface in late February 1998.  But the story becomes more complicated and interesting.
 
According to Wolfgang Bueschel in BCDX 351, "Mr. Vafa Culuzadeh, adviser of former Azerbaijan President Ebulfez Elicibey, told the Italian press agency IPS in October 1992 from Baku, that the Israelian secret service specialist David Kimche and... Richard Secord, who was involved in the Iran-Contra-Affair, visited Azerbaijan, (and) presented a delegation of more Israelian secret service personnel. Mr. Culuzadeh took part on a return visit to Israel, (and) lead a delegation of Azerbaijan/Uzbek/Kazakh secret services" (BCDX 351.)
 
Vafa Culuzadeh, despite the quote above, is an adviser to the current Azeri president (Heydar Aliyev), and has been an important negotiator between Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as between Armenia and secessionists from Nagorno-Karabakh.
 
David Kimche is a 30-year veteran of the Mossad and was an important force behind the Reagan administration's arms-for hostages swap with Iran and its secret aid to the Nicaraguan rebels (coined Iran-Contra.)  In fact, it was Kimche who helped to organize the Contras, who supplied them with Israeli military advisers, who sold the US government Palestinian weapons Israel had seized in 1982, and who claimed he could get access to the hostage-takers in Lebanon.  He was not indicted because of diplomatic scuffling between Israel and the United States.  Kimche was the former Director General of the Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and currently heads the Israel Council on Foreign Relations.  He is also on the Board of Directors for Israel's International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism (ICT)).

 
Retired Air Force Major General Richard Secord was also a key player during the Iran-Contra scandal.  He earned his wings while flying for "Air America," the CIA covert paramilitary operation in Laos that supplied local Hmong tribes with arms and training to counter the Communist Laotian regime.  He wrote a memoir, "Honored and Betrayed: Irangate, Covert Affairs, and the Secret War in Laos," in 1992 to detail his involvement with the CIA and service to the American government.  He was one of the Iran-Contra players who set up the "Enterprise," the company outside of the CIA that earned money and lined the pockets for those involved.
 
The involvement, if any, of the above three individuals with VOSA is unknown at the present time.  It is interesting to note, however, that the address VOSA announces in Austria is addresses as "Vosa, Ltd."  Both Secord and Kimche made money off of Iran-Contra arms sales.  Could the organizers of VOSA also be making money?
 

Front for the National Independence of South Azerbaijan

 
Azeris are the second largest ethnic group within Iran, therefore, any attempt to organize them against the Iranian government would be perilous for the country.  (Ramezanzadeh.)  In fact, Human Rights Watch reports that between 15 and 20 million Azeris reside in Iran, and that they "inhabit a strategically important, prosperous area in northwest Iran, relatively close to Tehran" (HRW.)  In 1996, the nightmare for Iran started to become a reality when four Southern Azerbaijani (Iranian) political parties merged under the umbrella of the Front for the National Independence of South Azerbaijan (FNISA.)  The government in Tehran, however, claims that Azerbaijan should be incorporated into Iranian territory since it was once part of ancient Persia.  "The Azarbaijan Republic once was ours.  So, if there is any talk of unification of the two Azarbaijans, it is they who should come back to Iran .... Some agents of world arrogance are trying to damage our national unity by spreading secessionist sentiments in our region," Ayatollah Mohsen Shabestary stated during Friday prayer in Tabriz, May 1996 (ibid.)
 
Iranian government officials often alledge Turkish involvement with FNISA - not Israeli nor the Mossad.  However, a recent scandal developed between Israel and Switzerland after Mossad officials were caught engaging in espionage against Iranians (Schlein.)
 
Radio VOSA announces two telephone numbers at the beginning of their broadcasts, reportedly at 1633 GMT.  Wolfgang Bueschel writes that he has called one of the numbers and reached an answering machine in the Azeri language (BCDX 351.)  According to the BBCM, representatives for the station say that its programs are about "the daily life of the people of Southern Azerbaijan under Iranian oppression, the struggles of our brothers who live in Northern Azerbaijan (Republic of Azerbaijan), their long standing war with the Armenian enemy who receives help from Iran, programmes about our Azeri inheritance, our great history and civilization..." (ibid.)
 
The address VOSA announces is: Vosa Ltd., Postfach 108, A-1193 Vienna, Austria, and the telephone number is: +31 307-192189.
 
Listeners may try to hear broadcasts of VOSA during the following time frames:

 

Time

Frequency

0615-0715

11934.9 kHz

1630-1730

7095 kHz

 

This article will be updated as more developments unfold.

Bibliography

 
"David Kimche."  ICT Board of Directors.
"Iran: Religious and Ethnic Minorities."  Human Rights Watch / Middle East.  September 1997.
"Two Azerbaijan (North and South): A Common Past and a Common Future."  Qurtulus Homepage.
BCDX 351, March 1, 1998.
Cumbre DX 180, March 5, 1998.
DX Window 111, April 12, 1998.
Ramezanzadeh, Abdollah.  "Iran's Role as Mediator in the Nagorno-Karabakh Crisis."  Contested Borders, Chapter VII.
Schlein, Lisa.  "Israeli Spies."  VOA News.  February 26, 1998.

 

 

The Iranian government has accused western governments specially the USA of attempting to de-destabilize Iran through the formation of ethnic tensions. (Iran slams US comments on detainees , Tue, 05 Jun 2007 , Press TV (http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=12131&sectionid=351020101).  Western newspapers and Western editors as well as reports that quote former CIA operative have confirmed this accusation.  Seymour Hersh brought widespread attention to claims of covert operations in Iran when he reported in an April 2006 New Yorker article that US troops in Iran were recruiting local ethnic populations, including the Azeris, to encourage local tensions that could undermine the regime.  According to Seymour Hersh: “As of early winter, I was told by the government consultant with close ties to civilians in the Pentagon, the units were also working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris, in the north, the Baluchis, in the southeast, and the Kurds, in the northeast..” (Seymour M. Hersh, the Iran Plam, the New York , April 2006).  Former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter has recently suggested that the US military is setting up the infrastructure for an enormous military presence in Azerbaijan that will be utilised for a land-based campaign designed to capture Tehran .   He also believes CIA paramilitary operatives and US Special Forces are training Azerbaijani forces into special force units capable of operating within Iran  in order to mobilize the large Azeri ethnic minority within Iran .(Simon Whelan, Bush courts Azerbaijani President as Part of Build-Up against Iran , Global Research, May 9, 2006).

 

In September 7, 2004, in a veiled threat to Iran , Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage said: “Iran is much more difficult. There are some things internal to Iran that one has to look at. Demographics are one. The Persians are almost a minority in their own country now -- they're like 52% or something. There are many more Azeris in Tabriz than there are in Azerbaijan , just for the record. So that has an effect over time of changing things.” ( Iran : A Tougher Nut than North Korea September 7, 2004, http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/sep2004/nf2004097_2792_db052.htm)

 

 

Pentagon officials have also met with Azerbaijani Separatist Chehregani. ( http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030603-103140-3533r.htm)

 

 

 

 

According to James Woolsey, former director of CIA, in Iran only a bare majority are Persian.  Furthermore, James Woosely suggests that Washington should also need to pay attention to its geographic and ethnic fissures - for example, a large share of Iran's oil is located in the restive Arab-populated regions in Iran's south.( David Eshel, Ethnic Opposition on the rise in Iran, http://www.defenseupdate.com/newscast/0307/analysis/analysis-070307.htm) Iason Athanasiadis, in his article stirring the ethnic potâ quotes a CIA operative: “I continuously scripted possible covert action mischief in my mind. Iranian Azerbaijan was rich in possibilities. Accessible through Turkey and ex-Soviet Azerbaijan , eyed already by nationalists in Baku , more Westward-looking than most of Iran , and economically going nowhere, Iran 's richest agricultural province was an ideal covert action theater”.  Iason Athanasiadis continues:”In his book Know Thine Enemy , Gerecht penetrates Iran with the help of an Azeri-Iranian accomplice as he mulls over ways to destabilize its clerical regime. From cultivating high-ranking Azeris to inciting separatist Kurds to fostering divisive clerical rivalry between the holy Shi'ite cities of Najaf in Iraq and Qom in Iran , Gerecht constantly mentally prods methods of destabilizing the Islamic republic.”( Iason Athanasiadis, Stirring the ethnic pot, Asian Times, April 29, 2005 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD29Ak01.html)  The Newspaper Sunday Telegraph of the UK , in an article title US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran written in 25/02/2007 has said:

“In a move that reflects Washington's growing concern with the failure of diplomatic initiatives, CIA officials are understood to be helping opposition militias among the numerous ethnic minority groups clustered in Iran's border regions.  The operations are controversial because they involve dealing with movements that resort to terrorist methods in pursuit of their grievances against the Iranian regime… Funding for their separatist causes comes directly from the CIA's classified budget but is now "no great secret", according to one former high-ranking CIA official in Washington who spoke anonymously to The Sunday Telegraph.  His claims were backed by Fred Burton, a former US state department counter-terrorism agent, who said: "The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran 's ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime.”(William Lowther in Washington DC and Colin Freeman, Sunday Telegraph, 25/02/2007,  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/25/wiran25.xml)

 

 

In a very recent article:

Peter Giraldi, former CIA counter terrorism officer explicity states:” Giraldi spoke of the United States' hypocritical and illegal support for terrorist separatists groups inside Iran” and “Giraldi talked of US's support for Jundullah which he described as a Sunni Baluchi separatist group in eastern Iran that has launched deadly terrorist attacks inside Iran. He also spoke of US support for separatists amongst the Arab minority which is closer to the border with Iraq.”

 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6434

 

Cartoon issue

Alireza Asgharzadeh in the end of Chapter I refers to the recent cartoon controversy.

 

An eyewitness Iranian from Maragheh has responded perfectly to this issue and has shown the clear foreign influence.  What is important is that this year, the number of people that showed in the anniverasy of the event was miniscule.  Indeed some people the year before might have thought that Iran newspaper insulted the Azeris of Iran.  But this year , it was not so.  Also some of the slogans of last year including “Fars dili it Dili” (Persian is the language of the dog), “Rus o Fars o Armani, Azerbaijani Dushmani”(Russian, Persians and Armenians, the enemies of Azerbaijans), Kurds are our guests and etc. clearly showed a fascist and pan-Turkist movement which is guided from outside.  Indeed attacks on Armenian stores in Tabriz which had nothing to do with the cartoon further illustrates this point.  It should be noted that Iran’s regime due to its lack of care with regards to Iranian nationhood has given pan-Turkists a free ride in brainwashing a portion of the youth of Azerbaijan in Iran.  These youths hold their hands like the grey wolves of Turkey, howl and are full of hatred with regards to Armenians, Kurds, Persians and other Iranians.    It should be noted that to any neutral observer , there was nothing insulting in the cartoon.  The cockroach spoke both Persian and Persian slang.  Namana, although originally an Azeri word has entered Tehrani slang and is used by the average Tehrani without them knowing the origin of the word.  The pan-Turkists used this word as an execuse to burn banks and yell slogans full of hatred.  The growth of pan-Turkism is a fact though, but it should be remembered that pan-Turkism can at most gain ground amongst the Turkic speaking minority in Iran which is no more than 20%.  The majority of Azerbaijanis will not gravitate towards Pan-Turkism.  Also Iran can easily find allies in the region who are under pan-Turkist threats. 

 

Here is a picture of the cockroach speaking Persian:

 

Image:Azeri Cartoon Persian speaking cockroach .jpg

 

 

Using the key words "dialogue" (گفتمان), and "violence" (خشونت ورزی) plus mentioning the problems in understanding their own conversation , is pointing to the reformist's nomenclature vs. conservatives in Iran .  The famous reformist motto "Diologue between Civilizations” that former president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami was insisting on it , was a source of criticism among intelligentsia , because they thought when it was not possible to have dialogue and mutual understanding between Iranians themselves (conservative-reformist) , how would that be possible to have such a conversation between Iran and the western civilizations? 

 

Thus the cockroach issue was simply misused by pan-turkists to burn banks and vent anger at other Iranian ethnic groups.  Given the small number of people that showed up this year, it seems that many people are understanding the aims of pan-Turkists groups.  Let us hope so.  We will quote the report and commentary of the Iranian from Azerbaijan who was eyewitness.

 

 

 

سوسك‌ها و پان‌ترك‌ها

درج طنزي كودكانه در روزنامه‌ي ايران 22 ارديبهشت ماه گذشته، بهانه و بستره‌اي – اگرچه واهي – را فراهم آورد تا سرانجام اشرار تجزيه‌طلب و بيگانه‌پرست پان‌تركيست گوشه‌هايي از ماهيت واقعي خود و توطئه‌اي را كه ديرزماني است با پشتيباني مالي و معنوي واشنگتن و باكو، و با اتكا به جريان‌ساز‌ي‌هاي مزدوراني چون ناصر پورپيرار، براي فرروپاشي و تجزيه‌ي ايران تدارك ديده‌اند، برملا و آفتابي كنند.
غائله و اغتشاش كوري كه اشرار پا‌ن‌ترك به بهانه‌ي دروغين «اعتراض به توهين به اقوام» (!)، و با به ميدان آوردن مشتي عوام الناس مطلقاً ناآگاه و بي‌خبر از اصل ماجرا، در برخي از شهرهاي استان‌هاي ترك‌زبان برپا كردند، به خوبي پرده از ترفندهاي آنان براي عوام‌فريبي و آشوب‌گري برداشته است. وطن‌فروشان پان‌ترك، در ضمن اغتشاشات خياباني خود، با تعرض به جان و مال مردم، تخريب اموال عمومي، تاراج مغازه‌ها و حمله به بانك‌ها و ادارات، نشان دادند كه خواست و آماج واقعي مكتب جعل و جهل و فريب (پان‌تركيسم) چيست و حاميان و رهبران بيگانه‌ي آنان چه نقشه‌هاي شومي را براي گسترش ناامني و ضربه زدن به اقتدار و عزّت كشور و ملت ايران، تدراك ديده‌اند. اگرچه مي‌دانند و مي‌دانيم كه ملت بزرگ ايران، به ويژه ايرانيان آذري، همواره در برابر توطئه‌هاي پليد بيگانگان بدخواه هشيار بوده‌اند، و هر گاه كه دشمنان ايران به گوشه‌اي از اين خاك گهربار چشم طمع دوخته‌اند، تا واپسين قطره‌‌ي خون خويش از اين مرز و بوم دفاع كرده‌ و حتا يك وجب از خاك خويش را به دشمن واننهاده‌اند. درسي كه شوروي كمونيست در دهه‌ي 20 و عراق بعثي در دهه‌ي 60 از هجوم به ايران بزرگ گرفتند، از يادها نخواهد رفت.
اما در پيوند با رويدادهاي اخير، بايد به چندين نكته اشاره كنم:
1- واقعيت آشكار آن است كه داستان طنز روزنامه‌ي ايران هيچ گونه ارتباطي با ترك‌زبان يا هر گروه ديگري ندارد و نمي‌تواند داشته باشد. موضوع اين داستان، شرح حال زيست‌شناختي و بوم‌شناختي سوسك (بلاي جان بسياري از مردم شهرهاي بزرگ) به زباني طنز و كودكانه است، و هيچ يك از توصيفات آن را نمي‌توان با انسان يا گروهي از انسان‌ها مطابقت داد. البته اگر كسي وجود داشته باشد كه خود را «سوسك» بپندارد و در نتيجه گمان كندكه محتواي داستان ياد شده بدو اشاره دارد، اين ديگر مشكل خود اوست! متأسفانه اكثريت قريب به اتفاق كساني كه به بهانه‌ي اين مطلب در اغتشاشات اخير شركت كرده بودند، متن آن را نخوانده و تنها به القائات داعيان پان‌تركيسم گوش سپرده بودند.
اما كارتون همراه اين داستان نيز حاوي توهين به صاحبان هيچ زبان و گويشي نيست و اين تصور كه كارتون مورد بحث ترك‌زبانان را به سوسك تشبيه كرده، مطلقاً خطا و اشتباه است. در متن داستان گفته مي‌شود كه: «دستور زبان سوسكي هم آن قدر سخته (هنوز هيچ كس درست نفهميده كدوم فعل‌هاشون ing مي‌گيره) كه هشتاد درصد خود سوسك‌هام بلد نيستن و ترجيح مي‌دن به زبون‌هاي ديگه حرف بزنن». در كارتون مورد بحث نيز به همين موضوع اشاره شده و در آن، پسربچه‌اي با زبان «سوسكي» به سوسك مي‌گويد كه: «soosoo soosking sisko sooski sooskung». اما چنان كه در متن گفته شده، چون سوسك زبان خود را درست نمي‌فهمد، از حرف‌هاي پسربچه سر در نمي‌آورد و به زباني ديگر (در اين جا: تركي) به سادگي مي‌گويد: «چي؟!» (به تركي: نمنه). بنابراين زبان سوسك، همان زباني است كه پسربچه بدان سخن گفته و ing دار است (مانند زبان انگليسي!)، و نه، مثلاً زبان تركي، كه سوسك در اين جا ناگزير به استفاده از آن شده است. بر اين اساس، روشن است كه كارتون مورد بحث، نه زبان سوسك‌ها را تركي دانسته است و نه ترك‌‌زبانان را به سوسك شباهت داده است. اما نكته‌ي بسيار مهمي كه در لابه‌لاي غوغاگري‌هاي اشرار تجزيه‌طلب پان‌ترك از چشم‌ها پنهان ماند، آن است كه در يكي ديگر از كارتون‌هاي همين داستان، سوسك بي‌نوا، هنگامي كه با پر غلغلك داده مي‌شود، جمله‌اي را به زبان فارسي ادا مي‌كند و مي‌گويد: «نه، جون مادرت، هي هي!». http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7980/147/320/susk.jpgاگر قرار باشد صرف بيان يك واژه‌ي تركي از زبان سوسك، توهين به ترك‌زبانان عالم انگاشته شود و چنين غائله‌اي به پا شود، پس فارسي‌زبانان دنيا نيز بايد اداي يك جمله‌فارسي از زبان سوسك را توهيني بزرگ به خود بدانند و همه جا را به آشوب بكشند؟ اما واقعيت آن است كه هيچ فارسي زباني چنين نكرد! در هر حال آشكار است كه در اين جا نيز بر مبناي متن داستان، سوسك به جهت ندانستن زبان soosking خود، باز ناگزير شده به زباني ديگر (در اين جا: فارسي) سخن بگويد. به همين سادگي! البته واضح است كه براي اشرار تجزيه‌طلب اساساً متن و محتواي اين داستان مهم نبوده و عوام نيز كه اصلاً اطلاعي از اصل موضوع نداشته‌اند. آنان فقط در پي اغتشاش و خرابكاري بودند و متأسفانه روزنامه‌ي ايران و طراح هنرمند و آذري آن، مانا نيستاني، قرباني توطئه‌ي از پيش طراحي و برنامه‌ريزي شده‌ي پان‌ترك‌هاي آشوبگر شد.
2- يكي از اهداف اشرار پان‌تركيست از برپايي اغشاشات اخير (علاوه بر تلاش براي القاي اين توهم كه در ايران ميان شهروندان مناطق مختلف كشور [به تعبير آنان: اقوام] اختلاف و درگيري عميقي وجود دارد و شهروندان يك منطقه از كشور [به تعبير آنان: قوم فارس!] به شهروندان منطقه‌اي ديگر [به تعبير آنان: قوم ترك!] پيوسته در حال توهين و ظلم و تعدي‌اند، و بنابراين بايد هر چه زودتر از اين كشور جدا و مستقل شد و خود را از اين شرّ اين درگيري‌ها و توهين‌ها و ستم‌ها رها كرد)، به راه انداختن مانوري عوام‌فريبانه و نيز امتيازگيري از دولت بوده است. چنان كه در غالب بيانيه‌هايي كه به مناسبت مسائل اخير از سوي گروه‌هاي قوم‌گرا و حتا از جانب شخصيت‌هاي سياسي آذري منتشر شد، پس از اعتراض به توهين خيالي روزنامه‌ي ايران، به ناگاه با لحني آمرانه و طلبكارانه درخواست تشكيل فرهنگستان زبان تركي، تدريس زبان تركي در مدارس، و توجه به آباداني و توسعه‌ي مناطق ترك‌زبان مطرح شده است! اين همه ادعا در حالي است كه ايرانيان ترك‌زبان %20 كل جمعيت ايران را تشكيل مي‌دهند و اين حقيقت جواز راه‌اندازي فرهنگستان زبان تركي و تدريس زبان تركي را در مدارس (يا تبديل شدن زبان تركي به دومين زبان ملي ايران، چنان كه پان‌ترك‌ها مي‌گويند) به هيچ كس نمي‌دهد. آيا تاكنون در ايالات متحده‌ي امريكا يا كانادا به سبب وجود جمعيت پرشمار چيني‌زبان، فرهنگستان زبان چيني برپا شده يا زبان چيني در مدارس آنان تدريس مي‌شود؟! روشن است كه تدريس زبان‌هاي محلي در مدارس امري كاملاً بي‌معنا است، چرا كه هر فردي زبان محلي خود را از گهواره‌ي خويش فرا مي‌گيرد، و لذا فقط زبان ملي است كه براي آشنايي همگان با آن، مي‌بايست در مدارس آموخته شود. اما بحث از فقر و توسعه‌نيافتگي مناطق ترك‌زبان (شمال غرب ايران) جز طنز و مطايبه چيز ديگري نمي‌تواند باشد؛ چرا كه علاوه بر ظواهر امر، آمارهاي رسمي نيز نشان مي‌دهند كه شمال غرب ايران يكي از آبادترين و توسعه‌يافته‌ترين و ثروت‌مندترين مناطق كشور است.
3- چنان كه مي‌دانيد، عنوان اصلي گذاشته شده به تيم ملي فوتبال ايران، ستارگان پارسي بود كه متأسفانه تحت تأثير اغتشاشات اخير و حتا اعتراضات برخي شخصيت‌هاي سياسي آذري، با طرح اين ادعا كه تيم ملي فوتبال ايران به «قوم» فارس (!) متعلق نيست و به همه‌ي «اقوام» ايران تعلق دارد، تغيير داده شد. اما حقيقتي كه قوم‌سازان و قوم‌‌پرستان و حتا بسياري از شخصيت‌هاي سياسي كشور از آن ناآگاه‌اند اين است كه در ايران چيزي به نام «قوم فارس»، يا هر قوم ديگري وجود ندارد. در چارچوب كشور ايران تنها و تنها «ملت ايران» و «مليت ايراني» موجود است و تفاوت‌هاي زباني و گويشي موجود ميان شهروندان مناطق مختلف كشور، فقط نشان دهنده‌ي وجود تنوع فرهنگي در كشور است و نه چيز ديگري. واحدي به نام «قوم فارس/ پارس» نزديك به دو هزار سال پيش در جامعه‌ي يك‌پارچه‌ي ايران تحليل رفت و از اين رو گفت‌وگو از «قوم فارس/ پارس» در ايران معاصر، بي‌معنا و فاقد موضوعيت است؛ و دقيقاً از اين رو است كه قوم‌سازان و تجزيه‌طلبان تاكنون نتوانسته‌اند مشخص كنند و توضيح دهند كه منظورشان از «قوم فارس» يا «فارس‌ها» دقيقاً چيست. اما از آن جا كه مهم‌ترين دودمان‌هاي پادشاهي ايران (هخامنشيان و ساسانيان) از ايالت پارس/ فارس برخاسته بودند، توسعاً، كل كشور ايران، چنان كه در متون كهن و ميانه‌ي يوناني، لاتيني، ارمني، سرياني، چيني، و فارسي – عربي دوران اسلامي مشاهده مي‌شود، از ديرباز و سنتاً پارس/ فارس/ فُرس خوانده مي‌شده است. حتا هنوز نيز در زبان‌هاي اروپايي از كشور ايران گاه با نام پارس (انگليسي: Persia؛ فرانسوي: ‍Perse) ياد مي‌شود و البته اگر خواست رضا پهلوي نبود، نام رسمي ايران در اسناد بين المللي هنوز پارس بود. بنابراين مشخص است كه عنوان پارسي / فارسي، منحصراً داراي مفهومي ملي است و نه قومي، و عنوان‌هاي چون ستارگان پارسي نيز به همه‌ي مردم ايران دلالت و اشاره دارد.
4- از جمله شعارهاي موهني كه اشرار تجزيه‌طلب در اغتشاشات خياباني اخير خود مي‌دادند، «مرگ بر ارمني» بود! همين نكته‌ي ظريف خود دليلي است روشن بر اين كه منشأ و سرچشمه‌ي اصلي آشوب‌هاي اخير جايي جز باكو، كه دولتمردان آن ارمنيان را دشمنان خود مي‌پندارند (و اسراييل را نزديك‌ترين دوست‌شان) نبوده است. بديهي است كه ايرانيان هيچ گاه با ملت دوست و برادر ارمنستان مشكلي نداشته‌اند، اما پان‌ترك‌هاي داخلي از آن رو كه خود را داراي ريشه و تبار ايراني نمي‌دانند بل كه خويشتن را با ترك‌زبانان قفقاز و اران هم‌خون و هم‌سرنوشت مي‌پندارند، طبيعي است كه همواره و به هر مناسبتي پرچم به اصطلاح جمهوري آذربايجان (اران) را بر سر خود بگردانند و سنگ دولت‌مردان آن خطه را به سينه بزنند و در دفاع از منافع آنان شعار دهند.
5- يكي از نتايج مثبت اغتشاشات اخير رخ داده در مناطق ترك‌زبان كشور، آن بود كه مسؤولان جمهوري اسلامي ايران سرانجام به عمق فاجعه پي بردند. با وجود آن كه سال‌ها بود ايرانيان ميهن‌پرست درباره‌ي تحركات خزنده‌ي جريانات تجزيه‌طلب و پان‌تركيست هشدار مي‌دادند، اما دولت‌مردان از جديت و حساسيت موضوع آگاه نبودند. اما اينك، با مشاهده‌ي آشوب‌ها و خرابكاري‌هاي هدايت شده‌ي تجزيه‌طلبان در مناطق ترك‌زبان، ديگر بر اين حقيقت واقف شده‌اند كه بايد به گونه‌اي جدي و اساسي جريانات تجزيه‌طلب را ريشه‌كن كرد و تقويت و تحكيم مباني هويت ملي را در دستور كار قرار داد تا ايمان و افتخار به ايراني بودن در دل و جان همه‌ي ايرانيان براي هميشه نشيمن كند و بر استحكام و استواري و آسيب‌ناپذيري وحدت و اتحاد ملي بيافزايد.

 

شعارهاي تجزيه‌طلبان در اغتشاشات اخير شمال غرب ايران

با تداوم اغتشاش و خرابكاري تجزيه‌طلبان پان‌تركيست در شماري از دانشگاه‌ها و شهرهاي شمال غرب كشور، گوشه‌ي ديگري از جنايات اين گروه بر آناني كه از ابعاد و ريشه‌هاي جريان پان‌تركيسم ناآگاه بودند، آشكار گرديد. اگرچه سال‌ها پيش از اين، نويسنده‌ي اين سطور، بحراني را كه اينك جريانات وابسته‌ي تجزيه‌طلب برپا كرده‌اند، پيش بيني نموده و نسبت به حركت خزنده‌ي اين گروه به سوي آشوبگري و فاشيسم هشدار داده بود، اما عدم توجه مردم و مسؤولان بدين موضوع، سرانجام فضاي مناسبي را براي برپايي مانوري عوام فريبانه از سوي پان‌تركيست‌هاي نژادپرست فراهم آورد. با وجود اين، عدو سبب خير شد و در پي اغتشاشات اخير، با انتقال اقدامات تجزيه‌طلبان از فاز تئوريك و زيرزميني به فاز عملياتي و علني، توجه مردم و مسؤولان به ابعاد و گستردگي بحران جلب گرديد و اقدامات ِ، اگر چه ديرهنگام، اما گسترده‌اي براي ريشه‌كني عوامل فاسد جريان پليد پان‌تركيسم و تجزيه‌طلبي انجام شد. بي‌گمان با توجه پيوسته‌ي عموم مردم و همه‌ي مسؤولان به حراست از وحدت ملي و تماميت ارضي ايران، و تلاش براي تحكيم و تقويت هويت ملي و مؤلفه‌هاي آن، گروه‌هاي وابسته‌ و آشوبگري چون پان‌ترك‌ها، ديگر هرگز مجالي براي عوام فريبي و خرابكاري و خودنمايي نخواهند يافت.
مروري بر شعارهايي كه تجزيه‌طلبان پان‌تركيست در اغتشاشات اخير شمال غرب سرمي‌دادند، به خوبي، وابستگي و ماهيت فاشيستي و شيطاني اين توطئه را برملا خواهد ساخت:
آذربايجان بيدار است، بر زبان تركي استوار است!
رييس جمهور! عذر بخواه!
اروميه بيدار است، به تبريزش متكي است!
تركي زبان مادري‌ام است، مدرسه، مدرسه!
تركيه! كمك!
تبريزما خون مي‌گريد، تركيه از دور تماشا مي‌كند!
اروميه به پا خيز، در تبريز خون جاري است!
اي هم‌ميهن به پا خيز، در تبريز برادر[ت] كشته شد!
زبان تركي رسمي شود!
زبان تركي آزاد شود، دشمنان‌اش خوار شوند!
زنده باد آذربايجان، نابود باد آپارتايد!
ملت آذربايجان چنان ذلتي را تحمل نمي‌كند!
بيدار شو ترك بيدار شو، آذربايجان در تنگنا است!
روشني خاموش شدني نيست، زبان تركي عوض شدني نيست!
مرگ بر فاشيسم! ننگ باد بر شووينيسم!
زبان تركي مردني نيست، با زباني بيگانه عوض شدني نيست!
مرگ بر فاشيسم!
مرگ بر شووينيسم!
مرگ هست، بازگشت نيست!
زبان تركي رسمي شود، به چشم دشمنان خار شود!
ما ترك‌ايم، خود ترك، آذري گفته‌ي دشمن است!
هر كسي به زبان خودش بايد مدرسه داشته باشد!
راه ما، راه ملت و حق است!
اي «ملت» محبوب، زنده و پاينده باشي!
خون شهيدم را پس بدهيد، زبان ملت‌ام را بدهيد!
خون شهيد از ميان نمي‌رود، زبام ملت‌ام نابود نمي‌شود!
پاسخ فقط: از گور بيرون بيا، شورش كن!
در تبريز خون جاري شد، تهران از دور تماشا كرد!
اين خون از ميان نخواهد رفت!
آذربايجان بيدار است، به هويت خود استوار است!
آذربايجان نخوابيده است، هويت‌اش را از دست نداده است!
آذربايجان زنده باد، زبان تركي رسمي باد!
وزیر ارشاد استعفا استعفا!
يا مرگ ياد آزادي
! اگر قفس‌ام از طلا باشد، [باز] هوس آزادي را دارم!
ما خلق اروميه‌ايم، سرباز بابك‌ايم!
زنجاني‌ها نمرده‌اند، زبان تركي را نفروخته‌اند!
به زبان تركي مدرسه، مدرسه!
هوار! هوار! من ترك‌ام!
ما براي مرگ حاضريم، سرباز بابك‌ايم!
آذربايجان متحد شود، منافق نابود شود!
ترك تركي را به فارس نمي‌فروشد!
خاك بر سرت بي‌غيرت!
اين سو و آن سوي [ارس] يكي شود، پايتخت‌اش تبريزشود!
مرگ بر آپارتايد!
من آتش‌ام، با آتش بازي نكن، آتش مي‌گيري مي‌سوزي!
آينده مال ما است!
آذربايجان بايد متحد شود، مركزش تبريز شود!
يا مرگ يا قراباغ، جز اين راه ديگري ندارم!
آذربايجان بيدار است، به زبان خودش استوار است!
مرگ بر ايران!
امروز هوا ابري است، مردك‌هاي فارس خواب‌اند!
آذربايجان آزاد شود، روح بابك شاد شود!
سوگند به ستار خان، تهران را به خون مي‌كشيم!
آذربايجان مال ما است، افغانستان مال شما!
زبان فارسی، زبان سگ [است]!
آناني كه بی‌طرف‌اند، از فارس هم بی‌شرف‌ترند!
ترك، ترك را به فارس نمی‌فروشد!
سوگند به ستارخان، تهران بايد به آتش كشيده شود!
آذربايجان بيدار است، كردها مهمان ما هستند!
تبريز، باكو، آنكارا! فارس‌ها كجا ما كجا!
در اروميه خون جاري است، آنكارا از دور تماشا می‌كند!
مرگ بر ارمني!

 

 

Here is a criticism of another Iranian Azerbaijani:

 

http://robo.wordpress.com/2006/05/18/iran-caricature

 

 

سوء استفاده از کاریکاتور ایران به نفع پان ترکها

راستش من هیچ توهینی تو این کاریکاتور نمیبینم، مگر اینکه آدم بخواد خیلی قلبی-قره (مشکی قلبانه!) زیر اون جملات خط بکشه. و بعد از اینکه چند بار خوندش بیاد و دوباره ازش نتایج دیگری رو استخراج بکنه.
البته همیشه از این دست مسائل ریشه‌های جانبی داره. برای مثال در اردبیل ما که دانشگاه آزاد شلوغ شده بیشتر از نظر من که با محیط اینجا آشنایی دارم عللی کاملاً متفاوتتر از کاریکاتور ایران داره. یکیش میتونه پان-ترکهایی باشند که در دانشگاه آزاد تجمع قابل توجهی دارند و تازگی در پی یک شب شعر کاملاً پان-ترکی دانشگاه انجمن اینها رو تعطیل کرده پس اینها کاملاً آمادگیش رو دارند که یک بهانه‌ای پیدا بکنند و چند آدم بی‌خبر رو تحریک بکنند و در پشت این برنامه‌ها دنبال اهداف جدایی‌طلبانه‌ی خودشان باشند…

میدانید که تا جایی که توانسته‌ام از ترک و ترک ایرانی دفاع کرده‌ام. الان هم حرفم اینه که روزنامه‌ی ایران مال ملت ایران است و نباید با یک شوخی کاملاً غیر مستقیم اینهمه جنجال کرد. قبل از همه‌ی اینها هم "اصطلاح نمنه" دیگه یک کلمه‌ی است که وارد شده به فارسی و خیلیها در مکالمات روزمره ازش استفاده میکنند.

عطف به ما سبق همیشه هم بد نیست! یادتان است کاریکاتور استاد تمساح نیک‌آهنگ را؟ سالها ما فکر میکردیم که این کاریکاتور کاملاً عمدی بوده ولی چند وقت پیش که نیک‌آهنگ رسماً و در کمال آزادی اعلام کرد که اون کاریکاتور کاملاً آرشیوی بوده و اصلاً به آیت‌الله مصباح ربطی نداشته و بعضی از سودجویان سوژه‌اش کرده‌اند برای اهداف سیاسی، چه شد؟ آیا کسی دنبال آن آدمها گشت که از یک کاریکاتور و یک کاریکاتوریست بخت برگشته برای اهداف خودشان سوءاستفاده کردند؟ آیا کسی این آدمها را به 209 اوین فرستاد؟

اصلا دوست ندارم وارد این جنگهای فرسایشی بشوم. نوشتم که شاید تلنگری باشد.

 

Response to Vaziri and Joya Sa’ad Blondel

 

 Alireza Asgharzadeh dismayed with the historical truths about Iran’s long national identity and sense of nationhood is forced to rely up upon writes who attempt to question Iran’s identity.  Two of these writers are Mustafa Vaziri and Joya Sa’ad Blondel.  Mustafa Vaziri in his book claims that “Iranian” in Sassanid inscriptions and Shahnameh means Zoroastrians and doubts the validity of the name Iran. 

 

The whole thesis of Mustafa Vaziri has been refuted completely by a series of articles by Professor Jalal Matini and Professor Jalal Khaleghi Mutlaq.

 

مقدمه: ايران در گذشت روزگاران

ايران در دوران باستان

ايران در دوران اسلامي

چند ياد داشت بر مقاله ايران  در گذشت روزگاران

چند ياد داشت ديگر بر مقاله ايران در گذشت روزگاران

ياد داشتي ديگر بر مقاله ايران در گذشت روزگاران

اثر: دکتر جلال خالقي مطلق و دکتر جلال متيني

 

 Thus this author will not delve into Vaziri’s book as the above response is more than comprehensive and scholarly.

 

It is clear that Iranians and Iran have remained a nation and a country in much of the last 2,500 years. The Euro-centric belief argues that: (1) "nation" is a European construct; (2) the origins of the nation- state began in Europe after the peace of Westphalia in 1648; and (3) the other constructions of nationhood in the Thirds World are artificial imitations of the Europeans who had colonized them and taught them about the notion of nation.

This Euro-centric perspective has made many to argue that Iranian nationalism is an artificial construction of recent times. A typical rendition of this argument is Joya Blondel Saad, The Image of Arabs in Modern Persian Literature (Lanham, MD; University Press of America, 1996). Saad writes that Iranian nationalism is the invention of the 18th and 19th century Europeans, that Iranians borrowed it from the Europeans, and that Iranian nationalists are anti-Arab racists.

Anyone who is familiar with the pre-Islamic history of Iran, the resistance to the Arab-Islamic conquest of Iran, and the existence of cultural articulation of Iranian nationhood by many including Ferdowsi, the 10th century poet, knows that Saad's view is clearly mistaken. Franklin Lewis, formerly of Emory University (and now in the University of Chicago), in his excellent review of Saad's book, writes:

"This argument I find problematic for a number of reasons. First, the modern definition of Iran in terms of a linguistic, ethnic, racial and territorial entity distinct from its foreign, and specifically Arab, neighbors appears in fully articulated form in the Shu'ubiyya movement of the 10th and 11th centuries, and indeed much earlier. The Avesta speaks of the Airyanem Vaeja, the homeland of the Aryan Iranians, and in the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, the sharp distinction between Iran and non-Iran (an-iran)-- rivals and invaders variously associated with mythic, Greek, Turkic, and then eventually Arab and Muslim peoples— gives the story its primary contours.

Ferdowsi's sense of tragedy over the conquest of Sasanid Iran stems not so much from the religion of the conquerors (Ferdowsi was, after all, Muslim), but because of the nomadic and uncivilized nature of the victorious Arab tribesmen who brought the saga of the Iranian nation to an end. Ferdowsi curses fate for allowing a superior and glorious civilization, which had withstood the attacks of its enemies since mythopoetic time immemorial, to succumb to barbarian invaders, whom he characterized as lizard- eaters and camel milk-drinkers with overwhelming ambitions on the realm of the Persians ('ajam, itself an Arabic word for the linguistic Other, which however came to inform Iranian self- definition as referring specifically to Persians and Sasanain Iran).

....But the Arab for these poets [Naderpour, Akhavan-e Sales] is not a contemporary living being, he is merely a symbol in the nationalism of nostalgia, formulated already a thousand years earlier in the Shahnameh.”

Professor. Lewis Franklin concludes “The central argument of this book appears to be flawed.”

 

Review of the book: "The image of Arabs in Modern Persian Literature"

Prof. Lewis Franklin

 

As demonstrated extensively by Professor Jalal Matini and Professor Jalal Khaleghi Mutlaq, the idea of Iranian nationalism is deeply rooted and has absolutely nothing to do with 19th century western nationalism.  Defensive nationalist movements such as  Shua’bbiya movement (encompassing people from Abu Muslim Khorasani, Muqanna, Mazyar, Babak Khorramdin, Ferdowsi..), the rise of the Parthians, the Sassanids counter balancing of Hellenism, the Sarbedaran movement who fought against Turkic invaders of Khorasan and etc. are all examples of Iranian nationalism.  All these movements have been defensive in history and have tried to protection Iranian nationhood through literature and other means.  For example, on the Sarbedaran, who defended Khorasan and wanted to remove foreign rule, we read:

 

It is worth mentioning that whereas Iranian nationalism, even when xenophobic at times, has been defensive, this has not been the case for such fascist movements as pan-Arabism (the genocide against Kurds, deporation of 300,000 Iranians from Iraq) or pan-Turkism (genocide against Armenians and Greeks).

 

For an excellent exposition into this matter, the reader is referred to:

 

سيماي ايرانيان در کتابهاي درسي اعراب

اثر: طلال عطريسي

Pan-Arabism's Legacy of Confrontation with Iran

By: Dr. Kaveh Farrokh

 

Thus as can be clearly seen from historical material, Iranian sense of nationalism is not a new concept.  It is very clear that Iranian self-consciousness existed during the era of Ferdosi, Shuabbiya’, Sarbedaran and etc.  The Persian poet Asadi Tusi who spent most of his time in the court of Kurdish\Daylamite dynasties of Azerbaijan has also shown this self-conscioussness.  For example Ferdowsi remarks:

بسی رنج بردم درین سال سی

عجم زنده کردم بدین پارسی

A poet in the service of Al-Kart, a rival dynasty of the Sarbedaran of Khorasan remakrs after the defeat of the Sarbedaran forces:

 

گر خسرو کرت بر دلیران نزدی

وز تیغ یلی گردن شیران نزدی

از بیم سنان سربدران تا حشر

یک تُرک دگر خیمه به ایران نزدی

 

The self-consciousness of Iranians has been the major factor in inhibiting Turkification and Arabization of Iranian lands and peoples.  Pan-Turkists like Alireza Asgharzadeh and Alireza Nazmi Afshar, who are part of the expansionist plans of regional pan-Turkism will do their best to use the falsehood of Pourpirar/Zehtabi to deny the existence of Iranian nationhood and self-conscious. 

 

 

   Yes the majority of Iranians have been victims.