Posted on 05/02/2009 1:45:10 PM PDT by Cyrus the Great
Many Americans seem to entertain the illusion that Iranians are Arabs. This may be due to the fact that many people in both communities practise Islam, which I'll mention below. Another coincidence that may have contributed to this confusion is the apparent similarity of the names Iran and Iraq. It is true that the Persian language and the Arabic share the same alphabet, namely the Arabic alphabet, which was imposed upon the Iranians centuries ago. But originally Persian had its own alphabet. Anyway, in Arabic script the names of the countries are entirely different, 'Iraq' beginning with the letter 'ain' and 'Iran' beginning with the letter 'alif'. The words 'Iranian' and 'Persian' are virtually synonymous, the former being the preferred term nowadays.
The Arabic word 'Iraq' means 'Veins' and, apparently, refers to the Euphrates and the Tigris Rivers.
But the clincher is that the word 'Iran' is cognate with the English word 'Aryan', as the Iranians are Aryan, that is, Indo-European, while the Arabs, as is well known, are Semitic, so ethnologically there's a definite disjunction. The Indo-European languages, which probably coincide in fair measure with ethnicity, are divided into Centum and Satem groups. Centum languages further divide into Germanic, Italic, Celtic and Greek, while Satem languages divide into Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian, Albanian and Armenian. Thus we find among Indo-European languages such widely divergent specimens as English, German, Spanish, French, Greek, Russian, Persian (Farsi), Hindi and many others. There are a great number of Arabic loan words in Persian, just as there are a great number of Latin loan words in English, but no one classifies English as an Italic language, nor should anyone classify Persian as a Semitic language. There are Persian loan words in Arabic too, but etymological dictionaries of the Arabic language are scarce, if they exist at all, and one is often left guessing which words might be from Persian.
Semitic languages are a subgroup of Afro-Asiatic languages. Only two strictly Semitic languages survive--Arabic and Hebrew. Extinct Semitic languages include Assyrian, Phoenician, Aramaic and others. Among languages in other subgroups of the Afro-Asiatic languages are Amharic, Tigrinya and Hausa of Ethiopia, Chad and Nigeria.
This ethno-linguistic disjunction is not merely an academic hypothesis. I have met many, many Arabs and Iranians, and there is a definite Arab look and a definite Iranian look. It's not infallible, of course, but I think I could probably tell them apart 75% of the time.
But even more conclusive is the historical aspect. Now we know that all ethnic groups must have sprung from primitive human beings, so likely they're all of great antiquity. But when we speak of 'history', we generally mean written records. And here we see that Persians appear on the scene much in advance of Arabs.
Generally, Persian history is said to have begun with King Cyrus the Great, who unified Persia and conquered vast tracts of land. He is also famous for liberating the Jews from captivity in Babylon around 538 BC, as is amply recorded in the Bible, in the Books of Isaiah, Daniel and Ezra. The next four Persian kings were Cambyses, Darius, Xerxes and Artaxerxes, all in the Bible. These names are all in the Greco-English spellings. Xerxes, whose name is Khashayarsha in Persian, Achashverosh in Hebrew and Ahasuerus in the English Bible, is vividly portrayed in the Book of Esther as the rescuer of the Jews from the persecutions of Haman, which is celebrated to this day by Jews as Purim, the Feast of Lots. All of these kings are also famous for their exploits in the Middle East, Anatolia, Greece and Egypt. Much later, another Persian king, Shapur I, defeated the Roman emperor, Valerian. And their have been many, many others.
In antiquity, Persia had various religious, such as Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, Mazdaism and Manichaeism, all to be largely supplanted by Islam. A more recent Iranian religion is the Baha'i faith.
As far as I know, the Arabs enter history around 305 AD, with the Nabataean Inscriptions, but these are scant. Their real entrance into history was the appearance of Mohammed (570-632 AD) Arabs conquered Persia in the seventh century, spreading Islam. Subsequently, in the 10th and 11th century, Turks took over the leadership of Islam, so Islamic history is not strictly the same thing as Arabic history. In the coming centuries Islam would extend its sway all the way from China and Indonesia to Spain. But the Ottoman Empire, once the world's greatest power, was a Turkish, rather than Arabic or Persian, Islamic Sultanate.
So Iranians are definitely not Arabs.
I am more pedantic than most, but I could only get halfway through this without, well, deciding that I don’t care enough to finish!
Useful info BTTT.
Different towels.
Interesting cultural overview. Thanks for posting!
I should point out, though, that the original name for Iran and its people is actually Pahlavi. The name has come to the West as Farsi, or in the hellenic form as Persia.
Agreed. I could care less. They are like the difference between gonorrhea and syphilis. Left untreated they will both kill you.
“Thank you for posting...Americans are so clueless about Middle East ethnicities and just assume they’re all “Arabs.”
Well there you go, assuming all Americans are clueless about the Middle East. Maybe you’re clueless about what American’s really think?
A debatable point.
Earlier waves of Semites out of the Arabian desert included the Arameans, for sure, and quite possibly the Akkadians. Both of whom were around a couple thousand years before the Persians entered the historical record. In fact the Persian Empire used Aramean as its primary administrative language.
As so often is the case, it depends on how you define "Arab."
The ancient Persians had some very positive attributes. I think Cyrus was the first ancient King to brag about how benevolent and just he was instead of how vicious a killer.
The Persians did fare poorly against the ancient Greeks in combat. On the other hand they defeated just about everyone else.
It is a shame what radical Islam has done to a once great people.
All Muslims are suspect. Their birthplace is irrelevant.
And Italians aren't Germans, but they both practiced fascism.
And Arabs and Persians have both sold their souls to a false prophet.
And what makes you confident that Americans *aren’t* clueless? Especially when you don’t give any evidence to the contrary.
I’ve talked to many people, seen many online comments here, read many articles, where people assume Iranians are Arabs. No not *everyone* thinks that, but given the distribution of people who do, it’s not off the charts to say that a large number of people don’t have a good idea of the diversity of the M.E.
Their culture also is suffering from the same european-ish problem of failing to reproduce.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fertility_rate_world_map_2.png
Would you rather have lead or arsenic in your water?
I have know a number of expatriate people FROM Iran, who preferred to be called “Persian”.
I liked and respected most of them.
They almost universally hold the current regime in Tehran in total contempt.
We need all the allies we can muster to combat the evil that threatens us now.
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