Persianization () or Persification (; ), is a sociology process of cultural change in which a non-Persians society becomes "Persianate", meaning it either directly adopts or becomes strongly influenced by the Persian language, culture, literature, Persian art, music, and identity as well as other socio-cultural factors. It is a specific form of cultural assimilation that often includes a language shift. The term applies not only to cultures, but also to individuals, as they acclimate to Persian culture and become "Persianized" or "Persified".
Historically, the term was commonly applied to refer to changes in the cultures of non-Iranian peoples living within the Greater Iran, particularly during the early and middle Islamic periods, such as Arabs and various Caucasian (such as Georgians, Armenians and ) and Turkic peoples, including the Seljuk dynasty, the Ottoman Empire, and the Ghaznavids.[Bhatia, Tej K., The handbook of bilingualism, (2004), p.788-9][Ravandi, M., The Seljuq court at Konya and the Persianisation of Anatolian Cities, in Mesogeios (Mediterranean Studies), vol. 25-6 (2005), pp157-69] The term has also been applied to the transmission of aspects of Persian culture, including language, to the non-Persian peoples in the regions surrounding the Iranian plateau (also known as Persia), such as Anatolia and the Indian subcontinent.
History
Pre-Islamic period
Unlike the
Ancient Greeks and the
Roman Empire, the ancient Persian Achaemenid Empire was not concerned with spreading its culture to the many peoples that it conquered. Arguably, the first recorded episode of persianization dates back to Alexander the Great, who, after conquering the Persian Empire in the 4th century BCE, adopted Persian dress, customs and court mannerisms; married a Persian princess,
Stateira II and made subjects cast themselves on their faces when approaching him, in Persian-style, known to Greeks as the custom of
proskynesis, a symbolic kissing of the hand that Persians paid to their social superiors. Persian dress and practices were also observed by
Peucestas, who was later made
satrap of
Persis, where he conciliated the favour of the Persians to his rule in exchange for those of the Macedonians.
[Arrian, vii. 23, 24, 26; Photius, Bibliotheca, cod. 82, cod. 92; Diodorus, xvii. 110, xviii. 3, 39; Justin, Epitome of Pompeius Trogus, ]
Early Islamic period to 15th century
After the fall of the
Sasanian dynasty in 651, the
Umayyad Arabs adopted many of the Persian customs, especially the administrative and the court mannerisms. Arab provincial governors were either persianized
Arameans or ethnic Persians; certainly,
Persian language remained the language of official business of the caliphate until the adoption of
Arabic toward the end of the 7th century,
[Hawting G., The First Dynasty of Islam. The Umayyad Caliphate AD 661-750, (London) 1986, pp. 63-64] when, in 692, minting began at the caliphal capital,
Damascus. The new Islamic coins evolved from imitations of Sasanian and
Byzantine coins, and the
Pahlavi scripts on the coinage was replaced with Arabic.
The Abbasids, after 750, established their capital in what is now Iraq, eventually at Baghdad. A shift in orientation toward the east is discernible, which was encouraged by increased receptiveness to Persian cultural influence and the roots of the Abbasid revolution in Greater Khorasan, now in Afghanistan[Kennedy H., The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, London, 1986, pp. 134-37] A proverb complained about the Persianization of morals by Turks.
16th to 18th centuries
Two major powers in
West Asia rose, the Persian
Safavids and
Ottoman Empire Turks. The Safavids reasserted Persian culture and hegemony over
South Caucasus,
Eastern Anatolia,
Mesopotamia and other regions. Many khans, begs and other rulers adopted Persian customs and clothing and patronized Persian culture. They founded the city of
Derbent in the
North Caucasus (now in
Dagestan,
Russia). Many ethnic peoples adopted many aspects of Persian culture and contributed to their persianization.
Modern era
In modern times, the term is often used in connection with non-Persian speakers like the
Azeris,
and the
Kurds.
[Margaret K., The official Persianization of Kurdish, Paper presented at the Eighth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Leeds,
England, (August 1975).]
It has been argued that modern Iranian nationalism was established during the Pahlavi dynasty era and was based on the aim of forming a modern nation-state.[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:
]
The ultimate purpose of persuading these populations to secede from the larger political entities to which they belonged and to join the new pan-Turkic homeland.
Lurs are among other Iranian ethnic groups that are subject to ethnic and linguistic assimilation
According to Tadeusz Świętochowski, in 1930s, the term was used to describe the official policy pursued by Reza Shah to assimilate the ethnic minorities in Iran (Iranians as well as Non-Iranians). In particular, within this policy the Azerbaijani language was banned for use on the premises of schools, in theatrical performances, religious ceremonies and in the publication of books.[Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition. p.122, ] Swietochowski writes:
Mughal Empire
The
Mughal Empire was an Islamic imperial power that ruled a large portion of the Indian subcontinent and
Afghanistan. From 1526, the Mughals invaded
Hindustan, from their initial base in Kabul, and they eventually ruled most of
South Asia by the late 17th and the early 18th centuries until the mid-19th century. The emperors were descendants of the
Timurids who had embraced
Persian culture, converted to
Islam and resided in
Turkestan, and they were the ones responsible for the spread of Persian and Islamic culture to
Central Asia. At the height of their power around 1700, they controlled most of the Indian Subcontinent and Afghanistan and spread Persian culture throughout, just as their predecessors the Turkic
Ghaznavids and the Turko-Afghan
Delhi Sultanate had done. In general, from its earliest days, Persian culture and language was spread in South Asia by various Persianised Central Asian
Turkic peoples and
Afghanistan dynasties.
[Sigfried J. de Laet. History of Humanity: From the seventh to the sixteenth century UNESCO, 1994. p 734]
Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire, identified his lineage as Timurid dynasty and Chagatai Turkic, and his origin, milieu, training and culture were Persian culture. He was largely responsible for the fostering of the culture by his descendants and for the expansion of Persian cultural influence in the Indian Subcontinent (and Afghanistan), with brilliant literary, artistic and historiographical results. Many works of art such as the Taj Mahal, Humayun's Tomb and the Badshahi Mosque are of Persian Islamic architecture, with Persian names. Persian language was the official language of the Mughal courts.
By country
Afghanistan
By 1964, the Afghanistan Constitution cited
Dari as one of its two official languages alongside
Pashto.
Although the latter is the designated national language, Dari remains the
lingua franca.
There are modern initiatives that attempt to "Pashto-ize" all governmental communication.
Since Dari is the language of the bureaucracy, Persian-speaking Afghans dominated it.
Persianization is especially seen in the case of the "
Kabulis", the long-established families from
Kabul (usually
Pashtuns completely immersed in Persian culture).
Persianization is also reinforced by the incidence of urbanization in the country, which influenced the characteristics of the ethnic groups of Afghanistan. The two most significant ethnic groups in Afghanistan are the Pashtuns, who are speakers of the Pashto language, and the
Tajiks, who are Persian speakers. While Pashtuns dominated the country since they constitute the majority of the population of Afghanistan, Persian culture still permeated. In the early history of Afghanistan as an independent country, many Pashtuns moved into urbanized areas and adopted Dari as their language. As a result, many ethnic Pashtuns in Afghanistan identify themselves as Tajiks but still have Pashtun names (such as a last name with the suffix "-zai") simply because they speak Dari and are assimilated into Tajiki culture in the country within a process known as "
de-tribalization".
The Hazara ethnic group speak a dialect of Persian called Hazaragi. Possibly Hazaras used to speak their previous native language that contained more of their native Turkic and Mongolic words within the vocabulary (before Hazaragi). However over the course of centuries, as the native language got extinct (just like some of the other Turkic and Mongolic languages that got extinct), the Hazaras adopted Hazaragi, a dialect of the Persian language, hence the result of Persianization. There are many Turkic and Mongolic words still preserved and used in the Hazaragi vocabulary.
India
Medieval India during the
Delhi Sultanate and
Mughal Empire was heavily influenced by the Persian language and culture.
The resulting Indo-Persian culture produced poets, such as
Amir Khusrau.
The influence of Persian on
Old Hindi led to the development of the Hindustani language, which further developed into the present-day standardized varieties of
Hindi and
Urdu. Hindi is one of the 22 official languages of
India and the
lingua franca of
North India. Urdu is an Eighth Schedule language, the status and cultural heritage of which are recognised by the Constitution of India, also having official status in certain Indian states and territories, such as
Uttar Pradesh,
Bihar,
Jharkhand,
Delhi,
Telangana and
West Bengal.
Pakistan
Geographically,
Pakistan lies at the intersection of the
Iranian plateau and Indian subcontinent.
Urdu, the national medium of
Pakistan, is an Indo-Iranian language that has been historically influenced by
Persian language. Various languages spoken in Pakistan from the Indo-Aryan language family as well as the Iranian language family have also been influenced by Persian, itself a Western Iranian language. The Pakistani national anthem,
Qaumi Taranah, is written almost entirely in Persian. The name "Pakistan", with both
Pak () and the place-name suffix of
-stan, are drawn directly from the Persian language. These modern linguistic developments are rooted primarily in the rule of various Indo-Islamic dynasties on the Indian subcontinent, most notably the
Mughal Empire, who established Persian and later Urdu as official and court languages across the region during the
British India era as well as after the partition of India.
The presence of Iranian peoples such as the Pashtuns and the Baloch people in western Pakistan has solidified Persianate culture in the country; this presence was further boosted following the influx of Afghan refugees into Pakistan as a consequence of the Afghanistan conflict.
Tajikistan
In March 2007, the
Tajik President,
Emomali Rahmon changed his surname from
Rakhmonov to
Rahmon, getting rid of the Russian "-ov" ending.
and removed his patronymic of
Sharipovich out of respect for Tajik culture.
Following the move, a large number governments officials and civil servants Tajikified their own names. In April 2016, this practice became officially mandated by law
for newborn Tajik children, with children from minority and mixed families retaining the right to their traditional surnames.
See also
