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By: Mehrazar Suren

It is a well known fact that when the Soviet created (by the direct orders of Sovietg leadership)

http://legacy.wilsoncenter.org/va2/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=home.browse&sort=Collection&item=1945-46%20Iranian%20Crisis

to separate Iranian Azerbaijan and Kurdistan provinces.

When the Azerbaijan democratic party lead by Pishevari took over, they first ask Iranian troops to disarm (with Soviet forces), then they arrested them and subsequently massacred them. This was before even a shot by the Iranian army was fired (this was the era when Ferqeh took over Azerbaijan). One example is a the massacare of 300 Iranian troops by the Ferqeh that brought sadness in both the province of Azerbaijan as well as the rest of Iran and has been documented by Ayatollah Mojtahedi Tabrizi and others.
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(Special Thanks to all those who provided the following informations)

Compiled by an observer of Wikipedia

Although Wikipedia articles on social sciences are not deemed as reliable as their scientific counterparts, it is important to note that Google search usually has Wikipedia articles on a specific subject in its top five hits. This has made Wikipedia an important propaganda tool for ethno-nationalist, and lobbyist, specifically those of the Azerbaijani government
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Ethnic identity in Iran by Richard Frye

Greetings to the Distinguished Staff of The daily Telegraph Newspaper of England,
A number of my colleagues and students have bought the following article to my humble attention:
Cyrus cylinder’s ancient bill of rights ‘is just propaganda’
A 2500 year old Persian treasure dubbed the world’s ‘first bill of human rights’ has been branded a piece of shameless ‘propaganda’ by German historians.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/2304424/Cyrus-cylinder’s-ancient-bill-of-rights-’is-just-propaganda’.html

UK’s Daily Telegraph
By: Harry de Quetteville
Date: July 21, 2008
It is rather surprising that the Daily telegraph would choose to print what can at best be characterized as half-truths or “theories” generated by a very select group of revisionists. This has obliged me to respond to Mr. de Quetteville’s citations in items (1) – (5).
The Cyrus Cylinder now housed in The British Museum. The policies advocated by Cyrus in this Cylinder are corroborated by independent Greek and Biblical sources as well as by a number of other archaeological findings in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), Egypt and western Anatolia (in Modern Turkey).
(1) …German historians…claim that the UN is unjustly celebrating the rule of a man [Cyrus the Great] every bit as despotic as any other land-grabbing leader…Klaus Gallas…told Spiegel magazine…that the UN had given the Cyrus scroll false

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Greetings Professor Diker,

It has been brought to my attention that you describe Parthian as a Turkish language in your website (or a related website):

www.compmore.net/~tntr/crescent_starb.html

This is linguistically incorrect. Parthian is not a Turkic language. It is an old western Iranian language that is also called “Parthian Pahlavi”. It is a very close relative of “Middle Persian” or “Sassanian Pahlavi”. The syntax and vocabulary of Parthian are recorded (e.g. Dinkard) and are of Iranian stock. The language of “Parthian” is actually called “Pahlavi” – deriving from “Partha” into “Pahla”. It is evident that the individual who hosts this website does not speak Pahlavi.

Allow me to demonstrate this language and its Iranian character by way of example:
“haft celan istaft polawad im pad dast grift”
which means
“the seven daggers of hard steel that I have grasped with my hand”.
Many of the words are common in modern Persian (e.g dast – hand; Polawad (poolad in Persian) – steel; – grift (gerefet in Persian) – grasped). “Haft” is the number seven; clearly Indo-European – the Turkish counting system is entirely different. For an introduction to Pahlavi, you may wish to refer to the following works by Professor Mackenzie:

MacKenzie, D.N. (1967). Notes on the transcription of Pahlavi BSOAS, 30, 17-29
MacKenzie, D.N. (1971). A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary. London: Routledge.

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Recently a new site by the name: www.arabiangulfmaps.com (Site A) has popped up which claims that some 16th century maps have referred to the body of the water as Arabian Gulf. In this article we will show their claim is invalid based on many reasons and such a naming lacks historical legitimacy.

More than 400+ authors including all the geographers mentioned in Site A have maps that refer to the body of water Persian Gulf. The following taken from Persian Gulf (Atlas Of Old & Historical Maps (3000 B.C. – 2000 A.D.), (1 and 2) (Hardcover) by Mohammad Reza Sahab published by Center for Document and Diplomatic History; 1st edition (2005) available at:

http://www.amazon.com/Persian-Gulf-Atlas-Historical-Maps/dp/9648403449

provides a complete listing. We will provide some scanned photos of the source which unlike site A lists the exact source of the map. Note from the era of the Greek classics the name Persian Gulf has been consistently used for the body of water known today as Persian Gulf. Also it is well known fact that the Arabian Gulf refers to the red sea in many classic western texts. A list which contains about 400 authors who have used the term Persian Gulf since the time of the ancient Greeks is given below., Please continue with the text after examining this list.

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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.
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Some remarks on Farabi’s background: Iranic (Soghdian/Persian) or Turkic(Altaic)? Goshtasp Lohraspi This article discusses the background of Abu Nasr Farabi (872-950/951 A.D.), one of the most famous Muslim Polymaths who contributed to many fields including philosophy, music theory, logics, sociology and others. Farabi is one of the greatest figures of humanity and his background is irrelevant in terms of the heritage he left behind. Yet there has been some dispute with this regard and the most common opinion given is Iranic or Turkic. The earliest texts discussing his background were written 300+ years after Farabi (The first one mentioning him as Persian, the second as a Turk and the third one as a Persian). Due to earlier Western translation of Ibn Khalikhan (the second source describing his background), there have been some Encyclopedias and books who have not critically examined the matter. Based on analyzing all the early evidences, we believe that Farabi was of Iranic Soghdian origin and later on when Iranic Soghdians were almost or completely erased as an ethnic group, the claim of Turkic origins and Iranic Persian origins were made.

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Politicization of the background of Nizami Ganjavi: Attempted de-Iranization of a historical Iranian figure by the USSR

By Dr. Ali Doostzadeh

(In memory of Vladimir Minorsky and Nowruzali Mohammadzadeh)

Note 1: The article believes that Nizami Ganjavi despite his Iranic background, culture and contribution to Iranian civilization, and being a product of this civilization is a universal figure. He is also equally a part of the heritage of Iran, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and modern republic of Azerbaijan. These are people that are either Iranian or have been greatly affected by Iranian civilization although at his own time, the concept of nation-state did not exist for any particular modern country to claim Nizami Ganjavi. People of Iranic backgrounds and inheritors of Persian language, civilization and culture have the duty to present this universal figure to the world and keep his language alive. At the same time, this great figure has been politically manipulated by some ethno-minded scholars and USSR ethno-engineers. The article discusses this issue at length where USSR tried (and failed) to detach this great Iranian figure from Iranian civilization.

Note 2: the PDF version of this article reads much better and can be downloaded from here:

http://sites.google.com/site/rakhshesh/articles-related-to-iranian-history

(look for PersianPoetNezamiGanjeiPoliticizationByUSSR.pdf)

Or

http://www.archive.org/details/PoliticizationOfTheBackgroundOfNizamiGanjaviAttemptedDe-iranizationOf

(look for PDF file)

Or

http://www.kavehfarrokh.com/articles/pan-turanism/

(look for .pdf file)

To Cite:

Doostzadeh, Ali. “Politicization of the background of Nizami Ganjavi: Attempted de-Iranization of a historical Iranian figure by the USSR”, June 2008 (Updated 2009).

URL: http://sites.google.com/site/rakhshesh/articles-related-to-iranian-history

The article should also be somewhere in www.archive.org

The goal of this article is to examine the ethnic roots and cultural association of Nezami Ganjavi, one of the greatest Persian poets. It is of course well known that Nezami is a universal figure, but there are two reasons to examine his ethnic and cultural associations. The first reason is that it helps us understand his work better. We provide exposition of rare sources (such as Nozhat al-Majales) which are crucial for the study of the 12th century region of Arran and Sherwan. The other reason to write this article, as explained later in this paper (under the section: politicization of Nizami USSR and its remnants today), is the politicization surrounding Nezami Ganjavi’s ethnic and cultural background by the USSR for the purpose of nation building. Through objective analysis based on Nezami Ganjavi’s work and other primary sources, we analyze the ethnic root and cultural background of Nezami Ganjavi.
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Main Article

Recently, pan-Turkist groups have been exaggerating the number of Turkic speakers and giving false statistics to different sites. They claim that in 2008, there are 20,25, 30, 35,40 45 million Turkic speakers in Iran (depending on which pan-Turkist site one looks at)! Note the total population of Iran was 70 million in 2008. This article is not interested in the political nature of these group and why such politically motivated exaggerations are made, rather than that, we provides a scientific response to their false claims.

Actual Statistics from Iran
What some other sources state:
Conclusion

Actual Statistics from Iran

Unlike what the pan-Turkists claim, there have been statistics done in Iran. The pan-Turkist claim was based on an obscure site named Ethnologue.com (which has been corrected in the 16th edition-2009). The pan-Turkists however use the 15th edition of Ethnologue which has incorrect information. After contacting Ethnologue via E-mail in 2007, this is what the main editor Mr. Ray Gordon wrote to us: “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I am not able to locate the original source from 1997. ”
Indeed the inconsistent nature of ethnologue.com can be seen here from their 1996 to 2000 to 2006 editions.
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