Holding a weekly scientific meeting on the history of the Institute for Political and International Studies
The lecture of Dr. Ismail Shams, a faculty member of Allameh Tabataba'i University, on the topic of the absence of Iran's western regions in the historiography and history of Iranian diplomacy in the form of a series of weekly meetings of scientific lectures on historical issues, held on Wednesday, April 24. The main topics discussed in this lecture are as follows:
If we start the history from the Medes, the pre-Islamic states that built the history and civilization of ancient Iran were all established in the west of Iran. Also, if we study history based on archeological data, almost all the pre-medieval states that we know, such as Kassites, Lullubi, Mitanni, Guti, etc., arose in the western region. The western region of Iran was a history maker, a civilization maker, and a state maker. This trend was reversed after Islam.
The first state formations started during the Abbasid period. The Abbasid state was a state emerging from the east. Abu Muslim Khorasani was a state builder for the Abbasids. The process of the emergence of states from the east and the eastern origin of post-Islamic states continued later. Taherians, Samanids, Saffarians, Ghaznavids, Karakhanids, Qarakhanids, Seljuks, Khwarazmians, etc., all arose from the East. This process changed with the arrival of the Safavids. The Safavids are the post-Islamic version of the Sassanids. The first temporary implication of the emergence of another state from the west of Iran was that the invasions from the east stopped for two and a half centuries. But with the fall of the Safavids, an eastern orientation was formed again, and Afaghaneh, Afsharians, and Qajars came to work. The state of Karim Khan was a gap among these, but his territory never reached the east, and at the same time, the Afsharians or the Qajars were in the east. This is a general outline of the state making- civilization-making situation in the history of Iran.
In the pre-Islam period, the main political-civilizational threats came from the West (Assyrians, Greeks, Arabs), but in the post-Islamic period, the main attacks came from the east, and the invaders were Anīrân (Seleucids, Mongols, Timurids).
What happened in the post-Islam period is completely different from the pre-Islam period, and the boundary between these two periods is the Sassanid era. The Sassanid state was destroyed in terms of administrative order and political order, but it continued to exist in terms of its civilizational roots and identity nature. Even the Muslim Arabs, in the course of their conquests and campaigns, advanced as far as the Sasanians had gone. The memory and name of the Sassanids were kept alive by the Arab rulers and the families that came to power in Iran after Islam.
A very important and historical work of the Abbasids was the transfer of the capital from Syria to Iraq. The Umayyad state was established in an area that had previously been under the rule of the Roman Empire. The transfer of the capital from Syria to Iraq and coming to the Sassanid capital brought the Abbasid state under the influence of pre-Islamic Iranian traditions and rituals, and its results were evident from the very beginning. The Abbasids created the institution of ministry, and Iranian families became ministers.
At the ministry stage, the East Front played a very important role. Most of the wars between the Arabs and the Sasanians were in the western regions. As a result of the seven years of war in the west, the major part of the west was destroyed, and the center of civilization and civility was moved to the east; even a Sassanid state in exile was formed in China, which was the descendants of Yazdgerd and had power in China until about a century later. They were hoping to re-establish the Sassanid state in Iran. Due to the transfer of the civil center, the bureaucratic families had migrated to the east, and therefore, all the ministers of the first Abbasid era came from the east.
The second period of influence of Sassanid rituals in the Abbasid state is the Emirate stage. This stage started at the end of Harun al-Rashid's caliphate era. The first development in Mamun's period was the establishment of the Emirate. Tahir was the first person who obtain the position of Emirate. Until Mamun, the governors took over the rule of the regions. The difference between an emir and a governor is that governors were Arab governors who were sent by the caliphate to rule the regions. Still, the emir himself was from that region, and after him, his son would succeed him; that is, a local rule in its small form in the manner of the Sassanid era was formed in the east territories.
In the introduction to the translation of Tafsir al-Tabari, it is stated that the Samanid ruler gathered the scholars from Transoxiana and received a fatwa from them to translate the Qur'an into Persian. Therefore, the Quran was translated, and they chose a Tafsir for the translation, which was written by an Iranian. This was an important development for Iran. Since then, the Persian language has become the language of religion. The first language that the Quran was translated into was Persian.
The third stage of the transformation of the Arab caliphate into an Iranized or Sassanized institution began with the Buyid dynasty. The Buyid dynasty moved towards Baghdad and made the Caliph obedient. This was a big change. Both Ibn Khaldoun and Ibn Miskawayh said that here, worldly power was taken from the institution of the caliphate, and the Emirate of Istikafa became the Emirate of Stila.
In the west, a revival process took place in the style of the east (not in the style of the center). In the center, Buyid's revivalism was a political revivalism and did not have a linguistic-cultural aspect. It was within the Arabic discourse, and Arabic language and literature prevailed. Still, in the west, the revivalism had the style of the east, that is, it was also linguistic and cultural. The governments of Sajid, Rawwadids, Shaddadids, etc., are worth mentioning in this regard.
The language of the court of Rawwadids and Shaddadids was Persian. If in the east, Rudaki and Ferdowsi were the poets of the Samanid court, in the court of Shaddadids, Asadi Tusi wrote poetry and sang the Garshasbnameh there in Persian language. He authored Loḡat-e Fors in their court, which is one of the first Persian dictionaries. Qatran Tabrizi also recited Persian poetry in the court of the Rawwadids and called them the children of Sasanians. Also, in the introduction of his book, the author of Qabus-nameh has praised Shapour Shadadi and mentioned that he wrote Qabus-nameh under his support.
However, in all our official and public histories, Eastern-oriented history is mentioned. In the history curriculum in universities, we only study the Eastern dynasties. The students are not told about the Shaddadids and the Rawwadids, who were the revivalists of the Persian language in Azerbaijan and the Caucasus. In the history of diplomacy, we do not pay attention to the west. Are the lands that we lost in Golistan and Turkmenchay more, or what we lost in Amasya and Zahab and were established in Erzurum? Are they talking about Amasya and Zahab as much as Golistan and Turkmenchay? When I talk about the absence of the western regions, my whole idea and theory are the same.
Mahiya Shoaibi, an expert at the Institute for Political and International Studies
(The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the IPIS)