Iran has one of the oldest histories in the world, extending more than 5000 years, and throughout history, Iran has been of geostrategic importance because of its central location in Eurasia and Western Asia. Iran is a founding member of the UN, NAM, OIC, OPEC, and ECO. Iran as a major regional power occupies an important position in the world economy due to its substantial reserves of petroleum and natural gas, and has considerable regional influence in Western Asia. The name Iran is a cognate of Aryan and literally means "Land of the Aryans." (Full article...)
Upon the death of his father, Varsken went to the Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon and was received by the shahanshahPeroz I (r. 459–484), converting to the family's former religion, Zoroastrianism. As a reward for his conversion, he was given the viceroyalty of Caucasian Albania and a daughter of Peroz in marriage. (Full article...)
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The sack of Shamakhi took place on 18 August 1721, when rebellious SunniLezgins, within the declining Safavid Empire, attacked the capital of Shirvan province, Shamakhi (in present-day Azerbaijan Republic). The initially successful counter-campaign was abandoned by the central government at a critical moment and with the threat then left unchecked, Shamakhi was taken by 15,000 Lezgin tribesmen, its Shia population massacred, and the city ransacked.
19th-century illustration of Mushegh I Mamikonian.
Mushegh I Mamikonian (also spelled Mushel; d. 377/8) was an Armenian military officer from the Mamikonian family who occupied the hereditary office of sparapet (generalissimo) of the Kingdom of Armenia under the Arsacid kings Pap (r. 370–374) and Varazdat (r. 374–378). He took part in the Armenian resistance against the forces of the Sasanian monarch Shapur II (r. 309–379), notably taking part in the Battle of Bagavan, where the Iranian forces were defeated. He was the regent of Armenia under the young and inexperienced Varazdat, who eventually suspected him of posing a danger to his rule, and thus had him executed, in 377/8.
Mushegh may be identical with the Artabanes mentioned in the works of the contemporary Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus. (Full article...)
Teresa was received by many of the royal houses of Europe, such as English prince Henry Frederick and Queen Anne (her child's godparents) and contemporary writers and artists such as Thomas Herbert and Anthony van Dyck. Herbert considered Robert Shirley "the greatest Traveller of his time", but admired the "undaunted Lady Teresa" even more. Following the death of her husband from dysentery in 1628, and due to impediments from grandees at the court, and the authorities, during the reign of Abbas's successor and grandson Safi (r. 1629–1642), Teresa decided to leave Iran. She lived in a convent in Rome for the rest of her life, devoting her time to charity and religion. As a pious Christian, and because of her love for her husband, Teresa had Shirley's remains transported to Rome from Isfahan and reburied; on the headstone of their mutual grave she mentions their travels and refers to her noble Circassian origins. (Full article...)
After having been captured in battle during the Arab-Muslim conquest of Persia, Abu Lu'lu'a was brought to Medina, the then-capital of the Rashidun Caliphate, which was normally off-limits to non-Arab captives. However, as a highly skilled craftsman, Abu Lu'lu'a was exceptionally allowed entrance into the city in order to work for the caliph. His motive for killing the caliph is not entirely clear, but medieval sources generally attribute it to a tax dispute. At one point, Abu Lu'lu'a is said to have asked the caliph to lift a tax imposed upon him by his Arab master, al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba. When Umar refused to lift the tax, Abu Lu'lu'a attacked him while he was leading the congregational prayer in the mosque, stabbing him with a double-bladed dagger and leaving him mortally wounded. (Full article...)
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The province of Georgia (Persian: ولایت گرجستان, romanized: Velāyat-e Gorjestān) was a velayat (province) of Safavid Iran located in the area of present-day Georgia. The territory of the province was principally made up of the two subordinate eastern Georgian kingdoms of Kartli (Persian: کارتیل, romanized: Kartil) and Kakheti (Persian: کاخت, romanized: Kakhet) and, briefly, parts of the Principality of Samtskhe. The city of Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi) was its administrative center, the base of Safavid power in the province, and the seat of the rulers of Kartli. It also housed an important Safavid mint.
Safavid rule was mainly exercised through the approval or appointment of Georgian royals of the Bagrationi dynasty, at times converts to Shia Islam, as valis or khans. The eastern Georgian kingdoms had been subjected in the early 16th century, their rulers did not commonly convert. Tiflis was garrisoned by an Iranian force as early as IsmailI's reign, but relations between the Georgians and Safavids at the time mostly bore features of traditional vassalage. David XI (Davud Khan) was the first Safavid-appointed ruler, whose placement on the throne of Kartli in 1562 marked the start of nearly two and a half centuries of Iranian political control of eastern Georgia. During the same period, Iranian cultural influence dominated eastern Georgia. (Full article...)
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The Parthian Empire in 94 BC at its greatest extent, during the reign of Mithridates II (r. 124–91 BC)
The Parthians largely adopted the art, architecture, religious beliefs, and regalia of their culturally heterogeneous empire, which encompassed Persian, Hellenistic, and regional cultures. For about the first half of its existence, the Arsacid court adopted elements of Greek culture, though it eventually saw a gradual revival of Iranian traditions. The Arsacid rulers were titled "King of Kings", claiming inheritance of the Achaemenid Empire; indeed, they accepted many local kings as vassals, although the Achaemenids would have had centrally appointed, albeit largely autonomous, satraps. The court did appoint a small number of satraps, largely outside Iran, but these satrapies were smaller and less powerful than the Achaemenid potentates. With the expansion of Arsacid power, the seat of central government shifted from Nisa to Ctesiphon along the Tigris (south of Baghdad), although several other sites also served as capitals. (Full article...)
Abū Saʿīd al-Muhallab ibn Abī Ṣufra al-Azdī (Arabic: أَبْو سَعِيْد ٱلْمُهَلَّب ابْن أَبِي صُفْرَة ٱلْأَزْدِي; c. 632 – 702) was an Arab general from the Azd tribe who fought in the service of the Rashidun, Umayyad and Zubayrid caliphs between the mid-640s and his death. He served successive terms as the governor of Fars (685–686), Mosul, Arminiya and Adharbayjan (687–688) and Khurasan (698–702). Al-Muhallab's descendants, known as the Muhallabids, became a highly influential family, many of whose members held high office under various Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs, or became well-known scholars.
Throughout his early military career, he participated in the Arab campaigns against the Persians in Fars, Ahwaz, Sistan and Khurasan during the successive reigns of caliphs Umar (r. 634–644), Uthman (r. 644–656), Ali (r. 656–661) and Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680). By 680, his tribe, the Azd of Oman, had become a major army faction in the Arabs' Basra garrison, the launchpad for the Persian conquest. Following the collapse of Umayyad rule in Iraq and Khurasan in 683–684, during the Second Muslim Civil War, al-Muhallab was pressed by the Basran troops to lead the campaign against the Azariqa, a Kharijite faction which had taken over Ahwaz and threatened Basra. Al-Muhallab landed them a severe blow and drove them into Fars in 685. He was rewarded with the governorship of that province by the anti-Umayyad caliph Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr (r. 683–692), whose suzerainty had been recognized in Basra in the wake of the Umayyads' ouster. Al-Muhallab later held a command role in the successful Zubayrid campaign to eliminate the Kufa-based ruler al-Mukhtar al-Thaqafi in 686/87. After this victory, he was transferred to the governorship of Mosul, where he was charged with protecting Iraq from a potential invasion from Umayyad-controlled Syria. (Full article...)
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Sasanian-style coin of Peroz I Kushanshah, minted at Herat. Obverse: King with Pahlavi legend around. "The Mazda-worshipping lord Peroz the Great Kushan Shah". Reverse: Peroz standing at left, holding an investiture wreath, facing Anahita rising from her throne.
During his reign, Hormizd IV had the high aristocracy and Zoroastrian priesthood slaughtered while supporting the landed gentry (the dehqans). His reign was marked by constant warfare: to the west, he fought a long and indecisive war with the Byzantine Empire, which had been ongoing since the reign of his father; and to the east, the Iranian general Bahram Chobin successfully contained and defeated the Western Turkic Khaganate during the First Perso-Turkic War. It was also during Hormizd IV's reign that the Chosroid dynasty of Iberia was abolished. After negotiating with the Iberian aristocracy and winning their support, Hormizd successfully incorporated Iberia into the Sasanian Empire. (Full article...)
The Little Zab or Lower Zab (Arabic: الزاب الاسفل, al-Zāb al-Asfal; Kurdish: Zêy Koya or Zêyê Biçûk; Persian: زاب کوچک, Zâb-e Kuchak; Syriac: ܙܒܐ ܬܚܬܝܐ, Zāba Taḥtāya) is a river that originates in Iran and joins the Tigris just south of Al Zab in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The Little Zab is approximately 400 kilometres (250 mi) long and drains an area of about 22,000 square kilometres (8,500 sq mi). The river is fed by rainfall and snowmelt, resulting in a peak discharge in the spring and low water in the summer and early fall. Two dams built on the Little Zab regulate the river flow, providing water for irrigation and generating hydroelectricity. The Zagros Mountains have been populated since at least the Lower Palaeolithic, but the earliest archaeological site in the Little Zab basin, Barda Balka, dates to the Middle Palaeolithic. Human occupation of the Little Zab basin has been attested for every period since then. (Full article...)
The term "Persianate" is a neologism credited to Marshall Hodgson. In his 1974 book, The Venture of Islam: The expansion of Islam in the Middle Periods, he defined it thus: "The rise of Persian had more than purely literary consequences: it served to carry a new overall cultural orientation within Islamdom.... Most of the more local languages of high culture that later emerged among Muslims... depended upon Persian wholly or in part for their prime literary inspiration. We may call all these cultural traditions, carried in Persian or reflecting Persian inspiration, 'Persianate' by extension." (Full article...)
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Saffron crocus, Crocus sativus, with its vivid crimson stigmas and styles Saffron (/ˈsæfrən,-rɒn/) is a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus, commonly known as the "saffron crocus". The vivid crimson stigma and styles, called threads, are collected and dried for use mainly as a seasoning and colouring agent in food. The saffron crocus was slowly propagated throughout much of Eurasia and was later brought to parts of North Africa, North America, and Oceania.
Saffron's taste and iodoform-like or hay-like fragrance result from the phytochemicalspicrocrocin and safranal. It also contains a carotenoid pigment, crocin, which imparts a rich golden-yellow hue to dishes and textiles. Its quality is graded by the proportion of red stigma to yellow style, varying by region and affecting both potency and value. As of 2024, Iran produced some 90% of the world total for saffron. At US$5,000 per kg or higher, saffron has long been the world's costliest spice by weight. (Full article...)
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A contemporary portrait of Shah 'Abbas, painted from life c. 1618 by Bishandas, one of Jahangir’s finest court artists. Freer Gallery of Art, Washington DC.
Abbas I (Persian: عباس یکم, romanized: Abbâse Yekom; 27 January 1571 – 19 January 1629), commonly known as Abbas the Great (Persian: عباس بزرگ, romanized: Abbâse Bozorg), was the fifth Safavidshah of Iran from 1588 to 1629. The third son of Shah Mohammad Khodabanda, he is generally considered one of the most important rulers in Iranian history and the greatest ruler of the Safavid dynasty.
Although Abbas would preside over the apex of Safavid Iran's military, political and economic power, he came to the throne during a troubled time for the country. Under the ineffective rule of his father, the country was riven with discord between the different factions of the Qizilbash army, who killed Abbas' mother and elder brother. Meanwhile, Iran's main enemies, its arch-rival the Ottoman Empire and the Uzbeks, exploited this political chaos to seize territory for themselves. In 1588, one of the Qizilbash leaders, Murshid Quli Khan, overthrew Shah Mohammed in a coup and placed the 16-year-old Abbas on the throne. However, Abbas soon seized power for himself. (Full article...)
Habibullah Huseynov (Russian: Габибулла Ейнуллаевич Гусейнов; 10 October 1910 – 16 April 1945) was an Iranian AzerbaijaniRed Armycolonel and a posthumous Hero of the Soviet Union. Huseynov emigrated to Baku, working as a loader and a fitter. He was drafted into the Red Army on a Komsomol direction in 1928 and became an artillery officer. He was arrested and imprisoned as an Iranian spy during the Great Purge. He was released months later and became an anti-aircraft artillery battalion commander, serving in this role during World War II.
ʻAbdu'l-BaháKBE (/əbˈdʊlbəˈhɑː/; Persian: عبد البهاء, IPA:[ʔæbdolbæhɒːʔ];, 23 May 1844 – 28 November 1921), born ʻAbbás (Persian: عباس, IPA:[ʔæbːɒːs]), was the eldest son of Baháʼu'lláh, founder of the Bahá’í Faith, who designated him to be his successor and head of the Baháʼí Faith from 1892 until 1921. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá was later cited as the last of three "central figures" of the religion, along with Baháʼu'lláh and the Báb, and his writings and authenticated talks are regarded as sources of Baháʼí sacred literature.
He was born in Tehran to an aristocratic family. At the age of eight, his father was imprisoned during a government crackdown on the Bábí Faith and the family's possessions were looted, leaving them in virtual poverty. His father was exiled from their native Iran, and the family established their residence in Baghdad in Iraq, where they stayed for ten years. They were later called by the Ottoman state to Istanbul before entering another period of confinement in Edirne and finally the prison-city of ʻAkká (Acre). ʻAbdu'l-Bahá remained a prisoner there until the Young Turk Revolution freed him in 1908 at the age of 64. He then made several journeys to the West to spread the Baháʼí message beyond its middle-eastern roots, but the onset of World War I left him largely confined to Haifa from 1914 to 1918. Following the war, the openly hostile Ottoman authorities were replaced by the British Mandate over Palestine, during which time he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his help in averting famine following the war. (Full article...)
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Khamenei in 2025
Ali Hosseini Khamenei (born 19 April 1939) is an Iranian cleric and politician who has served as the second supreme leader of Iran since 1989. His tenure as supreme leader, spanning 36 years, makes him the longest-serving head of state in the Middle East and the second-longest-serving Iranian leader of the 20th and 21st centuries, after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
National consciousness or collective awareness among people arises when a shared pain or common aspiration emerges within a group. This shared pain is identified as stemming from oppression, aggression, and colonialism, while the shared aspiration is the pursuit of justice and freedom. The unifying factor in the struggles and ideals that have created nations worldwide is the rejection of tyranny and the demand for justice. Consequently, movements born from this collective pain and shared demand consistently advocate for truth, justice, liberty, and self-determination. These values are deeply rooted in a nation's religion and worldview.
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