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Authors: Elaine Sciolino
Tags: Political History
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RULE ELEVEN: IRAN IS IN THE MIDDLE EAST, BUT NOT ENTIRELY PART OF IT. Americans tend to think of Iran as a Middle Eastern country. But the word “Iran” comes from the word “Aryan.” The people who settled in this region in the second millennium B.C. were Indo-European nomads who migrated from Central Asia in the east, not from the Semitic lands of the west and south. The Persian language is Indo-European, a distant cousin of English, French and Sanskirit. It is barely related to Arabic, even though it is infused with Arabic words.
Looking at a map doesn’t solve the identity problem. Iran shares borders with Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, and three former Soviet republics: Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan. Iran is the only land bridge between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. Iran’s intellectuals and politicians have long debated the direction to which they should turn: South to the Persian Gulf? West to Europe? North to the Caucasus? East to Asia?
Iran is the land of one of the world’s oldest religions. Centuries before the birth of Christ, the prophet Zoroaster preached a message of monotheism, the central feature of which was a long battle between good and evil. (Good will ultimately win.) Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were influenced by the Zoroastrian belief in the devil and angels, heaven and hell, redemption, resurrection, and the last judgment. The word “paradise,” which means “pleasure park of the king,” comes from Old Persian.
Iran is also one of the world’s few civilizations that, like Egypt, has enjoyed cultural continuity since ancient times. The boundaries of most other countries in the Middle East were defined in the twentieth century by European colonial powers. “Tribes with flags,” is how the Egyptian intellectual Tahseen Bashir described them, insisting that Iran and Egypt are the only real countries in the region.
Even in its modern history, Iran has had an ambiguous relationship with the Arab Middle East. The issue is complicated by the fact that Iran is a Muslim country, but Muslim in its own way, and it has a small Arab minority.
Persia was the first—and fastest-growing—superpower of the ancient world. It started in the early seventh century B.C. as a small southern province named Parsa (now Fars). Hence the name Persia. It expanded through war, occupation, revolts, cruelty, and marriage, until under Cyrus the Great in the sixth century B.C. the empire stretched all the way from the Mediterranean to India. In victory, Cyrus was a tolerant ruler, allowing the Jews to return to Jerusalem after a long period of exile at the hands of the Babylonians.
His grandson Darius introduced a sophisticated administrative system, an empire linked by a 1,500-mile highway complex. Mail carriers used a relay system that became the model for the Pony Express, and the U.S. Postal Service adapted the original motto of the Persians: “Stopped by neither snow, rain, heat, or gloom of night.” The empire also pioneered irrigation techniques, codified commercial laws, and created a universal system of weights and measures.
As a lasting testament to his reign, Darius built Persepolis, a magnificent new ritual city and capital on a vast, sunbaked platform in the desert, a place where the peoples of the empire could come to pay tribute.
But empires do not last. In 330 B.C. , Alexander the Great conquered Persia, bringing the imperial age to a close. Centuries later, though, even after many other waves of conquest and foreign domination, Iranians feel passionately that they are a separate, special people. One of the reasons I feel the Iranian system works as well as it does is that Iranians have such a strong sense of a distinct national identity. Whoever they are and wherever they go, they want to speak Persian, read Persian poetry, eat Persian food, and debate Iranian politics.
RULE TWELVE: IRANIANS LIKE AMERICANS. Iranians view America as a land
RULE ELEVEN: IRAN IS IN THE MIDDLE EAST, BUT NOT ENTIRELY PART OF IT. Americans tend to think of Iran as a Middle Eastern country. But the word “Iran” comes from the word “Aryan.” The people who settled in this region in the second millennium B.C. were Indo-European nomads who migrated from Central Asia in the east, not from the Semitic lands of the west and south. The Persian language is Indo-European, a distant cousin of English, French and Sanskirit. It is barely related to Arabic, even though it is infused with Arabic words.
Looking at a map doesn’t solve the identity problem. Iran shares borders with Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, and three former Soviet republics: Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan. Iran is the only land bridge between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. Iran’s intellectuals and politicians have long debated the direction to which they should turn: South to the Persian Gulf? West to Europe? North to the Caucasus? East to Asia?
Iran is the land of one of the world’s oldest religions. Centuries before the birth of Christ, the prophet Zoroaster preached a message of monotheism, the central feature of which was a long battle between good and evil. (Good will ultimately win.) Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were influenced by the Zoroastrian belief in the devil and angels, heaven and hell, redemption, resurrection, and the last judgment. The word “paradise,” which means “pleasure park of the king,” comes from Old Persian.
Iran is also one of the world’s few civilizations that, like Egypt, has enjoyed cultural continuity since ancient times. The boundaries of most other countries in the Middle East were defined in the twentieth century by European colonial powers. “Tribes with flags,” is how the Egyptian intellectual Tahseen Bashir described them, insisting that Iran and Egypt are the only real countries in the region.
Even in its modern history, Iran has had an ambiguous relationship with the Arab Middle East. The issue is complicated by the fact that Iran is a Muslim country, but Muslim in its own way, and it has a small Arab minority.
Persia was the first—and fastest-growing—superpower of the ancient world. It started in the early seventh century B.C. as a small southern province named Parsa (now Fars). Hence the name Persia. It expanded through war, occupation, revolts, cruelty, and marriage, until under Cyrus the Great in the sixth century B.C. the empire stretched all the way from the Mediterranean to India. In victory, Cyrus was a tolerant ruler, allowing the Jews to return to Jerusalem after a long period of exile at the hands of the Babylonians.
His grandson Darius introduced a sophisticated administrative system, an empire linked by a 1,500-mile highway complex. Mail carriers used a relay system that became the model for the Pony Express, and the U.S. Postal Service adapted the original motto of the Persians: “Stopped by neither snow, rain, heat, or gloom of night.” The empire also pioneered irrigation techniques, codified commercial laws, and created a universal system of weights and measures.
As a lasting testament to his reign, Darius built Persepolis, a magnificent new ritual city and capital on a vast, sunbaked platform in the desert, a place where the peoples of the empire could come to pay tribute.
But empires do not last. In 330 B.C. , Alexander the Great conquered Persia, bringing the imperial age to a close. Centuries later, though, even after many other waves of conquest and foreign domination, Iranians feel passionately that they are a separate, special people. One of the reasons I feel the Iranian system works as well as it does is that Iranians have such a strong sense of a distinct national identity. Whoever they are and wherever they go, they want to speak Persian, read Persian poetry, eat Persian food, and debate Iranian politics.
RULE TWELVE: IRANIANS LIKE AMERICANS. Iranians view America as a land
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