About the language of Balkh and Bamiyan
Rufia Tirgari, Etelaat (Information), 6 June 2024
This text is taken from Fereydoun Majlessi’s speech at the unveiling of Herat’s Glory special issue.
Intro – Encyclopedia of Iranology / 8 May 1403 / in collaboration with the weekly Nimroz
The literary ability of the Persian language provided this ground to gradually become the standard language for people who could not communicate with each other due to dialect and language differences.The Samanian era in the first half of the 4th century of Hejri (913-1009 AD) is the era of flourishing and revival of Persian language and literature. The Amirs of Al-Saman were Iranian peasants and nobles of Khorasan. The Khorasan land, which was always in the hands of Arab governors and was subject to chaos and confusion, achieved unprecedented security, peace and prosperity during the Samanid period. This family’s adherence to ancient Iranian traditions and support for scholars and scientists led to the growth and prosperity of science and culture and the cultivation of scientists in Greater Khorasan. In this period, the Persian language resumes its life and the market of Persian poetry and prose works and the translation of scientific and literary works into this language flourishes and expands a lot. Europeans called this period “Renaissance” or the golden age of Persian poetry and literature. The Saffarids were the first Iranian government that realized the importance of the Persian language and used it as a means to preserve the ethnic and national unity of Iranians, but these rulers were enlightened Samani rulers who, after establishing political unity in Transoxiana and Khorasan, for the cohesion and continuation of this unity tried to create a centralized judicial system in which Persian was the main and central language.
Eastern Iranian language
Fereydoun Majlessi, writer, translator and researcher, says the following things about the language Iranians speak today:
Mr. Ashraf Ghani, the president of Afghanistan at the time, shouted in one of his speeches and said that the Iranians themselves stole this Persian language from us! I do not accept Yes, the language we speak today is the language of Balkh and Bamyan and the language of Eastern Iran. Balkh and Bamyan means “Khorasan”; Khorasani, which includes Balkh and Bamyan, Bukhara, Tus, Neyshabur, Herat, etc., reached the peak of its cultural, scientific and scholarly prosperity in the 4th century of Hijri. If you have heard the old Persian tunes, you will see how fortunate we have been that between the eastern and western Iranian languages, the eastern language has been given to us in today’s Iran, and how beautiful it is! No other language can match it in literature, especially poetry.
Standard language
This researcher says:
The renaissance in the Persian language started from the east; First, by Yaqub Leith in Sistan during the Saffarian period, and finally by the first great Iranian state, the Samanids, who arose from Khorasan, and their language and dialect became the standard language. The languages were very diverse. The literary ability of the Persian language provided the ground to gradually become the standard language for people who were unable to communicate with each other due to dialect and language differences, and of course, poets played an important role in this.
Fereydun Majlessi adds:
Medieval governments were often tribal. Samanid was the first Iranian government that did not have tribes. Iranians became civilized very soon and they did not have those ethnic and tribal affiliations that are a step behind civility, that is why they were defeated by the Turks. The Turks, who were more warlike than the Parthians and Persians, were employed as soldiers in the army. Finally, one of these soldiers (Sultan Mahmoud Ghaznavi) took over the government from the Samanids through a coup d’état due to ethnic and tribal affiliations and war-mongering.
Could Sultan Mahmud have chosen a language other than Farsi for his government? Hundreds of poets were present in the house, court and gate of this Turkish king. Moreover, Turks could not talk to each other due to the dispersal of tribes and different dialects, so they needed a common language. Farsi became the language of friendship and connecting all different languages and dialects.
Turks and the spread of Persian language
Fereydun Majlessi says:
The language of the Samani state was inherited by the Ghaznavids, and then by the Seljuks and the Khwarezmshahs. With the transfer of the capital to Isfahan by the Seljuks, this language became the official language of a large Iranian government, not a local government. Local governments such as Al-Ziyar and Al-Buyeh tried to popularize this language as a civil language before but failed to spread it throughout the country.
During the Seljuq period, this language was the official language from Aleppo to Kashgar (northwest China), and people communicated with each other in Persian. Ibn Sina’s coming to Isfahan was at the invitation of Dilmi nobles, because they had to support Persian-speaking scholars. The greatest Seljuk minister is Khwaja Nizam-ul-Mulk Tusi, the author of Siyasatnameh. And there was a a great court scientist, Khayyam Neishaburi – Omar Khayyam.
These are the Seljuk Turks who brought the Persian language to Konya. In the Mongol attack, Jalaleddin Rumi and his family were driven from Khorasan and came to present-day Iran, then they went to Aleppo and Syria and from there they went to Konya. In Konya the same language as Balkh was common, as if they were at home. By how did the Persian language go there? It was the work of Farmarz, Kikaus, Qabad I, Qabad II and… the Seljuk kings who chose royal names for themselves, that too in a region where several native languages such as Kurdish, Assyrian, Arabic and Turkish were common. The language of the court has always been Persian, and the importance of the court to the Persian language adds to its development.
Majlessi futher notes:
Amir Timur Gorkani invaded Iran, but treated the Persian language with respect. Timur’s court language is Farsi. Timur’s letters and correspondence are available, which are all in Farsi. After him, Timur’s successor, Humayun Babur, conquered India and the language of the Gorkan court of India became Persian. During the centuries when Gurkans ruled India, the official language was Persian.
The letter of the conqueror of Constantinople to the king of Iran
This researcher says:
Muhammad Fatih sent the letter of conquest of Constantinople in Persian language to the Iranian Turkish king, both rulers corresponded and ruled in Persian language.
Jahanshah Qaraquyonlu is considered the greatest king before Safavid and after Seljuq. Jahanshah did not correspond in any other language except Persian. Even when his son rebels against him, there is a correspondence between father and son, not just in Persian but in Persian poetry in the Khorasani style.
The Persian language was the court language of the Ottoman sultans, and the Ottoman kings used to write poetry in Persian, and many poetry divans in Persian have survived.
During the Ottoman rule, the official language of the Ottoman court was Farsi, but Turkish had a lot of influence in the Ottoman army. With the weakening of Iran’s government, the importance of the Persian language gradually decreased over the course of 400 years.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Turkish became the official language of Constantinople, but because the number of Kurds who made up the native population there was large, the importance of the Persian language continued for a long time.
The impact of the Arab invasion on the Persian language
When the Arabs attacked Iran, did the language of the Iranian people become Arabic? In response to this question, Mr. Majlessi says:
Our language did not become Arabic, if it had, we would have become Arab like Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and non-Arab lands. The Arabic language had penetrated a lot, and it was not only the influence of this language, but tribes from Arabia and Yemen migrated to Iran and settled in Khorasan, Merv and Khiva. For example, the family of Asadollah Alam, one of the rulers of the previous regime, from the Khazima clan, is one of those who were moved to Iran. Arabic words are still prevalent in Khorasan, but over time, the language of the Arabs who migrated to Iran became Persian. During the two centuries of the Abbasid rule, some of our scientists, in order to be able to have more contact with the scientists of the vast territory of the Abbasid Caliphate, their scientific language turned to Arabic for several decades, but when the literature became Persian, it penetrated into other sciences as well, and that era passed. The mother of language is literature.
Photo: Image by mostafa meraji from Pixabay
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