Khorasan Province

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Khorasan or Khorasan (also Khorassan written Persian خراسان Khorasan ) was the name of a former Iranian province with the provincial capital Mashhad , which in 2004 was divided into north , south and Razavi Khorasan (other parts were integrated into the provinces of Yazd and Sistan and Balochistan ). The provinces lie on the border with Turkmenistan and Afghanistan and correspond to the southwestern part of the greater Khorasan region.

The population of Khorasan is approximately 6 million, the vast majority of which are Shiite Muslims of Persian origin. In addition, at least 400,000 so-called Khorasan Turks live in Khorasan , including the Afshars , as well as a small but significant Kurdish minority. In the 17th century the Persian Shah Abbas I had resettled 10,000 Shiite Kurds to Khorasan in order to form a bulwark against the increasingly strong Turkmen invasions. This outer province was also considered a place of exile or retreat.

Due to the open and difficult to understand border with Afghanistan, the number of Afghan citizens and refugees in this province can hardly be recorded. It was assumed that around 2 million Afghans fled to Iran during the civil war 1980–1989. Today the official number of non-naturalized Afghan refugees is around 800,000, but the number is likely to be over 1 million. The Afghans who live in the three provinces are mostly of Persian origin and Shiite. They come from z. B. from the provinces of Herat , Farah (western Afghanistan), Bamiyan or Nimrus .

Many Persian-Shiite Afghans or just Shiite Afghans, especially from the border areas, have had lively family and other relationships with Iran. These aspects are forgotten. One thinks that the people from Afghanistan have only been in Iran since the outbreak of the war against the Soviets and the subsequent civil war - which is not true. There were already lively contacts with Iran before 1980. Many people from Afghanistan have come to Iran as seasonal workers, pilgrims ( Imam Reza ), traders, students (whether religious or secular study goals) or as tourists.

  • Former Khorasan Province

  • North Khorasan

  • Razavi Khorasan

  • South Khorasan

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Commons : Khorasan  - collection of images, videos and audio files