Azerbaijan (Iran)
Azerbaijan ( Azerbaijani and Persian آذربایجان, DMG Āẕarbāiǧān ) is a region in northwestern Iran . In contrast to the modern Caucasian state of the same name , it corresponds to the historical Azerbaijan , known from medieval sources , which was known as Atropatene in ancient times .
Surname
The neo-Persian name "Azerbaijan" is derived with high probability from Atropates (Āturpāt - "protected [by] fire") , the old Persian name of a satrap who was born under Darius III. and Alexander the Great ruled the province of Media . When the Macedonian king in 323 BC Died and the satrapy media was divided in the course of this, Atropates received the region "small media" (Media Minor) in the northwest and made it 321 BC. An independent kingdom. While the Greeks and Romans this area dominated by Atropates (Media) Atropatene called, was the Middle Persian name for the Parthians Āturpātakān and the Sassanids Ādurbādagān , from which ultimately developed the present form of the name.
According to an older hypothesis, which today is mostly considered outdated, the expression “Azerbaijan” could also have its roots in ancient Zoroastrianism , where it says in the Avestic Frawardin Yasht : “âterepâtahe ashaonô fravashîm ýazamaide” (Eng .: “We worship the Fravashi des holy Atarepata). ”This could be supported by the fact that the great fire shrine Tacht-e Suleiman was in the area that was called“ Adurbadagān ” in late antiquity .
The area of today's Republic of Azerbaijan , which has only had this name since shortly before the Soviet rule , is more northerly than that of the ancient Atropatene and largely coincides with Albania and Arrān .
Another name that is often used today, but is politically controversial and, from the historical point of view mentioned above, a misnomer for the region is the term "South Azerbaijan " ( Azerbaijani گونئی آذربايجان Güney Azarbaycan ), which is especially popular among Azerbaijani and Turkish nationalists. The region is listed under the name "South Azerbaijan" (English. South Azerbaijan ) on the website of the Organization of Unrepresented Nations and Peoples (UNPO) . Azerbaijan is represented in the organization by the Southern Azerbaijan National Awakening Movement (SANAM) . The name is not recognized by the United Nations or other governmental or international organizations.
Area and population
The Azerbaijan landscape as such is a very old cultural land in which Arab , Armenian , Kurdish , Persian and Turkish influences meet.
Azerbaijan in the narrower sense today covers around 105,000 km² and 7.63 million people, the majority of whom are Turkish-speaking Azerbaijanis ( Azerbaijanis ), whose language is also called Azerbaijani (southern dialect) after the region . Together with the population shares of the Azeri in other provinces of Iran, a total of more than 15 million people belong to this population group.
Azerbaijan is considered one of the richest regions in Iran . It is the center of the country's carpet industry with famous knotters.
Geography, location and structure
The natural border between the medieval, Islamic province of Azerbaijan and the northern Arrān (today part of the Republic of Azerbaijan) formed the macaws , whereby the Mughan area on the Caspian Sea still belonged to Azerbaijan. Against Gilan , the region was through the north-western Alborz Mountains delimited against jibal (the old media) to the south by the Sefid Rud . In the west, where the borders were less clear, separated Azerbaijan from Kurdistan and the Van region on the other side of Lake Urmi, the foothills of the Zagros Mountains , and a little further north was Armenia. Azerbaijan was often combined with neighboring provinces and the division into a western part with the capital Ardabil and an eastern part around Maragha is documented.
Today, modern Iranian Azerbaijan is administratively divided into three provinces:
Sometimes the province of Zanjan is also included, but this is not uniform.
history
prehistory
As an ancient cultural land, Azerbaijan has many archaeological sites. Azerbaijan lies at the intersection of important regions (Caucasus, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Caspian Sea and Iranian highlands) and was therefore a transit area for many peoples. The earliest traces of human settlement come from the Paleolithic of cave dwellers near Tamtama north of Urmia and Sahand near Tabriz . But there were only isolated finds. From the later Neolithic Age (from 6000 BC) onwards one sees a constant settlement such as on the hills Yanik Tepe on Lake Urmia and Hasanlu Tepe . Various teams found many traces of settlement and tumuli west of Lake Urmiase , which showed that the area was preferred for settlement. The Ravaz site from the third millennium BC Was a place surrounded by a wall with round houses. Other places of the same period are Haftavan Tepe and Bolurabad.
Antiquity
Azerbaijan once belonged to the Medes Empire and then to the Persian Empire . During the Parthian era , the country was tied more closely to the central power and, although formally still a kingdom, became more of a province. According to Plutarch and other Roman authors, the country was then very heavily inhabited by the Zoroastrian priestly class of the poor , who probably had important centers here. Archaeologically it could be determined that the place Tacht-e Suleiman is identical to the Mager Center Schiz mentioned several times in the sources . His fire altar is identical to the sacred flame of Zoroastrianism Atur Gushnasp , which was still one of the seven central imperial fires in the time of the Sassanids . It is also known from Sassanid times that the Iranians at that time (incorrectly) equated Azerbaijan and probably also Arrān ( Albania ) with the Airyanem Vaejah (first country of the Iranians), the mythical original home of the Iranians, mentioned in the Avesta . In the 6th century Albania, which had already become Christianized, was brought back to Zoroastrianism under pressure. Only in the mountainous west of Arran and Azerbaijan was the dominance of Christianity maintained. According to several leading Iranists (including the Mary Boyces ), the region was more likely a center of the deviant Zoroastrian current of Zurvanism . See also: atropatene
From the Arab conquest to the Mongol storm
The Arab-Islamic conquest of Azerbaijan began during the caliphate of Umar ibn al-Khattab (633–634). The Arab commander Hudhaifa ibn al-Yamān occupied the area with his troops after the battle of Nehawend and concluded a contract with the Marzban of Ardabil , according to which the Marzban had to pay an annual amount of 800,000 dirhams ; In return, the Arabs undertook not to enslave anyone, to respect the fire temples and the festivals celebrated therein, and to protect the population from the Kurds in the area.
The Arab-Muslim colonization of the region did not begin until the middle of the 8th century. Towards the end of the 8th century, the immigration of Arabs to Azerbaijan increased, which at the beginning of the 9th century brought about the nativist- religious uprising movement of the Khurramites , which spread over large parts of Iran under their leader Babak Khorramdin . In their religion, elements of Zoroastrianism and Mazdakites mixed with Shiite ideas (the murdered Abū Muslim was declared the hidden savior, the Mahdi ). The Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mūn sent several military leaders (Yahyā ibn Muʿādh, Muhammad ibn Humaid) against Babak, but they were unsuccessful. Only the caliph al-Mu'tasim bi-'llāh (833-842) succeeded in suppressing the uprising. In 835 he commissioned his able general Afschin Haidar to fight against Babak. After extensive preparations, he was able to capture Babak's fortress Badhdh in 837 and put him to flight himself. In 838 Babak was cruelly executed in Samarra .
In 1030, the armies of the Turkmen Seljuks and later other tribes of the Oghuz passed through Azerbaijan on their way to Asia Minor through Azerbaijan, which at that time was still predominantly Iranian . These Turks founded various mansions that were only formally subordinate to the Abbasids . As a result, the region gradually became Turkish-speaking. Remnants of the old Iranian-speaking population are probably the Talys and those who fled to the north of Arran, once Zoroastrian, now Muslim deeds and the "Tatar-speaking" mountain Jews .
Rule of the Mongols and Turkmen
In the years between 1220 and 1223 the first incursions of the Mongols of Subutais into Azerbaijan took place, and in 1243 the Mongol leader Baiju conquered these areas. Around the year 1256 the Mongolian general Hülegü Khan established the mighty Ilchanat . By 1258 all of Persia and the Caliphate of Baghdad had been conquered and Azerbaijan formed the core of this Mongolian sub-empire. Azerbaijan experienced a heyday of architecture and book art.
Under Hülegü's great-grandson Ghazan Ilchan (1295–1304), the upper class broke with the old traditions : They finally broke away from the Mongolian Empire, renounced Buddhism and Christianity and adopted Sunni Islam as the new religion.
With the death of Hulegu's last direct descendant, Abu-Said Ilchan , the decline of the Ilkhan Empire began in 1335. The rule passed to various branch lines, under which the empire went under until 1390.
In the area of today's Azerbaijan, two Turkmen tribal federations emerged, which were formed from various Turkish tribal fragments and were to have a decisive influence on the country: the black mutton and the white mutton .
Both tribal areas later belonged to the kingdom of Timur . In 1402 Timur subjugated what is now Azerbaijan. He dreamed of renewing the empire of Genghis Khan . However, with his death in 1405, this empire quickly broke apart and the Ilchanat was renewed (for a short time) by the heirs of Hülegü. Since this empire never regained its former size, the time of the Mongolian Ilkhan came to an end in 1498 and various khanates and sultanates took its place.
The rule of the Safavids
A Persian named Safi ud-Din was the founder of the well initially based Sunni basis Sufi -Ordens ( Tariqa ) of Safaviyya and became the progenitor of the major Safavids - dynasty , which should reign in Iran by the year 1736th The order of the Kurdish Zahediyeh, from which the later Safawiyya emerged, as well as the so-called Kizilbasch , a - in part radical - Shiite group in Anatolia and Eastern Iran, were also closely connected to the Safavid dynasty .
Ismail Safawi finally succeeded in conquering Transcaucasia and the empire of the black mutton with the help of the Turkmen Kizilbash . Tabriz now became the capital of the new Persian Empire.
From 1501 on, Ismail called himself Shah-in Shah, an allusion to the ancient Persian empires , and also claimed to be a descendant of both the Prophet of Muhammad and the Persian Sassanids . The military power of the Safavids remained firmly in Turkoman hands. The Kizilbasch continued to form the military aristocracy of the empire.
In the same year 1501, after conquering Tabriz, on threat of the death penalty, Ismail I forced all Sunni residents to accept the Twelve Shiite Islam of the Imamites and extended this policy to the whole of Azerbaijan, which thus became an almost entirely Twelve Shiite region. In the following years Ismail extended this missionary policy to all Iranian cities and finally all of Persia. Still Ismail, but above all his successor Tahmasp I turned this policy against competing Shiite groups, against the traditionally numerous in northern Iran and is now almost completely disappeared Zaidi and against the splintered into numerous movements, but once widespread Ismailis and against the followers of the then popular mystical Sufism . All Sufi orders except for the Safawiyya order and the Nimatullah order were banned, their sheikhs and followers persecuted, their mausoleums and places of worship razed. For a time imamism was the only permitted religion in the empire, Georgian and Armenian Christian nobles converted (often only pretend) to Twelve Shi'ite Islam, and the Zoroastrian minority shrank to a few percent of the population. This policy of the first two Safavids turned the previously religiously diverse Iran and Azerbaijan into a Twelve Shiite / Imamite country to over 90% of the population. Sufis and Sunnis could only assert themselves in peripheral areas (e.g. the Sunni Shirvan ). Numerous emigrations of Sunnis, Sufis and Ismailis to neighboring countries are recorded. In return, numerous Twelve Shiite clergymen and believers immigrated from Iraq and Bahrain to Persia and spread their religion. Through numerous land donations ( waqf ) and state financial grants, the Twelve Shiite clergy became a privileged and organized third power in the state (alongside the strongly heterodox Shiite Safawiyya Sufis and the Kizilbasch). Azerbaijan is one of its strongholds to this day.
However, the Shiite influence on Central Asian Islam was initially opposed by the then Uzbek Khan Mohammed Scheibani , a relative of the old Chagatai rulers . He had succeeded the Timurids in Central Asia and had just founded his own ruling house: the Scheibanid dynasty. The religious influence of the Safavids on the territory of the Ottoman Empire was forcibly prevented by the mass murder of Selim I of the Anatolian Kizilbasch after Ismail I had already been defeated by the Ottomans in the battle of Tschaldiran .
From the end of the Safavids to the First World War
After the end of the Safavids, Nadir Shah tried to conquer the regions between Eastern Anatolia, the Indus , the Caucasus and Mesopotamia . His empire fell apart after his death, but quickly and after the brief interlude of Zandherrscher the alleged in the Persian civil war Qajar dynasty . In the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, however, their power disintegrated and numerous khanates were formed: in the north, the Shirvan Khanate , the Quba Khanate , the Baku Khanate , the Karabakh Khanate , the Nakhichevan Khanate and others. a., in the south z. B. those of Mucha and Urmia .
As of 1813, as a result of the Russian-Persian border wars in the Caucasus , Persia had to cede the former Persian provinces of Arrān and Shirvan to the victorious Russians ( Peace of Gulistan and Peace of Turkmanschai ). After Ottoman territories in the region fell to the Russians, there were massive settlements of Ottoman and Persian Armenians in Russian-occupied areas, as well as the emigration of Turkish-speaking Azerbaijanis from Russian-Caucasus to the Ottoman Empire (mostly Sunnis) and to Persia (mostly Shiites) . Thus the Azerbaijanis as a people were divided between two states - Russia and Persia - the historical Azerbaijan remained as a province administered by the respective heir to the throne of the Shah of Tabriz, predominantly with Persia. The northern area (annexed by Russia), the former province of Aran, now forms the sovereign state of Azerbaijan . The southern areas, historical Azerbaijan , is now divided into three Iranian provinces.
In the Persian Constitutional Revolution 1905–1911, the Azerbaijani capital Tabriz was the center of resistance against attacking Qajar troops in 1908 after the arrest of parliamentarians in Tehran . Under Bagher Khan and Sattar Khan , the Shah's troops were defeated and the Constitutional Movement recaptured Tehran, which led to the overthrow of Mohammed Ali Shah in 1909.
The story to this day
After the collapse of the Russian Empire (1917) and the independence of what is now called the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan , a union with the Iranian province of Azerbaijan was sought. This Azerbaijani nationalist goal of uniting the old Aran and old Azerbaijan into one Greater Azerbaijan was represented by the Musawat party, especially from 1911 onwards . It was temporarily resumed by the Soviet Union in 1945/46 with expansionist goals and became popular again in 1989/90.
Formally, in 1918, the destabilized Iranian Azerbaijan (occupied by Russian occupation troops from 1905, which disbanded in 1917) was declared independent from Persia and joined the "Republic of Greater Azerbaijan" ( Büyük Azarbaycan Cumhuriyäti ). The goal was initially to merge with neighboring Turkey . The ruling party was the Greater Azerbaijani, e.g. But partly also Pan-Turkist and Muslim-modernist Musawat, a major opposition party was the Greater Turkish Ittihad ve Terakki (Unity and Progress), a local branch of the then Ottoman ruling party of the Young Turks .
In order to protect Azerbaijan from being retaken by the Russians and Persians, the Azerbaijani parliament decided to let foreign troops into the country: Enver Pasha's Caucasus army marched into North Azerbaijan - partly to the cheering of the population - while the Iranian territories came under the Control of the British came, who were now to be regarded as the governor of the Persian Shah and slowed down Greater Azerbaijan plans.
In 1920 the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan was dissolved after the conquest by the Red Army in the north and the balance of power from 1828 was restored. In the same year, Sheikh Mohammed Chiabani tried to keep the Iranian province of Azerbaijan independent with the help of the Red Army. At the same time as the Iranian Soviet Republic in Gilan , Chiabani proclaimed the state of Azadistan (Land of the Free) in Iranian Azerbaijan, which went under only six months later.
Azerbaijan has been influenced by the politics of Reza Khan Pahlavi since the beginning of the 20th century . Reza Khan came from a humble background and became one of the youngest Cossack hetmans of the elite Persian cavalry of the Persian Cossacks established by the Russian Empire and was raised to the rank of brigadier general of the regular army. In February 1921 he took part in a coup against the government of Prime Minister Fathollah Akbar Sepahdar and was initially appointed Commander in Chief of the Persian Cossacks. He later joined Prime Minister Seyyed Zia Tabatabai's cabinet as Minister of War . In 1923 Reza Shah became Prime Minister of Persia and, after the introduction of surnames in Persia, chose the name Pahlavi . An elected constituent assembly met on December 6, 1925, and after several days of deliberation, it passed a constitutional amendment on December 12, 1925 with 257 out of 260 possible votes, with Reza Khan as the new head of state and his male descendants in direct line as his successors were enshrined in the constitution. The Iranian parliament met on October 29, 1925 and decided on October 31, 1925 to overthrow the Qajar dynasty, establish a provisional government and appoint Reza Khan as the new head of state for a limited period. On December 15, 1925, Reza Khan took the oath of allegiance to the constitution in parliament and was declared Reza Shah Pahlavi. This established the Pahlavi dynasty, which ruled Iran until the Islamic revolution of 1979.
In general, the new Shah was considered a reformer and he sought close alliance with the Turkish founder Ataturk . Following his example, he began to open Iran to the West. At the beginning of the Second World War he declared the neutrality of Iran, but after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941, under pressure from Stalin and Churchill, he had to abdicate in favor of his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi .
In 1946, the Azerbaijanis and the Kurds proclaimed their own state under the protection of the Red Army, which invaded northern Iran in 1941, thus triggering the Iran crisis . The Azerbaijani People's Government , like the Autonomous Republic of Kurdistan proclaimed in Mahabad, collapsed again in 1946 after the Soviet Union withdrew its troops from Iran at the end of World War II.
After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Islamic law was also introduced in Azerbaijan - according to official reports with the support of the Azerbaijani population. Azerbaijani clergymen, including the current politically conservative Iranian head of state Seyyed Alī Chāmene'ī , whose father was an Azerbaijani, form part of the Islamic Republic to this day. Another well-known ayatollah from Azerbaijan was the Shiite religious scholar and Persian philosopher and religious scholar Allameh Said Mohammed Hossein Tabatabai , who was considered humanistic and did not take part in the Islamic revolution in Iran .
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, thousands of Azerbaijanis (Western media reported around 20,000 participants) on both sides of the border demanded the reunification of both parts of the country. In relation to the total population of Azerbaijanis, however, this was only a small minority, which was also one of the reasons why the unification did not succeed.
See also
literature
- Jamil Hasanli: At the Dwan of the Cold War - The Soviet-American Crisi over Iranian Azerbaijan, 1941-1946. Oxford 2006.
- Rudi Matthee: Safavid Dynasty. In: Encyclopaedia Iranica .
- V. Minorsky: Ā dh arbay dj ān. In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Volume I, pp. 188b-191b.
- Xavier de Planhol, Klaus Schippmann , Clifford Edmund Bosworth a. a .: Azerbaijan. In: Encyclopaedia Iranica .
- Werner Zürrer: Caucasus 1918–1921. The battle of the great powers for a land bridge between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Düsseldorf 1978.
- Werner Zürrer: Persia between England and Russia 1918–1925. Great power influences and national resurgence using the example of Iran. Bern / Frankfurt / Las Vegas 1978. In: The world of Islam. 22, 1982.
Web links
- Multiple authors: Azerbaijan . In: Ehsan Yarshater (Ed.): Encyclopædia Iranica , as of: August 18, 2011 (English, including references)
Remarks
- ↑ Cf. Persian āser = fire.
- ↑ Audrey Alstadt: The Azerbaijani Turks. Power and Identity under Russian Rule. Hoover Press, 1992, ISBN 0-8179-9182-4 .
- ↑ Frawardin Yasht ( "Hymn to the Guardian Angels"). Translation by James Darmesteter (from Sacred Books of the East , American Edition, 1898)
- ↑ Wladimir Minorsky: Caucasica IV. In: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. Volume 15/3, University of London, London 1953, p. 504.
- ↑ Southern Azerbaijan: Admitted to UNPO . In: UNPO. February 9, 2007, accessed May 12, 2009 .
- ↑ Azerbaijan. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. March 9, 2009, accessed on July 9, 2012 : “… geographic region that comprises the extreme northwestern portion of Iran. It is bounded on the north by the Aras River, which separates it from independent Azerbaijan and Armenia; on the east by the Iranian region of Gīlān and the Caspian Sea; on the south by the Iranian regions of Zanjān and Kordestān; and on the west of Iraq and Turkey. Azerbaijan is 47,441 square miles (122,871 square km) in area. "
- ↑ H. Dizadji: Journey from Tehran to Chicago . Trafford Publishing, 2010, ISBN 1-4269-2918-8 , pp. 105 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- ↑ Cf. Minorsky 190a after al-Balādhurī : Futūḥ al-buldān . Ed. De Goeje. Leiden 1866, p. 325 f., Archive.org
- ↑ See Patricia Crone : The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran. Rural Revolt and Local Zoroastrianism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2012, pp. 46-76.
- ^ Wilhelm Litten : Persian honeymoon. Georg Stilke, Berlin 1925, p. 112