Turan (region)
Turan ( Persian توران, DMG Tūrān ) denotes in Iranian mythology a Central Asian area northeast of Ērān ( Iran , which is to be understood here in the sense of settlement and dominion area of ancient Persia ). The term was used in late antiquity as part of the rule ideology of the Sassanid Empire .
The term Turan , which literally means "[land of] Tūr" (son of the sixth mythical primal king Fereydūn ), stands among other things in the Shāhnāme for the land of the non-Iranians ( Aniran ) beyond the Oxus ( Amudarja ).
Turan also referred to a region in Balochistan in Islamic times .
Turan as an opponent of the Persians in historical times and as a political term
In the old Persian imagination, there was also Anērān , the land of non-Iranians , in addition to Ērān . Both terms appear in the Avesta as Airya and Anairya , the term Ērān ud Anērān ( Iran and non-Iran ) was coined by the kings of the Sassanid Empire in late antiquity . They claimed to have united the entire civilized world under their rule in their kingdom of Ērānšāhr . This did not mean that Anērān had to be subjugated, but it was meant to recognize the suzerainty of ārān . This political ideology served not least to underpin the Sassanid kings' claim to rule.
The name Tūrān , which emerged in Sassanid times, referred to the later Persians as a barbaric region in which the traditional enemies of Ērān lived. As part of the Sassanian rule idea the world was divided into three parts: In addition Eran existed in the West Hrom / rum ( "Rome": Roman Empire ) and the North East in Transoxania Turan , the land of wild nomads, who had to fight the Persian kings (see Central Asia in late antiquity ) . In fact, the Sassanid kings were often tied to fighting on the northeast border, first against the Kushana , then against nomadic invaders. In research, the new opponents emerging from the middle of the 4th century are referred to as the Iranian Huns , but they have no direct connection with the Huns in the west. These new opponents were not satisfied with raids, but established more or less solid areas of rule. They proved to be stubborn opponents of the Persian kings, resorting to Iranian institutions to secure their rule.
The Sassanids not only suffered territorial losses; the Hephthalites in particular even got involved in internal power struggles in Persia; King Peroz I died fighting them in 484. In this context, the Sassanids were confronted with a strategic dilemma, as they had to secure the northeast border on the one hand, and were confronted with an even more serious opponent in the west with the Roman Empire on the other. Even after the fall of the Hephthalite Empire around 560, the Sassanids had to be concerned about protecting the north-eastern border, as the much larger Gök-Turkish Empire now bordered Persia.
The name Tūrān probably originated from older traditions. In the Avesta, the sacred script of the Zoroastrians , the terms Tur and Tuirya appear; they are the Turanians , the nomadic archenemies of the Zoroastrian Arya . In the later Persian tradition, the term Tūrān, presumably derived from it, seems to have been transferred to other changing opponents of Iran, especially to the various nomadic opponents across the Oxus River. For the late ancient Persians with their developed sedentary civilization, Tūrān with its hostile nomadic tribes became the opposite pole. Mytho-historiographical texts seem to have originated at the Sassanid court, in which the inferiority of this hostile world was emphasized.
In the Islamic period the Persians used Firdausi the term Turan in his monumental epic Shahnameh , which he partly relied on sources from Sassanian time as translations of the Sassanian Mr. Buchs ( Xwaday-NAMAG ). In this context, older Sassanid ideas seem to have flowed into his work. For him, Tūrān is the antithesis of Ērān and its inhabitants are the hereditary enemies of the Persians and enemies of peace. In research, however, it is controversial whether Firdausi took over the designation "Land of the Turks" for Tūrān here from an older source, or whether his own life experiences with regard to the presence of the Turks in the adjacent Central Asian region were incorporated.
Firdausi processed many older, legendary stories in his epic, which told of the fight between Eran and Turan. According to the legend, Shah Fereydun divided the world between his three sons Iradsch , Salm and Tur: Iradsch received with Iran the heart of the empire and Salm the west with Asia Minor. Tur got all the land beyond the Oxus (today Amu Darya), which from then on was called Turan:
“ Then he gave Turan to Tur,
And made him lord of Turk and Tschin. "
The avestic figure " Afrāsiyāb " ( Persian افراسياب; Avestan Fraŋrasyan ; Middle Persian Frāsiyāv ), son of Pescheng, is considered the best known among the kings of Tūrān. The struggle between Iran as the land of the noble and Turan as the land of the mighty is a significant part of Iranian mythology.
Turan as the original home of the Turkic peoples
Turan describes today the original settlement area of the Turkic peoples in Central Asia. The word has a pantur (k) anistic ideological connotation: It denotes a state - symbolized by the Kızıl Elma (“red apple” or in German also “golden apple”) - in which all the Turks in the world are supposedly united should.
Landscape designation
Under the name Ṭūrān , Islamic geographers and historians, especially up to the 10th century, are aware of an inaccessible mountain region in east-central Balochistan , which bordered on Makran in the south and on Sind in the east . The capital was Qusdar ( Quṣdār , today's Chuzdar). Possibly the name derives from the Persian term for "hostile, non-Iranian territory".
According to the Perso-Arab historian Tabari , Makran and Turan were subjugated by the first Sassanid king Ardashir I. As part of the caliphate empire, the politically fragmented Turan, whose inhabitants were Islamized only late, belonged to the Saffarid Empire before it fell to the Ghaznavids .
literature
- Douglas Haug: The Eastern Frontier. Limits of Empire in Late Antique and Early Medieval Central Asia. IB Tauris, London / New York 2019.
- Richard Payne: The Making of Turan. The Fall and Transformation of the Iranian East in Late Antiquity. In: Journal of Late Antiquity 9, 2016, pp. 4–41.
Remarks
- ↑ a b Ehsan Yarshater : AFRĀSĪĀB . In: Encyclopædia Iranica . Vol. 1. Roudlege, New York 1989.
- ↑ Cf. also in general Matthew P. Canepa: The Two Eyes of the Earth. Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran. Berkeley 2009.
- ↑ See currently Khodadad Rezakhani: ReOrienting the Sasanians. East Iran in Late Antiquity. Edinburgh 2017.
- ^ Richard Payne: The Making of Turan. The Fall and Transformation of the Iranian East in Late Antiquity. In: Journal of Late Antiquity 9, 2016, here p. 11ff.
- ↑ James Howard-Johnston : The Sasanian's Strategic Dilemma. In: Henning Börm, Josef Wiesehöfer (eds.): Commutatio et contentio. Studies in the Late Roman, Sasanian, and Early Islamic Near East. Düsseldorf 2010, pp. 37–70.
- ↑ See Mary Boyce : A History of Zoroastrianism. Volume 1. Leiden / Cologne 1975, p. 104ff.
- ↑ See already Joseph Marquart: Eransahr. Berlin 1901, p. 155f.
- ^ Richard Payne: The Making of Turan. The Fall and Transformation of the Iranian East in Late Antiquity. In: Journal of Late Antiquity 9, 2016, here p. 27f.
- ^ Richard Payne: The Making of Turan. The Fall and Transformation of the Iranian East in Late Antiquity. In: Journal of Late Antiquity 9, 2016, here p. 27ff.
- ^ Daniel T. Potts: Nomadism in Iran. From Antiquity to the Modern Era. Oxford 2014, pp. 171f.
- ↑ Friedrich Rückert : Firdosi's King's Book (Schahname) Sage I – XIII. Berlin 1890, p. 86, lines 295f.
- ↑ Berna Pekesen: Panturkismus , in: European History Online (EGO) , ed. from the Leibniz Institute for European History (IEG), Mainz 2014.
- ^ Turan , in: Encyclopædia Iranica