Greater Iran or Greater Persia (), the Iranosphere, the Persosphere or Iranzamin (), is a term used to refer to a broader cultural sphere that has been influenced by Iranian peoples and Iranian languages, and primarily includes the Iranian plateau, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent (aka, South Asia), and as far east as the Tarim Basin.International Journal of Middle East Studies. (2007), 39: pp 307–309 Copyright © 2007 Cambridge University Press.
The regions which make up Greater Iran are defined by having long been under the rule of various Iranian empires and dynasties,Richard Nelson Frye, The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Oct. 1962), pp. 261–268 I use the term Iran in an historical context[...]Persia would be used for the modern state, more or less equivalent to "western Iran". I use the term "Greater Iran" to mean what I suspect most Classicists and ancient historians really mean by their use of Persia—that which was within the political boundaries of States ruled by Iranians. during which the local populace gradually absorbed Iranian influence and assimilated it into their cultural and linguistic traditions; or those where a considerable Iranian population settled and retained their culture, such as in the areas surrounding the Iranian plateau.Dialect, Culture, and Society in Eastern Arabia: Glossary. Clive Holes. 2001. Page XXX. . It is referred to as the "Iranian Cultural Continent" by Encyclopædia Iranica.
Throughout the 16th to 19th centuries, Iran lost many of its historical territories that had been reconquered under the Iranian dynasties of the Safavids and Qajars. The Ottoman–Persian Wars resulted in the loss of present-day Iraq to the Ottoman Empire, as outlined in the Treaty of Amasya in 1555 and the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639. Later, the Russo-Persian Wars resulted in the loss of the Caucasus to the Russian Empire: the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813 saw Iran cede present-day Dagestan, Georgia, and most of Azerbaijan; the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828 saw Iran cede present-day Armenia, the remainder of Azerbaijan, and Iğdır, setting the northern boundary of Iran along the Aras River. Parts of Iran, notably Herat, were lost to Afghanistan through the Treaty of Paris in 1857 and the McMahon Arbitration in 1905.
Etymology The name "Iran" is the New Persian continuation of the old genitive plural aryānām (Proto-Iranian, meaning "of the Aryans"), first attested in the Avesta as airyānąm (the text of which is composed in Avestan, an old Iranian language spoken in northeastern Greater Iran, or in what are now Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan).
The proto-Iranian term aryānām is present in the term Airyana Vaēǰah, the homeland of Zoroaster and Zoroastrianism, near the provinces of Sogdiana, Margiana, Bactria, etc., listed in the first chapter of the Vidēvdād. The Avestan evidence is confirmed by Greek sources: Arianē is spoken of as being between Persia and the Indian subcontinent.
However, this is a Greek pronunciation of the name Haroyum/Haraiva (Herat), which the Greeks called 'Aria' (a land listed separately from the homeland of the Aryans).
While up until the end of the Parthian period in the 3rd century CE, the idea of "Ērān" had an ethnic, linguistic, and religious value, it did not yet have a political import. The idea of an "Iranian" empire or kingdom in a political sense is a purely Sasanian one. It was the result of a convergence of interests between the new dynasty and the Zoroastrian clergy, as we can deduce from the available evidence.
This convergence gave rise to the idea of an Ērānšahr "Kingdom of the Iranians", which was "ēr" (Middle Persian, and even New Persian equivalent of Old Persian "ariya" and Avestan "airya").
Definition Richard Nelson Frye defines Greater Iran as including "much of the Caucasus, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, with cultural influences extending to western China and northern, northwestern western India." According to him, "Iran means all lands and peoples where Iranian languages were and are spoken, and where in the past, multi-faceted Iranian cultures existed."Frye, Richard Nelson, Greater Iran, p.xi
Medieval and early modern Persian authors, such as Qadi Baydawi, 'Abd al-Razzāq Samarqandī, Mir Khwand, and Mustawfī-e Bāfqī, typically defined Iran as extending from the Euphrates to the Oxus.Mīr Khvānd, Muḥammad ibn Khāvandshāh, Tārīkh-i rawz̤at al-ṣafā. Taṣnīf Mīr Muḥammad ibn Sayyid Burhān al-Dīn Khāvand Shāh al-shahīr bi-Mīr Khvānd. Az rū-yi nusakh-i mutaʻaddadah-i muqābilah gardīdah va fihrist-i asāmī va aʻlām va qabāyil va kutub bā chāphā-yi digar mutamāyiz mībāshad.[Tehrān] Markazī-i Khayyām Pīrūz [1959-60]. . "Iranshahr stretches from the Euphrates to the Oxus, and it is the center of the prosperity of the World." The Shahnameh of Abu Mansur describes Iran as a land stretching from the Oxus to the Nile (or the Euphrates in some readings), situated at the center of the world, surrounded by China, India, the Turks, the Khazars, the 'Barbarians,' Rome, and Egypt. Hamdallah Mustawfi defines Iran's geography in his Nuzhat al-Qulūb as extending from Konya in the west to the Oxus in the east, and from Basra in the south to Derbent in the north. He then goes on to elaborate on Iran's exact geographic boundaries as follows: Sind, Kabul, Saghaniyan, Transoxiana, and Khwarizm up to Saqsin and Bulghār, make up Iran's eastern frontiers. Niksar and Sis make up the western frontiers. Ossetia, Circassia, Alania, Rus, and the lands of the Magyars and the Burtas along the Khazar steppe, make up the northern frontiers. ... The Najd desert—connected to Syria in the west and the sea of Persia in the east—marks the southern frontier. Although some of these borderlands have been under the rule of the kings of Iran in the past—some of the cities therein having even been founded by Iranian kings—we shall not mention any more of them, for our intent here is only to describe the land of Iran.
To the ancient Greeks, Greater Iran ended at the Indus River located in Pakistan.J.M. Cook, "The Rise of the Achaemenids and Establishment of Their Empire" in Ilya Gershevitch, William Bayne Fisher, J. A. Boyle "Cambridge History of Iran", Vol 2. p. 250. Excerpt: "To the Greeks, Greater Iran ended at the Indus".
The Cambridge History of Iran takes a geographical approach in referring to the "historical and cultural" entity of "Greater Iran" as "areas of Iran, parts of Afghanistan, Chinese and Soviet Central Asia".The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. III: The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods, Ehsan Yarshater, Review author[s]: Richard N. Frye, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 21, No. 3. (Aug. 1989), p. 415. .
Richard Foltz notes that while "A general assumption is often made that the various Iranian peoples of 'greater Iran'—a cultural area that stretched from Mesopotamia and the Caucasus into Khwarizm, Transoxiana, Bactria, and the Pamirs and included Persians, Medes, Parthians and Sogdians among others—were all 'Zoroastrians' in pre-Islamic times... This view, even though common among serious scholars, is almost certainly overstated." He argues that "While the various Iranian peoples did indeed share a common pantheon and pool of religious myths and symbols, in actuality a variety of deities were worshipped—particularly Mitra, the god of covenants, and Anahita, the goddess of the waters, but also many others—depending on the time, place, and particular group concerned".Richard Foltz, "Religions of the Silk Road: Premodern Patterns of globalization", Palgrave Macmillan, rev. 2nd edition, 2010. pg 27
George Lane also states that after the dissolution of the Mongol Empire, the Ilkhanids became rulers of greater IranGeorge Lane, "Daily Life in the Mongol Empire", Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006. p. 10. "The year following 1260 saw the empire irrevocably split but also signaled the emergence of the two greatest achievements of the house of Chinggis, namely the Yuan dynasty of greater China and the Il-Khanid dynasty of greater Iran." and Uljaytu, according to Judith G. Kolbas, was the ruler of this expanse between 1304 and 1317 A.D.Judith G. Kolbas, "The Mongols in Iran", Excerpt from 399: "Uljaytu, Ruler of Greater Iran from 1304 to 1317 A.D."
According to J. P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams most of western "Greater Iran" spoke Southwestern Iranian languages in the Achaemenid era while the Eastern territory spoke Eastern Iranian languages related to Avestan.Mallory, J. P.; Adams, D. Q. (1997), Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture, London and Chicago: Fitzroy-Dearborn, . pg 307: "Dialectically, Old Persian is regarded as a southwestern Iranian language in contrast to the east Iranian Avestan which covered most of the rest of Greater Iran. However, it is important to note that during the Achaemeid era, the official language of the empire was Aramaic, which was the mother tongue of the ancient [Iraqis], since it was the language of literature, religion, and science at that time. [Aramaic] language had a great impact on Persian and survived as the dominant language in the middle east until the [Islamic conquest].
Background
Greater Iran is called Eranzamin () which means "Iranland" or "The Land of Iran". Eranzamin was in the mythical times as opposed to the Turanzamin, "Turanland" or "The Land of Turan", which was located in the upper part of Central Asia.Dehkhoda Dictionary, Dehkhoda, see under entry "Turan"
With Imperial Russia continuously advancing south in the course of two wars against Persia, and the treaties of Turkmenchay and Gulistan in the western frontiers, plus the unexpected death of Abbas Mirza in 1833, and the murdering of Persia's Grand Vizier (Mirza AbolQasem Qa'im Maqām), many Central Asian khanates began losing hope for any support from Persia against the Tsarist armies.Homayoun, N. T., Kharazm: What do I know about Iran?. 2004. , p. 78 The Russian armies occupied the Aral coast in 1849, Tashkent in 1864, Bukhara in 1867, Samarkand in 1868, and Khiva and Amudarya in 1873.
Many Iranians consider their natural sphere of influence to extend beyond Iran's present borders. After all, Iran was once much larger. Portuguese forces seized islands and ports in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the 19th century, the Russian Empire wrested from Tehran's control what is today Armenia, Republic of Azerbaijan, and part of Georgia. Iranian elementary school texts teach about the Iranian roots not only of cities like Baku, but also cities further north like Derbent in southern Russia. The Shah lost much of his claim to western Afghanistan following the Anglo-Iranian war of 1856–1857. Only in 1970 did a UN sponsored consultation end Iranian claims to suzerainty over the Persian Gulf island nation of Bahrain. In centuries past, Iranian rule once stretched westward into modern Iraq and beyond. When the western world complains of Iranian interference beyond its borders, the Iranian government often convinced itself that it is merely exerting its influence in lands that were once its own. Simultaneously, Iran's losses at the hands of outside powers have contributed to a sense of grievance that continues to the present day. —Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East PolicyPatrick Clawson. Eternal Iran. Palgrave. 2005. Coauthored with Michael Rubin. . pp. 9, 10.
Iran today is just a rump of what it once was. At its height, Iranian rulers controlled Iraq, Afghanistan, Western Pakistan, much of Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Many Iranians today consider these areas part of a greater Iranian sphere of influence. —Patrick ClawsonPatrick Clawson and Michael Rubin (2005). Eternal Iran. Palgrave. . p. 30.