About Iran, Persia and Arabs
The region of Iran today was once ruled by semitic races like Assyrians, Elamites, Babylonians and so on.
The Assyrians once crippled the Elamite Empire and killing most of their population. That was nothing new in the region - but during the same time the iranian people were marching from north into the region of today-Iran.
They simply filled the elamite vacuum which was caused by the assyrians and assimilated the elamites.
The old capital city of the Elamites, Susa, became later one of the three capital cities of the Achaemenid Empire of the iranian Kings of Kurosh or Dariavush.
Persians were one of the iranian peoples - like the Medes who dominated the Iranians first.
While the iranians never used "Persia" as a term of their empire the ancient greeks called them so, cause in their point of view the Persians ruled the Iranians.
The Irans simply made two definitions: Iran and Aniran - the one of Iran and all the others not of Iran.
If you translate Iran it means "Land of the Aryans" and aryans has no of the nonsense superhuman meaning of the Nazis like white, blond, blueeyes and so on.
The title of the iranian kings was Shahinshah Aryamer - King of the Kings and Light of the Aryans. Also the last Shah had this title which was created in the days of Cyrus the Great.
1921 Iran - which was always called Persia by outsiders - changed officially its name to Iran.
But to call Iran Persia is so if you would call the USA "Texas" just because the ruling person is from this province.
One other mistake which is often made, is that people call iranians arabs. If you ever want to insult an Iranian or try to get problems in Iran, tell an Iranian an Arab and wait for the reaction
You can also make a thumbs-up-sign which means in Iran the same like the middelfinger-sign-up here
Beside the racial difference (Arabs are members of the semitic race - and Iranian members of the indo-german-race) there are great cultural and religious differences between Arabs and Iranian. The hateful relationship is mainly a result of the arab conquest of Iran, when the islamic hordes destroyed the sassanid iranian dynasty.
While other nations in the region - like the egyptians and syrians - accepted to become assimilated, gave up their language and become arabs the iranians fought a bitter and long war against the arabs to avoid to become arabs.
It was forbidden to speak or write in Farsi - the iranian language, but the poets of iran saved the iranian language. The book Shahname of the poet Firdausi is not only an interesting story but saved the iranian language. So Iran wasnt assimilated, didnt become a member of the arab family and finally the arabs were kicked out of Iran. And so the iranian people still today celebrate their poets - you will find in every city in Iran a statue of one of these historical persons.
Iran also changed the new islamic religion and took the shiite Islam as national religion instead of the sunnite Islam of the arab nations. The exeptions are Bahrein - an arab country with shiite majority which was 200 ago iranian territory and of course Iraq which has a shiite majority, concentrated to the southeast of Iraq.
Exactly the region which has once been iranian territory with the old capital city Ktesiphon of the destroyed sassanid Empire near Bagdad.
The arabs called the shiites heretics (and likewise) so there were also bitter wars fought because of this reason. (remember North Ireland and the catholic/protestant-fanatics - seems that humans act everywhere irrational if they get a chance to).
An intersting fact of the iranian shiite Islam is that there are many elements of the old iranian religion of the sassanid empire integrated in the shiite islam. Even the iranian mullahs and ajatollahs of today wear the robes in the style of the old pre-islamic iranian priests.
How the iranians hate arabs could be seen when the arab Saddam attacked Iran. Iran was in that time in the middle of inner political fightings. It was the time when the Shah was deposed and his terror-regime was replaced by the one of Chomeini and his Mullahs.
But when the news arrived that arab hordes were again entering iranian territory these fights ended and all concentrated in fighting the arab enemy.
So :
1. Persia is a province of Iran, called Fars.
2. Iranians are not Arabs.
PS: My english is not good cause its the 3rd or 4th language I learned - so I am sure that I made some funny mistakes. Have fun
