Persia

PERSIA. - From 1925 to 1950 P. was called Irân (from ĕrân = "nobles", that is, the Aryans); in the broad sense it comprises the entire plateau that joins Anatolia to Central Asia, over which the Aryans ruled.

I. GEOGRAPHY.

After China and India, this is the largest (1.6 million sq. km.) of the independent states of Asia. Its maritime front faces the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea; its frontiers bring it into contact with the U.S.S.R. (to the N.), Turkey, Iraq (to the W.), Afghanistan and Pakistan (to the E.).

The territory consists for about 2/3 of an arid, steppe-like or desert plateau, bounded on every side by highlands (Elburz: 5761 m.), which in turn are isolated toward the outside by more or less extensive depressed areas, and which cut off the interior of the country from the beneficial influence of the humid sea winds. The pronounced continentality of the climate results in short, rigid winters and long, torrid summers; but even more characteristic is the extreme scarcity of precipitation, to which is due the presence of vast desert areas (Salt Desert, Lut Desert). Only on the slopes of the highest mountains, fertilized by the rains, or in the interior oases, where some water table surfaces, are crops possible, yielding, besides cereals (especially wheat), above all cotton, tobacco and sugar beet. Connected with the wide diffusion of the steppe are nomadic pastoralism, the substantial size of the livestock patrimony (13 million head of sheep; 7 of goats; 2.5 of cattle, etc.), and the activities connected with it (carpets, hand-woven fabrics, hides, etc.). Sericulture (Caspian coast), fishing (Caspian) and oyster farming (Persian Gulf) are flourishing.

But the greatest resources of the country are in the subsoil; of its still hard-to-assess wealth (coal, metals and above all copper and lead) only petroleum is being exploited. Found in several zones, it is extracted in the greatest quantity from Hûzistân (whence a pipeline carries it to 'Abâdân on the Persian Gulf), from Horâsân and from eastern Mâzandârân. Production has roughly quadrupled in the last twenty years (25 million tons in 1948), so that P. is now in fourth place among the oil countries. The disputes recently created with England are essentially economic in character and due to the demand on the part of P. to have a greater percentage (royalty) on the products, in order to raise the country's economy. Moreover this had already been favored by the development of communication routes (2500 km. of railways, foremost among which is the trans-Iranian from Bender-i-Gez on the Caspian and Bender-i-Sâhpur on the Persian Gulf) and by a more efficient port organization.

The population of P. today amounts to no less than 17 million inhabitants (10 per sq. km.), 2.3 million of them of Aryan stock; for the rest Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, Gypsies, Armenians and Jews. Europeans number a few thousand, all in the major inhabited centers. Of these fewer than ten exceed 100,000 inhabitants. Teherân, the capital, today counts more than double what it did twenty years ago (700,000); there follow Iṣfahân (205,000), Tabriz (215,000) and Sirâz (129,000).

P. is a hereditary constitutional monarchy, with an elective government and bicameral representation.

Giuseppe Caraci

II. HISTORY AND ANCIENT RELIGION.

I. THE IRANIAN WORLD

The factor that contributed most to giving a face to Iranianism and to making it, for more than a millennium, a cultural entity as well as a clearly distinct political one, is certainly the religious factor. In fact, while the Iranian peoples of the plateau, who made the religion of Zarathustra their own, became a historical people, capable of asserting themselves on the margins of the Greco-Roman world, the kindred stocks of Central Asia, who remained strangers to it, were lost in the sea of the nomadic and barbarian populations that the ancients included under the name of Scythians. Note, moreover, that the affirmation of Iranianism, especially on the cultural plane, appears in its varied development in close connection with the affirmation of those religious values.

Of the Indo-European peoples, who in the course of the second millennium had settled on the plateau that took its name from them (Irân, Middle Persian ĕrân from Old Persian aryânân), the first to assert themselves were the Medes, who founded a kingdom which, from the second half of the 8th century B.C., constituted for more than a century and a half one of the most powerful political organizations of the Near East. About the religion of the Medes there is no direct information, but the very fact that the new doctrine proclaimed by Zarathustra would be adopted and transformed by the Magi, who according to Herodotus' testimony were one of the seven tribes of Media, shows that these Aryan peoples, having become settled, had elaborated into new values the ancient naturalistic heritage of the common phase.

The legacy of the Median Empire is taken up by that of the Persian empire of the Achaemenid dynasty. Founded by Cyrus the Great toward the middle of the 6th century B.C., he carries out a political-administrative organization that is certainly the first and most important of the ancient world. The solidity of the work, created by Cyrus and reinforced by Darius I, was such that Persia, despite its unsuccessful enterprises against Greece, was able to maintain a position of pre-eminence for more than two centuries. The decline of the Empire was contributed to by the fact that, after Darius, the dynasty assumed the typical characteristics of Oriental despotism, from which at the beginning it had vigorously differentiated itself. Indeed, at the basis of the Iranian Empire lies a conception of power entirely new in the political tradition of the Near East. Today there is a tendency to deny that the first of the Achaemenids were Zoroastrians; but, however scanty the elements that emerge from their inscriptions may be, it is clear that the character assumed with them by the imperial function cannot be explained except by a religious renewal that also invests the ethical domain. The constantly repeated affirmation of the divine derivation of power, together with the proclaimed moral claim inherent in it, leads one to trace back to a religious motive, and precisely to Zoroastrianism, the novelty of the political action and the consequent success of the first monarchs. Their very attitude of tolerance and respect toward other religions (Darius confirmed the promise, made by Cyrus to the Jews immediately after the conquest of Babylon, of the return to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the temple) must certainly be understood as the reflection, beyond particular political circumstances, of a new recognition of the ethical validity of the religious datum.

With the battle of Gaugamela (321) and the death of Darius III, the last of the dynasty, the Empire of the Achaemenids closes its cycle. The victorious expedition of Alexander the Great, even though the premature death of the great leader did not permit the realization of a political organization that would carry out its universalistic ideal, nevertheless served to break the barriers that separated Persia from the West. Under the dominion of the Seleucids and that of the Arsacids, Iranianism undergoes profoundly the influence of Hellenistic culture and fails to achieve a distinct cultural physiognomy. This is certainly to be connected with the decline of the national religion. The Iranian elements that circulate in the Hellenized world and that penetrate also into the Roman orbit have undergone profound elaborations that render them foreign to their origin: such is the case, among other things, with Mithraism which, having formed in Anatolia and spread in the West, preserves little or nothing of the motifs that are linked with the figure of Mithra in the Zoroastrian religion.

The Iranian tradition rises again with the Empire of the Sassanids, which, having succeeded that of the Arsacids in 266 A.D., constitutes a solid structure that extends until the Muslim conquest. The struggle against Rome and then against Byzantium is the dominant trait of the entire history of the Sassanid dynasty. Associated with it is the ruthless persecution against the Christians, from the moment when the conversion of Constantine made the latter appear as allies of the age-old enemy. The battle of Nihâwand (642, 21 AH), the victory of victories as the Arabs called it, marks the end of Persia as an independent national state and at the same time its entry, not without the preservation of original traits, into the sphere of Islam.

II. ZARATHUSTRA AND HIS PREACHING

In the classical tradition and in the Iranian religious tradition the figure of the reformer appears with plainly legendary traits. The legend that arose among the Greeks, that Zarathustra (the Iranian form of the name, as opposed to the Grecized Zoroaster, has become established in usage following its appearance in the title of a work by F. Nietzsche) had lived six thousand years before Plato, is certainly the fruit of Iranian cosmological speculations that found an echo in the circle of the Academy. Within the sphere of Persian traditions the reports concerning his age are not unanimous and are of a legendary character; nevertheless, one contained in the Bundahis, a Pahlavi cosmological treatise, fairly recent but in which ancient material is reworked, namely that he would have brought about the conversion of King Vištāspa 258 years before Alexander the Great, has been given particular consideration by scholars. Unfortunately, no agreed interpretation of this report has been reached; there are those who, wishing to make the figure of the Zarathustrian Vištāspa coincide with Hystaspes, father of Darius I, hold that by the advent of Alexander one must understand the beginning of the Seleucid era, that is 312 B.C., and therefore place the life of Zarathustra, who according to tradition would have lived 77 years, between 570 and 500 B.C. (Herzfeld); and there are those who, more soundly, hold that the reference to the Kingdom of Alexander must be understood as coinciding with the end of the Achaemenid Empire, and precisely with the death of Darius III (330 B.C.); consequently the birth of the prophet would have to be placed around 650 and his death around 533 B.C.

This interpretation of the traditional datum appears the most plausible.

Against the reliability of this same report, however, one may set the fact that the language of the Avestā, and in particular that of the Gāthā, the most ancient hymns, which are certainly the work of Zarathustra himself, presents a character of notable archaism in comparison with the language of the cuneiform inscriptions of the Achaemenids. Since between the language of the Avestā and that of the inscriptions there is no continuity of development, the differing archaism can be attributed to dialectal diversity. But there is, moreover, the difference between the Gāthic linguistic form and that of the remaining Avestā (recent Avestan), which can only in part be explained by a certain dialectal diversity: for the rest, one will have to admit some interval of time, and this is corroborated by the very development of the doctrine from the Gāthic (Zarathustrian) phase to the Avestan (Zoroastrian) one (the use of the two appellations to distinguish the two phases is Lommel's), for which one must likewise admit a more or less long period of time.

In view of this, if one holds firmly to the date of the Qundahīsa, which places, it seems, the conversion of Vištāspa in 588 (Zarathustra was then 42 years old according to tradition), it will be necessary to admit that the evolution of the doctrine and the constitution of the Avestā (v.) into a canonical body must also have taken up a good part of the Achaemenid age. This, moreover, is confirmed by the fact that, for example, one Yāst, the one dedicated to Ardvi Sūrā Anāhīta, could not have been composed before 400 B.C., since the description given of the goddess makes plain reference to a statue: it is known that the female divinity Anāhīta and the cult of divine images was introduced by Artaxerxes II Mnemon (404-358).

As for the first cradle of the Mazdaean religion, clear geographical references and the historical and doctrinal developments themselves suggest the eastern regions of Irān. Zarathustra must have carried out his preaching between Chorasmia and Margiana; its first success must, moreover, have occurred in the region of Lake Hamun; subsequently there was a shift toward the West, and precisely into Media. Certainly to this shift, which is associated with the adoption of the Mazdaean doctrine by the Magi, a tribe of Media, is due the fact that Zarathustra in the exegetical literature is said to be a native of Ragā, in the vicinity of modern Teherān. The hypothesis that he, a native of Media, may have emigrated to the eastern regions, where his preaching would have met with favor, finds support in the references to persecutions found in the Gāthā (Bartholomae); but such allusions are also explained within the sphere of the probable displacements that the prophet's activity was forced to undergo in the eastern regions themselves, between Chorasmia and Margiana. And, on the other hand, the Avestan language, both in its Gāthic aspect and in its recent one, surely has a median position between the northwestern dialects of Irān and the more eastern ones (Sogdian and Saka).

In the past, the historical personality of Zarathustra has been doubted, but certainly without any serious reason. His figure springs vividly from the Gāthā, which certainly go back to him, both in its human aspect and in its intellectual one. His name shows an etymology that points back to an agricultural and pastoral setting: Zarat-altra- "he whose camels are lean"; to the same setting point also the names of his parents Pourušaspa and Dughdōvā, which tradition attributes to him. He belongs to the family of the Spitama, probably a clan of a seminomadic people. His activity as a priest (he attributes to himself the qualification of zaoiar in Yasna 33. 6) and his preaching take place within the sphere of a restricted circle of the faithful. In the Gāthā he often complains of the difficulties that oppose his work, on the part of princes (Kavi, Sāstar) and of priests (Karapan, Usig); in Yasna 51. 12 there is an allusion to the hostile reception he received, in his winter journeys, at the court of a prince. His position is strengthened when he succeeds in converting to his religion the prince Vištāspa and influential elements of his court such as the brothers Frašāostra and Jāmāspa: he takes the daughter of the former as his wife; to the latter he gives his own daughter, Pouručista, in marriage; one of his Gāthā was composed precisely on the occasion of this latter marriage.

Concerning the intellectual and social figure of Zarathustra, quite discordant opinions have been put forward in recent times. There are those who see in him a person of royal family, related to those of Media and of P., and discover in his activity the intent to gain a political position, modifying the social structure of the agricultural class, by substituting a kind of vassalage for serfdom (Herzfeld, who places the life of Zarathustra in the time of Darius). There are those who see in him a shaman, a kind of medicine-man in charge of ordeals in a primitive society (Nyberg). As for his doctrine, it could not be considered original, since it would have limited itself to defending pre-existing religious positions against the innovations of others. This conception partially inspires the most recent research, which sets out to demonstrate that Zarathustra did not emerge from the sphere of Indo-Iranian naturalistic religion; if anything, he would have done nothing other than strip the inherited elements of their crudely naturistic character, in order to make them live again in their abstractness. The starting point of such research is the recognition of a presumed affinity of Ahura Mazdāh and his archangels with Varuna and the Āditya of Indian mythology.

In this line of study, the figure of the Oriental sage, which seemed to the philosophers of the Academy so lofty as to place it on the same level as that of Plato (indeed Zarathustra would live again in Plato), is reduced to modest proportions, with which it will be very difficult to reconcile the manifest importance that his creation has, not only in the formation and development of Iranianism for about a millennium, but also on Western thought, whose ties with Zarathustrian idealism appear ever more certain. In our opinion, the figure of the Iranian reformer is above all that of the creator of a cosmogonic-religious doctrine, in which the intellectual moment precedes and prevails as much over the ethical as over the social. Certainly he brought into his creation the mental habit proper to the speculative tradition that may be called Indo-Iranian, since it appears also in India in the speculative attitudes that underlie Brahmanism, and together with it some trait and some requirement proper to that naturalistic religion. But undeniable is the originality of his conception, as an attempt to throw a bridge between the world of the spirit and that of matter, grasping them in a single genetic moment, unlike Indian thought, which gravitates exclusively on the spirit and denies to the visible world a true reality.

III. THE GATHIC RELIGION

One may raise the question whether it is legitimate to reconstruct the doctrine of Zarathustra by taking as a foundation only the seventeen Gāthās, which are held, and are manifestly, his work, or whether it would not be better to make use for such a reconstruction also of the recent Avesta, which constitutes a broader and more complete representation of the Mazdaean religion in all its aspects, according to the method followed by authoritative scholars (among them Lommel). To us it seems that the true core of the Zarathustrian doctrine is more easily recognizable in the Gāthās, since the religious world reflected in the recent Avesta contains developments and superstructures which are the result of a complex syncretistic elaboration. In this syncretism the original, genuinely Zarathustrian core prevails and informs all the assumptions and transformations with itself; but there is no doubt that it is therein permeated in a religious and ritual structure which makes it less recognizable in its most genuine nature.

At the basis of Zarathustra's doctrine is the intuition of a bond of affinity and indeed of identity between the world of the spirit and the world of matter. While in Greece with Heraclitus the law of the world will be rediscovered in the logos and the same dynamism that is in discursive thought will be recognized in the eternal dynamism of things (the becoming of the world appears as a projection of the mental process), in the Iranian steppes, in an environment that may be considered median between East and West, a thinking activity is elevated to the source of all creations, which is the projection onto the universal plane of the intuitive creativity of the mind. It is a matter of a new cosmogony in which the moving principle is the divinized human mind.

The eminently mental character of the supreme god, from whom creation descends, appears in the very name Ahura Mazdāh, in which the first element ahura, Lord, was already previously destined to designate the divinity, while the second in its structure as a compound reveals itself as an innovation of Zarathustra, destined to bring out the creativity, as thinking energy, of the god (the parallel Indian form medha- indicates an active "wisdom" and even "poetry"; in Yasna, 53. 3 and then in Yasna, 45. 1 the elements of which the appellation mazdāh- is composed appear distinct in their elements manas "thought" and dhā- "to place" and above all "to create" in the cosmogonic sense; in Yasna, 45. 1 the compound verb maz-dā- is used with manifest reference to the name of the god). Therefore, it is to be held that the name means not a generic "wise lord," as is usually understood, but contains a specific reference to the proper nature of Ahura Mazdāh, who is the god "who thinks," the lord who creates with the spirit, "the thinking Lord."

Many hypotheses have been made about the rise of this new monotheism; and while on the one hand an attempt has been made to bring out how already in the Indo-Iranian religion there is among the divine figures one that emerges above the others (Varuna), on the other hand a probable derivation from the Mesopotamian religions has been thought of. In truth, such attempts at explanation, otherwise quite poorly founded, appear superfluous, if one bears in mind that the doctrine of Zarathustra is above all a cosmogonic doctrine, which necessarily postulates the single origin of creation. It is a matter of a single god who is the promoter of creation, and in this creativity of his he is a pure force of thought.

The mental character of Ahura Mazdāh appears clear, not only from the very creation of the god, but also from the character of the divine figures that surround him. To define the spiritual nature of this creation, which first develops in the world of the spirit and then in that of matter, it will suffice to recall Yasna, 31. 6-7: "To Mazdāh belongs the kingdom which for him is increased by Good Thought. He who in the beginning with thought has filled the spaces with light and with the force of his mind has created the truth (Aša, pron. Arta), through which he sustains the best thought; and this you increase, O Mazdāh, through the spirit."

The divine entities that surround Ahura Mazdāh are his modalities: Aša "the Truth" (that is, the order of the world, nature in its teleological function, and, as such, Truth), Vohu manah "the Good Spirit," Aṣṇati ora "Devotion" or "Piety," Xāṣāra "the Kingdom," Haurvatāt "Integrity," Amurtāt "Immortality." The bond with the supreme god is signified by the fact that their names, even as subject, appear in the instrumental case, because Ahura Mazdāh is the true subject, even when his name is not mentioned. In these divine entities it is manifestly a matter of hypostases of abstract concepts in an ethical function, as determinations of pure mental activity, whose hypostasis gives figure to the supreme god. This appears explicitly declared in the recent Avesta, where the divine entities constitute, now together with Ahura Mazdāh, the seven Holy Immortals (Amurta Spanta). Yait, 13. 81: "The forms that he assumes are the beautiful and great forms of the Amurta Spanta."

Another divinity inserts itself into the system, hitherto rigorously monotheistic, and sets it on the path toward a certain dualism. It is Spanta Manyu "the Holy Spirit," which is the hypostasis of the "impulse to act, vital impetus" (this is the value of Old Indian manyu) ethically qualified, and is likewise a modality of Ahura Mazdāh as active will. This new divinized notion is the intermediary between God, pure spirit, and the created universe, as appears from Yasna, 44, in which, after having listed all the aspects of creation, the poet concludes: "I strive thus to recognize you, O Ahura Mazdāh, creator of all things, insofar as Holy Spirit."

This modality of the single god manifestly comes to express both the necessity of the passage from the creation of the spiritual phase to that of the material and, at the same time, the ethical character of the divine creator. It certainly responds to the necessity of finding a place in the monotheistic conception for a dynamic and ethically active solution to the problem of evil. Once the beneficent character of the divine creation is affirmed, the problem of evil arises as a dialectical opposition to that character. This does not impair the monotheistic character of the original Zarathustrian conception: in the Gāthā the Spirit of evil, Angra Manyu, never opposes Ahura Mazdāh, but only Spanta Manyu, the beneficent impulse.

The conflict between the two principles awakens with the arising of life (Yasna, 45. 2); and it announces itself in the form of a choice, since the Holy Spirit decides for Truth (Arta) and the Spirit of evil decides for the Lie (Drug). Yasna, 30. 4: "And when these two Spirits met, then first of all they established life and non-life, and that in the end the worst existence should be for the followers of the Lie and the best spiritual reality (manah) for the followers of Truth. Between these two Spirits the followers of the Lie have chosen the action of the Worst, but the holiest Spirit, who has the solid heavens as his garment, has chosen Truth, and so too have those who wish with righteous works to make Ahura Mazdāh glad."

In the Gāthā the dualism of the individual forces of good and evil does not yet appear fully developed: even the opponent of the Holy Spirit bears various appellations: aka "evil," druvant "lying," angra "wicked"; one has the impression that Zarathustra did not feel the need to give the conflict a complete theological development. A demonic deity of note is Aēšma "Violence," particularly fought against, because it is the enemy of cattle (Yasna, 29. 2), as well as of man. The name daēva (pron. dāiva), which in the Indo-Iranian unity has the meaning of "god," was taken over by Zarathustra to signify the hostile deities, the "demons." This passage of the original meaning into its opposite is the most manifest expression of the repudiation of the forms of the inherited religion willed by the reformer; in this repudiation are included the cult of soma and bloody sacrifices (cf. Yasna, 32. 8).

As regards the position of man in the Gāthic system, notable prominence belongs to the spiritual essence (daēna), which is present in every individual form (gaēba). This essence, even while mirroring itself in individuals, has its place in the mental life of Ahura Mazdāh and returns to it as an increment after the death of man, when it has been well realized and one has not deviated from it (cf. Yasna, 46, 11; 49. 9). For although there is a very explicit allusion to the diversity of the spiritual essences proper to the two spirits in Yasna, 45. 2 ("the holiest one thus says to the evil one: neither our thoughts, nor our beliefs, nor our words, nor our deeds, nor our essences [daēna], nor our souls are in accord"). Nevertheless it is never said explicitly that there exists an evil spiritual essence in the man who follows the Drug, which, after death, rejoins the corresponding essence in the spirit of Angra Manyu. Here too the dualism is imperfect, or at least not entirely explicit. Judging from Yasna, 46. 6, the existence of a spiritual essence of demonic derivation and creation of Angra Manyu seems excluded: "For he is a follower of the Lie who is well-disposed toward a follower of the Lie, he is a follower of Truth to whom the follower of Truth is dear, since you created the spiritual essences." The spiritual essences are, therefore, a creation of Ahura Mazdāh, hence an Ahuric creation: deviation from the essence manifests itself only in the fact that one is a follower of Truth or a follower of the Lie by an act of free choice. It is explicitly said that he who does not fully realize his spiritual essence and thinks and acts inconsequently, now good now evil, following his own tendencies and his own desires, in the end will remain cut off from the mind of Ahura Mazdāh (Yasna, 48. 4).

In Zoroastrian eschatology the object of reward and punishment is the soul of each individual. Thus it happens that the follower of the Drug meets with a twofold punishment. One is the loss of the reward that belongs to the essence when one has followed the right path, that is, the path conformable to it; the other is the punishment that awaits the soul after death. "The spiritual essence of the follower of the Lie loses the reward of the right path. His soul, stripped bare, before the crossing of the bridge of the Separator, will tremble with fear" (Yasna, 51. 13); indeed "the soul of the follower of Truth will be happy eternally and eternal will be the torments of the follower of the Lie" (Yasna, 45. 7).

The Zoroastrian doctrine considered thus far is undoubtedly a theological construction; but its polemical stance, documented at every step in the Gāthā, reveals its character as a militant religion. Contributing to confer this character upon it is in the first place the social intent that shines through in it. The place given to the hypostasis of the ox (the soul of the ox), as a symbol of laborious prosperity, clearly demonstrates that the reformer also proposes a civil end. It will not be a matter of promoting the passage from nomadic life to settled forms favorable to agriculture, as has been believed, but very probably of a defense of cattle and the establishment of a stable regime of pastures, useful to an orderly pastoral society.

IV. ZOROASTRIANISM

The process of transformation of the original core of the doctrine as it is represented in the Gāthās certainly began in the eastern provinces of Īrān, that is, in the very places of the preaching and in contiguous zones. A transitional phase is reflected in the Yasna haptoṇhātī "Yasna of the seven chapters" (from Yasna, 35. 3 to 41. 5), still composed in Gathic, but in which the prophet no longer speaks in the first person; rather, it is the community of the faithful ("we"). Already here the cult of naturistic forces re-emerges, and the divine entities appear as a body of archangels, Amzla Spenta (pron. Amurta spanta). Moreover, there appears for the first time the Fravati (pron. fravarti) "protecting spirit," "genius," which is ignored in the Gāthās.

Subsequently, the religious center of Iranianism becomes fixed in the northwestern zones of the plateau through the work of the Magi, who made Zarathustra's doctrine their own and gave it new doctrinal and ritual developments. It is to be held that the Magi, in elaborating the material into a canonical body, took into account the religious and mythical poetry already arisen and in the course of formation in the eastern provinces, just as happened with the formation of the epic tradition which, having taken shape in Persis, certainly welcomed legends that had arisen in other milieus.

The true nature of the Magi has been much discussed, and opinions are discordant. On the one hand, it is held that they were a Zoroastrian religious community of Media, formed as such, and that their name is to be connected with the term maga- "wealth, gift" (Gabe, Messina), which already appears in the Gāthā (the name maṛu- does not appear in the Avestā except once in the recent Avestā in the compound moṛutbī); on the other hand, it is asserted that the meaning in moṛu- in the cited compound and in Māṛo, one of the six tribes of Media of which Herodotus speaks (1. 100), as well as in magus of the Achaemenid inscriptions (the usurper of the Persian throne at the end of the reign of Cambyses was Gaumāta the Magus), reflects a distinction of a social order, and therefore the word has nothing to do with maga-and magavan of the Gāthā (Benveniste). We hold that it is not possible to detach the Gathic forms maga-and magavan-from the identical Vedic forms magha-and maghavan-, whose breadth of meaning "wealth, gift" and "rich, powerful" allows developments both in a social and in a religious sense. It is probable that Zarathustra took the term for "wealth," "common good" (one should bear in mind that this is a pastoral society) to denote a spiritual "communion," while elsewhere, among the Medes, it preserved its original meaning, so that the adjective simply indicated the member of a tribe of pastoral aristocracy (moṛu- is parallel to aīryaman- "companion"). In other words, the linguistic kinship between maga-and magavan-of the Gāthās and moṛu- of the recent Avestā, Māṛo a tribe of the Medes, appears certain, but the semantic substance developed into different values. Therefore it is to be excluded that the Magi constituted, from the beginning, a religious community inspired by Zoroastrianism. This they were at a later time, when, that is, they made Zarathustra's doctrine their own, already more or less elaborated elsewhere, and brought into it their own religious beliefs and ritual practices. The fact that in the Avestā there is never any talk of Magi is precisely the proof that they did not consider themselves a priestly caste, to the point of having to designate the priest by their tribal name. This is what others did upon observing that the priests were always Magi, but certainly not all Magi were priests. In the Avestā the ancient designation zaotar, which is already Gathic, was maintained for the priest, and to it was added that of abaurvan, certainly connected with the renewed affirmation of the cult of fire.

In Zoroastrianism the dualistic principle, which emerged within Zarathustrian monotheism, asserts itself more and more. The creation of Angra Manyu is that of the world of the Lie which is opposed to the world of Truth; and all existing things are distributed among the domains of the two opposing spirits. The struggle develops perpetually between the respective creatures and will conclude with the definitive victory of the principle of good. Beside Ahura Mazdāh, who

The Jews, rightly proud of their monotheism, especially after the purification of the exile, must have regarded the Persian one as a religion of polytheists, of demon worshippers, a mixture of superstitions. The repatriates refused the collaboration of the Samaritans, at Jerusalem; they did not respond to the appeal of the Jews of Elephantine, considered as syncretists and schismatics because of their sanctuary. "Judaism" is nothing other than the ancient Yahwism of the covenant of Sinai, now perfectly realized with the exclusion of every trace of idolatry (I-II Chronicles; Ezra-Nehemiah; Song of Songs).

In an entirely new way, R. Reitzenstein took up and extended to the New Testament the alleged influence of Iran on Judaism.

His system centers on the mystery of salvation, on the "Son of Man." This man is in Persian the renewer of the world, the depositary of the message and power of God, the savior for the whole race, but at the same time the saved one, who must ascend to heaven as the first luminous body, a god and at the same time the ideal representative of souls. A conception which from Iran through Asia Minor and Hellenism would be at the basis of the mystery of the Redemption (especially in the letters of St. Paul). Despite the philological erudition employed to support it, this system is a paradoxical mystification (Lagrange): it is founded and reconstructed with the Mandaean and Manichaean texts, posterior by several centuries to Christianity, in which competent scholars find nothing specifically Iranian; it rests on the derivation of Christianity from Hellenism, excluded by literary and historical criticism.

Francesco Spadafora

IV. CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM.

I. EVANGELIZATION OF PERSIA

The oldest ecclesiastical community outside the borders of the Roman Empire is the Church of P., where Christianity presumably penetrated already in the 1st century. Eusebius reports (Hist. eccl., III, 1: CB, II, 1, p. 188) the not contemptible tradition according to which the apostle St. Thomas would have evangelized the Kingdom of the Parthians. According to the chronicle of Arbela (v.) a disciple of the Lord, Addai, would have brought the good news around

100 to Edessa and to Adiabene, a region east of the northern Tigris. This chronicle was composed between 550 and 569 by Mēšihāzekā ("Christ conquered"). Its historical value for the earliest times is disputed.

In any case, in the course of the 2nd century Christianity pushed toward P. The messengers of the Gospel must have been the Jewish Christians, who, along the trade routes that led from the Roman Empire into Mesopotamia, kept alive the traffic with the numerous Jewish colonies of that region. The first reliable notice of the existence of Christianity in P. dates from the beginning of the 3rd century. In the Liber legum regionum, drawn up by a disciple of the Gnostic Bardesanes (d. 222) or by him himself, reference is made to the Christians who are in P. (Patr. Syriaca, II, 608). Toward the middle of the 3rd century the king Shapur I deported prisoners from Syria into P., among whom were the bishop of Antioch, St. Demetrianus, and some priests.

From the beginning Christianity was in P. the religion of an ethnic minority, that is, of the Syrian one, and it found itself in a difficult situation in the face of the Mazdean religion of the Magi, which had become the official religion of the State under the Sassanids (that is, from 226). The relations of the Church of P. with that of the Roman Empire were scanty, given the political antagonism between the two Empires, and they became even more difficult after the Roman Empire accepted Christianity under Constantine. The Christians of P. were easily suspected of harboring sympathies for the enemy of the State, which led from 340 onward, especially under Shapur II, to a series of long and bloody persecutions, in which there were very numerous martyrs (v. XVII DEI MARTIRI): among them St. Simeon bar Sabbā'ē, bishop of the capital. The connection with the West at that time was naturally almost impossible, so that the Church of P. developed in a very independent manner. It nevertheless appears that in the development of a central ecclesiastical organization in P. the Western Fathers had a part, that is, the bishops of the region of Antioch, who supported the bishop of the Persian capital Seleucia-Ctesiphon, Mār Pāpā, in his hegemonic tendencies. Very scanty in this first period is Christian literature in P., all of it in the Syriac language. Worthy of note is the "Persian sage" Aphraates (v.).

After the re-establishment of religious peace, under Yazdegerd I in 399, the Church of P. had the opportunity to intensify its relations with the West. The peace was, it seems, obtained by a delegate of the emperor Arcadius, the bishop Mārūtā of Mayferqat, who returned to P. in 408 or 409 furnished with a letter of the Western Fathers and with the task of establishing the unity of faith and discipline of the Persian Church with that of the Empire, which succeeded in the Synod of Seleucia-Ctesiphon of 410. It accepted the faith of Nicaea and the discipline of the West. The same Synod confirmed the primordial position already acquired by the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon and the title of katholikós (that is, universal head of the whole Church of P.).

However, a new outbreak of persecution soon led to the break with the West. The Synod of Markabtā of 424 abolished the right of appeal to the Western Fathers and declared that the katholikós of Seleucia could be judged only by Christ and not by another patriarch equal to him (J. B. Chabot [v. bibl.], p. 296).

The Church of P. by such a declaration in fact separated itself from the universal Church. This separation became deeper with the acceptance of Nestorianism in P. toward the end of the 5th century. For the subsequent periods v. CALDEI; 'IRAQ; NESTORIO E NESTORIANESIMO.

Guglielmo de Vries

II. MUSLIM PERSIA

The history of Muslim Iran begins with the Arab conquest and continues down to our own day. For almost two centuries (637-820), Iran was a province of the caliphate. Then, in correspondence with the disintegration of the latter, it fragmented into autonomous local dynasties, founded by Arab governors or military leaders, then by Persians and later also by Turks and Mongols. These dynasties, constantly at war with one another, were for the most part short-lived, tied to the fortunes of their founders or of a few of their successors. Periodic unifications of Iran were brought about by the great Turkish and Mongol invasions that swept across it from east to west (Seljuqs, Mongols of Chingiz Khan, Mongols of Timur Lang). From 1502 Iran has been ruled by unitary dynasties, which continue down to the present. These dynasties made the Shi'ite heterodoxy, already widespread in Persia, the state religion.

1. Persia under the caliphate (637-820)

The Arabs defeated the Sassanid troops at Qadisiyyah in 637, occupying Ctesiphon, and then at Nihawand in 642; the king Yazdegerd III, put to flight, was killed by a local governor at Marw in 651. Within this period, the conquest of Iran was completed and extended beyond it, except for the mountainous zone south of the Caspian, where autonomous princes long remained. From the religious point of view, although Zoroastrianism was formally tolerated, a large part of the population was rapidly Islamized, especially in order to avoid the poll tax (jizyah) reserved for unbelievers. The new converts attached themselves as clients (mawali) to the Arab tribes; nevertheless they were kept in a subordinate position, and from this arose widespread discontent, which explains the frequent agitations and the favor granted to the enemies of the Umayyad caliphate, the Alids and the Abbasids. Once the latter came to power, the Persian elements assumed a position of greater prestige in the state and in Islamic culture.

2. The autonomous dynasties up to the Seljuq invasion (820-1037)

On the character of the fragmentation of the caliphate, v. ISLAM, historical expansion. The caliph al-Ma'mun, after residing in Khurasan during the first part of his reign (813-19), sent there as governor the general Tahir, who made himself practically independent, beginning the Tahirid dynasty (820-73). They were supplanted by the Saffarids, natives of Sistan (867-903), who extended their dominion as far as Kirman and Fars, but failed in the attempt to invade Khuzistan. At the same time, minor dynasties were forming in northwestern Iran: the Dulafids in Kurdistan (ca. 825-97), a branch of the Alids in Tabaristan (864-900, and then again fragmentarily), the Sajids in Adharbayjan (899-939). Almost all of Iran, except the western periphery, was reunited by the Samanids (874-999), natives of Transoxiana, and under them enjoyed a flourishing culture.

Upon the disintegration of the Samanid state there succeeded in the west: the Ziyarids in Tabaristan and Gurgan (928-1077); the Hasanwayhids in Kurdistan (ca. 959-1015); the Buyids (or Buwaihids) in Jibal, Fars and Khuzistan (932-1055). The latter, the most important, were Shi'ites; they occupied Baghdad in 945, putting an end to the territorial dominion of the caliphate (v. CALIPH AND CALIPHATE). In the east the Samanid state was supplanted by the Turkish Ghaznavids. This dynasty, centered in Afghanistan, lasted on the whole from 962 to 1186. It reached its greatest splendor under the famous Mahmud, conqueror of northwestern India (v.); Iran was lost for the Ghaznavids with the Seljuq invasion.

3. From the Seljuq invasion to the Mongol invasion (1037-1220)

The first of the great Seljuqs, Tughril Beg, occupied Khurasan in 1037 and rapidly continued the conquest, entering Baghdad in 1055. All of Iran was again united, and it had a new phase of high culture. The Seljuqs, rigidly Sunni, had to confront in western Iran the Isma'ili movement (v. ISLAM, the sects). The last of the great Seljuqs was Sangar (d. 1157), under whom the military leaders (atabeg) constituted autonomous dynasties in Adharbayjan (Ildigizids, 1136-1225), Luristan (Hazaraspids, 1148-1339), Fars (Salghurids, 1148-1287). In central-eastern Iran, the Seljuqs were defeated by the Khwarizm Shahs (fourth dynasty, ca. 1077-1231).

4. From the Mongol invasion to the beginning of the Safavids (1220-1502)

In 1220 the Mongols of Chingiz Khan (Genghis Khan) invaded Iran, conquering all of its center and north; from the struggle between the Mongols and the Khwarizm Shahs the Qutlugh Khan (1222-1303) took advantage to establish themselves in Kirman. In 1256 there was a second Mongol invasion, led by Hulagu, who reached Baghdad, killing the last caliph (1258). Hulagu founded the dynasty of the Il Khans (1256-1353), under whom all of Iran was again united. The small dynasties of the Salghurids, Qutlugh Khan and Hazaraspids died out. The country recovered from the grave destructions of the first invasion. Then the Il Khans too underwent fragmentation into minor states: the Sarbadarids in Khurasan (1337-81), the Kart at Herat (1245-1389), the Muzaffarids in Fars and Kirman (1313-93). The Jalayirids of Mesopotamia (1336-1411) penetrated into Adharbayjan.

Timur Lang (Tamerlane) brought a new invasion upon Iran, conquering all of it between 1380 and 1393. He was succeeded by Shah Rukh (1405-47), under whom the state enjoyed new prosperity; then it declined amid internal struggles, while the Turkish dynasties of the Qara-Qoyunlu (1378-1468) and Aq-Qoyunlu (1378-1502) pushed from Adharbayjan into the center of Iran.

5. The Safavids (1502-1736)

They are a Shi'ite dynasty, originating in Adharbayjan, with which the modern history of Iran as a unitary state begins. Its founder was Isma'il, who defeated the Aq-Qoyunlu at Shurur and conquered Tabriz, assuming the title of shah (1502). By 1510 he had extended his dominion over all of Iran, as well as over Mesopotamia and Armenia. His state thus became contiguous with the Ottoman Empire, and the antagonism existing on religious grounds (the Ottomans were Sunni and the Safavids Shi'ite) sharpened the rivalry. Isma'il was defeated by Selim I at Chaldiran and lost a good part of Armenia and Adharbayjan. The greatest Safavid was Shah Abbas (1587-1629), whose reign was prosperous and powerful. He reconquered a good part of the territories lost in the east. Only later was Mesopotamia definitively occupied by the Ottomans (1638). In 1722 a Sunni rebellion broke out in Afghanistan: the Safavids were defeated and for about 8 years the Afghans dominated Iran: only thanks to the general Nadir of the Afshar tribe was the Safavid dynasty able to regain the upper hand; upon the death of its last sovereign, Nadir assumed power (1736).

6. The Afsharids (1736-96)

Nadir Shah (1736-47), besides the reconquest of Iran, occupied Afghanistan and invaded India, sacking Delhi (1738). His state lasted a very short time: under Shah Rukh it was reduced to Khurasan, while the Zand dynasty occupied the rest of Iran (1750-96). In 1796 Agha Muhammad Khan of the Qajar tribe, after long struggles, ascended the throne in Tehran, once again unifying the region.

7. The Qājārs (1796-1925)

Under them the Russian and English (from India) influence became progressively established. Āṣā Muḥammad Šāh reigned until 1796. His successor Fatḥ 'Alī Šāh (1797-1834) lost in war against Russia the territories north of the Aras and some provinces in Armenia. Muḥammad Šāh (1834-38) and Nāṣir ad-dīn Šāh (1848-96) were repelled by the English in their attempts to occupy Afghānistān. Under the reign of Nāṣir ad-dīn, Bābism (v.) was fiercely persecuted. Financial difficulties increased foreign intervention under his successor Muṣaffar ad-dīn (1896-1907); this intervention culminated in the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907, which divided Irān into zones of influence. Internally, the šāh was forced to grant a constitution and to open a parliament (1906). His successor Muḥammad 'Alī attempted to recede, but was deposed in 1909. During World War I, Irān, although it had declared itself neutral, was invaded by Turks, Russians and English and was a center of clashes. At the end of the war it was evacuated. In 1921 a coup d'état brought to power the nationalist movement of Rīḍā Ḥān. He became prime minister in 1923; in 1925 the Parliament sanctioned the end of the Qājārs and Rīḍā Ḥān was proclaimed sovereign with the dynastic appellation of Pahlavi.

8. The Pahlavis (from 1925 onward)

Riḍā Pahlavi (1925-1941) began a work of renewal of the country. He attended to internal pacification through the disarmament of the tribes; he promoted the economy, especially oil production, whose importance has determined struggles of influence over the concessions among Russians, English and Americans; he reorganized and modernized the army; he concluded a series of treaties of friendship and non-aggression with the neighboring states; he abolished the capitulations for foreigners (1928).

In World War II Irān again declared itself neutral, but this time too it was occupied by Russians and English (1941). Riḍā Pahlavi abdicated and died in exile in Johannesburg in 1944. He was succeeded by Muḥammad Riḍā (reigning). The Russians and English undertook to withdraw six months after the end of hostilities; in the meantime they would enjoy the right of transit and Irān would break off relations with Germany and its allies. This was followed in 1942 by the declaration of war on Germany. Through Irān a large part of the American aid reached Russia. Internally, meanwhile, parliamentarianism developed and the parties Tūdeh, of communist and pro-Russian tendencies, and Millet, conservative and pro-British, were formed. The Anglo-American troops withdrew in 1945; the Russian ones in 1946. A revolt in Ādarbaigān (1945), favored by the Russians, was repressed (1946). The denunciation of the oil concession to Russia and the dissolution of the Tūdeh created a tension between the two countries, to which was later added the far more serious one with England. In 1951 the nationalization of oil was decided; the prime minister Muḥammad Muṣaddaq placed himself at the head of the movement, which culminated in the removal of the English technicians, the expropriation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the closing of the English consulates in Persia.

General works: P. M. Sykes, History of P., 2 vols., 3rd ed., London 1930; D. N. Wilber, Iran, past and present, ibid. 1948 (popularizing, essentially modern). Cf. furthermore the historical parts in the works of E. G. Browne, A literary history of P., 2 vols., ibid. 1902-1906; A history of persian literature under tartar dominion (A. D. 1285-1502), Cambridge 1920; A history of persian literature in modern times (A. D. 1500-1922), ibid. 1924. Up to the Mongol invasion the fundamental work is: W. Barthold, Turkestan down to the mongol invasion, 2nd ed., London 1928.

On individual dynasties and personages, Ghaznavids: M. Nāzim, The life and times of sultan Mahmud of Gazna, Cambridge 1931. Turkish dynasties: W. Barthold, Orta Asya Türk tarihi hakkında dersler, Istanbul 1927; German trans., Berlin 1935; French trans., Paris 1945; for the rest v. TURCHI, Mongols: R. Grousset, L'empire des steppes, Paris 1939; id., L'empire mongol, 2ème phase (E. Cavaignac, Histoire du monde, 8, III), ibid. 1941; L. Bouvat, L'empire mongol, 2ème phase (ibid.), ibid. 1927. For Cingiz Ḥān: F. Grenard, Gengis-Khan, ibid. 1935; C. C. Walker, Jenghiz Khan, London 1939. For the Il Ḥān: D. Spuler, Die Mongolen in Iran, Politik, Verwaltung und Kultur der Ichnazeit, Leipzig 1939. On Timūr Lang: H. Melzig, Timur, New York 1940. Cf. furthermore MONGOLI, Ṣafawids: W. Hinz, Irans Aufstieg zum Nationalstaat im fünfzehnten Jahrhundert, Berlin 1937; H. R. Römer, Der Niedergang Irans nach dem Tode Iwas'ils des Grausamen, 1577-1581, Würzburg 1939; L.-L. Bellan, Chah-'Abbās Ier: sa vie, son histoire, Paris 1932; V. Minorsky, Tadhīrat al-mulūk: a manual of safawid administration (Gibb Memorial, N. S., 16), London 1943. Afsharids: L. Lockhardt, Nadir Shah, London 1938. Qājār: E. G. Browne, The persian revolution of 1905-1909, Cambridge 1910. Pahlavi: H. Melzig, Resa Schah, Der Aufstieg Irans u. die Grossmächte, Stuttgart-Berlin-Leipzig 1936. On the most recent events: F. Gabrieli, P., Storia, in Enc. Ital., App. II, I-Z, pp. 522-23; cf. furthermore the chronicles and periodic bibliographical notices of the journals Oriente Moderno, Cahiers de l'Orient contemporain et The Middle East journal.

Chronology and genealogy: S. Lane Poole, The mohammadan dynasties, Westminster 1894, v. indexes; E. de Zambaur, Manuel de généalogie et de chronologie pour l'histoire de l'Islam, Hannover 1937, v. indexes (fundamental). Bibliography: A. T. Wilson, A bibliography of P., Oxford 1930; M. Saba, Bibliographie française de l'Iran, Paris 1936.

Sabatino Moscati

III. CURRENT SITUATION

Present-day P. covers a part of the territory of the old Persian empire. Christians in P. are a small minority, reduced to about 145,000 faithful as against more than 14,000,000 Muslims. According to art. 1 of the Constitution of 1907, Islam is the religion of the State. Art. 2 establishes that the tāh must be a Muslim; likewise the ministers must be, according to art. 58. Freedom of teaching is promised (art. 19), with the limitation that excludes subjects against the official religion. The freedom of the press guaranteed by art. 20 is likewise limited by the exclusion of writings against islām. The freedom of meetings and associations guaranteed by art. 21 excludes those from which "any religious or civil disturbance" results. Art. 1059 of the Civil Code forbids the marriage of Muslim women with non-Muslims. A law of 22 July 1933 promises respect for the personal status of non-Muslim communities.

1) SITUATION OF THE SCHOOLS. - Foreign schools are strongly hindered. In 1932 the closure of foreign elementary schools was ordered; in 1939 also that of secondary schools for Iranian subjects. Those of foreign missionaries for foreign pupils remained open, but they are also attended by young Iranians. There are schools in Tcherān, Ispahān, Tabriz and Rezaijeh.

2) CATHOLIC HIERARCHY. - In P. there is an apostolic delegation, with its seat in Tcherān. The most important community is that of the Chaldeans, with 7,200 faithful distributed in the archdiocese of Ūrmijah, which since 1933 has been called Rezaijah, and in the dioceses of Salmas and Sena. For the Latins there is the archdiocese of Ispahān with 3,200 faithful. The Armenians have the patriarchal vicariate of Gulfā-Ispahān with 1,100 faithful. The secular clergy is helped by European missionaries, Lazarists, Carmelites, Sistanis; furthermore by the Daughters of Charity and by the Oblates of the Holy Spirit, also called Sisters of St. Zita. The Armenian Congregation of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception also works in P.

3) NON-CATHOLIC CHRISTIANS. - The Monophysite Armenians number about 120,000 followers. There are also about 9,000 Nestorians, 4,000 Protestants and 500 "Orthodox". More than 300 Protestant missionaries work in P.

For other information v. ARMENIA; CALDEI; NESTORIO e NESTORIANESIMO. - See plate LXXIX.