When you think of Iran, what is the first thing that pops into your mind?
Chaos, Conservation, War? Muslim? Or is it oil, nuclear weapons?
These labels attached to Iran have caused many people to ignore that it is an ancient civilization with a history of 5,000 years ; here, a great empire spanning three continents of Asia, Europe, and Africa was once established.
01 First clarify two questions
Before starting to talk about the history of Iran, two issues need to be clarified.
1. The names of Iran and Persia
Iran and Persia are the same country.
Generally speaking, when we describe events before 1935, we use the word " Persia " more ; while when describing modern politics, economy, etc., we use the word " Iran " more .
As for why, everyone will understand in the following description.
2. Who are the Iranians?
The question is about Iran's state origin.
The Iranians are a branch of the Indo-European ethnic groups, which is what we often call " Aryans " now .
02 Early History of Iran
Kingdom of Elam: 3200 BC - 639 BC
Humans have lived on the Iranian Plateau as early as the Paleolithic Age of 100,000 BC.
In 5000 BC , agricultural settlements thrived in the Zagros Mountains and its surrounding areas, and a settlement civilization with a mixture of farming and animal husbandry has emerged in Iran .
Around 3200 BC , the Elam Kingdom with the two cities of Susa and Anshan as the center appeared here , forming the earliest civilization in Iran - the Elam civilization.
Kingdom of Media: 639 BC - 549 BC
Around 1500-1000 BC , immigrants from the north came to this land.
The Aryans of the Russian steppe region , after a series of migrations and invasions, settled in Europe, Iran, Central Asia and northern India.
Over time, some of their descendants became known as Medes and Persians , but also Parthians, Sogdians, and others.
Around 700 BC, the Medes established an independent country, and later gradually conquered the surrounding tribes and developed into the first Iranian empire.
Achaemenid dynasty: 549 BC - 330 BC
Around 559 BC , a Persian nobleman named Cyrus led a revolt against the king of Medes. Occupied the capital of Medes in 549 BC , and proclaimed himself the king of Persia. Since then, Persia has become the center of the empire , and Medes has become a subordinate partner.
Cyrus the Great continued to conquer the surrounding areas, extending from the Greek city-states on the east coast of the Aegean Sea to the banks of the Indus River, creating the first great empire in human history that spanned the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa. The Greeks called it the " Persian Empire " .
It was also from this time that the term " Persia " was adopted by the Greeks, Romans and other Europeans.
Alexander and Seleucid period: 330 BC - 247 BC
One of the most important events in the era of the Persian Empire was the half-century-long " Hippo War " with Greece . After that, the vitality of the Persian Empire was severely injured, which created conditions for the rise of Macedonia.
In 334 BC , the famous Macedonian king Alexander the Great marched eastward, captured the entire Persian Empire four years later, and burned the capital after months of carnival.
The Achaemenid Dynasty became the past, and a generation of empires perished.
And Alexander the Great died in Babylon in 323 BC . The fruits of this great conquest fell into the hands of one of Alexander's generals, Seleucus .
During the Seleucid period, the Iranians briefly surrendered to foreign rule.
Parthian Dynasty: 247 BC - 226 AD
Around 250 BC, the Parthians in northeastern Iran rebelled and became independent rulers of the region, calling themselves the Assassin dynasty. (Chinese history is called the Parthia Dynasty, and Western historians call it the Parthian Dynasty.)
During their long struggle with the Seleucids, they built a powerful empire and successfully ruled for centuries.
In the later period, due to the long-term war with Rome and the internal strife in the court, it gradually declined.
Sasanian Dynasty: 226 - 642
At the beginning of the 3rd century, a new power arose in the province of Fars, the birthplace of the Achaemenid dynasty. A family allied with the Assassin dynasty rises up to become the local ruler of the land.
In 224 , the new leader of the family, Ardashir, further expanded his influence and called himself the " Sasanian Dynasty " . In 226 , he captured the capital of the Assassin Dynasty . king " .
The period of the Sasanian Dynasty was also known as the period of the " Ancient Persian Renaissance " .
To sum up the general trend:
To sort it out, from the rise of the Elamite civilization to the fall of the Sasanian dynasty, in the past 3,800 years, except for a short period of Alexander's conquest and Seleucid rule, but soon, there was Parthia, which was revived by the Iranians. Dynasty and Sasanian Dynasty.
On the whole, during this period, it was mainly the regime established by the Iranians themselves.
03 Medieval History of Iran
Arab conquest: 642 - mid-11th century
In the 7th century AD , Islam emerged. In the late 1930s, Arab Muslim armies began to attack the Sasanian Empire eastward.
In 642 , the Sasanian army was again defeated, and after that, their resistance largely collapsed. The Arabs gradually established their rule over the Iranian plateau.
Persia became part of the Arab Empire, Arabic became the common language, Islam developed rapidly, and a large number of mosques were built everywhere.
This can be said to be the beginning of Iran's Muslimization .
During the reign of the Arab Empire, there were two dynasties: Umayyad and Abbasid .
At the same time, several local dynasties emerged successively against the central government: the Tahid Dynasty ( 821-873 ), the Safar Dynasty ( 861-1003 ), and the Saman Dynasty ( 875-999 ).
They all originated from the dynasties of the Iranians.
Turkic conquest: mid-11th century - early 13th century
For many years, the Abbasids and other dynasties employed Turkic mercenaries, taken from Central Asia as slaves, to fight for themselves and defend their territories.
As a result, the Turks gradually became important in imperial politics and threatened to replace them from time to time. The Ghaznavids managed to do this in the eastern part of the empire.
In the middle of the eleventh century, a confederation of Turkic tribes under the leadership of the Seljuk Turks went a step further.
They defeated the Ghaznavids in the northeast, penetrated into the heart of the empire, and continued westward. Successively conquered Baghdad, Syria, and the Byzantine Empire, and established a Seljuk Empire that stretched from Central Asia in the east to the Bosphorus in the west, including Iran .
At the end of the 12th century, the Seljuk Empire split due to the rise of the vassal state Khwarazm. The Kingdom of Khwarazm first seized the northeastern part of Iran, and occupied the entire territory of Iran in the early 13th century. Its ruling territory also included Iraq, Afghanistan and other regions.
Mongol conquest: early 13th century - around 1380
In the early 13th century when the Kingdom of Khwarazm was rapidly developing , a new power was also rising in the grassland area outside the river — the Mongolian power led by Genghis Khan.
Following a series of invasions, King Khwarazm was killed and the Mongols established their regime in the conquered lands.
About 1300 years later, the Ilkhanate of the Mongols was Islamized and Persianized. They changed their previous brutal rule and began to rebuild the cities that had been destroyed by themselves, and the new capital flourished.
Timurid Conquest: 1380 - 1502
Iran under the Ilkhanate, despite signs of revival, remained a poor and harsh region. Ilkhan's empire began to inevitably disintegrate, and the local subordinate rulers slowly became independent from the center.
Beginning in 1380 , the vigorous founders of the dependent local dynasties succumbed to the next wave of Timur - led steppe nomad invasions.
Tamerlane, the son of a small Turkic vassal in the Transoxiana region, initially based in Samarkand, then invaded Persia, and after capturing Persia and defeating the Mongols of the Golden Horde in the steppes around Moscow, entered India and went to West conquered Baghdad and established a powerful empire.
Like other dynasties before it, the Timurid Empire gradually split into a patchwork of several dynastic successor states. In the second half of the 15th century, two powerful Mongolized Turkic tribal alliances competed for supremacy in the Iranian plateau, namely the Black Sheep Dynasty and the White Sheep Dynasty , and the Aries Dynasty finally won.
To sum up the general trend:
It can be seen that from the middle of the 7th century, Arab Muslims replaced the Sasanian Dynasty and established political power on the Iranian plateau. After that, the Turks, Mongols, and Timurids took turns to dominate this land.
For nearly a thousand years, Iran was ruled by alien races . The multi-ethnic invasion also made Iran a multi-ethnic country.
04 Modern History of Iran
Safavid dynasty: 1502 - 1722
At the end of the 15th century, an armed group from northwestern Iran established the Safavid dynasty . This is the first dynasty in Iranian history to adopt Shia Islam as the state religion , transforming Iran into a Shia country.
The Safavid Dynasty, in the traditional sense of the Iranian territory, established a more complex, powerful and durable management system than other dynasties over the centuries.
Afsharid and Zand dynasty: 1722-1796
The rule of the Safavid dynasty reached its peak in the era of Abbas the Great and Abbas II in the 17th century.
In the 1720s , due to the destruction of the Afghan rebellion, different regions of Iran were controlled by Afghans and Ottomans.
And in the northeastern provinces, a young soldier named Nadir Goli has quietly risen in chaotic times to become a powerful local ruler of the region.
By the end of 1929 , Nadir's army had defeated the Afghans in three battles and recaptured the capital, then went on to drive the Ottoman Turks out of western Persia, then quickly turned east and conquered Herat.
The regime established by Nadir is known as the Afshar dynasty .
Unfortunately, Nadir 's rule was not long. He was insane in the last five years of his life. He was assassinated and killed by an officer of his own guard in June 1947. His army also fell apart and the country fell into chaos and disorder .
From 1759 , Karim Khan ruled for a relatively peaceful and peaceful period until his death in 1779 , known as the " Zand Dynasty " .
Qajar Dynasty: 1796 - 1926
After the death of Karim Khan, Persia once again fell into the misery of civil war. The two sides in the battle are the princes of the Zand Dynasty on one side, and the Qaja tribe led by Agha Muhammad on the other .
In 1785 , Agha Muhammad captured the capital Isfahan.
After that, he fought against the remnants of the Zand Dynasty for several years. In the spring of 1796 , Agha Muhammad was crowned on the Mugan Plain, establishing the rule of the " Qajar Dynasty " for more than 100 years.
During the reign of the Qajar Dynasty, the Industrial Revolution took place in Europe centered on Britain.
In 1857 , the thriving British Empire declared war on Iran and won the war . This marked the beginning of Iran becoming a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country.
This is very similar to our modern history.
Pahlavi Dynasty: 1926-1979
By the beginning of the 20th century, the characteristics of Iran as a " semi-colonial and semi-feudal " country became more and more obvious.
In 1907 , Britain, France and Russia signed an agreement to divide Persia into three regions, with the Russian sphere of influence in the north, the British sphere of influence in the southeast, and the neutral zone in the middle.
The populace grew to resent the Qajar monarch for his inability to maintain the sovereignty and dignity of Persia.
Similar to modern Chinese history, the Iranian people in the early 20th century were also looking for a way out. During the Qajar dynasty, there was a constitutional revolution and a parliament was established. There were also liberals, moderates, and royalists in the parliament.
The Constitutional Revolution marked the end of the era of Qajar monarchy, but it finally ushered in an era of conflict and chaos.
In February 1921 , military officer Reza Shah launched a coup.
On April 25 , 1926 , Reza Khan was crowned and ascended the throne, formally establishing the " Pahlavi Dynasty " . He deactivated the " Persia " country name, which had always represented a long history , and officially used " Iran " as the country name.
To sum up the general trend:
The history of Iran is very similar to the modern history of China and can be understood by comparison.
The Qajar dynasty is actually the last monarchy-feudal dynasty in Iranian history, similar to our Qing Dynasty. And after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, where will it go?
We are moving towards the Beiyang era, while Iran is moving towards the " Pahlavi Dynasty " , which is a transitional period.
Although the " Pahlavi Dynasty " is called a dynasty, it is not the same as the Qajar Dynasty.
Reza Shah originally wanted to establish a republic, but he lived in an era of dictatorship. Whether it is the Fascists or some other political faction, they have all slipped into dictatorship.
The plan to establish a republic failed, and Reza Shah established a dynasty.
For him, dynasties and republics are just means to an end. His ambition was to control the country, to make it strong, to develop it so that it was truly independent, and to modernize it so that it could stand on an equal footing with the great powers.
05 Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution
The Era of Theocratic Republic: 1979-present
The " Pahlavi Dynasty " actually continued for two generations of Reza Shah and his son.
They basically unified the chaotic Iran, terminated various unequal treaties; carried out a comprehensive reform of the country, promoting national modernization, secularization, and Westernization; Iran's economy and education have achieved tremendous development.
From 1963 to 1976 , Iran's annual GDP growth was basically maintained at double digits. In 1974 , it reached an astonishing 40% , which made Iran one of the richest countries in the world.
However, the " Pahlavi Dynasty " tended to be a dictatorial rule, suppressing various labor movements and democratic movements. Corruption was common among members of the royal family and government officials at all levels. The corruption problem was very serious. big.
In 1978 , Iran fell into chaos, with strikes and demonstrations one after another, violence intensified, and the Pahlavi government had lost control of the country.
On February 1 , 1979 , Khomeini, an Iranian Shiite religious scholar who had been in exile for 14 years, returned to Tehran and became the focus of hope for the entire country.
Under the leadership of Khomeini , the Iranian people overthrew the Pahlavi Dynasty and established the " Islamic Republic of Iran " .
Since then, Iran has entered the era of the " theocratic republic " where the state and religion are united , until now.