Where is persian people from

Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Policy The U. Government U. Foreign Policy U. Liberal Politics U. Bridget Johnson. Political Journalist. She is a senior fellow specializing in terrorism analysis at the Haym Salomon Center. Updated February 17, Featured Video. View Article Sources. Cite this Article Format. Johnson, Bridget.

The griffon is a mythical creature with the wings and head of an eagle and the body of a lion, and a symbol of the Persian capital of Persepolis. British diplomats and members of the military serving in Pakistan brought roughly of these gold and silver pieces—known as the Oxus Treasure—to London where they are now housed at the British Museum. The history of carpet weaving in Persia dates back to the nomadic tribes.

The ancient Greeks prized the artistry of these hand-woven rugs—famous for their elaborate design and bright colors. Today, most Persian rugs are made of wool, silk and cotton.

Embossed bas relief carvings of servants bringing gifts to the king on the sidewall of stairs in front of Tachara Palace, also known as the Palace of Darius, in Persepolis. The Achaemenian palaces of Persepolis were built upon massive terraces. They were decorated with ornamental facades that included the long rock relief carvings for which the ancient Persians were famous.

Many people think of Persia as synonymous with Islam , though Islam only became the dominant religion in the Persian Empire after the Arab conquests of the seventh century.

The first Persian Empire was shaped by a different religion: Zoroastrianism. Named after the Persian prophet Zoroaster also known as Zarathustra , Zoroastrianism is one of the world's oldest monotheistic religions. Zoroaster, who likely lived sometime between and B. The Achaemenian kings were devout Zoroastrians.

By most accounts, Cyrus the Great was a tolerant ruler who allowed his subjects to speak their own languages and practice their own religions. Hebrew scriptures praise Cyrus the Great for freeing the Jewish people of Babylon from captivity and allowing them to return to Jerusalem. This period of time is sometimes called the Pax Persica, or Persian Peace. The Achaemenid dynasty finally fell to the invading armies of Alexander the Great of Macedon in B. Subsequent rulers sought to restore the Persian Empire to its Achaemenian boundaries, though the empire never quite regained the enormous size it had achieved under Cyrus the Great.

The Achaemenid Persian Empire B. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. The Byzantine Empire was a vast and powerful civilization with origins that can be traced to A. Iran map. Persia is now thought to be synonymous with Iran , but does either of those terms define the myriad of ethnic groups within the country, such as the Kurds or Turks, those who neither identify themselves as Persian nor speak the Persian language of Farsi?

Or should it simply be used to identify goods and wares we have all become familiar with like the Persian cat or Persian Rug? And perhaps finally one will understand why Persians Are Not Arabs. The majority of Iranians are of Persian ethnicity. Even within this ethnic group, the Persians have a diverse ancestry, but all of them have one thing in common: their language.

Persians speak Persian, also called Farsi. The statistics from shows the ethnicity breakdown for Iran as follows:. Persians — Takhte Jamshid. Persians speak Iranian languages and dialects.

Arabs trace their ancestry to the original inhabitants of tribes of Arabia from the Syrian Desert and Arabian Peninsula. Persians live in Iran and their neighbors are to the East Pakistan and Afghanistan and to Turkey in the west.

Persians are a part of the Iranian inhabitants. After Arab invasion in Islam did eventually displace the native Zoroastrian religion, however, the Persians held onto their identity through their language, literature and arts which are discussed in in detail other parts of the website. The confusion between the two ethnicities seems to arise from their shared religion of Islam. Islam is not a nation, nor is it an ethnic group. It is solely a religion. The cause of this division are said to happen after the prophet Muhammad the original leader of Islam passed away in The first group of followers is called the Sunni, and the second group is Shia.

Nowadays the official religion of Iran is Shia, but Sunni is practice in a few places. Most Persians , including most Iranians, practice Shia branch of Islam! Most Shias today live in Iran , Pakistan, India, and Iraq, and they adhere to Twelve Shiism — the belief that twelve imams, appointed divinely, descended from Ali. Zoroastrian Persians that refused to convert to Islam, fled to India. Persians , because of their background and Zoroastrian past developed a different culture from Arab counterpart.

Persians do a lot of Islamic rituals differently! Even though the main religion in Iran is the Shia Islam, there are a few smaller religious groups:. For example the Sunni Islam is the religion undertaken by the Kurdish in the west, the Turkmens, and the Arabs in the southern part of Iran.

Persian Culture. Even though Arabs invaded Persia Iran and had to change their religion, Iranian kept most of their Zoroastrian tradition and ceremonies and still celebrates them.