Islamic conquest

Welcome Mandana (Mother of Cyrus the Great!)

The problem is that Iranians think if they say that Islamic conquest was bloody or barbaric, they have humiliated their holy religion and the fact is that Arabs couldn't conquer Iran easily and there were some bloody battles between Iranians and Arabs, I think the best source about it is the one thousand years old book of Shahnameh.

After the defeat of Iranians at the Battle of Qadisiyah [between Sad ibn Abi Waqqas (General of Calph Umar) and Rustam Farrokhzad (General of Sassanid king Yazdgerd III)], Ferdosi says in Shahnameh:

Ze Sassanian niz beryan shodam
Bar Iranian zar o geyan shodam

I got angry at Sassanids
I came to tears for Iranians

Dariq in bozorgi o in far o bakht
Dariq in sar o taj o in dad o takht

Alas! that greatness and that splendour and fortune
Alas! that crown, that justice and throne

Setareh nagardad magar bar zian
Kazin pas shekast ayad az Tazian

[It seems even] Stars are going around to annoy us
After that [battle] we had just defeats against Arabs

Kazin tokhmeh gity kasi nashomorad
Bar in salian Char sad bogazard

No one counts us as a race in the world
Four hundreds years have passed from that event

Try this one, Setareh=Star. This word seems to be common in many Indo-Euorpean languages

 

Actually, the reverse is also true there are many words from Persian and Hindi that are loaned to Arabic and Turkish. Similar words in languages in the same family don't necessarily show borrowed words just the common roots of the languages such as Persian, Greek, and English (not Arabic or Turkish) I think people discussed this subject with a lot of emotion in relation to words borrowed in modern Greek in another thread here

 

Actually, the reverse is also true there are many words from Persian and Hindi that are loaned to Arabic and Turkish.

It is interesting to know that 10% of words (especially religious words) in Quran have persian origin.

Arabic word in Quran - Persian origin (English)
Din - Din (Religion)
Rab - Raba (God)
Fardaus - Pardis (Paradise)
Jahannam - Gahnam (Hell)
Barzakh - Bardak (Isthmus)
Huri - Pari (Fairy)
Jen - Jin (Demon)
Sarat - Rah Rast (Right way)
Shara - Shah Rah (Religion way)
Harut - Hurvatat [Khordad] (Name of an angle)
Marut - Murtat [Mordad] (Name of an angle)
Kahf - Kav (Cave)
Bab - Darb (Door)
Jidar - Diwar (Wall)
Sama - Asman (Sky)
Vaght - Vakta (Time)
Varagh - Barg (Leaf)
Raheb - Rahban (Monk)
Jaziya - Gazyat (Tribute)
Kahzinah - Gozineh (Treasury)
...

is it only shahnameh or also Omar khayam also used pure persian words?

It is only Shahnameh (of course among early Persian books after Islam)

I understand some of these words:

Dariq in bozorgi o in far o bakht
Dariq in sar o taj o in dad o takht

Alas! that greatness and that splendour and fortune
Alas! that crown, that justice and throne

bakht=baht, takht=taht, taj-tac

I also read in a place I do not remember now that the arabic alphabet is actually Persian alphabet, am I right?

Azimuth, taj is probably a Persian word.

Edited by HulaguHan

Originally posted by HulaguHan I also read in a place I do not remember now that the arabic alphabet is actually Persian alphabet, am I right?

actually the root of both Persian and Arabic alphabet goes back to Aramaic. Aramaic and Phoenician are the mother of almost all scripts used in west Asia and Europe. and it shaped Old Persian's alphabet which was used by Achaemenian kings. Later (2nd century B.C), Parthians used a changed version of Old Persian alphabet, which they called "Pahlavi" or "Pahlavani" meaning "heroic" and called themselves "Pahlavans" meaning heros; this language played a significant role in recovering Iranian mythology after it was destroyed by Alexander. Pahlavi is also known as Middle Persian.

Arabic alphabet is most close to Pahlavi alphabet. Arabs borrowed many words from Persians, that's why they have many original Persian words. after Arabs conquest of Iran (6th C.) they forced their language to Persians, to use in schools, governments, and religious prayers, and that's why many Arabic words exists in Modern Persian. At the end, the point is that both Arabic and Modern Persian are sub-alphabets of Pahlavi.

It is obvious that the Arabic alphabet was developed from the Persian (Pahlavi) alphabet but the origin of both of them and also Greek and Latin alphabets was the Phoenician alphabet.

Originally posted by HulaguHan Do you use Pahlavi Alphabet now?

If you mean the old Pahlavi alphabet, then the answer is a big NO. as you can see in Cyrus's resemblance Pahlavi and Arabic have obvious differences. anyway... both Arabic and Persian alphabet (plus Turkish before Ata Turk) are from a same family of Pahlavi's. 

Originally posted by HulaguHan Or do you use Arabic Alphabet?

the alphabet Iranians use is not Arabic alphabet, but the letters are 97%  the same.  Today's Pesian alphabet is called Perso-Arabic script (I'll explain some of the differences later).

Originally posted by HulaguHan Ottomans, Qarakhanids, Timurids, Seljuks used arabic alphabet but in the way of Persian as far as I know and that is why no arab could read what we wrote, on the other hand, you guys understood most of the things.

hmm...I'm not sure if i'm following you, you mean the alphabet those kingdoms used were Arabic alphabet but Arabs couldn't understand it and Persians did?

* the differences between Modern Persian and Arabic is like the difference between English and German, there are some little differences; (1) Modern Persians' alphabet (what Iranians use today) contains 32 letters, and Arabic alphabet uses 28 (if i'm not mistaken). the letters "G", "P", "ZH", "CH" are not available in Arabic as you may already know. (2) in both alphabets we have number of S's ( "س" "ص" "ث" ), in Arabic each of them pronounces differently, however in Persian they're all the same, only in dictation they differ. (3) the letter "ط" (T) is used in both languages, however in recent years Persian Academy of language has tried to reduce the use of this letter -- since it only creates doubts in our dictation -- and replaced it with a popular "T" ("ت")


Edited by ramin

Probably Islam is more Persian than Arabic religion, after reading those comments, I have this idea. All religious words are Persian. And we know that Achamaneid Empire , Persianized the proto-muhammedan arabs of Egypt, Syria, Babylonia, it is highly possible. at least Turkish islam is much more Persian than Arabic.

Well Azimuth, take a look at the words coming from Farsi. Do not underestimate the Achamaneid Dominance in middle east in the ancient times. But we saved you many times man, if you mean by Turks as the people who saved arabs. We saved you in Crusades. We saved you from Shiite slaughter, remember the Safavid attacks on Baghdad.

Anyway, we have nothing to do with the early islamic days mate, sorry if you took my words as an insult. Cyrus show me the Persian words in Quran. There are also cross realtions. Arabs have deep and strong cultural background too. Off course Egyptians and Sumerians influenced Persians too. May be those Persian words are Sumerian origined and may we end this discussion. 

I didn' t want to offend noone mate, both Arabic and Persian cultures are the first civilizations of the world. Let them mate and breed than.