As India Saffronises, 9 Questions on her Za’faran sister (IranZamin) with Professor Foltz-

1.) Why are all the loans one way INTO Uralic and nothing from Uralic into Indic or Iranian languages? 

Not being a linguist, I am not aware whether or not that is in fact the case. I would be surprised if it were.

(2.) Why doesn’t the whole Aryan debate animate the Iranian society, as it does in India?

I don’t think there is a “debate” as such among Iranians, or among scholars in most parts of the world for that matter. That such a “debate” exists in India is due primarily to political, not scholarly reasons.

(3) What was the religious and ethnic demographic composition of the late Sassanid Empire [before the eve of the Arab invasion and conquest]?

a) In the overall Empire

The bulk of the population were Semitic and lived in Babylonia at the Western edge of the Empire, where Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism and other sects co-existed and interacted, sometimes peacefully and sometimes not.

b) In the proper Persian provinces

On the Iranian plateau the population were mainly various Iranian tribes. The Pahlavi sources would have us believe that they were mostly Zoroastrian, but the vigorous polemics found in these same sources demonstrate that there were in fact many rival sects in existence, most likely drawing their myths and traditions from the common proto-Iranian pool. Such modern-day Kurdish sects as the Yezidis and the Ahl-e Haqq may preserve some of these rival Iranian traditions.

(4) How did the [dualistic?] Zoroastrianism subsume or take over or absorb [not sure what’s the right term to use] the more polytheistic style Iranic religions [such as the worship of Anahita] ? What made the former successful , and when and how did this process take place? Are there any pointers to read up on this? 

It is highly unclear to what extent the Mazdaean priesthood exercised power or influence across Iranian societies prior to the Sasanian period. Their success from the late third century onwards would seem to be due principally to the fact that they had acquired state sponsorship.

(5.) What triggered the Turkification of most of Central Asia? Was it the destruction of the Qanat system?

The Persians, Khwarazmians and Sogdians all developed a policy of using Turkic soldiers for their respective armies. Eventually these Turks felt sufficiently empowered to assume power themselves.

(6.) Did the Medes, Achaemenids, and Parthians have a sense of “Iran” in a similar sense to the Sassanids or later people in the same area? I know the term pops up in the Avesta, but as far as I’m aware it was absent in a secular political or cultural context before the Sassanids, and I wonder if the people on the Iranian plateau would have had any name for the whole region. 

There is little evidence for a fixed geographical notion of “Iran” prior to the Sasanian period; it seems to have been more of an abstract concept.

(7.) How influential has the Sab-ki-Hindi (the Persian spoken in medieval) had on any Iranian culture?

The sabk-i hindi was typically seen in Iran as a degenerate literary form.

(8.) Who would you rate as having the most influence on Persian Culture/Iranian Civilisation (maybe top 3 individuals)?

Darius I (not Cyrus) probably deserves the credit for establishing the Persian Empire, with its roads, postal system, and bureaucracy. Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) might be a candidate, except that the Gathas are still poorly understood so we cannot say for certain exactly what his contribution was. A number of contemporary scholars (Jean Kellens, P.O. Skjærvø) even doubt that he existed. One would of course have to mention Ferdowsi since the Shah-nameh is widely considered to be the ultimate expression of Iranian identity.

(9.) Is it possible to divorce the sense of Iran from Islam. Pan-Turanism, Pan-Iranism or even Pan-Arabism seem to take a back-step to Pan-Islamic sentiment.​

For many Iranians such a separation is possible, even desirable, whereas the official position of the current Iranian government is just the opposite. It is worth noting however that Iranians played a central role in the development of Islamic civilization, arguably to a much greater extent than the Arabs. So Islam is more an Iranian phenomenon than a lot of people on both sides of the debate would like to admit.