The Iran relationship, hostility

The people of the Middle East embraced Islam and its culture, but each society adapted certain aspects of the faith to its own traditions and outlook, moving away from the harshness and rigidity associated with desert life. This cultural adaptation can be observed in Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Iran, Turkey, and among Muslim communities in India, Indonesia, and elsewhere. These societies incorporated their own customs and cultural nuances into religious practices, particularly those associated with marriage and death.

Iran continues to have a Sunni minority, particularly in the southeastern province of Balochistan, as well as Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian minorities. At the beginning of Arab- Islamic rule, Persia was an advanced state in various aspects of life compared with the conquerors who came to rule it. The new rulers subordinated non-Muslims while favoring skilled and educated elites. Persians excelled not only in politics but also in Arabic linguistics, helping establish the rules of the Arabic language and making significant contributions to various fields of knowledge.

Thus, we find that more than 60 percent of scientific terms in Persian are derived from Arabic, including triangle, square, rectangle, multiplication, mark, zero, algebra, number, and enumeration, as well as physics, chemistry, arithmetic, and science. Persian has also borrowed more than 30 percent of its social terms from Arabic. Despite the fame, eloquence, and global reach of Persian poetry, its foundations lie in Arabic in terms of poetic meters, rhythms, and rhyme. This overwhelming influence was one of the causes of the conflict between national identity and religious loyalty. This can be observed in the official stance on teaching Arabic. Iran currently permits the teaching of Arabic to non-Arab specialists to avoid demands from different ethnic groups to teach their own languages, particularly Iranian Arabs, Azerbaijani Turks, Kurds, and others. However, the country’s constitution mandates the teaching of Arabic in state schools.

This requirement applies to the teaching of Arabic from the end of elementary school through high school, across all academic streams. In 2023, a ban on teaching Arabic in primary schools was implemented, and the ban extended to all other languages, out of concern for the identity of Iranian children. Iran is grappling with a strong trend among Iranians in the diaspora to prioritize Iranian national identity over religious or sectarian identity. Even after nearly half a century abroad, these individuals remain a highly educated elite within Iranian society. They live their lives largely free from religious conservatism, rejecting Islamic traditions and customs and preferring a pre- Khomeini, and even pre-Islamic, Iran. These Iranians in the diaspora are known for their less devout religious observance and their tendency to give their children pre-Islamic names rather than Arabic or Islamic ones.

They are deeply interested in celebrating pre-Islamic Persian national festivals, such as Nowruz, and in their efforts to purify the Persian language of Arabic vocabulary. These attempts to “purify the language” began in the late 19th century and were later formally advanced during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi, who adopted a secular Iranian nationalism that glorified pre-Islamic history, drawing inspiration from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s experience and distancing himself from Arab and Islamic influences. In 1935, the Shah established the Persian Language Academy (Farhangestan-e Zaban-e Farsi) to develop Persian alternatives to Arabic and foreign words. I conclude this series of articles on Arab-Persian relations with a personal impression that may not be entirely accurate. Persian hostility and resentment, whether overt or covert, appear to be directed specifically at the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula and do not seem to extend to Arabs elsewhere.

By Ahmad alsarraf
email: [email protected]. kw