The Afsharid dynasty was an Iranian dynasty founded by Nader Shah of the Qirqlu clan of the Turkoman Afshar tribe, ruling over the Afsharid Empire.
Image: Painting, portrait of Nader Shah seated on a carpet, oil on canvas, probably Tehran, 1780s or 1790s (cropped)
Image: Coin of Nader Shah, minted in Isfahan
Image: Portrait of Adel Shah
Image: Coin of the Afsharid shah Adel Shah, struck at the Mashhad mint
Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi or Parsi, is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan in three mutually intelligible standard varieties, respectively Iranian Persian, Dari Persian, and Tajiki Persian. It is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan, as well as within other regions with a Persianate history in the cultural sphere of Greater Iran. It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet, a derivative of the Arabic script, and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet, a derivative of the Cyrillic script.
An Old Persian inscription written in Old Persian cuneiform in Persepolis, Iran
Middle Persian text written in Inscriptional Pahlavi on the Paikuli inscription from between 293 and 297. Slemani Museum, Iraqi Kurdistan.
Ferdowsi's Shahnameh
Kalilah va Dimna, an influential work in Persian literature
