1.
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
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He was the head of the Assembly of Experts from 2007 until 2011 when he decided not to nominate himself for the post. He was also the chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council, during the final years of Iran–Iraq War Rafsanjani was the de facto commander-in-chief of the Iranian military. Rafsanjani was elected chairman of the Iranian parliament in 1980 and served until 1989 and he played an important role in the choice of Ali Khamenei as Supreme Leader. Rafsanjani became president of Iran after winning the 1989 election and he served another term by winning the election in 1993. In the 2005 election he ran for a term in office, placing first in the first round of elections. He and his family faced political isolation for their support of the opposition in 2009, Rafsanjani entered the race for the 2013 presidential election, but he was disqualified by the Guardian Council. With Hassan Rouhanis election, in which Rafsanjani openly supported him, Rafsanjani died following a heart attack on 8 January 2017 in a hospital in Tehran at the age of 82. Rafsanjani has been described as having been a pragmatic Islamic conservative, the Economist called him a veteran kingmaker. He was also founder and one of the Board of Trustees of Azad University, in 2003, Forbes estimated his personal wealth to be in excess of USD$1 billion. Rafsanjani was born on 25 August 1934 in the village of Bahreman near the Persian city of Rafsanjan in Kerman Province and his father, Mirza Ali Hashemi Behramani, was one of Kermans famous businessmen and a Pistachio merchant. His mother, Hajie Khanom Mahbibi Hashemi, died at the age of 90 on 21 December 1995, one of his brothers, Mohammad Hashemi is the former director of IRIB. Rafsanjani did not see himself as a peasant from childhood, according to family members and he left at the age of 14 to study theology in Qom. There he became acquainted with the ideas of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, when he was studying at Qom Seminary, he became interested in politics under Ruhollah Khomeini. He was one of the opposition of Mohammad Reza Shahs White Revolution, with Khomeinis exile, Hashemis role in the fight against the Shah and representing Khomeini in the country was highlighted. This opposition eventually led to his arrest and imprisonment and he was arrested for 7 times from 1960 until 1979 and was in jail for four years and 5 months in total in crime of clandestine activities against Pahlavi regime. Despite anti-Western attitude of revolutionaries, he had traveled to 20 states of the United States, although individual major pre-revolutionary speeches against Shah regime, But Khomeini acted him as financial manager of revolutionary struggle as well as connector with other revolutionary groups. Among the groups that had a bond with Hashemi, was the Islamic Coalition Party. This communication was another reason for his arrest, in prison, he found the opportunity to become familiar with other groups opposed to the Shah
2.
Tehran Province
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Tehran Province is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It covers an area of 18,909 square kilometres and is located to the north of the plateau of Iran. Tehran Province borders Māzandarān Province in the north, Qom Province in the south, Semnān Province in the east, the metropolis of Tehran is the capital city of the province and of Iran. As of June 2005, this province includes 13 townships,43 municipalities, Tehran Province is the richest province of Iran as it contributes approximately 29% of the countrys GDP. Furthermore, it houses approximately 18% of the countrys population, Tehran Province is the most industrialized province in Iran,86. 5% of its population resides in urban areas and 13. 5% of its population resides in rural areas. The province gained importance when Tehran was claimed the capital by the Qajar dynasty in 1778, today, Tehran, with a population of more than 7 million, is ranked amongst the 20 most populous metropolitan cities of the world. The province of Tehran has over 12 million inhabitants and is Irans most densely populated region, approximately 86.5 percent reside in urban areas and 13.5 percent in rural areas of the province. The largest rivers of this province are Karaj River and Jajrud River, environmentally, the climate of Tehran province in the southern areas is warm and dry, but in the mountain vicinity is cold and semi-humid, and in the higher regions is cold with long winters. Tehran city has moderate winters and hot summers, average annual rainfall is approximately 200 millimetres, the maximum being during the winter season. On the whole, the province has an arid, steppe climate in the south. Tehran Province has several archeological sites indicating settlements dating back several thousand years, until 300 years ago, Rey was the most prominent of the cities of the province. However, the city of Tehran rose to become the city and capital of Iran by 1778, and since then has been the political, cultural, economic. Tehran has over 1,500 historical sites of cultural significance registered with the Cultural Heritage Organization of Iran, the oldest of these in Tehran province are the remains of two sites in Firuzkuh County that date back to the 4th millennium BCE. Tehran province has over 17,000 industrial units employing 390,000 people, the province contains 30% of Irans economy, and comprises 40% of Irans consumer market. The province has three hydro dams namely Latiyan, Lar, and Amir Kabir as well as two lakes, providing the water supply of Tehran and the province. The province contains 170 mines, over 330 square kilometres of forests, moreover, due to excessive snowfall in the northern areas of the province during the winter season, the Alborz mountains form an excellent environment for winter sports such as skiing. Dizin, Shemshak, and Tochal are the most popular skiing resorts, Freeway 5, This Freeway connects city of Tehran to its southern suburbs such as Sabashahr, Robat Karim and Parand and continues towards Markazi Province to Saveh and Salafchegan. There are plans to continue the freeway towards Khuzestan, Freeway 7, This Freeway connects Tehran City to its airport, Imam Khomeini International Airport and continues towards Qom and Esfahan
3.
East Azerbaijan Province
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Kurdistan roughly encompasses the northwestern Zagros and the eastern Taurus mountain ranges. Contemporary use of the term refers to four parts of Kurdistan, which include southeastern Turkey, northern Syria, northern Iraq, and northwestern Iran. Iraqi Kurdistan first gained autonomous status in a 1970 agreement with the Iraqi government, there is a province by the name Kurdistan in Iran, it is not self-ruled. Kurds fighting in the Syrian Civil War were able to control of large sections of northern Syria as government forces, loyal to Bashar al-Assad. Having established their own government, they called for autonomy in a federal Syria after the war, various groups, among them the Guti, Hurrians, Mannai, and Armenians, lived in this region in antiquity. The original Mannaean homeland was situated east and south of the Lake Urmia, the region came under Persian rule during the reign of Cyrus the Great and Darius I. At its zenith, the Roman Empire ruled large Kurdish-inhabited areas, corduene became a vassal state of the Roman Republic in 66 BC and remained allied with the Romans until AD384. After 66 BC, it passed another 5 times between Rome and Persia, corduene was situated to the east of Tigranocerta, that is, to the east and south of present-day Diyarbakır in south-eastern Turkey. When the Sasanian Marzban asked Mar Abdisho about his place of origin, he replied that according to his parents, they were originally from Hazza, a village in Assyria. However they were driven out of Hazza by pagans, and settled in Tamanon. Tamanon lies just north of the modern Iraq-Turkey border, while Hazza is 12 km southwest of modern Erbil, in another passage in the same document, the region of the Khabur River is also identified as land of the Kurds. According to Al-Muqaddasi and Yaqut al-Hamawi, Tamanon was located on the south-western or southern slopes of Mount Judi, Kurdistan in the Middle Ages was a collection of semi-independent and independent states called emirates. It was nominally under indirect political or religious influence of Khalifs or Shahs, a comprehensive history of these states and their relationship with their neighbors is given in the text of Sharafnama, written by Prince Sharaf al-Din Bitlisi in 1597. The emirates included Baban, Soran, Badinan and Garmiyan in the south, Bakran, Bohtan and Badlis in the north, the earliest medieval attestation of the toponym Kurdistan is found in a 12th-century Armenian historical text by Matteos Urhayeci. He described a battle near Amid and Siverek in 1062 as to have taken place in Kurdistan, the second record occurs in the prayer from the colophon of an Armenian manuscript of the Gospels, written in 1200. A later use of the term Kurdistan is found in Empire of Trebizond documents in 1336 and in Nuzhat-al-Qulub, written by Hamdollah Mostowfi in 1340. According to Sharafkhan Bitlisi in his Sharafnama, the boundaries of the Kurdish land begin at the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf and stretch on a line to the end of Malatya. In the 16th century, after prolonged wars, Kurdish-inhabited areas were split between the Safavid and Ottoman empires, a major division of Kurdistan occurred in the aftermath of the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, and was formalized in the 1639 Treaty of Zuhab
4.
Iran
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Iran, also known as Persia, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a sovereign state in Western Asia. Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km2, it is the second-largest country in the Middle East, with 82.8 million inhabitants, Iran is the worlds 17th-most-populous country. It is the country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. The countrys central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran is the countrys capital and largest city, as well as its leading economic and cultural center. Iran is the site of to one of the worlds oldest civilizations, the area was first unified by the Iranian Medes in 625 BC, who became the dominant cultural and political power in the region. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, under the Sassanid Dynasty, Iran again became one of the leading powers in the world for the next four centuries. Beginning in 633 AD, Arabs conquered Iran and largely displaced the indigenous faiths of Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism by Islam, Iran became a major contributor to the Islamic Golden Age that followed, producing many influential scientists, scholars, artists, and thinkers. During the 18th century, Iran reached its greatest territorial extent since the Sassanid Empire, through the late 18th and 19th centuries, a series of conflicts with Russia led to significant territorial losses and the erosion of sovereignty. Popular unrest culminated in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which established a monarchy and the countrys first legislative body. Following a coup instigated by the U. K. Growing dissent against foreign influence and political repression led to the 1979 Revolution, Irans rich cultural legacy is reflected in part by its 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the third-largest number in Asia and 11th-largest in the world. Iran is a member of the UN, ECO, NAM, OIC. Its political system is based on the 1979 Constitution which combines elements of a democracy with a theocracy governed by Islamic jurists under the concept of a Supreme Leadership. A multicultural country comprising numerous ethnic and linguistic groups, most inhabitants are Shia Muslims, the largest ethnic groups in Iran are the Persians, Azeris, Kurds and Lurs. Historically, Iran has been referred to as Persia by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis, meaning land of the Persians. As the most extensive interactions the Ancient Greeks had with any outsider was with the Persians, however, Persis was originally referred to a region settled by Persians in the west shore of Lake Urmia, in the 9th century BC. The settlement was then shifted to the end of the Zagros Mountains. In 1935, Reza Shah requested the international community to refer to the country by its native name, opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision, and Professor Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, propagated a move to use Persia and Iran interchangeably
5.
Tehran
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Tehran is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. It is ranked 29th in the world by the population of its metropolitan area, in the Classical era, part of the present-day city of Tehran was occupied by a Median city that in the Avesta occurs as Rhaga. It was destroyed by the Mongols in the early 13th century, the capital has been moved several times throughout the history, and Tehran is the 32nd national capital of Iran. The city was the seat of the Qajars and Pahlavis, the two last imperial dynasties of Iran. It is home to historical collections, such as the royal complexes of Golestan, Sadabad. Large scale demolition and rebuilding began in the 1920s, and Tehran has been a destination for the migrations from all over Iran since the 20th century. Tabiat Bridge, which was completed in 2014, is considered the third symbol of the city. There have been plans to relocate Irans capital from Tehran to another area, due mainly to air pollution, to date, no definitive plans have been approved. A2016 survey of 230 cities by consultant Mercer ranked Tehran 203rd for quality of living, according to the Global Destinations Cities Index in 2016, Tehran is among the top ten fastest growing destinations. The origin of the name Tehran is uncertain, the settlement of Tehran dates back over 7,000 years. The present-day city of Tehran was a suburb of an important Median city that was known as Rhaga in Old Persian, in the Avestas Videvdat, Rhaga is mentioned as the twelfth sacred place created by the Ohrmazd. In Old Persian inscriptions, Rhaga appears as a province and it was a major area for the Iranian tribes of Medes and Achaemenids. From Rhaga, Darius the Great sent reinforcements to his father Hystaspes, in some Middle Persian texts, Rhaga is given as the birthplace of Zoroaster, although modern historians generally place the birth of Zoroaster in Khorasan. Derived into Modern Persian as Rey, it now as a city located towards the southern end of the modern-day city of Tehran. Mount Damavand, the highest peak of Iran, which is located near Tehran, is an important location in Ferdowsis Shahname, the long Iranian epic poem that is based on the ancient epics of Iran. It appears in the epics as the birthplace of Manuchehr, the residence of Keyumars, the place where Freydun binds the dragon fiend Aži Dahāka, during the Sassanid era, in 641, Yazdgerd III issued his last appeal to the nation from Rey, before fleeing to Khorasan. Rey was dominated by the Parthian Mihran family, and Siyavakhsh—the son of Mihran the son of Bahram Chobin—who resisted the Muslim Invasion, because of this resistance, when the Arabs captured Rey, they ordered the town to be destroyed and ordered Farrukhzad to rebuild the town anew. In the 9th century, Tehran was a well known village, but less known than the city of Rey, the medieval writer Najm od Din Razi declared the population of Rey about 500,000 before the Mongol Invasion
6.
Iranian peoples
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The Iranian peoples or Iranic peoples are a diverse Indo-European ethno-linguistic group that comprise the speakers of the Iranian languages. Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a branch of the Indo-Iranians in Central Asia in the mid 2nd millennium BC. In the 1st millennium AD, their area of settlement was reduced as a result of Slavic, Germanic, Turkic and Mongol expansions and many being subjected to Slavicisation. The Iranian peoples include Balochs, Kurds, Gilaks, Lurs, Mazanderanis, Ossetians, Pashtuns, Pamiris, Persians, Tajiks, Talysh people, the term Iran derives directly from Middle Persian Ērān and Parthian Aryān. The Middle Iranian terms ērān and aryān are oblique plural forms of gentilic ēr- and ary-, there have been many attempts to qualify the verbal root of ar- in Old Iranian arya-. The following are according to 1957 and later linguists, Emmanuel Laroche, Old Iranian arya- being descended from Proto-Indo-European ar-yo-, meaning assembler. Harold Walter Bailey, ar- to beget, unlike the Sanskrit ā́rya-, the Old Iranian term has solely an ethnic meaning. Today, the Old Iranian arya- remains in ethno-linguistic names such as Iran, Alan, Ir, in the Iranian languages, the gentilic is attested as a self-identifier included in ancient inscriptions and the literature of Avesta. The earliest epigraphically attested reference to the word occurs in the Bistun Inscription of the 6th century BC. The inscription of Bistun describes itself to have composed in Arya. As is also the case for all other Old Iranian language usage, in royal Old Persian inscriptions, the term arya- appears in three different contexts, As the name of the language of the Old Persian version of the inscription of Darius I in the Bistun Inscription. As the ethnic background of Darius the Great in inscriptions at Rustam Relief and Susa, as the definition of the God of Iranians, Ohrmazd, in the Elamite version of the Bistun Inscription. In the Dna and Dse, Darius and Xerxes describe themselves as an Achaemenid, a Persian, son of a Persian, although Darius the Great called his language arya-, modern scholars refer to it as Old Persian because it is the ancestor of the modern Persian language. The trilingual inscription erected by the command of Shapur I gives a clear description. The languages used are Parthian, Middle Persian, and Greek, tou Arianon ethnous despotes eimi, which translates to I am the king of the kingdom of the Iranians. In Middle Persian, Shapur says ērānšahr xwadāy hēm and in Parthian he says aryānšahr xwadāy ahēm, the Avesta clearly uses airiia- as an ethnic name, where it appears in expressions such as airyāfi daiŋˊhāvō, airyō šayanəm, and airyanəm vaējō vaŋhuyāfi dāityayāfi. In the late part of the Avesta, one of the homelands was referred to as Airyanəm Vaējah which approximately means expanse of the Iranians. The homeland varied in its range, the area around Herat
7.
Iranian Azerbaijanis
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Azerbaijanis are the second largest ethnic group in the nation. Furthermore, the largest population of ethnic Azerbaijanis in the live in Iran. Iranian Azerbaijanis also constitute a significant minority in Tehran, Karaj, Azerbaijanis comprise the largest minority ethnic group in Iran. Apart from Iranian Azerbaijan, indigenous Azeri population is found in numbers in four provinces, Hamadan, Qazvin, Markazi. Azeri-populated parts of Markazi include Komijan, Khondab, Saveh, Zarandieh, Shazand, in Kurdistan, Azeris are mainly found in villages around Qorveh. It is a Turkish language learned and spoken by Iranian peasants”, according to Richard Frye, The Turkish speakers of Azerbaijan are mainly descended from the earlier Iranian speakers, several pockets of whom still exist in the region. Here they divided into Ottomans, who were Sunni and settled, and Turkmens and these are the people today known as Azeris. As for the culture, it remained traditional even after the Turkicization of the local population. The latter entered both the Azeri and Turkish language mainly through the Iranian intermediary, having become independent, the Azeri culture retained close connections with the Iranian and Arab cultures. They were reinforced by religion and common cultural-historical traditions. ”. The Iranian origins of the Azeris likely derive from ancient Iranian tribes, such as the Medes in Iranian Azerbaijan and it is believed that the Medes mixed with an indigenous population, the Caucasian Mannai, a Northeast Caucasian group related to the Urartians. It has also hypothesized that the population of Iranian Azerbaijan was predominantly Persian-speaking before the Oghuz arrived. The claim is mentioned by medieval historians, such as Al-Muqaddasi. Other common Perso-Azeribaijani features include Iranian place names such as Tabriz, the modern presence of the Iranian Talysh and Tats in Azerbaijan is further evidence of the former Iranian character of the region. As a precursor to modern groups, the ancient Azaris are also hypothesized as ancestors of the modern Azeris. The Russo-Persian Wars of the 19th century settled the boundary of Iran, stripping it of all its Caucasian territories. The eventual formation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 established the territory of modern Azerbaijan, as a direct result of Qajar Irans forced ceding to Russia, the Azerbaijanis are nowadays parted between two nations, Iran and Azerbaijan. Despite living on two sides of a border, the Azeris form a single ethnic group
8.
Sabalan
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Sabalan, or Savalan is an inactive stratovolcano in the Alborz mountain range and Ardabil Province of northwestern Iran. At 4,811 metres in elevation, it is the third highest mountain in Iran and it has a permanent crater lake formed at its summit. On one of its slopes around 3,600 metres in elevation there are rock formations of eroded volcanic outcrops which resemble animals, birds. Located in the extreme northwest of Iran, Sabalan is the third highest peak after Damavand. It is also higher than Mont Blanc in the Alps, the mountain offers many attractions throughout the year. On the slopes of the mountain the mineral water from springs attracts large numbers of each year. The nomadic people of the live in small villages, with their round Yurt tents appealing to tourism. Sabalan has a sky resort and different tourist areas such as the Sarein spa, the mountain is known for its beautiful vistas, including the Shirvan gorge, where few climbers ever venture. According to some beliefs, Mount Sabalan was the place where Zoroaster meditated for some years, based on nomadic beliefs, when all the snow of Sabalan melts, the end of time will come. Sabalan is an andesite stratovolcano in Meshgin Shahr, in Iranian Azerbaijan in North West Iran. It is the second highest volcano after Mount Damavand and its first eruptions occurred in the Eocene and later in the Miocene. But the main volcanism happened in the Pliocene and the Pleistocene as some of its rocks have been dated to 5–1.4 million years, some references state that volcanic activity continued into the Holocene, less than 10,000 years ago. The summit region has several peaks exceeding 4,500 metres, the highest point 4,811 metres is at the northeast end of the ridge, and is separated from the 4,620 metres + group of southwestern summits by a 4,190 m col. The mountain is located in a climate with hot, dry summers and extremely cold. Precipitation falls primarily as snow in autumn, winter, and spring. The largest of these were more than 1.5 kilometres in length as of the 1970s, there are also extensive rock glaciers, several of which are more than 3 km in length. The climbing surface includes rocks of various sizes, and a degree of fitness is required to climb it. The climb from the camp starts easy, becomes challenging mid way
9.
Hussein-Ali Montazeri
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Hussein-Ali Montazeri was an Iranian Shia Islamic theologian, Islamic democracy advocate, writer and human rights activist. He was one of the leaders of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Montazeri spent his later years in Qom, and remained politically influential in Iran, especially to the reformist movement. He was widely known as the most knowledgeable senior Islamic scholar in Iran, for more than two decades, Hussein-Ali Montazeri was one of the main critics of the Islamic Republics domestic and foreign policy. He had also been an advocate of Bahai rights, civil rights. Montazeri was a writer of books and articles. He was a proponent of an Islamic state, and he argued that post-revolutionary Iran was not being ruled as an Islamic state. Born in 1922, Montazeri was from a peasant family in Najafabad and his early theological education was in Isfahan. After Khomeini was forced into exile by the Shah, Montazeri sat at the center of the network which Khomeini had established to fight the Pahlavi rule. He became a teacher at the Faiziyeh Theological School, while there he answered Khomeinis call to protest the White Revolution of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in June 1963 and was active in anti-Shah clerical circles. He was sent to prison in 1974 and released in 1978 in time to be active during the revolution, Montazeri then went to Qom where he studied theology. Montazeri was famous as an Islamic jurist who was made to pay for his liberal-leaning beliefs and he was the author of Dirasat fi Vilayah al-Faqih, a scholarly book advocating the supervision of the administration by Islamic jurists. He believed in the independence of the government and did not accept any executive, Montazeri asserted that the rule of the jurisprudent should not be an absolute rule, instead, it should be limited to the function of advisor to the rulers, who are elected by the people. In 1979, following the overthrow of the Shah, he played a role in instituting Irans new constitution. He was one of the leaders of the movement to replace the democratic and he distributed a detailed commentary and alternate draft for Irans new constitution. Later he served on the Assembly of Experts that wrote the constitution, during this time, Montazeri also served as Friday prayer leader of Qom, as a member of the Revolutionary Council and as deputy to Supreme Leader Khomeini. Khomeini began to some of his power to Montazeri, in 1980. By 1983 all government offices hung a picture of Montazeri next to that of Khomeini. In 1984, Montazeri became a grand ayatollah, some observers believe Khomeini chose him for this role solely because of his support for Khomeinis principle of theocratic rule by Islamic jurists
10.
Islam
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Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion which professes that there is only one and incomparable God and that Muhammad is the last messenger of God. It is the worlds second-largest religion and the major religion in the world, with over 1.7 billion followers or 23% of the global population. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and He has guided mankind through revealed scriptures, natural signs, and a line of prophets sealed by Muhammad. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the word of God. Muslims believe that Islam is the original, complete and universal version of a faith that was revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses. As for the Quran, Muslims consider it to be the unaltered, certain religious rites and customs are observed by the Muslims in their family and social life, while social responsibilities to parents, relatives, and neighbors have also been defined. Besides, the Quran and the sunnah of Muhammad prescribe a comprehensive body of moral guidelines for Muslims to be followed in their personal, social, political, Islam began in the early 7th century. Originating in Mecca, it spread in the Arabian Peninsula. The expansion of the Muslim world involved various caliphates and empires, traders, most Muslims are of one of two denominations, Sunni or Shia. Islam is the dominant religion in the Middle East, North Africa, sizable Muslim communities are also found in Horn of Africa, Europe, China, Russia, Mainland Southeast Asia, Philippines, Northern Borneo, Caucasus and the Americas. Converts and immigrant communities are found in almost every part of the world, Islam is a verbal noun originating from the triliteral root s-l-m which forms a large class of words mostly relating to concepts of wholeness, submission, safeness and peace. In a religious context it means voluntary submission to God, Islām is the verbal noun of Form IV of the root, and means submission or surrender. Muslim, the word for an adherent of Islam, is the active participle of the verb form. The word sometimes has connotations in its various occurrences in the Quran. In some verses, there is stress on the quality of Islam as a state, Whomsoever God desires to guide. Other verses connect Islām and dīn, Today, I have perfected your religion for you, I have completed My blessing upon you, still others describe Islam as an action of returning to God—more than just a verbal affirmation of faith. In the Hadith of Gabriel, islām is presented as one part of a triad that also includes imān, Islam was historically called Muhammadanism in Anglophone societies. This term has fallen out of use and is said to be offensive because it suggests that a human being rather than God is central to Muslims religion
Quotations related to Ali Meshkini at Wikiquote