Iranian Civilization

"Iranian Civilization" is an umbrella expression covering what went on civilizationally during the last 5000 years in a broad area of Central and Southwestern Asia. One way to think of its limits is to map out the areas in which the Persian language (Farsi — or its direct predecessors and dialects) has been the primary language of civilization. Using this criterion, Iranian Civilization at its broadest extent stretched from Istanbul and Baghdad in the west to Bengal in the East, and from Armenia and present-day Kazakhistan on the north to the Persian Gulf and Sindh.

The heartland of this civilization is present-day Iran with an indefinite extension northeastward through western Afghanistan to Samarqand, Bokhara, and modern Tajikistan. On the west, Iranian civilization developed on the fringes of, and in intimate contact with, Mesopotamian civilizations. In this area, the Achaemenid Empire can be considered a "successor civilization", followed by the Parthian and Sassanian Empires. This continuity was interrupted by the Arab-Muslim Conquest in the seventh century. After two centuries of Arabization, Iranian Civilization reasserted itself in much of the old Iranian area. The Persian court language again became dominant in this broad area, with only brief setbacks during successive Turkic and Mongol invasions. It then spread throughout northern India and into Bengal during the period of Moghal domination there. It was considered the language of culture in most Turkic countries, including the Ottoman Empire until the nineteenth century. In recent times, it has receded along its periphery, and is now dominant only in the heartland.

It should be noted that we use the term "civilization" rather than "culture". Civilization refers to the creations of a people or peoples living in a particular region (or historical period within that region). A civilization exists separately from the peoples that may at particular times be identified with it. Culture refers to what is "inherited" through explicit and implicit teaching by people within a particular group. Outsiders can appreciate and understand Southwestern Pueblo civilization, perhaps as well or better than Southwestern Pueblo Indians. This can seldom if ever be said of the cultures of Southwestern Indian Pueblo peoples, for they are immediate behavioral patterns expressed in day to day living. It is also a characteristic of civilization that it spreads relatively rapidly among peoples who are in regular communication with one another. Civilization by its nature tends to be "imperialistic", its sway generally limited in the past only by relatively impassable barriers, such as broad oceans, deserts, or impassable mountain ranges. For more on these distinctions see Culture and Civilization and One Civilization — Many Cultures.

Neither civilization nor culture refers to an actual reality. They are cataloguing abstract entities that exist primarily in the minds of scholars and classifiers, but also of propagandists, ideologues, and would-be leaders willing to exploit differences for their own profit.

Civilizations and cultures both have the characteristic that they exist within one another. Thus, within American culture there are many cultures, within southwestern American Indian culture, there were many cultures, within Pueblo culture, there were many independent cultures. Similarly, we can speak of the broadest civilizational categories, such as "Western", "Sinic", or Islamic, and yet find within each of these broad categories other "civilizations" that may be differentiated by historical period, geographical area, or analogous criteria, such as religious affiliation. Islamic Civilization is Shiite and Sunni, North African and Indonesian, and so many other things. In some areas of the Islamic world, the representation of the human figure was forbidden; in other areas, the tradition of Persian Miniatures developed.

The people of the modern world live essentially in terms of Western Civilization, a concept that might more adequately be rendered "Modern World Civilization". At least superficially, the achievements of past civilizations seem to count for little in the modern world. These older civilizations of a different time still exist in fragments, certainly in the material and spiritual record of humanity, but they are not to be chosen among today. Prime Minister Khatami was mistaken when he suggested the need for Iranian and Western Civilizations to coexist. They do not coexist, one is already subsumed within the other. Iranians, religious or secular, live their lives in terms of the created material reality of the modern world with its systems of communication, with its assumptions of the equality of the sexes, with its (unfortunate) adoration of the mass media. The political and economic and technical systems of the ancient Chinese and Egyptians are as dead as their authors. The assumptions that made possible the rule of kings and tsars and emperors cannot be resuscitated. The Qanat was a great means of obtaining water in difficult terrain in an Iranian past, but the powered well and metal pipe offer much more flexible solutions in our day. The abacus made possible the manipulation of figures for the ancients, but computers can do much more for all peoples today.

A great deal of the evil in the world has come from people of different heritages giving exclusive value to their national heritages. Serbians have destroyed their neighbors and Croats have destroyed Serbians; Tutsis have killed Hutu and Hutus have killed Tutsis; and so forth and so on, down through the history of humankind. One reason to prefer civilization to culture in speaking of a people's heritage is that it is less identified with the local and communal, with differences in the "colors" that people now living carry on their persons. Contrary to the assertions of Samuel Huntington, human history has not been characterized by wars among civilizations. Most wars have been within civilizational boundaries, in part, because historically these boundaries have been too difficult to cross.

Yet "civilization" also has been used as an identifier alongside "culture" It has been used to disparage those of other heritages, as an ideological reference for conflict. If this is to be the case for those who take special pride in their Iranian heritage, then it would be better for them to have restricted themselves to the more inclusive curriculum of world civilization. The world does not need "Iranians" to take up arms against Turks or Arabs or Indians or even "Westerners" in a war of civilizations.

So the question arises, What is the value of Iranian Civilization to those who live today? The question arises first for those of Iranian heritage. Should they see learning more about their heritage as a valuable part of their education, or might they better apply their energies to the discovery of new vaccines or computer programs, to writing novels and plays or producing movies in a modern vernacular (whether Farsi or another vernacular)? The author of this site is a sometime student of Iranian culture and civilization, having written his dissertation on modern Iranian culture. To him, studying Iranian Civilization is valuable for its own sake as a means of better understanding the human experience. But whether he should recommend this study to those who actually have an Iranian background, and for that reason, is a question he has yet to answer. I hope that this site will be an arena for its author and all who join him to explore the issue.