Who Are the Persian

This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series Who Are the Persian

Ardishir Rashidi-Kalhur | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Transfer of Power and Enculturation of the “Persians” by the Medes.

Relying on the works of ancient historians alone is not sufficient. One must decipher myth and fiction from factual truth the traces of which have survived with commonly known versions of written history. The mythical and fictional version of events clouding Persian history can be traced to the Shahnameh, or Book of Kings by the renowned Iranian poet Ferdowsi.

The unadorned truth on the other hand can be discerned by a careful study of Greco-Roman history and present day cultural and linguistic differences apparent among the diverse peoples living in Iran. When it comes to the history of “Persia” most historians agree that after the fall of the imperial house of the Medes, the Persians who were originally vassal subjects to the Medes, came to power under the leadership of Cyrus in 550 BC.

In the authoritative tome, The Story of Civilization, Our Oriental Heritage vol. 1, by Will and Ariel Durant, the writers relate the following:

To the Persians, The Medes gave:

Their language, their alphabet of 36 characters, the replacement of clay with parchment and pen as writing material, the extensive use of columns in architecture, their moral code of consciousness in times of peace and war, their Zoroastrian religion of Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman, and their body of Law. One can add, astrology of the Magi, celebration of NuRoj, (Newruz), cultivation of the land, their culinary arts, poetry and music systems.

It is well documented that all of the above cultural elements, in particular music and significant elements of spiritual life known as Yazdanism, were heavily borrowed upon; the religion of the Zoroastrians and the Yaresan can be used today, to differentiate between the Kurdish and Persian cultures.

In 550 B.C. the capital city of the Medes was Ekbatana (Hama-Daana). There Cyrus spent his youth learning in the court of his grandfather Astyagus under the tutelage of the Mede noblemen who taught him the arts of statesmanship and of warfare. Having learned these lessons and upon reaching maturity he traitorously killed the last King of the Medes and immediately dismantled the King’s army. With no opposition, Cyrus soon returned to Ekbatana where he declared himself the new King.

The people of the region received him not as half Persian but as the grandson of a Medic King who was well known and highly regarded. To these people, Cyrus’ ascendance to the throne was seen as a natural succession of power from Astyagus, who was a sonless King. However, the Persian guards now found themselves endowed with greater freedom and used it usurp the already established empire by enacting revenge for their centuries of servitude under the Medes.

The Persians then relocated their capital city from Ekbatana to the military base Pasargade. The Persians maintained their belief in Zoroastrianism, but not in the Magi, which were the priestly cast of the Medes who rose from the Yazidies. The Persians began to destroy the temples the Magi had built replacing them with their own Zoroastrian Fire Temples near the new capital Pasargade; they called their priestly cast as Mobads rather than Magus or Magi. The desecration and wanton acts of destruction of the original Yazidi temples was considered rather heretical and deeply incongruent with the teachings of Zoroaster.

The prophet Zoroaster was a highly knowledgeable and pious Magi who was duly anointed by the Yazidies in 600 B.C. to be their High Priest; his title in Kurdish was Zerr-Astare or the Golden Star. This title was given to him because of his wisdom, his masterful understanding of astrology, and his profound philosophical questions which have come to be associated with the dualism of the Magi in the tenet of Ahura & Ahriman, the forces of good & the forces of Evil which in eventuality, Ahura will be the victorious force that will overcome mankind’s ill intent.

It was from the Yazidies living prior to the Sasanian period (224-651 A.D.), that the Magi, the three wise men recorded in the Bible, visited Jesus in Bethlehem at the time of his birth. This well-known story is thoroughly documented in the Bible and the history of Christianity would be incomplete without it being included; it is celebrated during Christmas in nativity scenes the world over.

In order to further erase the spiritual legacies of the Magi and the borrowed (stolen) cultural moors of the Medes by the Persians, the Persians, under Cyrus, embarked on a mission to expand their new empire beyond the central Anatolia, encountering new people and cultures, introducing themselves as Persian, making no mention of their predecessors the Medes.

In 546 B.C near the Aegean Sea Cyrus came in contact with the Lydian peoples on the western frontier of the Median Empire. This was the first time the Persians came in contact with the Greeks. By 546 B.C. the Persians had captured the Lydian capital of Sardis which is in modern day Turkey, and set the stage for the Greco-Persian wars that took place over 50 years (499 to 449 B.C.) The second major victory under the leadership of Cyrus came in 539 B.C. when they captured Babylon and peacefully forced King Nabunaid to surrender the city to the Persians. During all of these expeditions and expansions the military guards accompanying Cyrus always introduced themselves as Persians and not as Medes or Iranians.

After the fall of Babylon Cyrus then turned to face an ancient rival to the east known as the Scythians, against whom he and his father Cambyses I had been appointed to defend the Median kingdom. History has it that during this campaign against the Scythians, Cyrus, while riding his horse across the river Syr Darya (Seyhun River) in Central Asia, was swept away and drowned, his body never recovered.

Much has been written about the fall of Babylon to Cyrus, including attribution of a human rights decree on clay cylinder. This claim has since been found false because of the existence of similar cuneiform texts that were already in existence long before the presence of the Persians in Mesopotamia and is a seminal piece of Persian propaganda (fake news has been around a long time!!).

Following the death of Cyrus his son Cambyses II (529-522 B.C.) ascended the throne and became the next King of the Persians. It was he that attempted to annex Egypt as a part of the Persian Empire. This attempt was short lived due to harsh terrain of the Egyptian desert and a takeover attempt by his brother Bardiya back in Ekbatana who was supported by the Magi to retake the Medes political leadership. He was forced to return to Ekbatana where he died as the result of either a self-inflicted wound or he was murdered by one of his more ambitious commanders (Darius I) whose desire was to become the next king of the Persians.

More than any other king of the Persians, Darius I held a deep and abiding hostility towards the Medes. After the death of Cambyses I, Darius I captured and put to death Bardiya thus preventing Medes and the Magi to regain power. Furthermore, Darius ordered the destruction of temples of the Magi while encouraged continuous belief in Zoroaster under the teaching of the Mobads of Pasargade.

On the face of a cliff in Kermanshah, on mount Beystune, he ordered an inscription to be carved aggrandizing his lineage relating himself to a fictitious royal dynasty. By many accounts, no corroborating record of such a lineage has ever been found to exist. Darius I main goal was to obliterate the cultural and spiritual heritage of the Medes and following that to prepare for the invasion of Greece in 490 B.C. After a devastating defeat of the Persians by the Greek in the battle of Marathon in the year 486 B.C., Darius fell to ill health and died.

In 1992, during a visit to cliff of Mount Beystune, I witnessed Kurdish children with chisel and hammer in hand chipping away at Darius’ inscription. I asked them why were they defacing such an important historical engraving and their immediate reply was that Daryoush was a Deru-Uyesh, which in Kurdish means Darius was a liar.

After years of personal studies of history, I realized the oral history passed on to the young Kurdish generation had as much validity as the work of prominent historians from past to present. By any stretch of the imagination the inscription at Beystune could easily be seen as another example of “fake news” perpetrated by the Persian propaganda.

Part III- Greco-Persian Wars, and Alexander of Macedonia changing the name Pasargade to Persepolis.

Ardishir Rashidi-Kalhur, the President of Kurdish American Education Society, Los Angeles, U.S.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.