Persianate society

Persian miniature from the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp: Rustam asleep, while his horse Rakhsh slays a lion, fol. 118r.
Girl With Mirror. Qajar dynasty art.

A Persianate society is a society that is based on or strongly influenced by the Persian language, culture, literature, art and/or identity.[1]: 6 

The term "Persianate" is a neologism credited to Marshall Hodgson.[2] In his 1974 book, The Venture of Islam: The expansion of Islam in the Middle Periods, he defined it thus: "The rise of Persian had more than purely literary consequences: it served to carry a new overall cultural orientation within Islamdom.... Most of the more local languages of high culture that later emerged among Muslims... depended upon Persian wholly or in part for their prime literary inspiration. We may call all these cultural traditions, carried in Persian or reflecting Persian inspiration, 'Persianate' by extension."[3]: 293–94 [notes 1]

The term designates ethnic Persians but also societies that may not have been predominantly ethnically Persian but whose linguistic, material or artistic cultural activities were influenced by or based on Persianate culture. Examples of pre-19th-century Persianate societies were the Seljuq,[4][5][6] Timurid,[7][8] Mughal,[9][10] and Ottoman dynasties.[11][12][13][14]

  1. ^ Arjomand, Said Amir (2004). Studies on Persianate Societies. Manohar Publishers & Distributors. ISBN 978-81-7304-667-4.
  2. ^ Lawrence, Bruce B. (2009). "Islam in Afro-Eurasia: A Bridge Civilization". In Peter J. Katzenstein (ed.). Civilizations in World Politics: Plural and Pluralist Perspectives. Routledge. pp. 157–175. ISBN 978-0-203-87248-2. Persianate is a new term, first coined by Marshall Hodgson to offer a different explanation of Islam in the world system than that extrapolated from Wallerstein. While Persianate depicts a cultural force that is linked to Persian language and to self-identifying Persians, Persianate is more than either a language or a people; it highlights elements that Persians share with Indo-Aryan rulers who preceded Muslims to the subcontinent. Two elements are paramount: hierarchy ... (and) deference
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hodgson was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Özgündenli, O. "Persian Manuscripts in Ottoman and Modern Turkish Libraries". Encyclopaedia Iranica (online ed.).
  5. ^ Luther, K.A. "Alp Arslān". Encyclopaedia Iranica (online ed.). Saljuq activity must always be viewed both in terms of the wishes of the sultan and his Khorasanian, Sunni advisors, especially Nezām-al-molk ...
  6. ^ "Seljuq". Encyclopædia Britannica (online ed.). Because the Turkish Seljuqs had no Islamic tradition or strong literary heritage of their own, they adopted the cultural language of their Persian instructors in Islam. Literary Persian thus spread to the whole of Iran, and the Arabic language disappeared in that country except in works of religious scholarship
  7. ^ "Timurids". The Columbia Encyclopedia (Sixth ed.). New York City: Columbia University. Archived from the original on 2006-12-05. Retrieved 2006-11-08.
  8. ^ David J. Roxburgh. The Persian Album, 1400–1600: From Dispersal to Collection. Yale University Press, 2005. pg 130: "Persian literature, especially poetry, occupied a central role in the process of assimilation of Timurid elite to the Perso-Islamicate courtly culture, and so it is not surprising to find Baysanghur commissioned a new edition of Firdawsi's Shanameh"
  9. ^ Lehmann, F. "Zaher ud-Din Babor – Founder of Mughal empire". Encyclopaedia Iranica (Online ed.). New York City: Columbia University Center for Iranian (Persian) Studies. pp. 320–323. Archived from the original on 2007-10-13. Retrieved 2006-11-07. His origin, milieu, training, and culture were steeped in Persian culture and so Babor was largely responsible for the fostering of this culture by his descendants, the Mughals of India, and for the expansion of Persian cultural influence in the Indian subcontinent, with brilliant literary, artistic, and historiographical results
  10. ^ "Indo-Persian Literature Conference: SOAS: North Indian Literary Culture (1450–1650)". SOAS. Archived from the original on 23 September 2009. Retrieved 28 November 2012.
  11. ^ Özgündenli, O. "Persian Manuscripts in Ottoman and Modern Turkish Libraries". Encyclopaedia Iranica (online ed.). Archived from the original on 2012-01-22. Retrieved 2006-12-19.
  12. ^ "Persian in service of the state: the role of Persophone historical writing in the development of an Ottoman imperial aesthetic", Studies on Persianate Societies, vol. 2, 2004, pp. 145–63
  13. ^ "Historiography. xi. Persian Historiography in the Ottoman Empire". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. 12, fasc. 4. 2004. pp. 403–11.
  14. ^ Walter, F. "7. The Departure of Turkey from the 'Persianate' Musical Sphere". Music of the Ottoman court.


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