{"id":3607,"date":"2023-07-03T23:20:39","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T23:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peykmagazine.com\/en\/?p=3607"},"modified":"2023-07-03T23:20:51","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T23:20:51","slug":"the-myth-of-an-aryan-race-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peykmagazine.com\/en\/2023\/07\/03\/the-myth-of-an-aryan-race-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Myth of an \u201cAryan Race\u201d<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Myth of an \u201cAryan Race\u201d Part 2<\/b><\/h3>\n

By Hooshyar Afsar<\/p>\n

\n

In the first part of this article, published in Peyk<\/i> #205 (May-June 2023), we took a general look at \u201crace\u201d from historical and scientific viewpoints. In this second part, we will specifically analyze the historical roots of the terms \u201cAryans\u201d and \u201cAryanism\u201d in Europe and \u201cAryan race\u201d in Iran.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Aryanism according to historians, linguists, and anthropologists<\/b><\/p>\n

The term \u201cArya\u201d means noble in both Sanskrit and Middle Persian or Pahlavi. [1] It has religious connotations in both Zoroastrianism (the dominant pre-Islam religion in Iran) and Hinduism in India; it is referred to multiple times in the holy books of Avesta and Rig Veda from both of those religions, respectively. [2] The term Aryan also appeared in ancient inscriptions at Naqsh-e Rostam (historical rock reliefs with inscriptions in Fars province, Iran) attributed to the Hachamanid and Sassanid dynasties. The inscriptions done at the time of Ardeshir I, founder of the Sassanid dynasty, were also the first historical references to the words Iran and Iranshahr. [3] The question is: when and in what context did the word Aryan first appear in European research?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The word Aryan was first used by Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron, French Orientalist and translator of Avesta to French in 1763. Anquetil-Duperron Europanized the term \u201cArya\u201d (or \u201cAriya\u201d) that he found in Avesta. [2] Yet the person who created a linguistic context for the term Aryan was Sir William Jones, the world-renowned philologist, linguist, and justice of the Bengal Supreme Court in Calcutta, India. Prior to his time in India, Jones was the first person who translated Persian grammar to English in 1771 and his later translation of works by Persian classical poets became an inspiration to poets like Byron and Shelly and to the German movement of romanticism. He had critical acclaim in eight languages and was fluent or knew many more. [4] Jones later moved to India to find legal remedies to the troubles of the East India Company and further the British influence. To understand the legal code in India, Jones had to learn and master Sanskrit, which he did with many hardships. After learning Sanskrit, Jones discovered significant similarities in grammar, words, and sentence structure among Sanskrit, English, Latin, German, and Persian, all of which he had mastered.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1786, Jones gave a historic lecture in Calcutta, stating a linguistic theory that there should be a single \u201cmother tongue\u201d to all these languages. He also came across the term \u201cArya\u201d and a reference to \u201cAryan Invasion\u201d in Rig Veda and used the term \u201cAryan\u201d to refer to the \u201cmother tongue.\u201d Jones started the theory on where and by whom this \u201cmother tongue\u201d was spoken; he thought it was related to \u201cAryan Invasion\u201d in Rig Veda. This was a purely linguistic endeavor and had no connection to the notion of \u201crace,\u201d yet what came in the next century mutated to a different movement. The aftermath of Jones\u2019 theory in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was so tragic that, while in the beginning decades of the nineteenth century the term \u201cIndo European\u201d was used interchangeably with the term \u201cAryan,\u201d today the \u201cmother tongue\u201d is only referred to as \u201cProto Indo European\u201d language by linguists and anthropologists. [5]<\/span><\/p>\n

The romantic movement in nineteenth century Europe welcomed the notion of the Aryan language as the \u201cmother tongue\u201d with fervor. Searching for a sacred time when humans lived in harmony with nature and god, linguistics mutated to theories on Aryan ancestors. Artificial linking of a linguistic theory to European ancestry in search of unison with God and nature became a myth that had scientific beginnings. In his book Aryan Idols<\/i>, Stefan Arvidson discusses the myth by quoting French historian and anthropologist Jean-Pierre Vernant, who calls this nineteenth century-scholarship a \u201cweb of scientific myths,\u201d writing: \u201cThese myths were steeped in erudition, informed by profound knowledge in Hebrew and Sanskrit, fortified by comparative study in linguistic data, mythology, and religion, and shaped by the effort to relate linguistic structures, forms of thought, and features of civilization. Yet, they were also myths, fantasies of the social imagination, at every level.\u201d [6]\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This \u201cAryanism\u2019\u2019 of the nineteenth century, fused with the scientific racism resulting from a distorted conclusion of Darwin\u2019s theory of \u201cNatural Selection,\u201d gave rise to the racist ideology of a superior \u201cAryan\u201d race in Europe. Among the infamous thinkers of that time are French novelist, diplomat, and travel writer, Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, author of \u201cAn Essay on the Inequality of Human Races;\u201d British-German Houston Stewart Chamberlain, author of \u201cThe Foundations of the Nineteenth Century;\u201d and, finally, American Madison Grant, author of \u201cThe Passing of a Great Race.\u201d These three are known as the primary inspirations for the German Nazi ideologue and theorist Alfred Rosenberg, author of The Myth of the Twentieth Century<\/i>, who promoted the idea that the \u201cNordic Race\u2019\u2019 was the \u201cmaster race.\u201d Rosenberg devised his own hierarchy of humans, placing the \u201cAryan\u201d race at the top of the \u201cladder,\u201d with Blacks and Jews at the bottom. [7] Thus, the eighteenth-century linguistic theory of an \u201cAryan\u201d mother tongue became the \u201cAryanism\u201d of nineteenth-century Europe, ending with the Nazi superior \u201cAryan Race\u201d ideology and perhaps the largest recorded human tragedy of all time in the twentieth century\u2014fifty million dead by the end of World War II, including six million Jews during the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

Now the question is how and when did European \u201cAryanism\u201d and the racist ideology of the superior \u201cAryan Race\u201d become an Iranian historical narrative with its Persianized identifier\u2014the nezh\u0101d-e \u0101riy\u0101yi? For this, we need to look at the emergence of Iranian nationalism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.<\/p>\n

Covert political agendas and overt outcomes<\/b><\/p>\n

Unlike the Ottoman Empire, which was geographically, politically, and militarily linked with Europe, Iran in the beginning of the nineteenth century, under the Qajar dynasty, had no serious or sustained relations with Europe. The Qajar court and Iranian elite were more concerned with their rival neighbors and did not see much need in having contacts with the \u201cunclean infidels\u201d of Europe. The Iranian elite suffered from arrogance and a sense of grandiosity that somehow deemed Europe of the nineteenth century as still entangled in the medieval ages. In his book, The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism<\/i>, professor Reza Zia-Ebrahimi talks about two traumatic military defeats in the first half of the nineteenth century that shook up the Iranian psyche. The Iranian monarch, Fathali Shah Qajar, came head to head with Tsar Alexander I\u2019s \u201cdetermination to secure his empire\u2019s southward expansion.\u201d [8] Two multi-year military campaigns ended with the Gulistan (1813) and Turkmenchay (1828) treaties and a loss of significant territories in the Caucasus Mountains and present-day Armenia and Azerbaijan to Tsarist Russia, plus huge monetary reparations. In the aftermath of the two traumatic treaties, the Qajar court sought contact with Europe through sending its students to Europe with the simplistic mindset that European superiority was limited to military technology and strategy. [8] Regardless of the Qajar elite\u2019s intentions, the contact ushered in a new generation of Iranian intellectuals who realized that European military superiority was one of the outcomes of centuries of social, political, and technological development. By the end of the nineteenth century, the arrogance and self-centered attitude of the Qajar elite was replaced with praise for European accomplishments and search for a common heritage. [9]<\/span><\/p>\n

This new trend, seeking the restoration of the pre-Islam \u201dgreatness\u201d of the Persian empire and Iranian national unity, saw the Iranization of the \u201cAryan Race\u201d theory as a pathway to its goals. The most prominent authors representing this trend were Mirza Agha Khan Kermani and Mirza Fath-Ali Akhundzadeh. It is important to point out first that, until the 1890s, \u201cin the entire corpus of Iranian literature there is no trace of the today ubiquitous Aryan race (nezh\u0101d-e \u0101riy\u0101yi).\u201d [9] Kermani was the first Iranian author to use the term \u201cAryan\u201d in his books Seh maktub<\/i> and \u0100\u02bfineh-ye sekandari<\/i>. Yet Kermani didn\u2019t come up with the Persian version of the Aryan race, namely nezh\u0101d-e \u0101riy\u0101yi. Again, Professor Zia-Ebrahimi writes: \u201cAs there was simply no equivalent of Aryan in Persian at the time, Kermani had to resort to the European term. He wrote \u0101riy\u0101n or \u0101reyan, which are transliterations of French aryen<\/i>. At the time, Iranian authors had not yet merged the European neologism with the Avestic and Old Persian term \u201cariya<\/i>.\u201d [9] Zia-Ebrahimi asserts that another author, namely Sadeq Rezazadeh Shafaq, \u201cwas the first Iranian author to translate the European term \u2018Aryan\u2019 into \u2018\u0101riy\u0101\u2019 (adj. \u0101riy\u0101yi), rather than merely transliterate it as \u2018\u0101riy\u0101n,\u2019 like Kermani does. It is at this juncture, that the term \u2018\u0101riy\u0101\u2019 enters the modern Persian language.\u201d [10]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet another author played a more influential role in propagating the Aryan race (nezh\u0101d-e \u0101riy\u0101yi) narrative in Iran. Hassan Pirniya, one of the intellectual statesmen of the latter years of the Qajar dynasty, studied abroad and held the post of prime minister during the reign of the last Qajar king. After Reza Shah founded the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925, Pirniya retired from politics and dedicated his time to writing his history books. His first history book, commissioned by the early Pahlavi state, included the chapter \u201cRaces\u2013The White-Skinned Race\u2013the Indo-European People,\u201d which completely relied on \u201cEuropean racial classification of humankind.\u201d [11] Pirniya subscribed to the idea of \u201cNordic Race\u2019\u2019 and claimed that the Scandinavian peninsula was the proto homeland of the \u201cAryans\u201d and even assumed that Iranians had migrated from Scandinavia. These ideas had much in common with the ideas of Nazi ideologist Rosenberg mentioned earlier. Early Pahlavi-era school books copied Pirniya\u2019s views on the Aryan race: \u201cAn early textbook simply puts it this way: \u2018The people of Iran are part of the Aryan Race and their current language is Persian.\u2019\u201d [12] Constructing the Persian version of the \u201cAryan Race\u201d (nezh\u0101d-e \u0101riy\u0101yi) narrative by Reza Shah\u2019s educational and propaganda machines was not accidental. The founder of the Pahlavi dynasty sought this narrative as a way to restore the long lost grandeur of the Persian empire and seek a common heritage with Europeans. To that end, diversity of various nationalities and ethnic minorities\u2014such as Kurds, Azaris, Turkmens, Balouchis, Arabs, and Lurs\u2014was denied and promotion of their languages was prohibited. This idea went hand in hand with repression and persecution of opposition forces and denial of the democratic rights of the citizenry.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It is important to note that the legacy of the Pahlavi era is not free of contradictions. Reza Shah\u2019s promotion of the \u201cAryan Race\u201d narrative and his affinity for Nazi Germany [13] cost him his throne after the Allies\u2019 military invasion of Iran in 1941, leaving an ongoing racist footprint in the current historical national narrative. The political repression under Reza Shah that continued during his son Mohamad Reza Shah\u2019s rule denied Iranians their democratic rights and traumatized the society with political persecution, imprisonment, and torture. At the same time, substantial modern reforms in education, the judiciary, and social freedoms during Reza Shah, later augmented by land reform and women\u2019s suffrage during his son\u2019s reign, had a substantial positive impact on Iranian society. Many of these reforms that were implemented with the hard work of the Iranian intelligentsia became ingrained in Iranian society and could not be reversed even by the backward policies of the Islamic Republic. It is an unfortunate fact that the Islamic republic has added new elements of repression that did not exist before the 1979 revolution, namely gender apartheid and religious persecution among others.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ending Remarks<\/b><\/p>\n

Until the start of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in September 2022, second-generation Iranians in the diaspora and their racial justice awareness were the main source of hope for someday debunking the \u201cAryan Race\u201d (nezh\u0101d-e \u0101riy\u0101yi) idea and forever erasing it from the Iranian historical narrative. [14] Since the start of WLF, political, social, and global awareness of the young activists and leaders of the movement in and, for the most part, outside of Iran have given us a newly found hope. The leading role of progressive women in the movement; the starting and continuation of the movement by Kurdish and Baluchi people and the welcoming of their role by people all over Iran; an emphasis on gender equality, LBGTQ rights, national, ethnic, and religious minorities rights with an astounding emphasis on intersectionality [15]; and a push toward social, economic, and environmental justice all pave the way for a future free, democratic, and diverse Iran. There shall come a day that Iranians shall celebrate their own diversity as an equal member of the human community.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

___________________________________________________<\/p>\n

References and Notes<\/p>\n

[1] https:\/\/iranicaonline.org\/articles\/arya-an-ethnic-epithet<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[2] Zia-Ebrahimi, Reza. The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism: Race and the Politics of Dislocation<\/i>. Columbia University Press, 2016, p. 149.<\/span><\/p>\n

[3] https:\/\/iranicaonline.org\/articles\/eran-eransah<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[4] Anthony, David W. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World<\/i>. Princeton University Press, 2007.<\/span><\/p>\n

[5] Zia-Ebrahimi, Reza. The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism: Race and the Politics of Dislocation<\/i>. Columbia University Press, 2016, pp. 150-153.<\/span><\/p>\n

[6] Arvidsson, Stefan. Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science<\/i>. Translated by Sonia Wichmann. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006, p 5.<\/span><\/p>\n

[7] Jackson, John P., and Nadine M. Weidman. \u201cThe Origins of Scientific Racism.\u201d The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education<\/i>, no. 50 (2005): pp. 66-79. http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/25073379.<\/span><\/p>\n

[8] Zia-Ebrahimi, Reza. The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism: Race and the Politics of Dislocation<\/i>. Columbia University Press, 2016, pp. 19-21.<\/span><\/p>\n

[9] Zia-Ebrahimi, Reza. The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism: Race and the Politics of Dislocation<\/i>. Columbia University Press, 2016, Chapter 2.<\/span><\/p>\n

[10] Zia-Ebrahimi, Reza. The Emergence of Iranian Nationalism: Race and the Politics of Dislocation<\/i>. Columbia University Press, 2016, p. 156.<\/span><\/p>\n

[11] Pirniya, Hassan. \u201cT\u0101rikh-e Ir\u0101n-e qadim: Az \u0101q\u0101z t\u0101 enqer\u0101z-e S\u0101s\u0101niy\u0101n [History of ancient Iran: From the beginning to the fall of the Sasanians]. [Tehran?]: Khayy\u0101m, 1928[?].<\/span><\/p>\n

[12] \u201cVez\u0101rat-e Farhang [Ministry of Culture], Ket\u0101b-e chah\u0101rom-e ebted\u0101yi [4th grade textbook]. Tehran: Motaba\u02bfeye Rowshan\u0101yi, 1310\/1931, p. 276.<\/span><\/p>\n

[13] https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Reza_Shah#\/media\/File:Signed_Photograph_of_Adolf_Hitler_and_His_Best_Wishes_for_Reza_Shah_Pahlavi_-_Sahebgharanie_Palace_-_Niavaran_Palace.JPG<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[14] Maghbouleh, Neda. The Limits of Whiteness, Iranian Americans and Politics of Race. <\/i>Stanford University Press, 2017, p. 52.<\/span><\/p>\n

[15] Sotoudeh, Nasrin. Prison Letters<\/i>. Asoo Books, Taslimi Foundation Publications, Santa Monica, CA, 2023, pp. 7-8.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Hooshyar Afsar is one of the founders of Racism Awareness Project (RAP), an educational program on the history of and present-day racism in the United States and its impact on the Iranian American community. RAP has had a variety of educational forums across the United States. Mr. Afsar has written several articles and book reviews on the topic for <\/i>Peyk and other publications. He can be reached at hoosh.afsar@rapusa.org.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Myth of an \u201cAryan Race\u201d Part 2 By Hooshyar Afsar In the first part of this article, published in Peyk #205 (May-June 2023), we took a general look at \u201crace\u201d from historical and scientific viewpoints. In this second part, we will specifically analyze the historical roots of the terms \u201cAryans\u201d and \u201cAryanism\u201d in Europe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-culture"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Myth of an \u201cAryan Race\u201d - Peyk Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/peykmagazine.com\/en\/2023\/07\/03\/the-myth-of-an-aryan-race-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Myth of an \u201cAryan Race\u201d - Peyk Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Myth of an \u201cAryan Race\u201d Part 2 By Hooshyar Afsar In the first part of this article, published in Peyk #205 (May-June 2023), we took a general look at \u201crace\u201d from historical and scientific viewpoints. 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