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Iran Unassessed

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Comment

Persian is assosiated to a sub language developed from the varies indoeuropean accents (I would rather say Aryan tribals whom moved into Iran platoue). Another fact is the inspirations Persian language has gotten during trades, contacts, conflicts and also invations from alien cultures, such as islamic expeditions into Persian empire and Moghol empire.

An amazing fact is that the ALIEN invaders soon became in love with this language served it tremendiously towards a more complexion and beauty! Specially the Moghols IL KHANISM federation gives us enough clue to know period of rennaisance in Persia as well as the language and other artistic arenas.

The above facts fullfilled enough materials to make Persian poetry unic in many fields and specificly the place "HUMANITY" has in Persian artistic expressions is sentral and even prior to the once ethnic or ethnics who spoke this language !

The Universalism of this language has a sentral ICON: HUMAN BEING !

Another specificness is the non subjective ways of expressions. The masculine form of HE and feminine SHE in Persian is the same world "OO", or things are not expressed as masculine - feminine unlike French or Arabic.

The language is rich with poetic literature engaged in philosophy, life, ethics, epics, religion, metaphyzic and universalities.

Many Poets are non Persian ethnics from North India, sentral Asia to Caucasian regions.

An example would be Azeri speaking Arans. At times they are the leading front figures whom produce master work bring new impulses to enrich the Persian Language ! I am not exagerating if I say the Persian language yielded more by Turkic speaking ethinics rather than Persians!

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Persian is just be one of the iran's total nations and calling iranian womans equal to persian womans is not true so please change the name of persian to Iran if it's possible. Iran is multi national multi cultural country. There are alot of other nations like azeri (Azerbaijani) nearly 30 milion, Kurdi (4 milion) , Arab 2 milion), Baloch,etc.

This page was originally about Persian women. It includes all ethnic persians (and Tajik and Parsi of India) and also women of Persia (the previous name of Iran). There are other articles for other groups. Please see Kurdish Women page as an example. Here we also include those whose mother or father or some of their grand parents were persian (e.g. half persian-half azeri etc). It also includes those who adopted persian culture for example Iranian christians. Besides the article includes those non-persian women who significantly contributed to Persian culture (non-persian directors who are famous of their Persian movies or non-Persian musicians who contributed to Persian music). There are some issues that all Iranian women share, particularly in contemporary Iran. In such cases the word Iranian has been used in the article. However examples have been selected from Persian ethnics. In summary, this page was made originally for Persian women throughout centuries. For other groups there exist separate pages or there are pages under construction. Please also notice that the word persian does not necessarily mean ethnic persian. In western literature, all people of Persia are called Persian, irrespective of their ethnicity. --Joe Dynue19:56, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

"Persian" here is not used as an ethnic word. It is a cultural one. That said, we will try to incorporate the name Iranian in as much as we can from now on. The article is not meant to be exclusive.--Zereshk 00:14, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes. "Persian" is a cultural word here. I think the article has made this point very clear, right at the begining. As I said, even European iranologists who adopted persian culture may be inculded here. For contemporary Iran, I also suggest people to use the word Iranian instead of Persian in this article. --Joe Dynue10:12, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

You have stated that Iran was previously called Persia. I know that Iran was (mistakenly) called Persia by the greeks and then europeans in the past but I don't believe that the whole country was ever called Persia by its people. If this is what you claim please present a proof of it.Definite 01:15, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup needs help!

Well, I think this article is in need of a pretty massive rewrite. It needs copy-edit (which I was here to look at); it needs to be better about NPOV (the first "historical" section is quite rantish); it needs more referencing. It's also kind of an external link farm at the end, many of which are useless to English speakers. I'm going to try to copy-edit in my free time, but I think this article needs help from all. Please be bold., this article needs it. --will 20:14, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I dont think it's as bad as you say. But then again, more material can be added. And I can transfer the pics to a special gallery page, such as the ones seen here: Misplaced Pages:List of images/Places/Asia/Iran.--Zereshk 04:39, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, after reading the article a second time, I rescind my harsh first and last statements. --will 09:16, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

So, what do you think the article is lacking? I'll do some readings in the next few weeks and see what I can come up with.--Zereshk 02:55, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

In the mean time, I'll make the gallery.--Zereshk 22:45, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

UPDATE: Gallery Completed. Provided link. Please feel free to fill it with Public Domain/GDFL/GNU images.--Zereshk 23:20, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

clarifications

"Although Persian women are often viewed as Iranian, they are not necessarily of any specific nationality or ethnicity."

If they are Persian, they are of a specific ethnicity: Persian. Persian is not just a language, it is first and foremost an ethnicity. Then it is a language and if someone is Persian, they didn't become Persian because they can speak the language. I'm changing it and requesting that no one revert the statement,

Any suggestions why Persian women are renowned fot their beauty? --Vladko 05:26, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Persian is not an ethnicity. It is a cultural word (just like the word European). There is no set of genes that define persians. Original Persians married many different races, and the only thing that remained invarient was the culture and language. In Iran Persian is equal to Persian speaker. I hope it is clear now. Sangak 13:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Sangak, your explanation about what persian means is interesting. A question I have is about what you mean by "In Iran Persian is equal to Persian speaker." I don't think the word "persian" exists in farsi, are you talking about when the english word "persian" is used in Iran? or are you referring to the word "fars" as a translation of the word "persian?" Also what do you think the situation is when the cultures are mixed? like azaris also have the same new year (bayram). Maybe we should use "Iranian and Persian women" and add an explanation of what the difference is and how it's sometimes hard to tell who is persian and who isn't. --Definite 00:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

We have the orientalists to thank this confusion for:)--Zereshk 02:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The Persian = Iranian mess

Why on god's green earth are Persians constantly referred to as Iranian? There are expats who moved long before there was an Islamic Republic, they embrace being Persian. The fact that this redirects to a nationality (in a nation where Persians only barely make the majority) is troublesome. What are the politics behind redirecting an article about the ethnic Persians to a lumped article about the people in a country? I guess the squeaky wheels won the day on Misplaced Pages, again. --Bobak 02:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

wedding tradition

I am also wondering why there is an explanation of the persian wedding tradition under persian women. Why is this necessary? Isn't a wedding ceremony in general related to men and women? --Definite 00:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Tajik women picture

I have tagged it as dubious. That isn't what I'd expect to be "traditional" dress somehow; it has a decidedly Western look to it. Of course, I am ignorant, so let's get the sources for that. The Behnam 05:55, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Khorda Avesta quote

From Avesta.org: "We also worship the Ashavan woman, predominating in good thoughts, predominating in good words, predominating in good deeds, well instructed, 3 having power over the masters , Ashavan, (as are) Spenta Armaiti and your females, O Ahura Mazda."

The version used in the article added a lot to this. Besides, most of the inclusions are OR or from unreliable sources anyway, but I thought it was worth illustrating this one. The Behnam 06:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Leftover pic

This was removed because I got rid of the "Mother Goddess" section. I'm thinking that it could replace one of the Safavid pictures since there are already two, but I'll put it here for now.

At second thought this doesn't appear to have the historical value that the others works do, so I don't think we really need it in the article. The Behnam 23:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Massive deletions

I think there should be a discusison on the talk page before anyone removes that much information. That is the best method, from what I can see, there were no citation needed tags placed before The Behnam cited OR before removing almost all of the article or any significant discussion.

Dont you think you should have asked for sources or atleast put citation needed tags on for awhile? I'm going to revert the article for now and place a tag on top that says this article seems to be OR and that citations need to be placed for now.Azerbaijani 19:06, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you just take a close look over the edits? I think that Fullstop and I did a good job, but of course I welcome feedback. I asked Sina Kardar for feedback right after I did them but he doesn't seem active. I wasn't going to write a little summary since nobody seemed to be here and I wanted to improve it fast. The Behnam 19:09, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Oops. Sorry for "rvv" i meant "rv" The Behnam 19:11, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Unilateral mass deletion of half of the article is not really an improvement. You should at least try to get consensus for such sweeping edits. --Mardavich 03:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Well please look over the edits made and tell me your specific objections. Sure it is an improvement if the article is improved by removing that junk. The Behnam 15:57, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

CAIS is a reliable source, and your initial reason for such a massive deletion (which you got no consensus for and which you did not even bother to discuss!) was that the majority of the information came from CAIS. That is hardly a good reason.

Seeing as if I and several other users disagree with your deletions and your reasons, I will restore the article until we can come up with some sort of solution. It wont hurt discussing things, and I think its a good idea as everyone should.Azerbaijani 20:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so The Behnam should clearly state his reasons why he thinks the information should not be in the article, then we can get this discussion going.Azerbaijani 20:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

It is in the edit summaries. I'd prefer if you would make specific objections. However I will consider going through each diff and posting 'more' reasoning here, though it is a lot of work to do in response to blind reversion by others. The Behnam 20:24, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

You are the one that acted without consensus, therefore it would be nice if you do not accuse others of making unilateral decisions. It is not my obligation to object to anything, it is you that is trying to delete a good portion of this article, so it is up to you to show your opinion on the deletions.Azerbaijani 21:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Gosh, it would be nice if you could at least not restore the misquote and misconstrued scriptural OR inclusion. I even made a talk page section for that particular part. You haven't even addressed that; why should I expect to write a paper in support of each diff if you don't even look formulate specific objections to the reasons I gave? This blind reverting in support of crackpot theories, OR, and non-RS really makes WP quite frustrating. The Behnam 20:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

What misquote? If you havent noticed I have not been really active on Wiki for awhile.Azerbaijani 21:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I mean that supposed Gathic quote that is included. It is actually the Khorda Avesta, which is basically a Book of Common Prayer. See . The Avesta.org translation is quite different. Anyway, it is misleading to include it here if you consider that the text around it in the scripture, not to mention OR to include here as some sort of definitive statement about Iranian women. Much here pushes a view, and does this with OR, misconstrued information, and some iffy (or lacking) sources. I'm just trying to fix it. The Behnam 21:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

@Azerbaijani: "CAIS is a reliable source".

I agree CAIS is a reliable source. I'm not clear as to why FullStop is gainst CAIS, but I assume it is to do with its' founder who is advocating the conversion to Zoroastrianism, and since FullStop is an Indian Zoroastrian (Hezbollahis version of Zoroastrianism), and an orthodox fundamentalist who cannot digest and accept such a belief, therefore he totaly disregards them! totally! Quite childish of him anyway. ← ← Parthian Shot (Talk) 23:08, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, its not. The site that Shapour Suren-Pahlav (aka ParthianShot, previously known as Surena and/or one of the other confirmed sockpuppets) runs is not associated with SOAS/London University, even if his site would like to leave the reader with the impression that that is the case. The CAIS that is actually associated with SOAS is in Australia, and does not stand for "Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies" but "Centre for Arab & Islamic Studies".

In contrast, SP's website (est. 1998 on AOL, after 14-Mar-2002 cais-soas.com) is run over a btconnect link from his Mill Hill home in northwest London.

The vast majority of the articles/pictures on ParthianShot's website are stolen from legitimate sources, the bulk of these from the Encyclopedia Iranica and other respected academic publications. This way the website gives the impression of being a reliable source while serving as a platform for the owner's home-made opinion. Fortunately, it is relatively easy to distinguish the two: SP's "scholarship" is horrific and in any case, his peculiar writing style is easily identifyable even when he puts someone else's name on an article.

As a side-effect, ParthianShot's habit of attributing everything to himself/cais-soas.com raises the ranking of the site in the websearch engines.

-- Fullstop 08:50, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

FullStop: If you think that these baseless and childish accusation, that I am Suren-Pahlev and connected to CAIS, help your narrow-mindness here, please be my guest, I have no objections at all (consider it as my charitable donation to you) - just for your own sake please grow up, read some books, open your eyes, release yourself from Parsi superstitions (who are bunch of wannabe Zoroastrians), and come up with proper argument, to convey your points :) ← ← Parthian Shot (Talk) 21:44, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, considering the sock you made, and the promotion of everything SSP, it is anything but baseless. But again it seems you are just avoiding the issues, and instead attacking other ethnicities (and of course blindly reverting). At this point, you need to bring specific objections as we have provided reasons. Again, I stress that you read the edit summaries. Also, in light of the evidence, you may need to consult WP:COI and adjust accordingly. Thanks. The Behnam 23:47, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Image gallery

(moved from my talk page) You mind explaining why you re-added the picture of the half-Iranian and the harp player? Obviously you disagreed but it would help if you provided an actual reason. Anyway, I'm thinking of using this picture to replace the harp player. It is from the same location anyway. The only problem is that the image use policy is different between them for some reason. As for Soraya, she is half-Iranian (as her appearance betrays). I'm thinking that we should use a full Iranian as this would be more appropriate for an article about Iranian women. The Behnam 22:27, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• harp player: please keep in mind that this is an image gallery and you don't have to "replace" anything; just add yours. Both are historical items of art. Mukadderat 22:35, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
• half-Iranian: the introduction says: "Iranian women are not necessarily of any specific nationality or ethnicity." You may want to make clarification in the image caption, if you think it is an important fact. Mukadderat 22:35, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Just because it is a gallery doesn't mean you add an indefinite amount of pictures to it. We should include a few pictures that best represent the topic. Considering that most Iranian women are of full Iranian ancestry I don't consider a half-Iranian a good choice for the purposes of the article. And I suggest the other picture for the harp player simply because it seems a better work of art, though that is of course debatable. The Behnam 22:41, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

You seem to disregard my direct quotation. Therefore on the contrary, IMO under the current situation "half-Iranian" best represents the topic as well, since I strongly suspect that you are not the only one who thinks that only "pure breed" deserve to represent Iran, Iranian people, and Iranian women. And BTW it looks to me that it is too early to speak about any "indefinite amount". Mukadderat 23:55, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

BTW, I would suggest to avoid the idea that wikipedians have any right to decide who "best represents" Iranian women. Mukadderat 00:02, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that images should be included based on relevance to the article, according to Misplaced Pages rules. See Misplaced Pages:Images#Pertinence and encyclopedicity But how do you decide for this vague concept? The quote from the beginning is unsourced anyway, as this isn't a real topic. People don't publish articles about the definition of "Iranian women," and I'm inclined to think that statements in this article are generally original synthesis and research. This problem of subjectivity for too broad topics has arisen at White people too, and the solution there was to take out pictures. I think it is best that we find some real sources for the definition of Iranian women or else there is no principle to measure against for inclusion. Thanks. The Behnam 07:21, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I am afraid I don't understand where you see that "women of Iran/Persia" is a vague concept. Please explain what exactly is vague here . Mukadderat 03:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

We don't have a source that really defines the scope of "Iranian women." The concept is basically defined here, in the article, without backing. I don't really see why there is an article on "Iranian women" anyway, as it isn't a 'special' concept in the real world, but lacking a real definition, it is hard to decide pictures according to relevance as WP recommends. On a different matter, it doesn't help at all that a crappy previous version is restored and it is claimed that the junk was removed with "no justification", even though I and others put reasons in pretty much every edit summary. I guess that is just one of the weaknesses of WP; there is always someone around to mindlessly restore garbage. The Behnam 02:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

comment

Hi, I'm a third party here, with no real interest in editing. One quick comment though:

The distribution of the seals, which as instruments of trade and government represented economic and administrative control, reveals that these women were the more powerful group in their prehistoric society.

That simply isn't true. Having more seals doesn't mean you have more power, any more than a native american woman who gets to choose chiefs has more power. In ancient Iran, men still controlled the political and public realm.--Urthogie 19:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

It appears to be a projection from the source: "In ancient societies, holding a seal was a sign of power, and was of 2 kinds: personal and governmental." Maybe we should attribute it to the source explicitly in the text, and mention this claim about power? The Behnam 19:29, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

It's considered original research to say they had more power unless a source says that. Where does this source say that?--Urthogie 19:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

, right in the beginning. I personally disagree but it is there, so I recommend explicit attribution. The Behnam 19:38, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I beginning to wonder whether that paragraph is at all relevant to an article on "Iranian women", in the sense ... do the people of 5000 years ago qualify as Iranians? 4th-3rd m. BCE is before the Indo-Iranian split.

With respect to being a seal-holder: Having a seal wasn't itself remarkable. It was a symbol of power, but the conclusions are not quite water tight. And whats remarkable in this case is the the distribution of those seals. Although the cited archaelogist concludes the women had more power, there could also be other reasons for this distribution, for instance (just hypothetical rambling here), seals were given to the dead women so they could identify their men in the next life. My point is, almost nothing is known of their culture and traditions, so the seals could really mean anything.

Then again, while there is no doubt that pre-historic societies were generally male-mediated, does that also mean all communities without exception were male-dominated? I think not. But that doesn't of course mean that that was the rule.

-- Fullstop 10:31, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The article contradicts mainstream anthrpology. It is ridiculous to give such undue weight to a single source. It's pretty obvious that it is biased towards the Iranian womens' history, which is why it's claiming that they somehow are the one sole counterexample to thousands of years of human history. It's not surprising to me though-- non-scientific sources do patently ridiculous science reporting all the time. --Urthogie 19:10, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

It is probably fine to leave out. This article has bigger problems right now. And is this even a topic that deserves an article? It seems to just attract a bunch of exaggeration, distortions, OR, etc. Of course if the CAIS stuff was re-removed this would be helped a bit, but I don't see why 'Iranian women' are so special that they need an article. I have some theories as to why someone would want such an article, but I don't think it would be very AGF to state at this time. The Behnam 19:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

For same reasons as Urthogie's... I'm in agreement with leaving it out. -- Fullstop 12:00, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

btw, are there any pending/unaddressed issues with respect to the "massive" "deletions"? -- Fullstop 12:06, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Well I'm sure ParthianShot may still have issues, but they haven't prevented any compelling case against anything in specific, so it should be OK to restore the sane, non-CAIS version of the article. The Behnam 12:12, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Working Progress

This article is in a working progress, and not a court case - Please enrich the article by adding to the article, with appropriate references, rather than removing entries, which are already supported by proper citations, since they are not according to your personal taste, or do not correspond with your religious dogma. ← ← Parthian Shot (Talk) 21:23, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

The 'proper' attribute you give to these citations has been questioned, so please address the issues rather than avoiding them by launching personal attacks against other users. Thanks. The Behnam 23:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you should make it NPOV by adding your own preferred sources, but don't just blank entire sections you don't like. --Mardavich 01:55, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

1. Cite error: The named reference CHN_2_4402 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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