Tajiks
(تاجیک Тоҷик)

300px 1st row: Ismail Samani • Rudaki • Abu Rayhan Biruni • Avicenna 2nd row: Al-Khwārizmī • Rumi • Emomalii Rahmon • Hammasa Kohistani
Total population
ca. 21 to 29 million
Regions with significant populations
Afghanistan         (varying estimates) 11,000,000 [1]  Tajikistan 6,100,000 [2]  Uzbekistan     (suggestive estimates 15,000,000) 1,406,000 [3] [4]  Iran 500,000 [Estimated] [5]  Pakistan 220,000 [Estimated] [6]  Russia 200,303 [7]  Germany 90,000 [8]  Qatar 87,000 [citation needed]  United States 52,000 [9]  Kyrgyzstan 47,500 [10]  China 41,028 [11]  Canada 15,870 [12]
Languages
Persian varieties of Dari and Tajiki
Religion
Islam (predominantly Sunni (Hanafi), with Shi'a (Twelver and Ismaili) minorities)
Related ethnic groups
Persians, Iranian peoples

Tajik (Persian: تاجيک‎, Tājīk; Tajik: Тоҷик) is a general designation for a wide range of Persian-speaking people of Iranic origin,^[13] with traditional homelands in present-day Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. There are also smaller communities living in Iran and Pakistan; consisting mainly of refugees from Afghanistan and immigrants from Tajikistan.^[14]

In terms of language, culture, and history the Tajiks are closely related to the Persians of Iran.

As a self-designation, the term Tajik, which earlier on had been more or less pejorative, has become acceptable only during the last several decades, particularly as a result of Soviet administration in Central Asia.^[13] Alternative names for the Tajiks are Fārsī (Persian), Fārsīwān (Persian-speaker), and Dīhgān (cf. Tajik: Деҳқон, Dehqon, literally "farmer or settled villager", in a wider sense "settled" in contrast to "nomadic").^[15]

The Tajiks of China, although known by the name Tajik, speak Eastern Iranian languages and are distinct from Persian Tajiks.^[16][17]

History[link]

Monument of Amir Ismail Samani who ruled the area comprising modern-day Afghanistan, Iran and Tajikistan and who propagated Sunni Islam deep into Central Asia.

The Tajiks trace their ancestry to the Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians, and Parthians. The Tajiks' adoption of the now dominant Persian language (albeit in a distinct Tajiki form), a Western Iranian language is believed to have as its root cause, the dominance of the Persian empire in the region during the Achaemenid and Sassanid dynasties^{[dubious – discuss]}. The Persian language, and particularly Tajiki, contain numerous words from Sogdian, Parthian and other Iranian languages of ancient Central Asia. Following the Arab conquest of Persia, many Persians, after conversion to Islam, entered Central Asia as military forces and settled in the conquered lands. As a result of these waves of Persian migration (Zoroastrian and Muslim) over the course of more than 200 years, the Tajiks have also ethnic Persian ancestry in addition to their East-Iranian ancestry. Cultural dissemination through Persian literature also helped to establish the new language, as well as intermittent military dominance. According to Richard Nelson Frye, a leading historian of Iranian and Central Asian history, the Persian migration to Central Asia may be considered the beginning of the modern Tajik nation, and ethnic Persians along with East-Iranian Bactrians and Sogdians, as the main ancestors of modern Tajiks.^[18] In later works Frye expands on the complexity of the historical origins of the Tajiks. In a 1996 publication Frye explains that many "factors must be taken into account in explaining the evolution of the peoples whose remnants are the Tajiks in Central Asia" and that "the peoples of Central Asia, whether Iranian or Turkic speaking, have one culture, one religion, one set of social values and traditions with only language separating them."^[19]

The geographical division between the eastern and western Iranians is often considered historically and currently to be the desert Dasht-e Kavir, situated in the center of the Iranian plateau.

Name[link]

Samanid Empire is considered as the first Tajik state^[20]

"Tājik" is a word of Turko-Mongol origin and means (literally) Non-Turk. "Tajik" in Central Asia is used to refer to peoples that still speak an Iranian language, including both Tajiki-speaking Tajiks, and the Pamiri peoples, also known as Garcha or Mountain Tajiks. The origin of the name Tajik has been embroiled in twentieth-century political disputes about whether Turkic or Iranian peoples were the original inhabitants of Central Asia.^[21]

History of the name[link]

First mentioned by the Uyghur historian Mahmoud Al-Kāshgharī, Tajik is an old Turkic expression referring to all Persian-speaking peoples of Central Asia. From the 11th century on, it came to be applied principally to all East Iranians, and later specifically to Persian speakers.^[22] It is hard to establish the use of the word before the Turkic and Mongol conquest of Central Asia, and since at least the 15th century it has been used by the region's Iranian population to distinguish themselves from the Turks. Persians in modern Iran who live in the Turkic-speaking areas of the country, also call themselves Tajik, something remarked upon in the 15th century by the poet Mīr Alī Šer Navā'ī.^[23]

Tajik in medieval literature[link]

The word Tajik is extensively used in Persian literature and poetry, always as a synonym for Persian. The Persian poet Sa'adi, for example, writes: