Azeri

Friday, 23 November 2012

AZERİ (Fariz Mammadov) VS ARMENİAN (Jeqise Tomasyan)!!!

Namiq Qaracuxurlu : Revayet Azerbaijan Music

Azerbaijan Girl & Cars --- Азербайджанки и Машины!! 2012

Azeri Wedding Thriller Dance / Baku, Azerbaijan

Ibrahim Tatlises vs azeri kızı Günel 2012

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Achaemenids
The Achaemenid Empire (/ækəˈmɛnɪˌdi/; Old Persian: Parsā, name of ruling dynasty: Haxāmanišiya) (c. 550–330 BCE), sometimes known as First Persian Empire, was an Iranian empire in Southwest Asia, founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation. It expanded to eventually rule over significant portions of the ancient world which at around 500 BCE stretched from the Indus Valley in the east, to Thrace and Macedon on the northeastern border of Greece making it the biggest empire the world had yet seen. The Achaemenid Empire would eventually control Egypt as well. It was ruled by a series of monarchs who unified its disparate tribes and nationalities by constructing a complex network of roads.
Calling themselves the Parsa after their original Aryan tribal name Parsua, Persians settled in a land which they named Parsua, bounded on the west by the Tigris River and on the south by the Persian Gulf. This became their heartland for the duration of the Achaemenid Empire. It was from this region that eventually Cyrus the Great (Cyrus II of Persia) would advance to defeat the Median, the Lydian, and the Babylonian Empires, opening the way for subsequent conquests into Egypt and Asia minor.

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Anatolia
Coordinates: 39°N 32°E / 39°N 32°E / 39; 32
Anatolia (from Greek Ἀνατολή Anatolē — "east" or "(sun)rise"; also Asia Minor, from Greek: Μικρὰ Ἀσία Mikrá Asía "small Asia"; in modern Turkish: Anadolu) is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Aegean Sea to the west. The Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits, and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of Iskenderun and the Black Sea, approximately corresponding to the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. However, since Anatolia is now often considered to be synonymous with Asian Turkey, its eastern and southeastern borders are widely taken to be the Turkish borders with the neighboring countries, which are Georgia, Armenia, Iran, Iraq and Syria, in clockwise direction.

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Aras River
The Aras (also known as Araks, Arax, Araxi, Araxes, Araz, or Yeraskh; Armenian: Արաքս or Երասխ (Araqs or Erasx), Azerbaijani: Aras or Araz, ارس or آراز, Persian: ارس‎ (Aras), Turkish: Aras, Kurdish: Aras or Erez; Russian: Аракс; Latin: Aboras), is a river located in and along the countries of Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran. Its total length is 1,072 kilometers (666 mi). Given its length and a basin that covers an area of 102,000 km², it is one of the largest rivers of the Caucasus.

The Aras River highlighted on a map of the Kura River watershed.
Aras River in Poldasht District border region.
Aras River from Iğdır.
Astronaut photograph of the Aras River.
See Ἀράξης for the origin of the Greek name.
The Aras River rises near Erzurum, Turkey. It meets with the Akhurian River southeast of Digor, flows along the Turkish-Armenian border, and then near a corridor that connects Turkey to Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan exclave. It then flows along the Iranian-Azerbaijan and the Iranian-Armenian border. The river then flows along the border between Iran and the main territory of the Azerbaijan to meet with the Kura River at the village of Sabirabad. It then directly flows into the Caspian Sea. About 101,937 km² of the Araz River basin is located in Azerbaijan.^{[citation needed]}

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Ardabil
Ardabil (Persian: اردبیل, also Romanized as Ardabīl and Ardebīl) is a historical city in north-western Iran. The name Ardabil probably comes from the Zoroastrian name of "Artavil" which means a holy place. Ardabil is the center of Ardabil Province. At the 2006 census, its population was 412,669, in 102,818 families. The dominant majority of whom are ethnic Azeris followed by Kurds and Talyshes. Notable for its silk and carpet trade tradition, the ancient Ardabil Carpets are considered some of the best of the classical Persian carpet creations. Ardabil is also known as the seat of a World Heritage Site: the sanctuary and tomb of Shaikh Safî ad-Dîn, eponym of the Safavid Dynasty.
Ardabil is about 70 km from the Caspian Sea, 210 km from the city of Tabriz. It has an average altitude of 1263 m and total area of 18.011 km².
Neighboring on the Caspian Sea and the Republic of Azerbaijan, this city is of great political and economical significance.
The province of Ardabil has been blessed with splendid natural beauty and numerous sights.

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Ardabil Province
Ardabil Province (Persian: استان اردبیل‎, Ostān-e Ardabīl ) is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It is in the north west of the country, bordering the Republic of Azerbaijan and the provinces of East Azerbaijan, Zanjan, and Gilan. Its centre is the city of Ardabil. The province was established in 1993 from the eastern part of East Azerbaijan and the northern part of Gilan.
Many tourists come to the region for its cool climate (max 35 °C) during the hot summer months. The winters are bitter cold, with temperatures plummeting to -25°C.
Its famous natural region is the Sabalan mountains. The population of Ardabil province is mainly composed of Azeris, Talish, Tats, Kurds and Persians. The province is considered the coldest province in Iran by many. Large parts of the province are green and forested.
Famous athletes such as Ali Daei and Hossein Rezazade are originally from Ardabil.
Ardabil's capital stands about 70 km from the Caspian Sea and has an area of 18011 km². Neighbouring the Caspian Sea and the Republic of Azerbaijan, the city is of great political and economic significance. The province has been blessed with splendid natural beauty and numerous sights.

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Armenia
Armenia ⁱ/ɑrˈmiːniə/ (Armenian: Հայաստան Hayastan [hɑjɑsˈtɑn]), officially the Republic of Armenia (Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն, Hayastani Hanrapetut’yun, [hɑjɑstɑˈni hɑnɾɑpɛtuˈtʰjun]), is a landlocked, mountainous country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south.
A former republic of the Soviet Union, Armenia is a unitary, multiparty, democratic nation-state with an ancient and historic cultural heritage. The Kingdom of Armenia became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its religion, in the early years of the 4th century (the traditional date is 301 AD). The modern Republic of Armenia recognizes the Armenian Apostolic Church, the world's oldest national church, as the country's primary religious establishment. Armenians have their own unique alphabet invented by Mesrob Mashtots in 406 AD.

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Asia Minor
Asia Minor (from Greek: Μικρὰ Ἀσία, Mikrá Asía, small Asia) is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. It is a peninsula bounded by the Black Sea to the north, Georgia to the north-east, the Armenian Highland to the east, Mesopotamia to the south-east, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and the Aegean Sea to the west.
From the neolithic age Asia Minor was the route of the forward-Asiatic cultural stream which moved from the Near East to the west and spread the agriculture to the east coasts of Greece and Crete during the 5th millennium BC and then to the Balkan region and the whole of Europe. Later the use of bronze-working was transmitted through the Anatolian primary-cultures. The Hittites smelted rather brittle iron from the 15th century BC and the new metal was introduced in Greece. During the 20th century BC the Indo-European Hittites entered the region and gradually established a great empire which was destroyed by invaders in the 12th century. Greek-speaking populations moved to the west coasts and established cities up to the Black Sea. In the 6th century BC the kingdom of Lydia almost expanded to the whole of Asia Minor, until it became a satrapy of the Persian Empire. After the end of the Greek-Persian wars the cities on the coasts became part of the Delian League, which was, however, later dissolved. In the 4th century BC Alexander the Great conquered the peninsula, defeating the Persians. Following his death and the organisational deterioration of his empire, Asia Minor was ruled by a series of Hellenistic kingdoms which came under Roman control two hundred years later. The Kingdom of Pontus was independent from the 3rd century BC, until the middle of the 1st century BC.

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Austria
Austria (ⁱ/ˈɒstriə/ or /ˈɔːstriə/; German: Österreich [ˈøːstɐˌʁaɪç] ( listen)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich (help·info)), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.47 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,855 square kilometres (32,377 sq mi) and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Austro-Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Burgenland Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria became one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon I as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary.

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Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (ⁱ/ˌæzərbaɪˈdʒɑːn/ AZ-ər-by-JAHN; Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan (Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan Respublikası) is the largest country in the Caucasus region located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south. The exclave of Nakhchivan is bounded by Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, while having a short borderline with Turkey to the northwest.
Azerbaijan has an ancient and historic cultural heritage. Aside from having been the first Muslim-majority country to have operas, theater and plays, Azerbaijan today is among the Muslim-majority countries where support for secularism and tolerance is the highest. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, the first democratic and secular republic in the Muslim world, was established in 1918, but was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1920. Azerbaijan regained independence in 1991. Shortly thereafter, during the Nagorno-Karabakh War, neighboring Armenia occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, its surrounding territories and the enclaves of Karki, Yukhary Askipara, Barkhudarly and Sofulu. The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which emerged in Nagorno-Karabakh, continues to be not diplomatically recognized by any nation and the region is still considered a de jure part of Azerbaijan, despite being de facto independent since the end of the war. Azerbaijan has come under repeated international criticism for its record on human rights.

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Baku
Baku (Azerbaijani: Bakı, IPA: [bɑˈcɯ]), sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal parts: the downtown and the old Inner City (21.5 ha). Baku's urban population at the beginning of 2009 was estimated at just over two million people. Officially, about 25 percent of all inhabitants of the country live in the metropolitan city area of Baku.
Baku is divided into eleven administrative districts (raions) and 48 townships. Among these are the townships on islands in the Baku Bay and the town of Oil Rocks built on stilts in the Caspian Sea, 60 km (37 mi) away from Baku. The Inner City of Baku along with the Shirvanshah's Palace and Maiden Tower were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. According to the Lonely Planet's ranking, Baku is also among the world's top ten destinations for urban nightlife.

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Basra
Basra (Arabic: البصرة‎; BGN: Al Baṣrah) is the capital of Basra Governorate, in southern Iraq near Kuwait and Iran. It had an estimated population of two million as of 2009. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is handled at the port of Umm Qasr.
The city is part of the historic location of Sumer, the home of Sinbad the Sailor, and a proposed location of the Garden of Eden. It also played an important role in early Islamic history, being built in 636 CE, or 14 AH. It is Iraq's second largest and most populous city after Baghdad.
The city was called by many names throughout its history, Basrah being the most common. Although some Chaldean Christians argue that the name has Akkadian roots, other sources claim that the name is derived from the Persian word Bas-rah, which means "where many paths meet". During the pre-Islamic era, the area was known to the Arabs as al-Khariba due to the existence of an ancient city called al-Kharba. After the present city was built, it was called by many names, including "the mother of Iraq", "the reservoir of Arabs", "the prosperous city", and "al-Faiha".

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Belarus
Belarus (ⁱ/bɛləˈruːs/ bel-ə-ROOSS; Belarusian: Беларусь, Russian pronunciation: [bʲɛlaˈrusʲ] Russian: Беларусь, Белоруссия, Belarus', Belorussiya), officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno (Hrodna), Gomel (Homiel), Mogilev (Mahilyow) and Vitebsk (Vitsebsk). Over forty percent of its 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) is forested, and its strongest economic sectors are agriculture and manufacturing.
Until the 20th century, the lands of modern-day Belarus belonged to several countries, including the Principality of Polotsk, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Belarus became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union and was renamed as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). The borders of Belarus took their modern shape in 1939 when some lands of the Second Polish Republic were incorporated into it after the Soviet invasion of Poland. The nation and its territory were devastated in World War II, during which Belarus lost about a third of its population and more than half of its economic resources. The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years. In 1945 the Belorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR.

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Canada
Canada ( /ˈkænədə/) is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean. Spanning over 9,900,000 km² (3,800,000 sq mi), Canada is the world's second-largest country by total area, and its common border with the United States is the longest land border in the world.
The land that is now Canada has been inhabited for millennia by various Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French colonial expeditions explored, and later settled, along the region's Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy; the Canada Act 1982 severed the vestiges of legal dependence on Britain.

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Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival (French: Le Festival International du Film de Cannes or just Festival de Cannes), is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is the world's most prestigious and publicized film festival. The invitation-only festival is held annually (usually in May) at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès.
The 2012 Cannes Film Festival took place from May 16 to May 27, 2012. The President of the Jury was the Italian film director Nanni Moretti.
The Cannes Film Festival has its origins in the late 1930s when Jean Zay, the French Minister of National Education, on the proposal of Philippe Erlanger and with the support of the British and Americans,^{[clarification needed]} set up an international cinematographic festival. In 1947, the festival was held as the "Festival du film de Cannes", where films from sixteen countries were presented. Moreover, the principle of equality was introduced, so that the jury was to be made up only of one representative per country. Also, this year the festival was held at the made-for-the-occasion Palais des Festivals, although the roof was unfinished and blew off during a storm. The festival was not held in 1948 and 1950 on account of budgetary problems. In 1951, owing to better relations between France and Italy, the Cannes Festival was moved to Spring, while the Mostra remained in Autumn.

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Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia (for endonyms, see below), is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, which contain Europe's highest mountain, Mt. Elbrus. Politically, the Caucasus region is separated between northern and southern parts.
The northern portion of the Caucasus is known as the Ciscaucasus and the southern portion as the Transcaucasus.
The Ciscaucasus contains the larger majority of the Greater Caucasus Mountain range, also known as the Major Caucasus mountains. It includes Southwestern Russia and northern parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan.
The Transcaucasus is bordered on the north by Russia, on the west by the Black Sea and Turkey, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by Iran. It includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands. All of Armenia, Azerbaijan (excluding the northern parts) and Georgia (excluding the northern parts) are in South Caucasus.

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East Azerbaijan
East Azerbaijan Province or East Azarbaijan Province (Persian: استان آذربایجان شرقی‎, Āzarbāijān-e Sharqi ) is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It is in the northwest of the country, bordering Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan, and the provinces of Ardabil, West Azerbaijan, and Zanjan. Its capital is Tabriz.
The province covers an area of approximately 47,830 km², it has a population of around four million people. According to the latest divisions of the country in 1996, the counties of this province are Ahar, Ajabshir, Bostan Abad, Bonab, Tabriz, Jolfa, Sarab, Shabestar, Kalebar, Maragha, Marand, Malekan, Miyana, Heris, and Hashtrood. The historical city of Tabriz is the most important city of this province, culturally, politically, and commercially. The province has common borders with the current Republics of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nakhchivan. A fine network of roads and railways connect East Azerbaijan to other parts of Iran and also to neighboring countries.
The highest peak of East Azerbaijan is Sahand Mountain at 3,722 m of elevation, lying south of Tabriz, whereas the lower lying areas are around Garmadooz (Ahar). The heights of the province may be classified into three sectors, namely: the Qara Daq Mountains, the Sahand and Bozqoosh Mountains, and the Qaflan Kooh Mountains.

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Fars Province
Coordinates: 29°37′N 52°32′E / 29.617°N 52.533°E / 29.617; 52.533
Fars Province (Persian: استان فارس‎ Ostān-e Fārs pronounced [fɑː(r)s]), originally spelled Pars (پارس), is one of the 31 provinces and known as Cultural Capital of Iran. It is in the south of the country and its center is Shiraz. It has an area of 122,400 km². In 2006, this province had a population of 4.57 million people, of which 61.2% were registered as urban dwellers, 38.1% villagers, and 0.7% nomad tribes. The etymology of the word "Persian" (Pārs-ian : پارسیان) is derived from the cultural capital of Iran and found in many ancient names associated with Iran.
Fars or Pars is the original homeland of the Persian people. The native name of the Persian language is Fârsi or Pârsi. Persia and Persian both derive from the Hellenized form Πέρσις Persis of the root word Pârs. The Old Persian word was Pârsâ.
The word Fars is derived from 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 Pârsa, the Old Persian name for Persia and its capital, Persepolis. Fars is the Arabized version of Pârs, as Arabic has no [p] phoneme.

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Georgia (country)
Georgia ⁱ/ˈdʒɔrdʒə/ (Georgian: საქართველო Sakartvelo, IPA: [sɑkʰɑrtʰvɛlɔ] ( listen)) is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of Georgia is Tbilisi. Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 km² and its population is almost 4.7 million. Georgia is a unitary, semi-presidential republic, with the government elected through a representative democracy.
During the classical era independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia. The kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia adopted Christianity in the early 4th century. A unified Georgia reached the peak of its political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 11th–12th centuries. At the beginning of the 19th century, Georgia was annexed by the Russian Empire. After a brief period of independence following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia was occupied by Soviet Russia in 1921, becoming the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic and part of the Soviet Union. After independence in 1991, post-communist Georgia suffered from civil unrest and economic crisis for most of the 1990s. This lasted until the Rose Revolution of 2003, after which the new government introduced democratic and economic reforms.

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Germany
Germany (ⁱ/ˈdʒɜrməni/), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, pronounced [ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant] ( listen)), is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km² and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 81.8 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state and the largest economy in the European Union. It is one of the major political powers of the European continent and a technological leader in many fields.
A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, was documented before AD 100. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward, and established successor kingdoms throughout much of Europe. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation while southern and western parts remained dominated by Roman Catholic denominations, with the two factions clashing in the Thirty Years' War, marking the beginning of the Catholic–Protestant divide that has characterized German society ever since. Occupied during the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states into the German Empire in 1871 which was Prussian dominated. After the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and the subsequent military surrender in World War I, the Empire was replaced by the Weimar Republic in 1918, and partitioned in the Treaty of Versailles. Amidst the Great Depression, the Third Reich was proclaimed in 1933. The latter period was marked by Fascism and World War II. After 1945, Germany was divided by allied occupation, and evolved into two states, East Germany and West Germany. In 1990 Germany was reunified.

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Hamedan
Hamadān or Hamedān (Persian: همدان, Old Persian: Hagmatana, Ancient Greek: Ecbatana) is the capital city of Hamadan Province of Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 473,149, in 127,812 families.
Hamedan is believed to be among the oldest Iranian cities and one of the oldest in the world. It is possible that it was occupied by the Assyrians in 1100 BCE; the Ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, states that it was the capital of the Medes, around 700 BCE.
Hamedan has a green mountainous area in the foothills of the 3,574-meter Alvand Mountain, in the midwest part of Iran. The city is 1,850 meters above sea level.
The special nature of this old city and its historic sites attract tourists during the summer to this city, located approximately 360 km southwest of Tehran.
The main symbols of this city are the Ganjnameh inscription, the Avicenna monument and the Baba Taher monument. People of the city are Persians and speak Persian.
According to Clifford Edmund Bosworth, "Hamadan is very old city. It may conceivably, but improbably, be mentioned in cuneiform texts from ca. 1100 BC, the time of Assyrian King Tiglath-pilesar I, but is certainly mentioned by Herodotus (i.98) who says that the king of Media Diokes built the city of Agbatana or Ekbatana in the 7th century BC."

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Iran
Coordinates: 32°N 53°E / 32°N 53°E / 32; 53
Iran (ⁱ/ɪˈrɑːn/ or /aɪˈræn/;Persian: ایران‎ [ʔiˈɾɒn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: جمهوری اسلامی ایران‎ Jomhuri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān), is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran", which in Persian means "Land of the Aryans", has been in use natively since the Sassanian era. It came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia ( /ˈpɜrʒə/ or /ˈpɜrʃə/). Both "Persia" and "Iran" are used interchangeably in cultural contexts; however, "Iran" is the name used officially in political contexts.
The 18th-largest country in the world in terms of area at 1,648,195 km² (636,372 sq mi), Iran has a population of around 79 million. It is a country of particular geopolitical significance owing to its location in the Middle East and central Eurasia. Iran is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. As Iran is a littoral state of the Caspian Sea, which is an inland sea, Kazakhstan and Russia are also Iran's direct neighbors to the north. Iran is bordered on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by Iraq and on the northwest by Turkey. Tehran is the capital, the country's largest city and the political, cultural, commercial and industrial center of the nation. Iran is a regional power, and holds an important position in international energy security and world economy as a result of its large reserves of petroleum and natural gas. Iran has the second largest proven natural gas reserves in the world and the fourth largest proven petroleum reserves.

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Isfahan
Isfahan (Persian: اصفهان‎ Esfahān), historically also rendered in English as Ispahan, Sepahan or Hispahan, is the capital of Isfahan Province in Iran, located about 340 km south of Tehran. It has a population of 1,583,609 and is Iran's third largest city after Tehran and Mashhad. The Isfahan metropolitan area had a population of 3,430,353 in the 2006 Census, the second most populous metropolitan area in Iran after Tehran.
The cities of Zarrinshahr, Fooladshahr and Najafabad, Se-deh , Shahin-shahr, Mobarakeh, Falavarjan and chiarmahin all constitute the metropolitan city of Isfahan.
Isfahan is located on the main north-south and east-west routes crossing Iran, and was once one of the largest cities in the world. It flourished from 1050 to 1722, particularly in the 16th century under the Safavid dynasty, when it became the capital of Persia for the second time in its history. Even today, the city retains much of its past glory. It is famous for its Islamic architecture, with many beautiful boulevards, covered bridges, palaces, mosques, and minarets. This led to the Persian proverb "'Esfahān nesf-e jahān ast" (Isfahan is half of the world).

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Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan (ⁱ/ˌkɑːzəkˈstɑːn/ or /ˌkæzəkˈstæn/) (Kazakh: Қазақстан, Qazaqstan, pronounced [qɑzɑqstɑ́n]; Russian: Казахстан [kəzɐxˈstan]), officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Europe. The ninth largest country in the world by land area, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of 2,727,300 square kilometres (1,053,000 sq mi) is larger than Western Europe. It is neighbored clockwise from the north by Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and also borders on a significant part of the Caspian Sea. Although Kazakhstan does not share a border with Mongolia, its most easterly point is only 38 kilometres (24 mi) from Mongolia's western tip. The terrain of Kazakhstan ranges from flatlands, steppes, taigas, rock-canyons, hills, deltas, and snow-capped mountains to deserts. With 16.6 million people (2011 estimate) Kazakhstan has the 62nd largest population in the world, though its population density is less than 6 people per square kilometre (15 per sq. mi.). The capital was moved in 1998 from Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, to Astana.

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Khorasan Province
Khorasan (Persian: استان خراسان‎) (also transcribed as Khurasan and Khorassan, anciently called Traxiane during Hellenistic and Parthian times) currently names a region located in north eastern Iran, but historically referred to a much larger area east and north-east of the Persian Empire. The name Khorasan is Persian and means "where the sun arrives from." The name was given to the eastern province of Persia during the Sassanid Empire.
Khorasan is famous world wide for its saffron and zereshk which are produced in the southern cities of the province. Production is more than 170 tons per year. Khorasan is also known for its famous rugs as well as for the Ferdousi and Imamreza shrines/tombs.
Khorasan was the largest province of Iran until it was divided to three provinces on September 29, 2004. The provinces approved by the parliament (on May 18, 2004) and the Council of Guardians (on May 29, 2004) are:
Some parts of the province were added to
The older Persian province of Khorasan included parts which are today in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Some of the main historical cities of Persia are located in the older Khorasan: Nishapur and Tus (now in Iran), Merv and Sanjan (now in Turkmenistan), Samarkand and Bukhara (both now in Uzbekistan), Herat and Balkh (now in Afghanistan), Khujand and Panjakent (now in Tajikistan). In its long history, Khorasan knew many conquerors and empires: Greeks, Arabs, Seljuk Turks, Safavids, Pashtuns (ethnic Afghans) and others.

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Kufa
Kufa (Arabic,الكوفة al-Kūfah) is a city in Iraq, about 170 kilometres (110 mi) south of Baghdad, and 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000.
Along with Samarra, Karbala, Kadhimiya and Najaf, Kufa is one of five Iraqi cities that are of great importance to Shia Muslims. The city was the final capital of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, and was founded within the first hundred years of the 622 Hijra^{[citation needed]}.
The city contains the Great Mosque of Kufa, one of the earliest mosques in Islam, built in the 7th century.
File:Kufa masjid.pdf
See Ancient Mesopotamia.
Ruled by Sassanian Empire as part of Suristan province. See Middle Bih-Kavad.
The Arabs, led by Caliph ʻUmar ibn Khattāb, conquer Iraq and begin ruling Suristan around 637.
ʻUmar ibn Khattāb became the second caliph in 634. After the Arab victory against the East Roman Empire at Battle of Yarmouk in 636, Kūfah was founded and given its name in 637–638 CE, about the same time as Basra. The Companion of the Prophet Saʻd ibn Abī Waqqas founded it as an encampment adjacent to the Lakhmid Arab city of al-Hīrah, and incorporated it as a city of seven divisions. The city was alternately known to non-Arabs as Hīrah and Aqulah before the consolidations of ʻAbdu l-Mālik in 691.

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Latvia
Latvia ⁱ/ˈlætviə/ (Latvian: Latvija), officially the Republic of Latvia (Latvian: Latvijas Republika), is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia (border length 343 km), to the south by Lithuania (588 km), to the east by the Russian Federation (276 km), to the southeast by Belarus (141 km), and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden. With 2,067,887 inhabitants and a territory of 64,589 km² (24,938 sq mi) it is one of the least populous and least densely populated countries of the European Union. The capital of Latvia is Riga. The official language is Latvian and the currency is called Lats (Ls). The country has a temperate seasonal climate.
The Latvians are a Baltic people, culturally related to the Lithuanians. Together with the Finno-Ugric Livs (or Livonians), the Latvians are the indigenous people of Latvia.Latvian is an Indo-European language and along with Lithuanian the only two surviving members of the Baltic branch. Indigenous minority languages are Latgalian and the nearly extinct Finno-Ugric Livonian language. In terms of geography, territory and population Latvia is the middle of three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Latvia and Estonia share a long common history: historical Livonia, times of German (Teutonic Order), Polish-Lithuanian, Swedish, Russian, Nazi German and Soviet rule, 13th century Christianization and 16th century Protestant Reformation. Both countries are home to a large number of ethnic Russians (26.9% in Latvia and 25.5% in Estonia) of whom some are non-citizens. Latvia is historically predominantly Protestant, except for the region of Latgalia in the southeast which is historically predominantly Roman Catholic.

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Lithuania
Lithuania (ⁱ/ˌlɪθuːˈeɪniə/ or /ˌlɪθjuːˈeɪniə/; Lithuanian: Lietuva), officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Respublika) is a country in Northern Europe, the largest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark. It borders Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and a Russian exclave (Kaliningrad Oblast) to the southwest. Lithuania has an estimated population of 3.2 million as of 2011, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. The Lithuanians are a Baltic people, and the official language, Lithuanian, is one of only two living languages (together with Latvian) in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family.
For centuries, the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea was inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, who was crowned as King of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the first Lithuanian state, on 6 July 1253. During the 14th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the largest country in Europe: present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia were territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. With the Lublin Union of 1569, Lithuania and Poland formed a voluntary two-state union, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighboring countries systematically dismantled it from 1772 to 1795, with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuania's territory.

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Markazi Province

Markazi Province (Persian: استان مرکزی‎, Ostān-e Markazi ) is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. The word markazi means central in Persian.^{[citation needed]}
Markazi lies in western Iran. Its capital is Arak. Its population is estimated at 1.35 million. The present borders of the province date to the 1980s, when the province was split into the current Markazi and the Tehran Province, with portions being annexed by Esfahan, Semnan Province, and Zanjan.
The major cities of the province are: Saveh, Arak, Mahallat, Zarandiyeh, Khomein, Delijan, Tafresh, Ashtian, and Shazand (previously known as Sarband)
Markazi province was part of the Median Empire in the first millennium BC, which included all of the central and western parts of modern day Iran. The region is considered to be one of the ancient settlements on the Iranian plateau. Numerous remaining ruins testify to the antiquity of this area.
In the early centuries Islam, the name of the area was changed to Jabal or Qahestan. By the early 10th century, Khorheh had become a famous city of Jabal province, followed by Tafresh and Khomein.

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Medes
The Medes (/midz/) (from Old Persian Māda-) were an ancient Iranian people who lived in Iran in an area known as Media and spoke a northwestern Iranian language referred to as the Median language. Their arrival to the region is associated with the first wave of Iranian tribes in the late second millennium BCE (the Bronze Age collapse) through the beginning of the first millennium BCE.
In the 7th century BCE a unified Median state was formed which together with Babylonia, Lydia, and Egypt became one of the four major powers of the ancient Near East. An alliance with the Babylonians helped the Medes to capture Nineveh in 612 BCE which resulted in the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Medes were subsequently able to establish their Median kingdom (with Ecbatana as their royal centre) beyond their original homeland (central-western Iran) and had eventually a territory stretching roughly from northeastern Iran to the Halys River in Anatolia. The Median kingdom was conquered in 550 BCE by Cyrus the Great who established the next Iranian dynasty—the Achaemenid Empire.

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Nagorno-Karabakh
Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, lying between Lower Karabakh and Zangezur and covering the southeastern range of the Lesser Caucasus mountains. The region is mostly mountainous and forested.
Most of the region is governed by the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, a de facto independent, but unrecognized state established on the basis of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast within the Azerbaijan SSR of the Soviet Union. The territory is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, although it has not exercised power over most of the region since 1991. Since the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994, representatives of the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been holding peace talks mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group on the region's disputed status.
The region is usually equated with the administrative borders of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast within the Azerbaijan SSR comprising an area of 4,400 square kilometres (1,700 sq mi). The historical area of the region, however, encompasses approximately 8,223 square kilometres (3,175 sq mi).

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Netherlands
The Netherlands (ⁱ/ˈnɛðərləndz/; Dutch: Nederland [ˈneːdə(r)lɑnt] or [ˈneɪ̯də(r)lɑnt] ( listen); West Frisian: Nederlân; Papiamento: Hulanda) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with some islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. It is a parliamentary democracy organised as a unitary state. The country capital is Amsterdam and the seat of government is The Hague. The Netherlands in its entirety is often referred to as Holland, although North and South Holland are actually only two of its twelve provinces (a case of pars pro toto; see terminology of "the Netherlands").

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Qazvin
Qazvin (English pronunciation: /kæzˈviːn/, Persian: قزوین‎, IPA: [ɢæzˈviːn], also Romanized as Qazvīn, Kazvin, Qazwin, Ghazvin is the largest city and capital of the Province of Qazvin in Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 349,821, in 96,420 families.
Located some 165 km northwest of Tehran, in the Qazvin Province, it is at an altitude of about 1800 meters above sea level. The climate is cold but dry, due to its position south of the rugged Alborz range.
The city was a former capital of the Persian Empire. It is a provincial capital today that has been an important cultural center throughout history.
Archeological findings in the Qazvin plain reveal urban agricultural settlements for at least nine millennia. Qazvin geographically connects Tehran, Isfahan, and the Persian Gulf to the Caspian seacoast and Asia Minor, hence its strategic location throughout the ages.
The city today known as Qazvin is thought to have been founded by Shapur II, King of Persia in 250 CE, under the name Shad Shahpur, when he built a fortification there to control regional tensions.

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Republic of Dagestan
The Republic of Dagestan ( /dɑːɡɨˈstɑːn/ or /dæɡɨˈstæn/; Russian: Респу́блика Дагеста́н, Respublika Dagestan; also spelled Daghestan) is a federal subject (a republic) of Russia, located in the North Caucasus region. Its capital and the largest city is Makhachkala, located at the center of Dagestan on the Caspian Sea. Population: 2,910,249 (2010 Census).
Dagestan is ethnically very diverse, with several dozen ethnic groups and subgroups inhabiting the republic, most of which speak either Caucasian, Turkic, or Iranian languages. Largest among these ethnic groups are the Avar, Dargin, Kumyk, Azeri, Lezgin, and Laks. While Russians form only a small proportion (3.6%) of the population, Russian remains the primary official language and the lingua franca among the ethnic groups.
Dagestan has been a scene of low-level Islamic insurgency, occasional outbreaks of separatism, ethnic tensions and terrorism since the 1990s. According to International Crisis Group, the militant Islamist organization Shariat Jamaat is responsible for much of the violence. Much of the tension is rooted in an internal Islamic conflict between traditional Sufi groups advocating secular government and more recently introduced Salafist teachers preaching the implementation of Sharia law in Dagestan.

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Russia
Russia ⁱ/ˈrʌʃə/ or /ˈrʊʃə/ (Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈratsɨjə] ( listen)), is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, and the US state of Alaska by the Bering Strait. At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the eighth most populous nation with 143 million people. It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning nine time zones and incorporating a wide range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources and is the largest producer of oil and natural gas globally. Russia has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's fresh water.

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Soviet Azerbaijan
The Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (Azerbaijani: Азәрбајҹан Совет Сосиалист Республикасы Azərbaycan Sovet Sosialist Respublikası; Russian: Азербайджанская Советская Социалистическая Республика [АзССР] Azerbaydzhanskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika [AzSSR]), also known as the Azerbaijan SSR or Soviet Azerbaijan for short, was one of the republics that made up the former Soviet Union.
Established on 28 April 1920 as the Azerbaijan SSR, from 12 March 1922 to 5 December 1936, it was part of the Transcaucasian SFSR together with the Armenian SSR and the Georgian SSR. In December 1922, the Transcaucasian SFSR became part of the newly established Soviet Union. The Constitution of Azerbaijan SSR was approved by the 9th Extraordinary All-Azerbaijani Congress of Soviets on 14 March 1937. On 19 November 1990, Azerbaijan SSR was renamed the "Republic of Azerbaijan," remaining in the USSR for another year before its independence in 1991. The state of the Azerbaijan SSR ceased to exist in 1995, upon the adoption of the new Constitution of Azerbaijan.

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Soviet Union
The Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovetsky Soyuz), officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR; Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik; IPA: [sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲetskʲɪx sətsɨəlʲɪˈstʲitɕɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpublʲɪk] ( listen); abbreviated СССР, SSSR), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.
The Soviet Union was a single-party state ruled by the Communist Party from its foundation until 1990. A union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, the Soviet state was structured under a highly centralized government and economy.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused the downfall of the Russian Empire. Following the Russian Revolution, there was a struggle for power between the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the anti-communist White movement. In December 1922, the Bolsheviks won the civil war, and the Soviet Union was formed with the merger of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.

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Tabriz
Tabriz (Persian/Azerbaijani:تبریز) ( pronunciation (help·info)) is the fifth largest city and one of the historical capitals of Iran and the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. Situated at an altitude of 1,350 meters at the junction of the Quru River and Aji River, it was the second largest city in Iran until the late 1960s, one of its former capitals, and residence of the crown prince under the Qajar dynasty. The city has proven extremely influential in the country’s recent history. Tabriz is located in a valley to the north of the long ridge of the volcanic cone of Sahand, south of the Eynali mountain. The valley opens out into a plain that slopes gently down to the northern end of Lake Urmia, 60 km to the west. With cold winters and temperate summers the city is considered a summer resort.
The estimated population of the city is around 1,400,000 based on results of the Iranian census bureau. Tabriz is the fourth most populous city in Iran after Tehran, Mashhad, and Esfahan, and is also a major Iranian heavy industrial and manufacturing center. Some of these industries include automobile, machine tools, oil and petrochemical and cement production.

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Tehran
Tehran ( pronunciation (help·info)) (Persian: تهران‎ Tehrān; pronounced [tehˈɾɒːn]), sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, the largest city in Western Asia, one of the largest in Southern Asia, and the 19th-largest city globally.
In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to mass-migration of people from all around Iran. The city is home to many historic mosques, churches, synagogues and Zoroastrian fire temples. Contemporary Tehran is a modern city featuring many structures, of which the Azadi (Freedom) Tower and the Milad Tower have come to be symbols of Tehran itself. In 2008 Tehran was the least expensive capital in the world and the second-least expensive city globally based on the cost-of-living index presenting the best value for money in the world. Globally it stands 19th by city population, 56th by the size of its GDP and 29th by the population of its metropolitan area. Throughout Iran's history, the capital city has been relocated many times, with Tehran being the 32nd national capital of Iran. Persian is the city's native tongue, with roughly 98% of the population able to speak and understand it. The majority of people in Tehran identify themselves as Persians. In pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, Tehran was called Ray (which in the Avesta occurs in the form of Ragha)^{[citation needed]}.

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Turkey
Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye), known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (help·info)), is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia (mostly in the Anatolian peninsula) and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan (the exclave of Nakhchivan) and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea is to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north. The Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles (which together form the Turkish Straits) demarcate the boundary between East Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia.
Turkey is one of the six independent Turkic states. The vast majority of the population are Muslims. The country's official language is Turkish, whereas Kurdish and Zazaki languages are spoken by Kurds and Zazas, who constitute 18% of the population.

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Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan (ⁱ/tɜrkˈmɛnɨstæn/ or ⁱ/tɜrkmɛnɨˈstɑːn/; Turkmen: Türkmenistan), formerly also known as Turkmenia (Russian: Туркмения), is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkmen SSR). Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states. It is bordered by Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest, Uzbekistan to the east and northeast, Kazakhstan to the north and northwest and the Caspian Sea to the west.
Turkmenistan's GDP growth rate of 11% in 2010^[update] ranks 4th in the world, but these figures are subject to wide margins of error. It possesses the world's fourth largest reserves of natural gas resources. Although it is wealthy in natural resources in certain areas, most of the country is covered by the Karakum (Black Sand) Desert.
The Turkmen government operates as a single-party system. Turkmenistan was ruled by President for Life Saparmurat Niyazov (called "Türkmenbaşy" — "leader of the Turkmens") until his sudden death on 21 December 2006. Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov was elected the new president on 11 February 2007.

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Ukraine
Ukraine (ⁱ/juːˈkreɪn/ yew-KRAYN; Ukrainian: Україна, transliterated: Ukrayina, [ukrɑˈjinɑ]; Russian: Украина; Crimean Tatar: Ukraina) is a country in Central and Eastern Europe. Ukraine borders the Russian Federation to the east and northeast, Belarus to the northwest, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west, Romania and Moldova to the southwest, and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south and southeast, respectively. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after the Russian Federation.
According to a popular and well established theory, the medieval state of Kievan Rus was established by the Varangians in the 9th century as the first historically recorded East Slavic state which emerged as a powerful nation in the Middle Ages until it disintegrated in the 12th century. By the middle of the 14th century, Ukrainian territories were under the rule of three external powers—the Golden Horde, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Kingdom of Poland. After the Great Northern War (1700–1721) Ukraine was divided between a number of regional powers and, by the 19th century, the largest part of Ukraine was integrated into the Russian Empire with the rest under Austro-Hungarian control. A chaotic period of incessant warfare ensued, with several internationally recognized attempts at independence from 1917 to 1921, following World War I and the Russian Civil War. Ukraine emerged from its own civil war, and on December 30, 1922 Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic became one of the founding republics of the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian SSR's territory was enlarged westward during the civil war shortly before, and after World War II, and further south in 1954 with the Crimea transfer. In 1945, the Ukrainian SSR became one of the founding members of the United Nations.

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United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK, or Britain) is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. The country includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea.
The United Kingdom is a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system, with its seat of government in the capital city of London. It is a country in its own right and consists of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There are three devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff, the capitals of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Associated with the UK, but not constitutionally part of it, are three Crown Dependencies. The United Kingdom has fourteen overseas territories. These are remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in 1922, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's land surface and was the largest empire in history. British influence can still be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former territories.

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United States
The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.

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Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan ⁱ/ʊzˌbɛkɨˈstɑːn/, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan (Uzbek: O‘zbekiston Respublikasi, Ўзбекистон Республикаси) is the only doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of only two such countries worldwide. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south. Before 1991, it was part of the Soviet Union.
Uzbekistan is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia.
Once part of the Persian Samanid and later Timurid empires, the region was conquered in the early 16th century by Uzbek nomads, who spoke an Eastern Turkic language. Most of Uzbekistan’s population today belong to the Uzbek ethnic group and speak the Uzbek language, one of the family of Turkic languages.
Uzbekistan was incorporated into the Russian Empire in the 19th century, and in 1924 became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, known as the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbek SSR). It became independent on 31 August 1991 (officially, from the following day).

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West Azerbaijan
West Azerbaijan Province or West Azarbaijan Province (Persian: استان آذربایجان غربی‎, Ostān-e Āzarbāijān-e Gharbī ), is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It is located in the North West of the country, bordering Turkey, Iraq and Nakhchivan, and the provinces of East Azerbaijan, Zanjan and Kurdistan.
The province of West Azerbaijan covers an area of 39,487 km², or 43,660 km² including Lake Urmia. In 2006 the province had a population of 3,015,361 [2]. The capital city and largest city of the province is Urmia.
Permanent settlements were established in the province as early as the 6th millennium BC as excavation at sites such as Teppe Hasanlu establish. In Hasanlu, a famous Golden Vase was found in 1958. The province is also the location of Tepe Hajji Firuz, site of some of the world's earliest evidence of wine production.Gooy Teppe is another significant site, where a metal plaque dating from 800 BC was found that depicts a scene from the epic of Gilgamesh.
Ruins such as these and the UNESCO world heritage site at the Sassanid compound of Takht-i-Suleiman illustrate the strategic importance and tumultuous history of the province through the millennia. Overall, the province enjoys a wealth of historical attractions, with 169 sites registered by the Cultural Heritage Organization of Iran.

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Zanjan Province
Zanjan Province (Persian: استان زنجان‎, Ostān-e Zanjān ) is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. Located in the North West of Iran, its capital is Zanjan city. Zanjan province with an area of 36,400 km² has a mostly rural, population of 964,601 (2006). The province lies 330 km northwest of Tehran, connected to it via a freeway.
Zanjan also has an incredible cave called katale khor. It is near the Sultaniyeh.
Agriculture is the principal occupation, and crops include rice, corn (maize), oilseeds, fruits, and potatoes. Poultry, cattle, and sheep are raised. In the region Zanjan is also famous for its seedless grapes. Manufactures include bricks, cement, milled rice, and carpets. Chromium, lead, and copper are mined. In the scientific world the Zanjan name is famous for IASBS, one of the most productive research centers of the country [1].
Zanjan is also known for its beautiful handcrafts such as knives, traditional sandals called charoogh and malileh. Malileh is a handcraft made with silver wires. Zanjanian artists make many things like various decorative dishes and their special covers as well as silver jewelry. In ancient times, Zanjan was known for its stainless and sharp knives. But this tradition is gradually becoming extinct by introduction of Chinese knives to the market which are cheaper and better made than these primitive industries. Many villagers today are traditional carpet weavers. This is perhaps Zanjan's most popular handcraft.

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Abbas I of Persia
Shāh ‘Abbās the Great (or Shāh ‘Abbās I) (Persian: شاه عَباس بُزُرگ‎) (January 27, 1571 – January 19, 1629) was Shah (king) of Iran, and generally considered the greatest ruler of the Safavid dynasty. He was the third son of Shah Mohammad.
Abbas came to the throne during a troubled time for Iran. Under his weak-willed father, the country was riven with discord between the different factions of the Qizilbash army, who killed Abbas' mother and elder brother. Meanwhile, Iran's enemies, the Ottoman Empire and the Uzbeks, exploited this political chaos to seize territory for themselves. In 1587, one of the Qizilbash leaders, Murshid Qoli Khan, overthrew Shah Mohammed in a coup and placed the 16-year-old Abbas on the throne. But Abbas was no puppet and soon seized power for himself. He reduced the influence of the Qizilbash in the government and the military and reformed the army, enabling him to fight the Ottomans and Uzbeks and reconquer Iran's lost provinces. He also took back land from the Portuguese and the Mughals. Abbas was a great builder and moved his kingdom's capital from Qazvin to Isfahan. In his later years, the shah became suspicious of his own sons and had them killed or blinded.

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Abbasgulu Bakikhanov
Abbasgulu Bakikhanov (Azerbaijani: Abbasqulu ağa Bakıxanov Qüdsi) (21 June 1794, Amirjan – January 1847, Wadi Fatima, near Jeddah), also known as Gudsi (Azeri: Qüdsi), was an Azerbaijani writer, historian, journalist, linguist, poet and philosopher; descendant of the ruling dynasty of the Baku Khanate, nephew of the last khan of Baku. He was an officer in the Imperial Russian Army since 1820 and participated in the Russo-Persian War of 1826-1828. He later retired and lived in Quba, but traveled extensively within Russia, meeting such important literary figures as Pushkin.
According to other sources, Bakikhanov was born on 10 June 1794. His childhood contemporized with a defining epoch in the history of the Caucasus—the era of battles between Russia and Persia over political domination in the region. Bakikhanov was the son of the 9th khan of Baku, Mirza Muhammed II and a Georgian lady Sofia. He began his academic studies at the age of 7 and soon excelled in Persian. In 1813, seven years after the loss of the khanate's sovereignty, the family moved to Quba, where Bakikhanov studied social and life sciences, humanities, and languages. Within the next ten years, he learned Arabic, Turkish, and Russian, followed later by French and Polish. In 1818, he established the first Azeri literary society Golestan-i Iram. His poetry at this early phase displayed Bakikhanov's deep moral and philosophical involvement in Islam. In 1820, he enlisted in the Russian army as an interpreter and got a commission for taking part in suppressing the rebellious Kazikumukh Khanate (present-day southern Dagestan).

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Abkhaz people
The Abkhaz or Abkhazians (Abkhaz: Аҧсуа, Apswa) are a Caucasian ethnic group, mainly living in Abkhazia, a disputed region on the Black Sea coast. A large Abkhaz diaspora population resides in Turkey, the origins of which lie in the emigration from the Caucasus in the late 19th century known as muhajirism. Many Abkhaz also live in other parts of the former Soviet Union, particularly in Russia and Ukraine.
The Abkhaz language belongs to the Northwest Caucasian languages group. Classical sources speak of several tribes dwelling in the region, but their exact identity and location remains controversial. The Abasgoi and Apsilai of the Graeco-Roman authors are considered as the predecessors of modern-day Abkhaz.
The integration of various smaller ethnic subgroups into the modern-day Abkhaz people was basically completed by the late 10th century, but some of these groups were deprived of their homeland when the Russian conquest of northwestern Caucasus forced them to become muhajirun and emigrate to the Ottoman possessions.

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Adyghe people
The Adyghe or Adygs (Adyghe: Адыгэ or Adǝgă, Arabic: شركس/جركس‎, Jarkas/Sharkas,Persian: چرکس‎,charkas), also often known as Circassians or Cherkess, are in origin a North Caucasian ethnic group who were displaced in the course of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus in the 19th century, especially after the Russian–Circassian War of 1862.
Adyghe people mostly^{[dubious – discuss]} speak Circassian (called Adyghe in the west and Kabardin in the east), and most practise Sunni Islam.
There remain about two million speakers of Circassian, mostly in the republics of Kabardino-Balkaria, Adygea, and Karachay–Cherkessia, as well as a number in the Russian Federation outside these republics.
The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization estimates that there are as many as 3.7 million "ethnic Circassians" outside of the Circassian republics (meaning that only one in seven "ethnic Circassians" is a speaker of the Circassian language), of whom about 2 million live in the Republic of Turkey, 700,000 in the Russian Federation, about 150,000 in the Levant, and about 50,000 in western countries (Europe and USA).

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Ahmad Kasravi
Ahmad Kasravi (29 September 1890 - March 11, 1946; Azerbaijani: احمد کسروی - Əhməd Kəsrəvi, Persian: احمد کسروی‎), was a notable Iranian linguist, historian, and reformer.
Born in Hokmabad (Hohmavar), Tabriz, Iran, Kasravi was an Iranian Azeri Initially, Kasravi enrolled in a seminary. Later, he joined the Iranian Constitutional Revolution. He experienced a sort of conversion to Western learning when he learned that the comet of 1910 had been identified as a reappearance of Halley's comet. He abandoned his clerical training after this event and enrolled in the American Memorial School of Tabriz. Thenceforward he became, in Roy Mottahedeh's words, "a true anti-cleric."
Ahmad Kasravi came from a traditional clerical family. While still a seminary student in Tabriz, his home town, he came into contact with militants of the constitutionalist movement. The 1905 constitutionalist movement in Iran had driven a wedge between the cleric. Some rallied to its support and legitimized it while others argued that an Islamic form of government can only be based on the Shari'a. The clerical opponents of the movement accused its proponents of seeking to impose the will of the people over that of God. From the early age of sixteen, Kasravi became a pro-constitutionalist.

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Al-Masudi
Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali al-Mas'udi (in Arabic أبو الحسن علي بن الحسين بن علي المسعودي transl: Abu al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī al-Masʿūdī) (born c. 896, Baghdad, died September 956, Cairo, Egypt), was an Arab historian and geographer, known as the "Herodotus of the Arabs." Al-Masudi (in Arabic المسعودي) was one of the first to combine history and scientific geography in a large-scale work, Muruj adh-dhahab wa ma'adin al-jawhar (Arabic: مروج الذهب ومعادن الجواهر‎ translated The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems), a world history.
Al-Mas'udi tells us that he was born in Baghdad. He was a descendant of Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud, a companion of the Prophet Muhammad. However, we know little else about his early years. He mentions his association with many scholars in the lands through which he travelled. However, most of what we know of him comes from the internal evidence of his own works. Although Shboul questions the furthest extent sometimes asserted for al-Mas'udi's travels, even his more conservative estimation is impressive:

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Albanians
Albanians (Albanian: Shqiptarët) are an ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. In the context of an ethnicity, they are commonly referred to as ethnic Albanians to distinguish the group from the use of the term Albanians as referring to citizens of Albania. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo. The Albanian diaspora also exists in a number of other countries.
While the exonym Albania for the general region inhabited by the Albanians does hark back to Classical Antiquity, the name was lost within the Albanian language, the Albanian endonym being shqiptar, from the term for the Albanian language, shqip, a derivation of the verb shqiptoj "to utilize a correct Albanian pronunciation ". This theory pertains to Hahn and it holds that perhaps the word is ultimately a loan from Latin excipio. Thus, the Albanian endonym, like Slav and others, is in origin a term for "those who speak [intelligibly, the same language]". However another plausible theory has been advanced by Maximilian Lambertz to explain the endonym as derived from the Albanian noun shqype or shqiponjë (eagle), which, according to Albanian folk etymology, denoted a bird totem dating from the times of Skanderbeg, as displayed on the Albanian flag.

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Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon (20/21 July 356 – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great (Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μέγας, Aléxandros ho Mégas from the Greek αλέξω alexo "to defend, help" + ανήρ aner "man"), was a king of Macedon, a state in northern ancient Greece. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16. By the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from the Ionian Sea to the Himalayas. He was undefeated in battle and is considered one of history's most successful commanders.
Alexander succeeded his father, Philip II of Macedon, to the throne in 336 BC after Philip was assassinated. Upon Philip's death, Alexander inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. He was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his father's military expansion plans. In 334 BC, he invaded Persian-ruled Asia Minor and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisive battles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela. He subsequently overthrew the Persian King Darius III and conquered the entirety of the Persian Empire. At that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River.

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Ali Daei
Ali Daei (Persian: علی دایی‎, pronounced [ʔæliː dɑːjiː]; nicknamed Shahriar[ʃæhrijɑːr], meaning the King; born 21 March 1969 in Ardabil, Iran) is an Iranian retired football player and former national team coach who currently manages Rah Ahan in Iran Pro League. He is a former captain of the Iran national football team, and is the world's all-time leading goalscorer in international matches. Daei as of June 2007 is also a member of the FIFA Football Committee.
Daei was born in Ardabil, Iran and is an Iranian Azeri. Daei graduated from Sharif University of Technology in Materials Engineering (Metallurgical) with a B.Sc. degree. Born in Ardabil, he played for his hometown club, Esteqlal Ardabil, when he was 19. His next club was Taxirani F.C. in Tehran, where he played for one season, before joining another Tehrani club, Bank Tejarat FC. He stayed four years with Bank Tejarat, missing out on a chance to play in the J. League due to military service. Daei's fame is attributed mostly to his renowned goal scoring ability. He managed to score frequently for his clubs, although due to the league schedule at the time he did not play many matches per season. His impressive performance at his club finally got results.

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Ali Khamenei
Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei (Persian: سید علی حسینی خامنه ای‎, Azerbaijani: سید علی حسینی خامنه‌ای – Seyyid Əli Xameneyi, pronounced [ʔæˈliː hoseiˈniː xɒːmeneˈʔiː] ( listen); born 17 July 1939) is the Supreme Leader of Iran, and a Twelver Shi'a marja. He had also served as the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran from 1981 to 1989. In 2010, Forbes selected him 26th in the list of 'World's Most Powerful People'.
Holding absolute power in his country, he has been described as one of only three people having "important influence" during the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran . Khamenei was the victim of an attempted assassination in June 1981 that paralyzed his right arm, although so far the biggest challenge to his leadership has been the mass protests following the June 2009 presidential elections during which he strongly supported president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They have had a falling out since.
Khamenei holds the title of Sayyed, which means that he claims direct patrilineal descent from Ali ibn Abi Talib. Some^[which?] of Khamenei's ancestors are from Tafresh in today's Markazi province, and had migrated from their original home in Tafresh to Tabriz. Born in Mashhad, he is second eldest of eight children, and two of his brothers are also clerics. His younger brother, Hadi Khamenei, is a renowned newspaper editor and cleric. Khamenei is Iranian Azeri on his father's side and his mother is a Yazd-native Persian.

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Altay people
The Altay or Altai are a conglomerative ethnic group of Mongolic, Tungusic and Turkic peoples living in the Siberian Altai Republic and Altai Krai and surrounding areas of Tuva and Mongolia and Manchuria. For alternative ethnonyms see also Teleut, Tele, Telengit, Mountain Kalmuck, White Kalmuck, Black Tatar, Oirat/Oirot.
The Uriankhai people were annexed by the Oirat Zunghars in the 16th century. After the fall of the Zunghar Khanate in the 18th century, the Uriankhai were subjugated by the Qing Dynasty; and their one part, Altayans, was called by the Qing court as Altan Nuur Uriyangkhai. They have had skills in metalworking dating back to the 2nd millennium BC. The Altay came into contact with Russians in the 18th century. In the tsarist period, the Altay were known as oirot or oyrot (this name means oirat and would later be carried on for the Oyrot Autonomous Oblast). The Altay report that many of them became addicted to the Russians' vodka, which they called "fire water".
The Altay were originally nomadic, with a lifestyle based on hunting / trapping and pastoralism (mainly cattle, sheep, goats), but many of them settled as a result of Russian influence. In regard to religion, some of the Altay remain Tengriists or Shamanists, while others (in a trend beginning in the mid-19th century) have converted to the Orthodox. (The Altai mission took shape under Saint Makarii Glukharev, Apostle to the Altai.) In 1904, a religious movement called Ak Jang or Burkhanism arose, perhaps in response to Russian colonization.

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Aq Qoyunlu
The Aq Qoyunlu or Ak Koyunlu, also called the White Sheep Turkomans (Persian/Azeri: آق قویونلو), was an Sunni Oghuz Turkic tribal federation that ruled parts of present-day Eastern Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, northern Iraq, and Iran from 1378 to 1508.
According to chronicles from the Byzantine Empire, the Aq Qoyunlu were present in eastern Anatolia from at least 1340, and most of their leaders, including the dynasty's founder, Uzun Hassan, married Byzantine princesses.
The Aq Qoyunlu Turkomans first acquired land in 1402, when Timur granted them all of Diyarbakır in present-day Turkey. For a long time, the Aq Qoyunlu were unable to expand their territory, as the rival Kara Koyunlu or "Black Sheep Turkomans" kept them at bay. However, this changed with the rule of Uzun Hassan, who defeated the Black Sheep Turkoman leader Jahān Shāh in 1467.
After the defeat of a Ilkhanate leader, Abu Sa'id, Uzun Hassan was able to take Baghdad along with territories around the Persian Gulf. He expanded into Iran as far east as Khorasan. However, around this time, the Ottoman Empire sought to expand eastwards, a serious threat that forced the Aq Qoyunlu into an alliance with the Karamanids of central Anatolia.

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Arabs
Arab people, also known as Arabs (Arabic: عرب‎, ʿarab), are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing an important part of Arab identity.
The word "Arab" has had several different, but overlapping, meanings over the centuries (and sometimes even today). In addition to including all Arabized people of the world (with language tending to be the acid test), it has also at times been used exclusively for bedouin (Arab nomads [although a related word, "`a-RAB," with the Arabic letter "alif" in the second syllable, once was sometimes used when this specific meaning was intended] and their now almost entirely settled descendants). It is sometimes used that way colloquially even today in some places. Townspeople once were sometimes called "sons of the Arabs." As in the case of other ethnicities or nations, people identify themselves (or are identified by others) as "Arabs" to varying degrees. This may not be one's primary identity (it tends to compete with country, religion, sect, etc.), and whether it is emphasized may depend upon one's audience.

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Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians (Armenian: հայեր, Armenian pronunciation: [hɑˈjɛɾ]) are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.
The largest concentration is in Armenia, having a nearly homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian. Because of wide-ranging and long-lasting diaspora, an estimated total of 3 million people of full or partial Armenian ancestry live outside of Armenia. As a result of the Armenian Genocide, a large number of survivors fled to many countries throughout the world, most notably the Russian Empire, the Near East, the United States, France, Iran, Georgia and other parts of Europe (see Armenian diaspora).
Christianity began to spread in Armenia soon after Jesus's death, due to the efforts of two of his apostles, St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew In the early 4th century, the Kingdom of Armenia became the first nation to adopt Christianity as a state religion. Most Armenians adhere to the Armenian Apostolic Church, a non-Chalcedonian church, which is also the world's oldest national church.

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Ashig Alasgar
Ashig Alasgar (Azerbaijani: Aşıq Ələsgər), (1821–1926), was an Azeri mystic troubadour (Ashik) and highly regarded poet of Azeri folk songs . He was born in the village of Aghkilsa in the Goycha district of the Erivan Khanate.

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Assyrians in Iran
Assyrians in Iran (Persian: آشوریان در ایران) was a thriving community, but was diminished from around 200,000 prior to the Islamic Revolution in Iran to a mere 50,000.
In addition to Assyrian communities found in major urban centers such as Tehran, there are also Assyrian villages in the area of Urmia in northern Iran. [2]
Assyrians are a Semitic people who speak Syriac an Aramaic dialect and are Eastern Rite Christians. They are the descendants of the ancient Mesopotamians.
Assyrians are entitled to one reserved seat in the Iranian Parliament, that was procured by George Malek-Yonan. The seat is currently occupied by Yonathan Betkolia (elected in 2000, reelected in 2004).
There were about 200,000 Assyrians in Iran at the time of the 1976 census. Many emigrated after the revolution in 1979, but at least 50,000 were estimated still to be living in Iran in 1987.
Assyrians have a long history in Iran. During the Neo Assyrian Empire (911-608 BC), much of western Iran (including Media, Persia, Elam and Gutium) was subject to Assyria. After the fall of the Assyrian Empire, Assyria was ruled by Persia from 539 BC. Assyrians have possibly existed in north western Iran for many thousands of years.

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Atropates
Atropates (Greek Aτρoπάτης, from Old Persian 𐎠𐎬𐎼𐎱𐎠𐎬 Aturpat "protected by fire"; c. 370 BC – after 321 BC) was a Persian nobleman who served Darius III, then Alexander III of Macedon, and eventually founded an independent kingdom and dynasty that was named after him. Diodorus (18.4) refers to him as 'Atrapes', while Quintus Curtius (8.3.17) erroneously names him 'Arsaces'.
Towards the end of the Achaemenid Empire, Atropates was governor (satrap) of the Achaemenid province of Media. In the decisive Battle of Gaugamela (October 331 BCE) between Darius and Alexander, Atropates commanded the Achaemenid troops of Media, Caucasian Albania and Sacasene (part of present-day Armenia).
Following his defeat in that battle, Darius fled to the Median capital of Ecbatana, where Atropates gave him hospitality. Darius attempted to raise a new army but was forced to flee Ecbatana in June 330 BCE. After Darius' death a month later at the hands of Bessus, Atropates surrendered to Alexander. Alexander initially chose Oxydates as satrap of Media, but in 328-327 BCE after Alexander lost trust in Oxydates' loyalty, Atropates was reinstated to his old position. In 325-324, Atropates delivered Baryaxes (a sought-after rebel of the region) to Alexander while the latter was at Pasargadae. Alexander's esteem for the governor rose "so high" that soon afterwards Atropates' daughter was married to Alexander's confidant and cavalry commander Perdiccas at the famous mass wedding at Susa in February 324 BCE.

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Austria
Austria (ⁱ/ˈɒstriə/ or /ˈɔːstriə/; German: Österreich [ˈøːstɐˌʁaɪç] ( listen)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich (help·info)), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.47 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,855 square kilometres (32,377 sq mi) and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Austro-Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Burgenland Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria became one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon I as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary.

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Avraham Sela
Avraham Sela is a scholar on the Middle East and international relations, currently the A. Ephraim and Shirley Diamond Professor of International Relations and a senior research fellow at the Harry S. Truman Institute, both at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
He is the author of The Decline of the Arab Israeli Conflict: Middle East Politics and the Quest for Regional Order (1998) and co-author of The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence and Adjustment (2000).
Sela studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem gaining a BA in 1971, an MA in 1974 and a PhD in 1986.
Sela is fairly critical of the writings of the New Historians, particularly of Benny Morris and Avi Shlaim.

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Azerbaijani people
The Azerbaijanis ( /ˌæzərbaɪˈdʒɑːni/; Azerbaijani: Azərbaycanlılar, Азәрбајҹанлылар, آذربایجانلیلار ) or Azarbaijanis are Turkic-speaking people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as in the neighboring states, Georgia, Russia (Dagestan) and formerly Armenia. Also referred to as Azeris or Azaris (Azərilər, Азәриләр, آذریلر ) or Azerbaijani Turks (Azərbaycan türkləri), they also live in a wider area from the Caucasus to the Iranian plateau. The Azerbaijanis are predominantly Shi'a Muslim and have a mixed cultural heritage including Turkic, Iranic and Caucasian elements.
Following the Russo-Persian Wars of 1813 and 1828, the territories of the Qajar Persian Empire in the Caucasus were ceded to the Russian Empire and the treaties of Gulistan in 1813 and Turkmenchay in 1828 finalized the borders between Czarist Russia and Qajar Iran. The formation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 established the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Despite living on two sides of an international border, the Azeris form a single ethnic group. However, northerners and southerners differ due to nearly two centuries of separate social evolution in Iranian Azerbaijan and Russian/Soviet-influenced Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani language unifies Azerbaijanis, and is mutually intelligible with Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz and Anatolian Turkish (including the dialects spoken by the Iraqi Turkmen), all of which belong to the Oghuz, or Western, group of Turkic languages.

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Babak Khorramdin
Bābak Khorram-Din (Persian: بابک خرمدین‎, alternative spelling: Bābak Xorramdin; 795, according to some other sources 798— January 838 ) was one of the main Persian revolutionary leaders of the IranianKhorram-Dinān ("Those of the joyous religion"), which was a local freedom movement fighting the Abbasid Caliphate. Khorramdin appears to be a compound analogous to dorustdin (orthodox) and Behdin "Good Religion" (Zoroastrianism), and are considered an offshoot of neo-Mazdakism. Babak's Iranianizing rebellion, from its base in Azarbaijan in northwestern Iran, called for a return of the political glories of the Iranian past. The Khorramdin rebellion of Babak spread to the Western and Central parts of Iran and lasted more than twenty years before it was defeated. Babak's uprising showed the continuing strength in Azerbaijan of ancestral Iranian local feelings.
babak is the arabicised form of the Iranian name Pāpak. Babak means "father" in Persian.
Bābak was born into a Persian family in Āzerbāijān (northwestern Iran) close to the city of Artavilla (modern Ardabil). According to Wāqed ben Amr Tamimi, the oldest biographer on Babak, Bābak's father was a Persian from Madā'īn (formerly known as Ctesiphon, capital of Sassanian Persian Empire, 35 km south of modern Baghdad in Iraq) who left for the Āzarbāijān frontier zone and settled in the village of Balālābād in the Maymadh district. According to Fasīh, his mother - a native Persian of Āzarbāijān - was known as Māhrū (meaning Moon-Face/Belle in Persian).

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Balkars
The Balkars (Karachay-Balkar: sg. Alan or таулу - tawlu, pl. таулула - tawlula) are a Turkic people of the Caucasus region, one of the titular populations of Kabardino-Balkaria. They are possibly Bulgars or are descended from them. Their Karachay-Balkar language is of the Ponto-Caspian subgroup of the Northwestern (Kipchak) group of Turkic languages.
The origins of the Balkar people have not yet been definitively established: various hypotheses have associated them with the Huns, the Khazars, the Bulgars (most probable theory, as the name Balkar and Bulgar are nearly identical), the Alans, the Zikhs, the Brukhs, the Kipchaks and Cumans the Vengrians, the Chekhs, the Mongol Tatars, the Crimean Tatars, and Turkicized Japhetic groups. Some contemporary scholars attribute their origin to a cultural conglomeration of northern Caucasian tribes with the Iranian-speaking Alans and with Turkish-speaking tribes, among which the most significant were probably the Black Bulgars and the Western Kipchaks. Elements of Balkar culture indicate a long association with the Near East, the Mediterranean, the rest of the Caucasus, and Russia. In the pre-Mongol period (before the thirteenth century) the Balkars were part of the Alan union of tribes, but after the Mongol invasion they retreated into the canyons of the central Caucasus.

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Baloch people
The Baloch or Baluch (Balochi: بلوچ) are an ethnic group who mainly inhabit the Balochistan region in the southeast corner of the Iranian plateau in Western Asia.
The Baluch people mainly speak Baluchi, which is a branch of the Iranian languages, and more specifically of the North-western Iranian languages, that is highly influenced by that of Mesopotamia and shares similarities with Kurdish and other languages of the region. It also contains archaic features reminiscent of Old Persian and Avestan. They inhabit mountainous terrains and deserts, and maintain a very distinct cultural identity. The Baloch-speaking population worldwide is estimated to be in the range of 10 to 15 million.^{[citation needed]} However, the exact number of Baloch and those who are or claim to be of Baloch ancestry is difficult to determine. In the Punjab province of Pakistan almost 10% of peoples are Balochi.^{[citation needed]} Most of them speak Saraiki but in the Jhang area of Punjab, the majority of the Baloch population speak Punjabi also.^{[citation needed]}

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Bosniaks
The Bosniaks or Bosniacs (Bosnian: Bošnjak, pl: Bošnjaci, pronounced [bɔːˈʃɲaːtsi]) are a South Slavic ethnic group, living mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a smaller minority also present in other lands of the Balkan Peninsula especially in Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia. Bosniaks are typically characterized by their historic tie to the Bosnian historical region, traditional adherence to Islam since the 15th and 16th centuries, common culture and language. In the English-speaking world, Bosniaks are also referred to as Bosnian Muslims or simply Bosnians. Bosniak has replaced Muslim as an official ethnic term in part to avoid confusion with the religious term Muslim - an adherent of Islam. The term Bosnian is used to denote all inhabitants of Bosnia regardless of ethnic origin.
Bosniaks are a South Slavic people. Nonetheless, it has been proposed, based on genetic signatures, that their roots also date back to pre-Slavic inhabitants of the Dinaric region, effectively predating many modern European homogenous ethnic groups. There are well over two million Bosniaks living in the Balkans today, with an estimated additional million settled and living around the world.^{[citation needed]} Several instances of ethnic cleansing and genocide have had a tremendous effect on the territorial distribution of the population. Partially due to this,^{[citation needed]} a notable Bosniak diaspora exists in a number of countries, including Austria, Germany, Australia, Sweden, Turkey, Canada and the United States. Both within the region and throughout the world, Bosniaks are often noted for their unique culture, which has been influenced by both eastern and western civilizations and schools of thought over the course of their history.

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Chulyms
The Chulyms, also Chulym Tatars, (Чулымцы in Russian; self-designation: Чулымские люди, the Russian phrase for Chulymian people) are a Turkic people in the Tomsk Oblast and Krasnoyarsk Krai in Russia.
The Chulym Tatars first came to the Chulym River when they were driven from their homes in the Sibir Khanate by the forces of Ermak Timofeevich.
They used to live along the middle and lower reaches of the Chulym River (tributary of the Ob River). The Russians used to call them the Chulymian Tatars. The Chulyms appeared in the 17th - 18th century as a result of mixing of some of the Turkic groups, who had migrated to the East after the fall of the Siberia Khanate, partially Teleuts and Yenisei Kyrgyz with the small groups of Selkups and Kets. The Chulyms were not a nomadic tribe. They adopted farming and cattle breeding from the Russian peasants in that area. Most of the Chulyms' descendants blended with the Khakas and Russians.
According to the 2002 census, there were 656 Chulyms in Russia. They speak Chulym-Turkic language known as Ös and adhere to Russian Orthodoxy mixed with their original Shamanist beliefs.

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Chuvash people
The Chuvash people (Chuvash: Чăвашсем; Russian: Чуваши) are a Turkic ethnic group, native to an area stretching from the Volga Region to Siberia. Most of them live in Republic of Chuvashia and surrounding areas, although Chuvash communities may be found throughout all Russia.
There is no universally accepted etymology of the word Chuvash. However, there are two main theories that try to explain it.
According to one theory, "Chuvash" is a Shaz-Turkic adaptation of Lir-Turkic Suvar, an ethnonym of people that are widely considered to be the ancestors of modern Chuvashes. Compare Lir-Turkic Chuvash: huran to Shaz-Turkic Tatar: qazan (cauldron).
Another theory suggests that the word "Chuvash" may be derived from Common Turkic jăvaš ("friendly", "peaceful") as opposed to şarmăs ("warlike").
There are rival schools of thought on the origin of Chuvash people. One is that they originated from a mixing between the Turkic Suar and Sabir tribes of Volga Bulgaria with local Mari tribes and also the Finno-Ugrian population of the Volga Basin. Another is that the Chuvash are a remainder of the pre-Volga Bulgar population of the Volga region, merged with Scythians, Volga Bulgars and Mari.

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Crimean Karaites
The Crimean Karaites (Crimean Karaim: sg. къарай - qaray, pl. къарайлар - qaraylar; Trakai Karaim: sg. karaj, pl. karajlar, Hebrew קָרָאִים - qara'im, 'readers', tr. Karaylar), also known as Karaim and Qarays, are a community of ethnic Turkic adherents of Karaite Judaism in Eastern Europe. "Qaray" is a Romanized spelling of the original name "къарай", while "Karaim" is a Russian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and Polish name for the community. Originally centered in Crimea, Karaim were established in Lithuania and elsewhere in Europe from late medieval times.
The name "Crimean Karaites" has often been considered as something of a misnomer, as many branches of this community found their way to locations throughout Europe and the Middle East. Historians distinguish between Karaite Jews and Jews who simply left the Levant before the canonization of the Talmud and therefore had no way of being Rabbinic Jews. Whether descended from the non-Rabbinic sects of the Second Temple Period, or from Rabbinate families rebelling against Talmudic rules, these communities started in present day Iran.

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Crimean Tatars
Crimean Tatars (sg. Qırımtatar, pl. Qırımtatarlar) or Crimeans (sg. Qırım, Qırımlı, pl. Qırımlar, Qırımlılar) are a Turkic ethnic group that originally resided in Crimea. They speak the Crimean Tatar language. They are not to be confused with the Volga Tatars.
In modern times, in addition to living in Crimea, Ukraine, there is a large diaspora of Crimean Tatars in Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Western Europe, the Middle East and North America, as well as small communities in Finland, Lithuania, Russia, Belarus and Poland. (See Crimean Tatar diaspora)
Today, more than 240,000 Crimean Tatars live in Crimea and about 150,000 remain in exile in Central Asia, mainly in Uzbekistan. There is an unspecified number of people of Crimean Tatar origin living in Turkey, descendants of those who emigrated in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the Dobruja region straddling Romania and Bulgaria, there are more than 27,000 Crimean Tatars: 24,000 on the Romanian side, and 3,000 on the Bulgarian side^{[citation needed]}.

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Cuman people
The Cumans (Turkish: kuman / plural kumanlarHungarian: kun / plural kunok;Greek: Κο(υ)μάνοι, Ko(u)manoi;,,Romanian: cuman / plural cumani, Polish: Połowcy, Plauci (Kumanowie), Russian: Половцы - Polovtsi, Ukrainian: Половці, Bulgarian: Кумани, Czech: Plavci, Georgian: ყივჩაყი, ყიფჩაღი, German: Falones, Phalagi, Valvi, Valewen, Valani) were a Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman-Kipchak confederation. After the Mongol invasion (1237), they decided to seek asylum in Hungary, and subsequently to Bulgaria. Other researchers state that the Cumans were welcomed to Hungary before the Mongol invasion. Cumans had also settled in Bulgaria before the Mongol invasion.
Related to the Pecheneg, they inhabited a shifting area north of the Black Sea and along the Volga River known as Cumania; where the Cuman-Kipchaks meddled in the politics of the Caucasus and Khwarezm. They eventually settled to the west of the Black Sea, influencing the politics of Kievan Rus', Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Moldavia, Georgia and Wallachia. Cuman and Kipchak tribes joined politically to create a confederation known as the Cuman-Kipchak confederation. The Cuman language is attested in some medieval documents and is the best-known of the early Turkic languages. The Codex Cumanicus was a linguistic manual which was written to help Catholic missionaries communicate with the Cuman people.

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Demographics of Iran
Iran's population increased dramatically during the later half of the 20th century, reaching about 75 million by 2011. In recent years, however, Iran's birth rate has dropped significantly. Studies project that Iran's rate of population growth will continue to slow until it stabilizes above 100 million by 2050. In 2009, the number of households stood at 15.3 million (4.8 person/household). According to the central bank of Iran in 2012, in 22.5 per cent of Iranian families, all family members were unemployed. Families earn some 11.4 million rials (around $930) per month on the average (2012).
According to the OECD/World Bank statistics population growth in Iran from 1990 to 2008 was 17.6 million and 32 %. The literacy rate was 80% in 2007.
While nearly 100% of Iran's population is fluent in modern Persian, approximately 75-80% of Iran's peoples exclusively speak Iranian languages (the most common language known as Persian - or "Farsi" as it is known in the Persian language). The major groups in this category include Persians, Kurds, Gilakis, Mazandaranis, Lurs, and Baluchis. Turkic speakers, such as the Azeri, Turkmen, and the Qashqai peoples, comprise a substantial minority. The remainder are primarily Semitics such as Arabs and Assyrians or other Indo-Europeans such as Pashtuns and Armenians. There are also small communities of Brahui in southeastern Iran. The Georgian language is spoken only by those Iranian Georgians that live in Fereydan and Fereydunshahr. All other communities of Iranian Georgians in Iran have already lost their language.

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Dolgans
Dolgans (Russian: долганы; self-designation: долган, тыа-кихи, саха) are a Turkic-speaking people, who mostly inhabit Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. The 2002 Census counted 7,261 Dolgans. This number includes 5,517 in former Taymyr Autonomous Okrug. There are 26 Dolgans in Ukraine, four of whom speak Dolgan (2001 Ukrainian Census).
Dolgans speak Dolgan language. Some believe that it is a dialect of Yakut language. Dolgan identity emerged in the 19th – early 20th century, when some of the Evenks, Yakuts, Enets, and the so-called Tundra peasants migrated to the region away from the Lena River and Olenyok River. Originally, the Dolgans were nomadic reindeer breeders and hunters. They were eventually forced to settle and form kolkhozes during the Soviet times, engaging in reindeer breeding, hunting, fishing, dairy farming as well as market gardening.
Most Dolgans are Orthodox Christians, belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church; old shamanistic beliefs, however, survive among them.

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Eurasian Avars
The Eurasian Avars or Ancient Avars ( /ˈævɑrz/) were a Turkic people from the steppes of Central Asia, and later they became a confederation of Eurasian tribes of mixed origin. They were ruled by a khagan, who was surrounded by a tight-knit entourage of nomad warriors. Although the name Avar first appeared in the mid-fifth century, the Avars of Europe enter the historical scene in the mid-sixth century AD, when they established a pax spanning considerable areas of Central and Eastern Europe. Their state was the Avar Khaganate. The rule of their country over much of the Pannonian Plain persisted until the early 9th century.
The origin of the Eurasian Avars is unclear. Information about origins is derived primarily from the works of Byzantine historians Menander Protector and Theophylact Simocatta. John of Ephesus used the term "those, who are called "Avars," because of their long hair." The confusion is compounded by the fact that many clans carried a particular name because they believed it to be prestigious, or it was attributed to them by outsiders describing their common characteristics, believed place of origin or reputation.^{[citation needed]} Such a case has been seen repeatedly for many nomadic confederacies.

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Farah Pahlavi
Farah Pahlavi (Persian: فرح پهلوی‎, Azerbaijani: فرح پهلوی; born Farah Diba, 14 October 1938, Tehran) is the former Queen and Empress of Iran. She is the widow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, and only Empress (Shahbanou) of modern Iran. She was Queen consort of Iran from 1959 until 1967 and Empress consort from 1967 until exile in 1979.
Though the titles and distinctions of the Iranian Imperial Family were abolished within Iran by the Islamic government, she is still styled Empress or Shahbanou, out of courtesy, by the foreign media as well as by supporters of the monarchy. Some countries, such as the United States of America, Denmark, Spain and Germany, still address the former Empress as Her Imperial Majesty The Shahbanou of Iran in official documents, for example Royal wedding guest lists.
Farah Diba was born on 14 October 1938 in the Iranian capital Tehran, to an upper class family. Born as Farah Diba, she was the only child of Captain Sohrab Diba and his wife, Farideh Ghotbi. Farah Pahlavi's father's family is of Azerbaijani origin. In her memoir, the former Empress writes that her father's family were natives of Iranian Azarbaijan while her mother's family were from Gilan Province (Lahijan) on the Iranian coast of the Caspian Sea.

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Fatali Khan Khoyski
Fatali Khan Khoyski Isgender oglu (Azerbaijani: Fətəli-xan Xoyski İsgəndər oğlu) (December 7, 1875 – June 19, 1920) was an attorney, a member of the Second State Duma of the Russian Empire, Minister of Internal Affairs, Minister of Defense and, later the first Prime Minister of the independent Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.
Khoyski was born on December 7, 1875 in Shaki to the noble family of Isgender Khoyski, a colonel in the Russian Army. The distinguished ancestry of the Khoyski family goes back to the Donboli khans of Khoy, which also became the root for this family name. His great grandfather Jafargulu, the Khan of Khoy was defeated by the Iranian Fatali shah and with his 20,000 army retreated to Echmiadzin. In the 1804-1813 Russo-Persian war, Jafargulu khan sided with Russian Empire and was therefore rewarded by tsar Alexander I by being appointed the Khan of Shaki Khanate and his rank was raised to Lieutenant Colonel.
After receiving his school education at Ganja gymnasium, Fatali Khan studied at the Law Faculty of the Moscow University, from which he graduated in 1901. After the graduation, Khoyski worked as a court lawyer in Ganja, Sukhumi, Batumi, Kutaisi. Once he was appointed Assistant Prosecutor of Yekaterinodar county court, he began to be involved in socio-political activities.

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Fikret Amirov
Fikret Mashadi Jamil oghlu Amirov (Azerbaijani: Fikrət Məşədi Cəmil oğlu Əmirov; November 22, 1922, Ganja - February 20, 1984, Baku) was a prominent Azerbaijani composer of the Soviet period.
Fikret Amirov grew up in an atmosphere of Azerbaijani folk music. His father, Mashadi Jamil Amirov, was a famous mugam singer ("xanəndə") from Shusha, who composed and played tar.
During his childhood and early adolescence, Fikret began composing pieces for the piano. Upon his graduation from the Ganja Music College, Amirov entered the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire, now known as the Baku Music Academy, where he was a student of Boris Zeidman and Uzeyir Hajibeyov.
In 1941, when Nazi Germany attacked the USSR, Amirov, 19 at the time, was drafted to the Soviet army. He was wounded near Voronezh, hospitalized and demobilized from the military service, returning to Baku to continue his studies at the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire.
Amirov's music was strongly influenced by Azeri folk melodies. He created a new genre called symphonic mugam. Amirov's symphonic mugams were based on classical folk pieces and were performed by many renowned symphony orchestras throughout the world, such as the Houston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski.

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Fuzûlî
Fużūlī (or Fuduli, فضولی; Azerbaijani: Füzuli, c. 1483 – 1556) was the pen name of the Azerbaijani or the Bayat branch of Oghuz Turkish and Ottoman poet, writer and thinker Muhammad bin Suleyman (محمد بن سليمان). Often considered one of the greatest contributors to the Dîvân tradition of Azerbaijani literature, Fuzûlî in fact wrote his collected poems (dîvân) in three different languages: Azerbaijani Turkic, Persian, and Arabic. Although his Turkish works are written in the Azeri dialect of Turkish, he was well-versed in both the Ottoman and the Chagatai Turkic literary traditions as well. He was also well versed in mathematics and astronomy.
Fuzûlî is generally believed to have been born around 1483 in what is now Iraq, when the area was under Ak Koyunlu Turkmen rule; he was probably born in either Karbalā’ or an-Najaf. He is believed to belong to Bayat tribe, one of the Turkic Oghuz tribes who were related to the Ottoman Kayı clan and were scattered throughout the Middle East, Anatolia, and the Caucasus at the time^{[citation needed]}. Though Fuzûlî's ancestors had been of nomadic origin, the family had long since settled in towns.

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Gagauz people
The Gagauz people are a Turkic group living mostly in southern Moldova (Gagauzia), southwestern Ukraine (Budjak), south-eastern Romania (Dobrogea), northeastern Bulgaria, Greece, Brazil, America and Canada. Unlike most other Turkic speaking people, the Gagauz are predominantly Orthodox Christians. There is a related ethnic group also called Gagavuz (or Gajal) living in the European part of northwestern Turkey.
Today Gagauz people outside Moldova live mainly in the Ukrainian regions of Odesa and Zaporizhia, as well as in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, Romania, Brazil, Turkmenistan, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Turkey and the Russian region of Kabardino-Balkaria.
There are also nearly 20,000 descendants of Gagauzes living in the Balkan country of Bulgaria, as well as upwards of 2,000 living in the United States of America, Brazil and Canada. Most of Gagauz immigrants in the USA are Evangelical Christians, who left their homeland in Moldova as refugees. They were persecuted by the communist government of the Soviet Union. Gagauz immigrants live in Sacramento, California; Salem, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; Broken Arrow, Oklahoma; Tacoma, Washington; Charlotte, North Carolina; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and in Massachusetts. The official figures in the latter group of countries cited in this article are much lower due to the loss of Gagauz identity during the last century.

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Gamar Almaszadeh
Gamar Hajiaga qizi Almaszadeh (Azerbaijani: Qəmər Almaszadə) (10 March 1915, Baku – 7 April 2006, Baku) was an Azerbaijani ballerina and ballet instructor. She's considered the first ballerina of the Muslim world.
Gamar Almaszadeh (nicknamed Tamara) was born in Baku to a family of a shoemaker and a midwife, Hajiaga and Maryam Almaszadeh. She became interested in ballet at a very young age, when she saw her friend perform ballet moves. Persuaded by her friend she signed up for ballet lessons at a private studio (later reorganized into the Baku School of Choreography). Gamar's mother approved of her daughter's new interest but her father Hajiaga Almaszadeh, a conservative Muslim, had to be misled into believing that Gamar was attending gym in order to have him pay for her lessons. The secret was soon revealed and, as expected, Gamar's father did not come around to her choice. However he was reported to have secretly assisted at his daughter's performances later, when she became a renowned ballerina.

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Gara Garayev
Gara Abulfaz oghlu Garayev (Azerbaijani: Qara Əbülfəz oğlu Qarayev, February 5, 1918, Baku – May 13, 1982, Moscow), also spelled as Qara Qarayev or Kara [Abulfazovich] Karayev, was a prominent Azerbaijani composer of the Soviet period. Garayev wrote nearly 110 musical pieces, including ballets, operas, symphonic and chamber pieces, solos for piano, cantatas, songs and marches, and rose to prominence not only in Azerbaijan SSR but also in the rest of the Soviet Union and worldwide.
Garayev was born in the family of pediatrician, who was famous in Baku. His mother, Sona, was among the first graduates of the Baku-based school of the Russian Music Society. Garayev's younger brother, Mursal, became a surgeon, but died at an early age.
In 1926, at the age of eight, Gara Garayev first entered the junior music school at the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire, currently known as the Baku Music Academy. Due to his musical talents, in 1933 Garayev was allowed to enroll simultaneously in two faculties at the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire. Among his teachers were Georgi Sharoyev, Leonid Rudolf, and the prominent Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov. In 1937, Garayev joined the Union of Composers of Azerbaijan SSR.

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Georgians
The Georgians (Georgian: ქართველები, kartvelebi) are Caucasian ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America.
The majority of Georgians are Eastern Orthodox Christian and largely adhere to the national autocephalous Georgian Orthodox Church, which originated in the 4th century. There are also Georgian Catholic and Muslim communities in Tbilisi and Adjara.
The Georgian people went through a complex process of nation-formation and currently comprise a diverse set of geographic subgroups, each with its characteristic traditions, manners, dialect and, in the case of Mingrelians and Svans, language. The Georgian language, with its own alphabet and long written tradition going back to the 5th century, is the language of literacy and education of all Georgians living in Georgia as well as the official language of the country. Georgian, Mingrelian and Svan, together with Laz spoken by the related Laz people form the Kartvelian language family.

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Hamida Javanshir
Hamida Ahmad bey qizi Javanshir (Azerbaijani: Həmidə Cavanşir) (19 January 1873, near Agjabadi – 6 February 1955, Baku) was an Azerbaijani philanthropist and women's rights activist. Her second marriage was to writer and journalist Jalil Mammadguluzadeh.
Born on her family's ancestral estate in the village of Kahrizli, Hamida Javanshir was the eldest child of Ahmad bey Javanshir (1828–1903), an Azeri historian, translator and officer of the Russian Imperial army. She was the great-great-grandniece of Ibrahim Khalil Khan, the last ruling khan of Karabakh. Hamida and her younger brother were educated at home; when she was nine, a family of Russian tutors came to live with them to guide their education. By age 14, she was familiar with European and Islamic literature, and spoke Russian and French fluently.
In 1889 Hamida Javanshir married a Barda-native, Lieutenant Colonel Ibrahim bey Davatdarov. They settled in Brest-Litovsk (in present-day Belarus). Soon their two children, Mina and Muzaffar, were born. Javanshir took ballroom dance lessons and studied German and Polish. In 1900 the family moved to Kars, where Davatdarov was appointed commander of a military fortress. A year later he died, leaving his 28-year old wife a widow; her wish to study medicine in Moscow seemed unrealizable.

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Hossein Alizadeh
Hossein Alizadeh (Persian: حسین علیزاده‎), is an Iranian composer,radif-preserver, researcher, teacher, and tar and setar instrumentalist and improviser, described by Allmusic as a leading Iranian classical composer and musician.
He has made numerous recording with prominent musicians including Shajarian, Nazeri, Khaladj, and Gasparyan, and is a member of the Musical group, Masters of Persian Music.
Alizadeh was born in 1951 in Tehran to Azeri and Persian parents. He graduated from the music conservatory in 1975 and entered the school of fine arts in the University of Tehran where he studied composition and Persian music. He continued his education at the Berlin University of the Arts in composition and musicology. He studied with various masters of Traditional Persian Music such as Houshang Zarif, Ali Akbar Shahnazi, Nur-Ali Borumand, Mahmoud Karimi, Abdollah Davami, Yusef Forutan, and Sa'id Hormozi. From these masters he learned the radif of Persian classical music.
He plays the tar and setar, and has recently derived the sallaneh and shurangiz from the ancient Persian lute barbat.

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Hossein Reza Zadeh
Hossein Rezazadeh (Persian: حسین رضازاده‎, born May 12, 1978 in Ardabil, Iran) is an Iranian former world and double Olympic champion in Olympic weightlifting. He is also a world record holder in the clean and jerk and considered as one of the greatest weightlifters of all time.
He is nicknamed "The Iranian Hercules". He currently holds the world records in weightlifting's super heavyweight class in the clean and jerk and total. He is the first Iranian athlete to have won two Olympic gold medals. He is also one of Iran's most noted celebrities, frequently appearing on television and in the news; his wedding, which was held in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca, in February 2003 was broadcast live on state television in Iran.
In 2002 he was voted the "Champion of Champions" of Iran and was one of 16 Iranian athletes granted a badge of courage from Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. As a reward for setting a world record at the 2003 World Weightlifting Championships in Vancouver, Canada, Mohammad Khatami awarded him 600 million rials (a little more than US$60,000) to buy a house in Tehran. After his spectacular performance, he was offered by Turkey’s Weightlifting Federation a stipend of US$20,000 a month, as well as a luxury villa and US$10 million reward if he switched nationalities and won gold for Turkey at the 2004 Athens Olympics, but he turned down their offers. Rezazadeh rejected the tempting offer saying, "I am an Iranian and love my country and people."

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Hugh N. Kennedy
Hugh N. Kennedy MA, PhD (Cantab.) is Professor of Arabic in the Faculty of Languages and Cultures at School of Oriental and African Studies, London. He was formerly a professor of history at University of St Andrews, a position he had held since 1972. Among his research topics is the History of the Islamic Middle East, Islamic Archaeology and Muslim Spain.

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Huns
The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns, considerable scholarly effort has been devoted to investigating such a connection. However, there is no scholarly consensus on a direct connection between the dominant element of the Xiongnu and that of the Huns.Priscus mentions that the Huns had a language of their own; little of it has survived and its relationships have been the subject of debate for centuries. Most authorities suppose that it may have been a member of the Oghuric branch of the Turkic language family, with the languages Bulgar, Khazar, Turkic Avar and Chuvash. Numerous other languages were spoken within the Hun pax including East Germanic, which was widely used as a lingua franca in the Hunnic territories. Their main military technique was mounted archery.

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Imadaddin Nasimi
‘Alī ‘Imādu d-Dīn Nasīmī (Azerbaijani: Seyid Əli İmadəddin Nəsimi عمادالدین نسیمی, Arabic: عمادالدین نسیمی‎), often known as Nesimi, (1369 Unknown) –1417 skinned alive in Aleppo) was a 14th-century Azerbaijani^{[citation needed]} or Turkmen Ḥurūfī poet. Known mostly by his pen name (or takhallus) of Nesîmî, he composed one divan in Azerbaijani, one in Persian, and a number of poems in Arabic. He is considered one of the greatest Turkic mystical poets of the late 14th and early 15th centuries and one of the most prominent early divan masters in Turkic literary history.
Very little is known for certain about Nesîmî's life, including his real name. Most sources indicate that his name was İmâdüddîn, but it is also claimed that his name may have been Alî or Ömer. It is also possible that he was descended from Muhammad, since he has sometimes been accorded the title of sayyid that is reserved for people claimed to be in Muhammad's line of descent.
Nesîmî's birthplace, like his real name, is wrapped in mystery: some claim that he was born in a province called Nesîm — hence the pen name — located either near Aleppo in modern-day Syria, or near Baghdad in modern-day Iraq, but no such province has been found to exist. There are also claims that he was born in Shamakhi-which is mostly likely because his brother is buried in Shamakhi, Azerbaijan.

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Ingush people
The Ingush (Ingush: ГIалгIай Ghalghai, pronounced [ˈʁalʁaɪ]) are a native ethnic group of the North Caucasus, mostly inhabiting the Russian republic of Ingushetia. They refer to themselves as Ghalghai (галгай). The Ingush are predominantly Sunni Muslims and speak the Ingush language. Despite popular misconceptions, Ingush is not mutually intelligible^{[dubious – discuss]} with Chechen, though they are closely related. The Ingush and Chechen peoples are collectively known as the Vainakh.
The Ingush are predominantly Shāfi‘ī Madh'hab of Sunni Islam and there is some Sufi minority present.
"The Caucasus populations exhibit, on average, less variability than other populations for the eight Alu insertion poly-morphisms analysed here. The average heterozygosity is less than that for any other region of the world, with the exception of Sahul. Within the Caucasus, Ingushians have much lower levels of variability than any of the other populations. The Ingushians also showed unusual patterns of mtDNA variation when compared with other Caucasus populations (Nasidze and Stoneking, submitted), which indicates that some feature of the Ingushian population history, or of this particular sample of Ingushians, must be responsible for their different patterns of genetic variation at both mtDNA and the Alu insertion loci."

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Iranian Armenians
Iranian-Armenians (Armenian: Իրանահայ Iranahye), sometimes called Persian-Armenians (Պարսկահայ Parskahye), are Iranian citizens of Armenian or both Iranian and Armenian origin. Their number is about 3,000,000. They mostly live in Tehran and Jolfa district, Isfahan. The Iranian-Armenians were very influential and active in the modernization of Iran during the 19th and 20th centuries. After the Iranian Revolution, many Armenians immigrated to Armenian diasporic communities in North America and Western Europe.Today the Armenians are Iran's largest Christian religious minority. Despite their cultural Armenian identity in Iran, no sizeable numbers of Iranian-Armenians hold Armenian citizenship.
Since Antiquity there has always been much interaction between Ancient Armenia and Persia (Iran).
On the Behistun inscription of 515 BC, Darius the Great indirectly confirmed that Urartu and Armenia are synonymous when describing his conquests. Armenia became a satrap of the Persian Empire for a long period of time. Regardless, relations between Armenians and Persians were cordial.

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Iranian languages
The Iranian languages (also called Iranic languages) form a subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages which in turn are a subgroup of the Indo-European language family. The speakers of Iranian languages are known as Iranian peoples.
The Iranian languages are considered in three stages of Old (until 400 BCE), Middle (400 BCE – 900 CE), and New (since 900 CE). From the Old Iranian languages the better understood and recorded ones are Old Persian (a language of Achaemenid Iran) and Avestan (the language of Zarathushtra). Middle Iranian languages included Middle Persian (a language of Sassanid Iran) and Parthian (a language of Arsacid Iran). There are many Iranian languages, the largest amongst them are Persian, Pashto, Kurdish, and Balochi.
Today, there are an estimated 150–200 million native speakers of Iranian languages. The Ethnologue lists 87 Iranian languages.Persian has about 65 million native speakers, Pashto about 50 million, Kurdish about 18 million, Balochi about 7 million, and Lurish about 2.3 million.

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Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples (Iranic peoples) are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group that comprise the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of the Indo-European-speaking peoples. Their historical areas of settlement were on the Iranian plateau, and comprised most of Iran and certain areas of Central Asia such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and most of Afghanistan, some parts of western Pakistan, northern Iraq and eastern Turkey, and scattered parts of the Caucasus Mountains. Their current distribution spreads across the Iranian plateau, and stretches from Pakistan's Indus River in the east to eastern Turkey in the west, and from Central Asia and the Caucasus in the north to the Persian Gulf in the south – a region that is sometimes called the Iranian cultural continent, or Greater Persia by scholars, and represents the extent of the Iranian languages and influence of the Persian People, through the geopolitical reach of the Persian empire.

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Iraqi Turkmen
The Iraqi Turkmens (also spelled Turcomans, Turkomens, and Iraqi Turkmans), Iraqi Turks, or Turks of Iraq (Turkish: Irak Türkmenleri/Irak Türkleri) are the third largest ethnic group in Iraq who are the ethnic kin of the Turks. They mainly reside in northern Iraq and share close cultural and linguistic ties with Turkey.
The Iraqi Turkmen are the descendants of various waves of Turkic migration to Mesopotamia dating from the 7th century until Ottoman rule. The first wave of migration dates back to the 7th century when some 1,000 Turkmen soldiers were recruited in the Muslim armies of Ubayd-Allah ibn Ziyad; however, most of today's descendants of these first migrants have been assimilated into the local Arab population. The second wave of migrants were the Turks of the Great Seljuq Empire; finally, the third wave, and largest number of Turkmen migrants into Iraq arose during the Ottoman Empire. With the conquest of Iraq by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1534, followed by Sultan Murad IV's capture of Baghdad in 1638, a large influx of Turks settled down in the region. Thus, most of today's Iraqi Turkmen are the descendants of the Ottoman soldiers, traders and civil servants who were brought into Iraq during the rule of the Ottoman Empire.

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Iraqi Turkmens
The Iraqi Turkmens (also spelled Turcomans, Turkomens, and Iraqi Turkmans), Iraqi Turks, or Turks of Iraq (Turkish: Irak Türkmenleri/Irak Türkleri) are the third largest ethnic group in Iraq who are the ethnic kin of the Turks. They mainly reside in northern Iraq and share close cultural and linguistic ties with Turkey.
The Iraqi Turkmen are the descendants of various waves of Turkic migration to Mesopotamia dating from the 7th century until Ottoman rule. The first wave of migration dates back to the 7th century when some 1,000 Turkmen soldiers were recruited in the Muslim armies of Ubayd-Allah ibn Ziyad; however, most of today's descendants of these first migrants have been assimilated into the local Arab population. The second wave of migrants were the Turks of the Great Seljuq Empire; finally, the third wave, and largest number of Turkmen migrants into Iraq arose during the Ottoman Empire. With the conquest of Iraq by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1534, followed by Sultan Murad IV's capture of Baghdad in 1638, a large influx of Turks settled down in the region. Thus, most of today's Iraqi Turkmen are the descendants of the Ottoman soldiers, traders and civil servants who were brought into Iraq during the rule of the Ottoman Empire.

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Ismail I
Ismail I (July 17, 1487 – May 23, 1524), known in Persian as Shāh Ismāʿil (Persian: شاه اسماعیل‎; full name: Abū l-Muzaffar bin Haydar as-Safavī), was a Shah of Azerbaijan (1501), Shah of Iran (1502) and the founder of the Safavid dynasty which survived until 1736. Isma'il started his campaign in Azerbaijan in 1500 as the leader of the Safaviyya, an Twelver Shia militant religious order and unified all of Iran by 1509. Born in Ardabil in Northwestern Iran, he reigned as Shah Ismail I of Iran from 1502 to 1524.
Ismail played a key role in the rise of Twelver Islam; he converted Iran from Sunni and Ismaili Shi'i Islam, importing religious authorities from the Levant. In Alevism, Shah Ismail remains revered as a spiritual guide.
Ismail was also a prolific poet who, under the pen name Khatā'ī ("Sinner") contributed greatly to the literary development of the Azerbaijani language.
Ismail was born to Martha and Shaykh Haydar on July 17, 1487 in Ardabil. His father, Haydar, was the sheikh of the Safaviyya Sufi order and a direct descendant of its founder, Safi-ad-din Ardabili (1252–1334). Ismail was the last in line of hereditary Grand Masters of the Safaviyah Sufi order, prior to his ascent to a ruling dynasty. As a boy only a year old, he lost his father, the leader of a growing Qizilbash Shi'i community in Azerbaijan, who died in battle. His mother, Martha, was the daughter of Uzun Hasan by his Pontic Greek wife Theodora, better known as Despina Khatun. Theodora was the daughter of Emperor John IV of Trebizond. (She had married Uzun Hassan in a deal to protect Trebizond from the Ottomans.) Ismail grew up bilingual, speaking Persian and Azeri.

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Javanshir
Javanshir (Persian: جوان شیر‎), in old Albanian Our Lion^{[citation needed]}, in Persian young lion, was the prince of Caucasian Albania from 643 to 681, hailing from the region of Gardman. His deeds are the subject of legends and epic. He was either of Parthian or Persian origin, as the Mihranid family claimed descent from the Sassanid Persians.
He came of the Mihranid dynasty (591–821) founded by his father, Varaz-Grigor, who was the first Girdmanian prince to become the ruler of Caucasian Albania. Some time between 629 and 638, Caucasian Albania passed from Roman to Iranian allegiance, and Varaz-Grigor was replaced by his son Javanshir. Javanshir succeeded him in 635, and fought against the Arab invasion of caliph Uthman on the side of the Sasanid Iran. In 637, he led an Albanian army, which alongside the Armenian prince Mushek Mamikonean and Grigor of Syunik, took part in the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah between the Persian and Arab armies. After the Sassanid defeat in 642, Javanshir concluded an alliance with the Byzantine empire. Facing the threat of the Arab invasion on the south and the Khazar offensive on the north, Javanshir had to recognize the Caliph’s suzerainty, a move, which would prove to be a turning point in the country’s history.

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Joseph Deniker
Joseph Deniker (March 6, 1852, Astrakhan – March 18, 1918, Paris) was a Russian-born French naturalist and anthropologist, known primarily for his attempts to develop highly-detailed maps of race in Europe.
Deniker was born in 1852 to French parents in Astrakhan, Russia. He first studied at the university and technical institute of St. Petersburg, where he adopted engineering as a profession, and in this capacity traveled extensively in the petroleum districts of the Caucasus, in Central Europe, Italy and Dalmatia. Settling at Paris, France in 1876, he studied at the Sorbonne, where he received a doctorate in natural science in 1886. In 1888 he was appointed chief librarian of the Natural History Museum in Paris.
Deniker became one of the chief editors of the Dictionnaire de geographie universelle, and published many papers in the anthropological and zoological journals of France. In 1904 he was invited by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain to give the Huxley Memorial Lecture. He died in Paris in 1918.

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Kabards
Kabarda or Kabard (Adyghe: Къэбэртайхэр-адыгэ or Qăbărtajxăr-adǝgă; Arabic: القبرطاي أو القبردي‎); are terms referring to a people of the northern Caucasus more commonly known by the plural term Kabardin (or Kebertei as they term themselves). Originally they (with the Besleney (Arabic: البسلني‎) tribe comprised the semi-nomadic eastern branch of what was once the Adyghe tribal fellowship. The Kabardin still consider themselves as a tribe of Adyghe. They speak Kabardian, a North West Caucasian language that represents the easternmost extension of the Circassian language group.
There is an approach among the Adyghe in Circassia from different tribes to use only the Name Circassians (Adyghe) in Census 2010 in Russia; to reflect and revive the unity of the Adyghe Nation (Adyghes in Republic of Adyghea, Kabardians in Kabardino-Balkaria, Cherkess (Adyghe: Шэрджэс or Šărdžăs) in Karachay–Cherkessia, and the Shapsugs in the southern part of Krasnodar Krai, plus small Adyghe groups in Stavropol Krai and North Ossetia. This approach is widely supported in the Caucasus and among the Circassians in Diaspora.^{[citation needed]}

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Kara Koyunlu
The Kara Koyunlu or Qara Qoyunlu, also called the Black Sheep Turkomans (Persian/Azeri: قرا قویونلو), were a Shi'ite Oghuz Turkic tribal federation that ruled over the territory comprising the present-day Armenia (1406), Azerbaijan, north-western Iran, eastern Turkey and Iraq from about 1375 to 1468.
The Kara Koyunlu Turkomans at one point established their capital in Herat in eastern Persia, and were vassals of the Jalayirid dynasty in Baghdad and Tabriz from about 1375, when the leader of their leading tribe, ruled over Mosul. However, they rebelled against the Jalayirids, and secured their independence from the dynasty with the conquest of Tabriz by Qara Yusuf. In 1400, the armies of Tamerlane defeated the Kara Koyunlu, and Qara Yusuf fled to Egypt seeking refuge with the Mamluks. He gathered an army and by 1406 had taken back Tabriz. In 1410, the Kara Koyunlu captured Baghdad. The installation of a subsidiary Black Sheep Turkomans line there hastened the downfall of the Jalayirids whom they had once served. Despite internal fighting amongst Kara Yusuf's descendants after his death in 1420, and the increasing threat of the Timurids, the Black Sheep Turkomans maintained a strong grip over the areas they controlled.

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Karachays
The Karachays are Turkic speaking people of the North Caucasus, mostly situated in the Russian Karachay–Cherkess Republic.
The Karachays (Къарачайлыла, Qaraçaylıla) are a Turkic speaking people descending from the Alans and native Caucasians; their Turkic language is the same as the Kumyks from Daghestan. The Kipchaks and Cumans came to the area of the Caucasus in 11th century A.D, the state of Alania established in the Middle Ages had its capital in Maghas, which some authors locate in Arkhyz, the mountains currently inhabited by the Karachay (others place it in modern Ingushetia or North Ossetia). In the 14th century, Alania was destroyed by Timur and the decimated population dispersed in the mountains. Timur's intervention to the North Caucasus introduced the local nations to Islam; the name "Karachay" means "Black River".
In 1828 the Russian army invaded the area of the Karachay. On October 20, 1828 was the Battle of Hasaukinskoe, the bloodiest of these battles in which the king's troops (which were under the personal command of General Emanuel), equipped with artillery, managed to win. Emanuel's troops lost and injured 163 people, which exceeded the loss of the Russians in the battle with the 30 thousandth shell-Batal Pasha. Karachaevskij elders had taken steps to prevent the massacres of their villages. The day after the battle, when troops are already Emanuel approached to-Dzhurtu, they went to meet the delegation of elders. As a result of negotiations, an agreement was reached on the inclusion of Karachi in the Russian Empire. After the annexation the internal self-government of Karachi had been left intact: the officials and courts. Proceedings of the neighboring Muslim peoples continued to take place on folk customs and Sharia law. In Karachay even assigned arms, but were taken from Karachai Amanat pledge their loyalty oath.

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Karakalpaks
The Karakalpaks (also Qaraqalpaqs) are a Turkic speaking people. They mainly live in the lower reaches of the Amu Darya and in the (former) delta of Amu Darya on the southern shore of the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan. The name "Karakalpak" comes from two words: "qara" meaning black, and "qalpaq" meaning hat. The Karakalpaks probably number about 650,000 worldwide, out of which about 500,000 live in the Republic of Karakalpakstan. Karakalpaks are not to be confused with Karapapaks.
The Karakalpak population is mainly confined to the central part of Karakalpakstan that is irrigated by the Amu Darya. The largest communities live in Nukus, the capital of Karakalpakstan, and the surrounding large towns, such as Khodzheli, Shimbay, Takhtaitash, and Kungrad. Rural Karakalpaks mainly live on former collective or state farms, most of which have been recently privatised. Many rural Karakalpaks have been seriously affected by the desiccation of the Aral Sea, which has destroyed the local fishing industry along with much of the grazing and agricultural land in the north of the delta. Karakalpaks have nowhere to go. The majority of Karakalpakstan is occupied by desert - the Kyzyl Kum on the eastern side, the barren Ustyurt plateau to the west, and now the growing Aral Kum to the north, once the bed of the former Aral Sea.

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Karapapak
The Karapapak (Qarapapaq, Terekeme, Tərəkəmə) (meaning Black Hat) are a small ethnic group of Turkic-speaking people who mainly live in Azerbaijan, in Georgia, in the northeast of Turkey near the border with Georgia and Armenia, primarily in the provinces of Ardahan (around Lake Çıldır), Kars and Iğdır, and in Iran. The exact number for the Karapapak population worldwide is unknown but is likely to be in the hundred thousands. Karapapaks are not to be confused with Karakalpaks.
Sometimes referred to as Terekeme or Tarakama (a derivation from the words "Turcoman" or "Turkmen", meaning Oghuz Turks), Karapapaks are often identified as a sub-ethnic group of Azerbaijanis, even though in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary they are sometimes listed as a separate ethnic group. Theories of Karapapaks descending from Kumyks (a Turkic-speaking ethnic group in Dagestan) have also been brought forward by scholars like Fahrettin Kırzıoğlu and Zeki Velidi Togan. The Terekeme originally populated territories in what is now southern Georgia, northwestern Armenia, southern Dagestan, and central and northwestern Azerbaijan, but almost entirely migrated to the Ottoman Empire and Persia upon Russia's conquest of the South Caucasus between 1813 and 1828. Here they were given the name Karapapakh ("black hat") by the Anatolians reflecting the element of the Terekeme ethnic outfit that distinguished them from the local population.

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Karim Khan
Karim Khan Zand, (Persian: کریم خان زند‎), (c. 1705- 1779), was a ruler of Iran, and the founder of the Zand Dynasty.
He was born in Village of Pari near Malayer to a family of the Zand tribe of Lak or Lur deportees. Kurdish nationalists such as Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou considered him as a Kurdish hero Modern scholarships such as Wadie Jwaideh suggested his proud Kurdishness.
He never styled himself as "shah" or king, and instead used the title Vakil e-Ra'aayaa (Representative of the People).^{[citation needed]}
Karim Khan Zand was one of the generals of Nader Shah Afshar. After Nader Shah's death in 1747, Persia fell into a state of civil war. At that time, Karim Khan, Abolfath Khan and Ali Mardan Khan reached an agreement to divide the country among themselves and give the throne to Ismail III. However, the cooperation ended after Ali Mardan Khan invaded Isfahan and killed Abdolfath Khan. Subsequently, Karim Khan killed Ali Mardan Khan and gained control over all of Iran except Khorasan, ruled by Shahrokh, grandson of Nader Shah. Nevertheless, he did not adopt the title of Shah for himself, preferring the title, Vakil e-Ra'aayaa (Advocate of the People = People's President)

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Kazakhs
The Kazakhs (also spelled Kazaks, Qazaqs; Kazakh: Қазақтар [qɑzɑqtɑ́r]; the English name is transliterated from Russian) are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia (largely Kazakhstan, but also found in parts of Uzbekistan, China, Russia, and Mongolia).
Kazakhs are descendants of the Turkic tribes - Argyns, Khazars, Qarluqs; and of the Kipchaks and Cumans (the Kipchaks and Cumans being one of their major ancestors) Proto-Tatar groups (Kiyat, Dughlat, Naimans, Kerait, Onggirat, Manghud, Jalayir) and other Proto Turkic tribes such as the Kankalis, origin and Iranian tribes like the Sarmatians, Saka and Scythians. Kazakhs populated the territory between Siberia and the Black Sea and remained in Central Asia when the Turkic and Turko-Tatar groups started to invade and conquer the area between the 5th and 13th centuries AD.
The Kazakhs began using this name during either the 15th or 16th centuries. There are many theories on the origin of the word Kazakh or Qazaq. Some speculate that it comes from the Turkish verb qaz (to wander), because the Kazakhs were wandering steppemen; or that it derives from the prototurk word khasaq (a wheeled cart used by the Kazakhs to transport their yurts and belongings).

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Kerim Kerimov
Lieutenant-General Kerim Aliyevich Kerimov (Azerbaijani: Kərim Əli oğlu Kərimov, Russian: Керим Алиевич Керимов; 1917–2003) was an Azerbaijani-Soviet/Russian aerospace engineer and a renowned rocket scientist, one of the founders of the Soviet space industry, and for many years a central figure in the Soviet space program. Despite his prominent role, his identity was kept a secret from the public for most of his career. He was one of the lead architects behind the string of Soviet successes that stunned the world from the late 1950s – from the launch of the first satellite, the Sputnik 1 in 1957, and the first human spaceflight, Yuri Gagarin's 108-minute trip around the globe aboard the Vostok 1 in 1961, to the first fully automated space docking, of Cosmos 186 and Cosmos 188 in 1967, and the first space stations, the Salyut and Mir series from 1971 to 1991.
Kerimov was the son of Әli Mәhәrrәm Nağı oğlu Kәrimov and Fernanda Lüsi qızları Naxçıvanski Kәrimova.
Kerim Kerimov was born on November 14, 1917 in a family of an engineer-technologist in Baku, Azerbaijan (then part of the Russian Empire). After graduation from the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute in 1942, Kerimov continued his education at Dzerzhinsky Artillery Academy, where he committed himself to design and development of rocket systems.

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Khaghani
Khāqāni or Khāghāni (1121/1122, Shamakhi – 1190, Tabriz) (Persian: خاقانی‎) was a Persian poet. He was born in the historical region known as Shirvan (located now in present country of Azerbaijan), under the Shirvanshah (a vassal of the Seljuq empire) and died in Tabriz, Iran.
Khaqani (real name, Afzaladdin Badil (Ibrahim) ibn Ali Nadjar) was born into the family of a carpenter in Melgem, a village near Shamakhy. Khaqani lost his father at an early age and was brought up by his uncle, Kafi-eddin Umar Shervani, a doctor and astronomer at the Shirvanshah’s court, who for seven years (until his death) acted "both as nurse and tutor" to Khaghani. Khaqani's mother, originally of Nestorian faith, later accepted Islam. The poet himself had a remarkable knowledge of Christianity, and his poetry is profused with Christian imagery and symbols. He was also taught by his cousin (son of Kafi-eddin Umar) in philosophy. His master in poetry was the famous Abul-Ala Ganjavi who introduced him to the court of Khaqan Manuchehr Shirvanshah and Khaqani got his title from this king. He also married daughter of Abul-Ala.

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Khakas people
The Khakas, or Khakass (Khakas: Тадарлар), are a Turkic-speaking people, who live in Russia, in the republic of Khakassia in southern Siberia. They speak the Khakas language.
The origin of the Khakas people is disputed. Some scholars see them as descendants of the Yenisei Kirghiz, while others believe that, at the behest of the medieval Mongol Khans, the Yenisei Kirghiz migrated to Central Asia.
In the 17th century, the Khakas formed Khakassia in the middle of the lands of Yenisei Kirghiz, who at the time were vassals of a Mongolian ruler. The Russians arrived shortly after the Kirghiz left, and an inflow of Russian agragian settlers began. In the 1820s, gold mines started to be developed around Minusinsk, which became a regional industrial center.
During the 19th century, many Khakas accepted the Russian ways of life, and most were converted en masse to Russian Orthodox Christianity under threat of death by Russian soldiers. Shamanism with Buddhist influences, however, is still common, and many Christians practice Shamanism with Christianity. In Imperial Russia, the Khakas used to be known under other names, used mostly in historic contexts: Minusinsk Tatars (Russian: минуси́нские тата́ры), Abakan Tatars (абака́нские тата́ры), and Yenisei Turks.

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Khalaj people
The Khalaj people are a Turkic people that speak the Khalaj language, which is thought to be one of the closest languages to Old Turkic.

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Khaqani
Khāqāni or Khāghāni (1121/1122, Shamakhi – 1190, Tabriz) (Persian: خاقانی‎) was a Persian poet. He was born in the historical region known as Shirvan (located now in present country of Azerbaijan), under the Shirvanshah (a vassal of the Seljuq empire) and died in Tabriz, Iran.
Khaqani (real name, Afzaladdin Badil (Ibrahim) ibn Ali Nadjar) was born into the family of a carpenter in Melgem, a village near Shamakhy. Khaqani lost his father at an early age and was brought up by his uncle, Kafi-eddin Umar Shervani, a doctor and astronomer at the Shirvanshah’s court, who for seven years (until his death) acted "both as nurse and tutor" to Khaghani. Khaqani's mother, originally of Nestorian faith, later accepted Islam. The poet himself had a remarkable knowledge of Christianity, and his poetry is profused with Christian imagery and symbols. He was also taught by his cousin (son of Kafi-eddin Umar) in philosophy. His master in poetry was the famous Abul-Ala Ganjavi who introduced him to the court of Khaqan Manuchehr Shirvanshah and Khaqani got his title from this king. He also married daughter of Abul-Ala.

wn.com/Khaqani
Khazars
The Khazars were semi-nomadic Turkic people who established one of the largest polities of medieval Eurasia, with the capital of Atil and territory comprising much of modern-day European Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the northern Caucasus (Circassia, Dagestan), parts of Georgia, the Crimea, and northeastern Turkey.
A successor state of the Western Turks, Khazaria was a polyethnic-multifaith state with a population of Turkic, Uralic, Slavic, and Palaeo-Caucasian peoples. Khazaria was the first feudal state to be established in Eastern Europe. During the 9th and 10th centuries, Khazaria was one of the major arteries of commerce between northern Europe and southwestern Asia, as well as a connection to the Silk Road. The name "Khazar" is found in numerous languages and seems to be tied to a Turkic verb form meaning "wandering" (Modern Turkish: Gezer).Pax Khazarica is a term used by historians to refer to the period during which the Khazaria dominated the Pontic steppe and the Caucasus Mountains.

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Kimek tribe
The Kimek or Kimak (Yemek, Yamak, Djamuk) were one of the Turkic tribes known from Arab and Persian medieval geographers as one of the seven tribes in the Kimek Khanate in the period of 743-1050 AD. The other six constituent tribes, according to Abu Said Gardizi (d. 1061), were the Yamak, Kipchaks, Tatars, Bayandur, Lanikaz, and Ajlad.
The name Kimek arose from the union of the twin tribes Imi and Imek, named after the river Imi in the valley of the Argun ("Silver") river, a tributary of the Amur. Marquart suggested a Turkic etymology as Kimäk Iki Imäk (Two Imeks). No separate tribe was self-described as "Kimek", they were always mentioned as a pair. Medieval Chinese geographers did not know the ethnonym Kimaks, always referring to them as Yueban.
From 155 to 166 AD the Xianbei organized a state, and took over the lands of the Xiongnu empire. After that, the Dingling, the future Kipchaks, were pushed into the Sayan Mountains. The strongest tribes of the Xiongnu confederacy, known by the Chines as "Strong Huns", moved westward. With new Tocharian, Iranian, Ugrian and Caucasian allies they eventually reached Europe as the Huns, where they dominated the Alans and the Goths.

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Kipchak people
Kipchaks (also spelled as Kypchaks, Kipczaks, Qipchaqs, Qypchaqs, Kıpçaklar) (Turkic: Kıpçak, Georgian: ყივჩაყი, ყიფჩაღი), Crimean Tatar: Qıpçaq, Karachay-Balkar: Къыпчакъ, Uzbek: Qipchoq, Қипчоқ, Kazakh: Қыпшақ, Kumyk: Къыпчакъ, Kyrgyz: Кыпчак, Nogai: Кыпчак, Chinese: 欽察/钦察, Qīnchá, were a Turkic tribal confederation. Originating in the Kimek Khanate, they conquered large parts of the Eurasian steppe during the Turkic expansion of the 11th to 12th centuries together with the Cumans, and were in turn conquered by the Mongol invasions of the early 13th century. Many researchers also believe that Kipchaks were blond and blue-eyed, descended from the Dingling, who lived in the steppes of Southern Siberia in the end of the 1st millennium BC, and who were, according to the Chinese chroniclers, blonds.
Under Mongol rule, the Kipchak Khanate (Golden Horde) ruled much of Eastern Europe for another 150 years before disintegrating due to internal quarrels, its last remnants as the Tatar Crimean Khanate surviving into the 18th century before being absorbed into the Russian Empire.

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Kist people
The Kists (Georgian: ქისტები) are a Nakh-speaking ethnic group in Georgia related to the Chechen and Ingush peoples. They primarily live in the Pankisi Gorge, in the eastern Georgian region of Kakheti, where their total number is approximate to 5,000 people.
The Kist people's origins can be traced back to their ancestral land in lower Chechnya. In the 1830s and 1870s they have migrated to the eastern Georgian Pankisi Gorge and some adjoining lands of the provinces of Tusheti and Kakheti. Named "Kists" (ქისტები) in Georgian, they are closely related culturally, linguistically and ethnically to other Nakh-speaking peoples such as Ingushs and Chechens, but their customs and traditions share many similarities also with the eastern Georgian mountaineers.
Around the same region of Georgia, there is also a related but still different community of Northeast Caucasian origin called Bats.
Currently there are six Kist villages in Pankisi: Duisi, Dzibakhevi, Jokolo, Shua Khalatsani, Omalo (different from the village of Omalo in Tusheti), and Birkiani. The Kist community remains quite small and are scattered across northeast Georgia, but in the past decade the number of residents in the Pankisi area has at least doubled due to an influx of refugees from the neighboring Chechnya.

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Kumyks
Kumyks (Kumyk: къумукълар, qumuqlar, Russian: кумыки) are a Turkic people living in the Kumyk plateau in north Dagestan and south Terek, and the lands bordering the Caspian Sea. They comprise 14% of the population of the Russian republic of Dagestan. They speak the Kumyk language. Kumyks practice folk Islam, with some religious rituals that trace back to pre-Islamic times.
Various explorers^[who?] see in them descendants of the Khazars. Ármin Vámbéry (Hungarian) supposes that they settled in their present quarters during the flourishing period of the Khazar kingdom in the 8th century.
During the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries CE the Kumyks had an independent kingdom, based at Tarki, and ruled by a leader called Shamkhal.
The Russians built forts in their territory in 1559 and under Peter I. The upper terraces of the Kumyk plateau, which the Kumyks occupy, leaving its lower parts to the Nogais, are very fertile.
In recent years Kumyk nationalists such as Salau Aliev have agitated for Kumyk dominance within Daghestan, citing Khazar history as their inspiration. This is part of a wider trend in Dagestan of the non-dominant but still major groups (such as Kumyks, Lezgins, Laks, etc.) producing ideological backlashes to the near-institutionalized dominance of Avars, Dargins and Russians in Dagestan (together, Avars, Dargins and Russians form a weak majority of the population, but their dominance is widely resented by others).

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Kurdish people
The Kurdish people, or Kurds (Kurdish: کورد Kurd), are an Iranic people native to the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. They speak the Kurdish language, which is a member of the Iranian branch of Indo-European languages. The Kurds number about 30 million, the majority living in the Middle East, with significant Kurdish diaspora communities in the cities of western Turkey, in Armenia, Georgia, Israel, Azerbaijan, Russia, Lebanon and, in recent decades, some European countries and the United States. The Kurds are an indigenous ethnic minority in countries where the Kurdistan region is located, although they have enjoyed partial autonomy in Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991. An irredentist movement pushes for the creation of a Kurdish nation state.
The exact origins of the name, "Kurd", are unclear. Reynolds believes that the term Kurd is most likely related to the ancient term Qardu. The common root of Kurd and Qardu is first mentioned in a Sumerian tablet from the third millennium B.C. as the "land of Kar-da." Qardu is etymologically related to the Assyrian term Urartu corresponding to Ararat. According to Asatrian, the most reasonable explanation of this ethnonym is its possible connections with the Cyrtii (Cyrtaei)

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Kurds
The Kurdish people, or Kurds (Kurdish: کورد Kurd), are an Iranic people native to the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. They speak the Kurdish language, which is a member of the Iranian branch of Indo-European languages. The Kurds number about 30 million, the majority living in the Middle East, with significant Kurdish diaspora communities in the cities of western Turkey, in Armenia, Georgia, Israel, Azerbaijan, Russia, Lebanon and, in recent decades, some European countries and the United States. The Kurds are an indigenous ethnic minority in countries where the Kurdistan region is located, although they have enjoyed partial autonomy in Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991. An irredentist movement pushes for the creation of a Kurdish nation state.
The exact origins of the name, "Kurd", are unclear. Reynolds believes that the term Kurd is most likely related to the ancient term Qardu. The common root of Kurd and Qardu is first mentioned in a Sumerian tablet from the third millennium B.C. as the "land of Kar-da." Qardu is etymologically related to the Assyrian term Urartu corresponding to Ararat. According to Asatrian, the most reasonable explanation of this ethnonym is its possible connections with the Cyrtii (Cyrtaei)

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Kyrgyz people
The Kyrgyz (also spelled Kirgiz, Kirghiz) are a Turkic people living primarily in Kyrgyzstan.
There are several etymological theories on the ethnonym "Kyrgyz."
The word "Kyrgyz" is derived from the Turkic word "forty", with -Iz being an old plural suffix, referring to a collection of forty tribes.

wn.com/Kyrgyz_people
Leyla Mammadbeyova
Leyla Alasgar qizi Mammadbeyova, née Zeynalova (Azeri: Leyla Məmmədbəyova; 1909, Baku – 1989, Baku), was the first Azerbaijani female aviator. She was also the first female pilot in Caucasus, Southern Europe and the Middle East.
Mammadbeyova's father Alasgar Zeynalov was the cousin of one of Azerbaijan's pioneer film actors Huseyn Arablinski. Her family was arts-oriented, so as a teenager, the future aviator could play the piano and the tar. At age 14, she married former landowner Bahram Mammadbeyov of Kurdakhany, who would go on to become chief of the Professional Unions Bank in Baku.
Mammadbeyova was trained as a professional aviator at the Baku Airclub and performed her first flight in 1931. She continued her education at an aviators school in Moscow in 1932. On 17 March 1933, Mammadbeyova became the second parachutist woman in the Soviet Union (after Nina Kamneva) having jumped off the Polikarpov Po-2 plane at Moscow's Tushino Airfield. In 1934 she won the parachute jump competition held among representatives of the South Caucasus nations. By 1941 she was Squadron Leader of the Soviet Army.

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List of Azerbaijanis
Azerbaijanis or Azeris (Azerbaijani: Azərbaycanlılar آذربایجانلیلار, Azərilər آذری لر) are a Turkic people. Azerbaijanis are predominantly Shia Muslims living throughout Caucasus, northern Iran and eastern Turkey. Traditionally, the Azerbaijanis are living in Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia (Dagestan), Turkey (Kars and Iğdır) and Georgia (Borchali).
Below are lists of famous, prominent and notable Azerbaijanis from Azerbaijan, Iran, Georgia, Russia, Turkey (Anatolia) and other countries. Some Azerbaijanis were born in one country, but gained fame in another. In the list, they are indicated only by place of birth. List also includes people who have at least one parent is of Azerbaijani origin.

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Lors
Lurs (also Lors, Lori/Persian:لُر) are an Iranic people living mainly in south-western Iran. Their population is estimated at above four million. They occupy Lorestan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, and Kuh-Gilu-Boir Ahmed provinces.
The Lur people mostly speak Lori, a Southwestern Iranian language, closely related to Persian. "Luri and Bakhtiari are much more closely related to Persian, than Kurdish."
Ethnologists classify the Lurs as aboriginal Persians.^{[citation needed]} Their language forms a dialect of Persian and does not differ materially from Persian.^{[citation needed]}

Lori dialects, which are divided into two main groups:
Lurs are a mixture of aboriginal Indo-Iranian tribes, originating from Central Asia.
"The Lurs are thought to be a division of the ancient Kurds, both tribes being considered true descendants of the Medes."
The area traditionally known as Luristan is divided into two regions. Greater Lur, and Lesser Lur.
Greater Lur includes ChaharMahal and Bakhtiari, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad and parts of western Isfahan province, Fars province Mamasani County and Rostam and northwest of Khuzestan province. This region was in Middle Ages ruled by a group known as Hazaraspids.

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Lotfi A. Zadeh
Lotfali Askar Zadeh (born February 4, 1921), better known as Lotfi A. Zadeh, is a mathematician, electrical engineer, computer scientist, artificial intelligence researcher and professor emeritus of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley.
Zadeh was born in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, as Lotfi Aliaskerzadeh, to an Iranian Azeri father from Ardabil, Rahim Aleskerzade, who was a journalist on assignment from Iran, and a Russian Jewish mother, Fanya Koriman, who was a pediatrician. The Soviet government at this time courted foreign correspondents, and the family lived well while in Baku. Zadeh attended elementary school for three years there, which he has said "had a significant and long-lasting influence on my thinking and my way of looking at things."
In 1931, when Zadeh was ten years old, his family moved to Teheran in Iran, his father's homeland. Zadeh was enrolled in Alborz College, which was a Presbyterian missionary school, where he was educated for the next eight years, and where he met his future wife, Fay. Zadeh says that he was "deeply influenced" by the "extremely decent, fine, honest and helpful" missionaries from the United States who ran the college. "To me they represented the best that you could find in the United States – people from the Midwest with strong roots. They were really "Good Samaritans" – willing to give of themselves for the benefit of others. So this kind of attitude influenced me deeply. It also instilled in me a deep desire to live in the United States." During this time, Zadeh was awarded several patents.

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Mana Neyestani
Mana Neyestani (born 1973, in Tehran) is an Iranian cartoonist and illustrator for economic, intellectual, political, cultural, and professional magazines. He is particularly known for his work for the newspaper Zan and Iranian exile media Radio Zamaneh.
Neyestani is of Iranian Azeri ethnicity. He is a graduate of the University of Tehran with a M.A. in Architecture.
Neyestani began his professional cartooning career in 1989, and started drawing editorial cartoons in 1998, for Zan. During 1998-2000, he drew a large number of cartoons for various reformist newspapers, such as Asr-e Azadegan, Sobhe Emrooz, Mosharekat, Azad, Neshat (as a freelancer), and Aftab-e Emrooz (as a staff cartoonist). His cartoons are published regularly on the website of Iranian exile media Radio Zamaneh.
Mana is the brother of fellow cartoonist Touka Neyestani. Their father Manouchehr was a well-known Iranian poet.
Riots erupted by ethnic Azeris in Iran when they took offense to a Neyestani cartoon published in the children's section of the 12 May 2006 supplement of Iran, a government-run newspaper. The cartoon depicted a cockroach responding in Azeri. Neyestani, along with Mehrdad Ghasemfar, the editor-in-chief of Iran, were arrested by government officials and the newspaper was closed down following the riots.

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Mandaeans
Mandaeism or Mandaeanism (Modern Mandaic: Mandaʻiūtā‎ (מנדעיותא); Arabic: مندائية‎ Mandāʼīyah/Mandāʾiyyah; Persian: مندائیان‎ Mandâ'iyân) is a gnostic religion^{[citation needed]} (Aramaic manda means "knowledge", as does Greek gnosis) with a strongly dualistic worldview.
Its adherents, the Mandaeans, revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enosh, Noah, Shem, Aram and especially John the Baptist, but reject Jesus of Nazareth and are hostile to Christianity. They are sometimes identified with mentions in the Quran of the Sabian religion, particularly in an Arabian context, but the Sabian religious community is extinct today.
According to most scholars, Mandaeans migrated from the Southern Levant to Mesopotamia in the first centuries CE and are certainly of pre-Arab and pre-Islamic origin. They are Semites and speak a dialect of Eastern Aramaic known as Mandaic. They may well be related to the "Nabateans of Iraq" who were pagan, Aramaic speaking indigenous pre-Arab and pre-Islamic inhabitants of southern Iraq.

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Medes
The Medes (/midz/) (from Old Persian Māda-) were an ancient Iranian people who lived in Iran in an area known as Media and spoke a northwestern Iranian language referred to as the Median language. Their arrival to the region is associated with the first wave of Iranian tribes in the late second millennium BCE (the Bronze Age collapse) through the beginning of the first millennium BCE.
In the 7th century BCE a unified Median state was formed which together with Babylonia, Lydia, and Egypt became one of the four major powers of the ancient Near East. An alliance with the Babylonians helped the Medes to capture Nineveh in 612 BCE which resulted in the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Medes were subsequently able to establish their Median kingdom (with Ecbatana as their royal centre) beyond their original homeland (central-western Iran) and had eventually a territory stretching roughly from northeastern Iran to the Halys River in Anatolia. The Median kingdom was conquered in 550 BCE by Cyrus the Great who established the next Iranian dynasty—the Achaemenid Empire.

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Mehriban Aliyeva
Mehriban Arif qizi Aliyeva (Azerbaijani: Mehriban Arif qızı Əliyeva) (born 26 August 1964, Baku) is the head of Azerbaijan's Heydar Aliyev Foundation and the wife of its current president Ilham Aliyev. The Sunday Times, writing in 2005 about Mrs. Aliyeva's decision to run for the Azerbaijani parliament, described her as already wielding "considerable influence," and the Heydar Aliyev Foundation as "a powerful and wealthy institution set up to safeguard the late president’s legacy and support a number of educational and charitable projects."
Mehriban Aliyeva (née Pashayeva) was born into a family described in Wikileaks cables as "the single most powerful family in Azerbaijan." Her grandfather was noted Azerbaijani writer Mir Jalal Pashayev. Her uncle Hafiz Pashayev was Azerbaijan's first Ambassador to the United States. Mrs. Aliyeva's father Arif Pashayev is Rector of the National Aviation Academy in Baku, and her mother, Aida Imanguliyeva (1939–92) was a prominent philologist and arabist.

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Mir-Hossein Mousavi
Mir-Hossein Mousavi Khameneh (Persian: میرحسین موسوی خامنه‎, pronounced [miːɾ hoˈsein muːsæˈviː xɒːmeˈne], Mīr-Hoseyn Mūsavī Khāmené; Azerbaijani: میرحسین موسوی, Mir Hüseyn Musəvi; born 2 March 1942) is an Iranian reformist politician, artist and architect who served as the seventy-ninth and last Prime Minister of Iran from 1981 to 1989. He was a Reformist candidate for the 2009 presidential election and eventually the leader of the opposition in the post-election unrest. Mousavi served as the president of the Iranian Academy of Arts until 2009, when Conservative authorities removed him.
In the early years of the revolution, Mousavi was the editor-in-chief of the official newspaper of the Islamic Republican Party, the Islamic Republic newspaper, before being elevated to Minister of Foreign Affairs and eventually the post of Prime Minister. He was the last Prime Minister in Iran before the 1989 constitutional changes which removed the post of prime minister, and went into semi-retirement for the next 20 years. He remains a member of the Expediency Discernment Council and the High Council of Cultural Revolution. However, he has not participated in their meetings for years, which is interpreted by political analysts and commentators as a sign of his disapproval.

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Mohammad Khatami
Sayyid Mohammad Khātamī (Persian: سید محمد خاتمی‎, pronounced [sejˈjed mohæmˈmæde xɒːtæˈmiː]; born October 14, 1943) is an Iranian scholar, philosopher, Shiite theologian and Reformist politician. He served as the fifth President of Iran from August 2, 1997 to August 3, 2005. He also served as Iran's Minister of Culture in both the 1980s and 1990s. He is currently one of the leaders of the Iranian Green Movement, and an outspoken critic of the President Ahmadinejad's government.
Hitherto little known, Khatami attracted global attention during his first election to the presidency when he captured almost 70% of the vote. Khatami had run on a platform of liberalization and reform. During his two terms as president, Khatami advocated freedom of expression, tolerance and civil society, constructive diplomatic relations with other states including those in the Asia and European Union, and an economic policy that supported a free market and foreign investment.
Khatami is known for his proposal of Dialogue Among Civilizations. The United Nations proclaimed the year 2001 as the United Nations' Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations, on Khatami's suggestion.

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Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of Berber, Black African and Arab descent from Northern Africa, who came to conquer, occupy and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years.^{[citation needed]} At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed other religions. They called the territory Al Andalus, comprising most of what is now Spain and Portugal.
" Moors" are not a distinct or self-defined people. Medieval and early modern Europeans applied the name primarily to Berbers, but also at various times to Arabs, Muslim Iberians and West Africans from Mali and Niger who had been absorbed into the Almoravid dynasty. Mainstream scholars observed in 1911 that "The term 'Moors' has no real ethnological value."
The Andalusian Moors of the late Medieval era inhabited the Iberian Peninsula after the Moorish conquests of the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates, and the final Umayyad conquest of Hispania.^{[citation needed]} The Moors' rule stretched at times as far as modern-day Mauritania, West African countries, and the Senegal River. Earlier, the Classical Romans interacted with (and later conquered) parts of Mauretania, a state that covered northern portions of modern Morocco and much of north western and central Algeria during the classical period. The people of the region were noted in Classical literature as the Mauri.

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Moroccans in Spain
Moroccans in Spain form 12.7% of the 5,598,691 foreigners in Spain. They were formerly the largest foreign group in Spain, but were surpassed by Romanians in 2007. In 2003, they were estimated to make up about 6% of all Moroccans abroad.
Before 1985, Moroccans did not require visas to enter Spain. Many young came for seasonal or short-term work in agriculture and industry, coming and going from Spain without settling there. A new visa law implemented that year, La Ley de Extranjeria, was quite restrictive, and did not provide for permanent residence permits. As late as 1992, official statistics showed only 16,665 Moroccans residing in Spain (of whom 14,998 lived in peninsular Spain). In the following years, many Moroccans came to take jobs in the agricultural, hospitality, construction, and service sectors. By 2000, their population had increased to 199,782 individuals. Along with the growing numbers of migrants, their composition also shifted, with a higher proportion of women among them.

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Nadir Shah Afshar
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}} Nāder Shāh Afshār (Persian: نادر شاه افشار‎; also known as Nāder Qoli Beg - نادر قلی بیگ or Tahmāsp Qoli Khān - تهماسپ قلی خان) (November, 1688 or August 6, 1698 – June 19, 1747) ruled as Shah of Iran (1736–47) and was the founder of the Afsharid dynasty. Because of his military genius, some historians have described him as the Napoleon of Persia or the Second Alexander. Nader Shah was a member of the Turkic Afshar tribe of northern Persia, which had supplied military power to the Safavid state since the time of Shah Ismail I.
Nader rose to power during a period of anarchy in Iran after a rebellion by the Hotaki Afghans had overthrown the weak Persian Shah Sultan Husayn, and both the Ottomans and the Russians had seized Persian territory for themselves. Nader reunited the Persian realm and removed the invaders. He became so powerful that he decided to depose the last members of the Safavid dynasty, which had ruled Iran for over 200 years, and become shah himself in 1736. His numerous campaigns throughout the Naderian Wars created a great empire that encompassed what is now part of or including Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, India, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Oman and the Persian Gulf but his military spending had a ruinous effect on the Persian economy.

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Naimans
The Naimans, also Naiman Turkics, (kazakh language: Найман хандығы) Naiman in Mongolian language means "eight", because Naimans were direct descendants of the Segiz Ogyz poeple, "segiz" means "eight" in the Kazakh language. They were a Mongolian name given to a group of Turkic tribes dwelling on the steppe of Central Asia, having diplomatic relations with the Kara-Khitan, and subservient to them until 1177. The Naimans are most often classified as a Turkic people from Segiz Oghyz (means 'Eight Oghuz' in Turkic),
Like the Khitans and the Uyghurs, many of them were Nestorian Christians or Buddhists. When last Tayan Khan was killed after a battle with Genghis Khan in 1203, his son Kuchlug with his remaining Naiman troops fled to the Kara-Khitan. Kuchlug was well received there and the Khitan Khan gave him his daughter in marriage. Kuchlug soon began plotting against his new father-in-law, and after he usurped the throne, he began to persecute Muslims in the Hami Oases. But his action was opposed by local people and he was later defeated by the Mongols under Jebe.

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Nizami Ganjavi
Nizami Ganjavi (Persian: نظامی گنجوی‎; Kurdish: Nîzamî Gencewî, نیزامی گه‌نجه‌وی, Nezāmi-ye Ganjavi; Azerbaijani: Nizami Gəncəvi, نظامی گنجوی;‎ 1141 to 1209), Nizami Ganje'i,Nizami, or Nezāmi (Persian: نظامی‎), whose formal name was Niẓām ad-Dīn Abū Muḥammad Ilyās ibn-Yūsuf ibn-Zakkī, was a 12th-century Persian poet. Nezāmi is considered the greatest romantic epic poet in Persian literature, who brought a colloquial and realistic style to the Persian epic. His heritage is widely appreciated and shared by Afghanistan,Azerbaijan,Iran,Kurdistan region and Tajikistan.
His personal name was Ilyas and his chosen pen-name was Nezami (also spelled as Nizami and Neẓāmi). He was born of an urban background in Ganja (Great Seljuq empire now present-day Azerbaijan) and is believed to have spent his whole life in South Caucasus. According to De Blois, Ganja was a city which at that time had predominantly an Iranian population. The Armenian historian Kirakos Gandzaketsi (Ca. 1200-1271) mentions that: "This city was densely populated with Iranians and a small number of Christians".

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Nizami Pashayev
Nizami Pashayev (born February 2, 1981) is an Azerbaijani athlete in weightlifting. He won two World Weightlifting Championships titles and one European Weightlifting Championships title, when he hauled 402 kilograms in total to take the overall gold in the men's 94 kg category.
Pashayev totalled 402 kg on May 20, 2006, but it was the 25-year-old's snatch winning effort of 186 kg that helped him gain the title ahead of Poland's Szymon Kolecki who was second in the clean and jerk with 217 kg. Later that year Pashayev was disqualified for two years after failing a WADA drugs test. He lost his European title and was fined $2,400.

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Nogais
The Nogai people (also written as Nogay or Noghai) are a Turkic ethnic group who live in southern Russia. Most are found in northern Dagestan and Stavropol Krai, as well as in Karachay–Cherkessia and the Astrakhan Oblast; an unknown number live in Chechnya. They speak the Nogai language and are descendants of various Turkic tribes, mainly Kipchaks, who formed the Nogai Horde.
From the sixteenth century until their removal in the mid-nineteenth century the Nogais were divided into the following sub-groups (west to east along the Black Sea coast of present-day Ukraine):
The name Nogai is derived from Nogai Khan, a general of the Golden Horde.. The Nogais are a ethnic Turkic speaking group of Kipchak descent and live in southern Russia of Dagestan, anthropologically they are an racial mixture of both Mongoloid and Caucasoid and have origins from the Golden horde. The Nogai Horde supported the Astrakhan Khanate, and after the conquest of Astrakhan in 1556 by Russians, they transferred their allegiance to the Crimean Khanate. The Nogais protected the northern borders of the khanate, and through organized raids to the northern steppes prevented Slavic settlement. Many Nogais migrated to the Crimean peninsula to serve as khan's cavalry. Settling there, they contributed to the formation of the Crimean Tatars. However, Nogais were not only good soldiers, they also had considerable agricultural skills. The Nogais mastered skills of growing grain and irrigating on the dry steppes they inhabited. They cultivated spring wheat and drought resistant millet. They raised various herds and migrated seasonally in search of better pastures for their animals. Nogais were proud of their nomadic traditions and independence, which they considered superior to settled agricultural life.

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Oghuz Turks
The Turkomen also known as Oghuz Turks (a linguistic term designating the Western Turkic or Oghuz languages from the Oghur languages) were a historical Turkic tribal confederation in Central Asia during the early medieval Turkic expansion. The name Oghuz is just the Common Turkic word for "tribe". They are referred to as "Western Turks" because they moved west from other Turkic peoples after the Göktürk empire collapsed, and because the majority of the areas in which they inhabit today (except Turkmenistan and the Turkmen Sahra) are west of the Caspian Sea, while those referred to as "Eastern Turks" live east of the Caspian Sea. The founders of the Ottoman Empire were also Oghuz Turks.
In the 9th century, the Oghuz Turks from the Aral steppes drove the Pecheneg Turks, of the Emba region and the Ural River, toward the west. In the 10th century they inhabited the steppe of the rivers Sari-su, Turgai, and Emba to the north of Lake Balkhash of modern day Kazakhstan. A clan of this nation, the Seljuks, embraced Islam and in the 11th century entered Persia, where they founded the Great Seljuk Empire. Similarly, in the 11th century a Tengriist Oghuz clan—referred to as Uzes or Torks in the Russian chronicles—overthrew Pecheneg supremacy in the Russian steppe. Harried by another Turkic horde, the Kipchaks—a branch of the Kimaks of the middle Irtysh or of the Ob—these Oghuz penetrated as far as the lower Danube, crossed it and invaded the Balkans, where they were either crushed or struck down by an outbreak of plague, causing the survivors either to flee or to join the Byzantine imperial forces as mercenaries (1065).

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Origin of the Azeris
The Azerbaijani are of mixed ethnic origin, the oldest element deriving from the indigenous population of eastern Transcaucasia and possibly from the Medians of northern Persia. This population was Persianized during the period of the Sassanian dynasty of Iran (3rd–7th century ce). Turkicization of the population can be dated from the region’s conquest by the Seljuq Turks in the 11th century and the continued influx of Turkic populations in subsequent centuries, including those groups that migrated during the Mongol conquests in the 13th century. (The greater portion of the tribes that formed the Mongol forces or were stimulated by the Mongol conquest to migrate were Turkic.)
The Caucasian origin of the Azeris defines a link between Azeris and their pre-Turkification Caucasian past and mostly applies to the Azeris of the Caucasus, most of whom are now inhabitants of what is now the Republic of Azerbaijan. There is evidence that, despite repeated invasions and migrations, aboriginal Caucasians may have been culturally assimilated, first by Iranians, such as the Alans, and later by the Oghuz Turks. Considerable information has been learned about the Caucasian Albanians including their language, history, early conversion to Christianity, and close ties to the Armenians. Many academics believe that the Udi language, still spoken in Azerbaijan, is a remnant of the Albanians' language.

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Ossetians
The Ossetians (Ossetic: ирæттæ, irættæ) are an Iranic ethnic group of the Caucasus Mountains, indigenous to the region known as Ossetia. They speak Ossetic, an Iranian language of the Eastern branch of the Indo-European languages family, with most also fluent in Russian as a second language. The Ossetians are mostly Eastern Orthodox Christian, with a Muslim minority.
The Ossetians mostly populate Ossetia, which is politically divided between North Ossetia–Alania in Russia, and South Ossetia, which since the 2008 South Ossetia war has been de-facto independent from Georgia.
The Russian geographic name "Ossetia" and the corresponding ethnic designation "Ossetians" comes from a Georgian root.
The Russians originally called the Ossetians Yas (ясы, connected with Iazyges).
In Late Antiquity, records became much more diffuse and the Iazyges generally ceased to be mentioned as a tribe. In the Middle Ages an East Iranian people appeared in Eastern-Europe, the Jazones. The Jazones, or Jász, an Ossetic people who migrated to Hungary, are first mentioned in Hungarian records in the year 1318, and their name, spelled in Greek means "Jasons" (Ιάσωνες). The Jász in Hungary maintained their language until the 18th century. While they have become linguistically Hungarian, descendants in the Jász area of Hungary still maintain some original culture and have folk consciousness of their origins.

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Ottomans
The Ottoman Turks (or Osmanlı Turks) were the Turkish-speaking population of the Ottoman Empire who formed the base of the state's military and ruling classes. Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks is scarce, but they take their Turkish name, Osmanlı (corrupted in European languages as "Ottoman"), from the house of Osman I (reigned ca. 1299-1326), the founder of the dynasty which ruled the Ottoman empire during its 620-year history. After the expansion from its home in Bithynia, the Ottoman principality began incorporating both other Turkish-speaking Muslims and non-Turkish Christians, becoming the Ottoman Turks and ultimately the Turks of the present. The Ottoman Turks blocked all land routes to Europe by conquering the city of Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire. Hence the Europeans had to find other ways to trade with Eastern countries.

The "Ottomans" became first known to the West in 1227 when they migrated westward into the Seljuk Empire, in Anatolia. However, the Ottoman Turks would create a state in Western Anatolia under Ertugrul, the capital of which was Sögüt; near Bursa to the south of the Marmara, the body of water between the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea. Ertugrul established a principality, as part of the decaying Seljuk empire. His son Osman expanded the principality; and for him, both the empire and the people were named by Europeans as "Ottomans". Osman's son Orhan expanded the growing empire, taking Nicaea, present-day Iznik, and crossed the Dardanelles strait, in 1362. But the Ottoman Empire came into its own when Mehmed II captured the Byzantine Empire's capital, Constantinople (Istanbul), in 1453.

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Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians. The synonymous usage of Iranian and Persian has persisted over the centuries although some modern Western sources use Iranic/Iranian as a wider term that includes the term Persian as well as related Iranian languages and ethnic groups. However, these terms have been used both synonymously as well as in a complementary fashion since ancient times; as the Ancient Iranian peoples such as the Old Persians, Medes, Bactrians, Parthians and Avesta peoples considered themselves to be part of the greater Iranian ethnic stock.
The term Persian translates to "from or of Persis" which is a region north of the Persian Gulf located in Pars, Iran. It was from this region that Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid empire, united all other Iranian empires (such as the Medes and the Elamites), and expanded the Persian cultural and social influences by incorporating the Babylonian empire, and the Lydian empire. Although not the first Iranian empire, the Achaemenid empire is the first Persian empire well recognized by Greek and Persian historians for its massive cultural, military and social influences going as far as Athens, Egypt, and Libya.

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Qatran Tabrizi
Abū-Mansūr Qatrān-i Tabrīzī (Persian: قطران تبريزى‎, born 1009, died 1072) was a royal Persian poet.
He was born in Sahar near Arrah, bihar Tabriz and was the most famous panegyrist of his time in Iran. His full name according to an old manuscript handwritten by the famous poet Anvari Abivardi (529 Hijra about 60 years after the death of Qatran) is Abu Mansur Qatran al-Jili al-Azerbaijani. The Al-Jili would identify his ancestry from Gilan while he himself was born in Shadiabad. He also identifies himself as part of the Dehqan class.
According to Jan Rypka: “He sings the praise of some thirty patrons. His work has aroused the interest of historians, for in many cases Qatran has perpetuated the names of members of regional dynasties in Azerbayjan and the Caucasus region that would have otherwise fallen in oblivion. His best qasidas were written in his last period, where he expressed gratitude to the prince of Ganja, the Shaddadid Fadlun, for the numerous gifts that were still recollected by the famous Jami (d. 1492). Qatran’s poetry follows in the wake of the poets of Khurasan and makes an unforced use of the rhetorical embellishment. He is even one of the first after Farrukhi to try his hand at the Qasida-i Masnu’i, ‘particular artificial qasida’".

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Rashid Behbudov
Rashid Behbudov (Azerbaijani: Rəşid Məcid oğlu Behbudov, رشید بهبوداوف; December 14, 1915 – June 9, 1989) was an Azerbaijani singer and actor. He sang in Azerbaijani, Russian, Persian, Turkish, Hindi, Armenian, Urdu and Bengali among other languages.
Rashid Behbudov was born in Tiflis Tbilisi, Georgia in 1915. His father, Majid Behbudov was a singer as well. In 1938-1944, Rashid worked at Yerevan State Philharmonia and Opera House, and in 1945, upon the invitation of Tofig Guliyev, Rashid Behbudov moved to Baku. In the same year, he was assigned the main role of Asgar in the film "Arshin Mal Alan" The Cloth Peddler, based on the by Uzeyir Hajibeyov. His role in this film combined with his vocal skills brought him fame throughout Azerbaijan.
In a short time, Behbudov became also prominent Azerbaijani pop singer. His combination of vocal masterpieces ranged from classical performances to lyrical songs. Behbudov's rare vocal talent gave him opportunity to travel beyond the "Iron Curtain" of the Soviet Union, and as a singer he toured with concert performances in several countries of the world, including Iran, Turkey, China, India, Japan, Argentina, and many other countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

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Rawadid
Revend or Revendi (also Rawwadid or Ravvadid), (955-1071), was a Kurdish principality ruling Azerbaijan from the 10th to the early 11th centuries, centered around Tabriz and Maragheh. ]. The Rawadid tribe moved into northern Kurdistan from Arbela in the mid eighth century The Rawadid chief named Muhammad ibn Husain created the regime in the mid tenth century.^{[citation needed]}.
The earliest form of the name is written "Rewend" in the Sharafname. According to Vladimir Minorsky, it could have been a corruption of the arabic name "Rawadiya", Minorsky thus leaves space for a possible arabic influence on the tribe. Furthermore, Minorsky tells that the rulers of the tribe could have given their name to it, in other words, it's possible that the Rewend/Rawadiya rulers were of arab origin According to Kasravi, Rawwadids conquered the lands of the Musafirid ruler Ibrahim bin Marzuban, in Azarbaijan in 979. Wahsudan bin Mamlan is the best known Rawwadid ruler, and he is mentioned by Ibn Athir. The regions of Tabriz, Maragheh and the strongholds of Sahand mountain were in his possession. In 1029, he helped the Hadhbani Kurds of Maragheh to defeat the invading Oghuz tribes [5].^{[dead link]}

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Reza Khan
Rezā Shāh Pahlavi (Persian: رضاشاه پهلوی‎; pronounced [reˈzɑː ˈʃɑːhe pæhlæˈviː] (March 15, 1878 – July 26, 1944), was the Shah of the Imperial State of Iran from December 15, 1925, until he was forced to abdicate by the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran on September 16, 1941.
In 1925, Reza Shah overthrew Ahmad Shah Qajar, the last Shah of the Qajar dynasty, and founded the Pahlavi dynasty. He established a system of government that revitalized the goals of the Constitutional Revolution of Iran where for the first time Iranians were seeking for rulers who do not remain in power for eternity. Known for being quite intelligent despite his lack of formal and academic education, Reza Shah introduced many socio-economic reforms, reorganizing the army, government administration and finances. To his supporters his reign brought "law and order, discipline, central authority, and modern amenities — schools, trains, buses, radios, cinemas, and telephones". However, his attempts at modernisation have been criticised for being "too fast".

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Romanis
The Romani are an ethnic group living mostly in Europe, who trace their origins to the Indian Subcontinent. Romani are widely known in the English-speaking world by the exonym Gypsies (or Gipsies).
They are known collectively in the Romani language as Romane or Rromane (depending on the dialect concerned) and also as Romany, Romanies, Romanis, Roma or Roms.
Romani are widely dispersed, with their largest concentrated populations in Europe, especially the Roma of Central and Eastern Europe and Anatolia, followed by the Kale of Iberia and Southern France.
The Americas are also home to large numbers of Romani. There are an estimated one million Roma in the United States; 800,000 in Brazil, to which Kale were deported by the government of Portugal during the colonial era; and in more recent migrations, Romani have also moved to other parts of the New World.
The Romani language is divided into several dialects, which add up to an estimated number of speakers larger than two million. The total number of Romani people is at least twice as large (several times as large according to high estimates). Many Romani are native speakers of the language current in their country of residence, or of mixed languages combining the two.

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Ronald Grigor Suny
Ronald Grigor Suny (born September 25, 1940) is currently director of the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies [1] and the Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of Social and Political History at the University of Michigan, as well as Emeritus Professor of political science and history at the University of Chicago. He was the first holder of the Alex Manoogian Chair in Modern Armenian History at the University of Michigan, after beginning his career as an assistant professor at Oberlin College.
Suny was born in Philadelphia, graduated from Swarthmore College in 1962, and earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1968. His fields of study are the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia; nationalism; ethnic conflict; the role of emotions in politics; South Caucasus; and Russian/Soviet historiography.
He is a grandson of the Armenian composer Grikor Mirzaian Suni.

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Rustam Ibragimbekov
Rustam Mammad Ibrahim oglu Ibrahimbeyov, also spelled Ibragimbekov (Azerbaijani: Rüstəm Məmməd İbrahim oğlu İbrahimbəyov; Russian: Рустам Ибрагимбеков; born February 5, 1939, Baku) is Azerbaijani, Soviet and an Azerbaijani-American screenwriter, dramatist and producer, well known beyond his home Azerbaijan and the CIS.
Rustam Ibragimbekov was born in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR to Mammad Ibrahimbeyov and Fatima Meshadibeyova. He is the younger brother of Magsud Ibrahimbeyov, an Azerbaijani writer and politician. Rustam Ibragimbekov graduated from Azerbaijan Oil and Chemistry Institute, then studied script writing and film directing at VGIK in Moscow. His writing credits include more than 40 film and television scripts, numerous plays and pieces of prose, and nearly all of his scripts were eventually made into full feature or TV films. Among his most noteworthy film work is White Sun of the Desert (1970, Белое солнце пустыни), Interrogation (1979, Допрос), Guard Me, My Talisman (1986, Храни меня, мой талисман), Urga (Урга, Территория любви, 1991), Burnt by the Sun (1994, Утомлённые солнцем), The Barber of Siberia (1998, Сибирский цирюльник), East/West (1999), Broken Bridges (2004) and Nomad (2005/2007).

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Salar people
Salar people (Salar: Salır, Turkic: Salar, Chinese: 撒拉族, Pinyin: Sālāzú) are a Turkic people. Their language belongs to the Oghuz group, classified within the Turkic language family.
The Salars are one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China.
The Salar people numbered 104,503 people in the last census of 2000. They live mostly in the Qinghai-Gansu border region, on both sides of the Yellow River, namely in Xunhua Salar Autonomous County (循化撒拉族自治縣) and Hualong Hui Autonomous County (化隆回族自治縣) of Qinghai and the adjacent Jishishan Bonan, Dongxiang and Salar Autonomous County of Gansu. There are also Salars in Xinjiang (in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture).
The Salars' ancestors were migrating Oghuz Turks who intermarried with Han Chinese, Tibetans, and Hui. They are a patriarchal agricultural society and are predominantly Muslim.
According to Salar tradition, they are the descendants of the Salur tribe, belonging to the Oghuz Turks tribe of the Western Turkic Khaganate. The word Salur meant "those who wave swords, spears and hammers everywhere." During the Tang Dynasty period, the Salur tribe dwelt within China's borders — later moving west towards Central Asia.

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Samad Behrangi
Samad Behrangi (Persian: صمد بهرنگی‎, Azerbaijani: صمد بهرنگی, Səməd Behrəngi, [sæmæd behrænɡiː]; June 24, 1939 - August 31, 1967) was an Iranian teacher, social critic, folklorist, translator, and short story writer of Azeri extraction. He is famous for his children's book, The Little Black Fish.
He was born in Tabriz to a lower-class Azerbaijani family. He finished elementary school and three years of secondary school before enrolling in a teacher training school, finishing the program in 1957. In the next eleven years, while teaching Persian in rural Azerbaijani schools, he attained a B.A. degree in English from Tabriz University.
Apart from Children's Stories, he wrote many pedagogical essays and collected and published several samples of oral Azerbaijani literature. His folklore studies have usually been done with the help of his colleague Behrooz Dehghani, who helped publish some of Behrangi's works after his early death. Behrangi also has a few Azerbaijani translations from Persian poems by Ahmad Shamlou, Forough Farrokhzad, and Mehdi Akhavan-Sales.

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Samad Vurgun
Samad Vurgun (Azerbaijani: Səməd Vurğun, born Samad Vakilov, March 21, 1906, Yukhari Salahli – May 27, 1956, Baku) - Azerbaijani and Soviet poet, dramatist, public figure, first People’s Artist of the Azerbaijan SSR (1943), academician of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (1945), laureate of two USSR State Prizes of second degree (1941, 1942), member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union since 1940.
The Azerbaijan State Russian Dramatic Theatre and streets in Baku and Moscow, and formerly the city of Hovk in Armenia, are named after him.
Samad Vurgun was born on March 21, 1906, in Salahly village of Qazakh Uyezd, at present Qazakh Rayon of Azerbaijan Republic. Samad’s mother died when he was 6 years old and he was in charge of his father and Ayshe khanim-grandmother from mother’s side. After graduating from school his family moved to Qazakh and Samad entered teacher’s seminary of Qazakh with his elder brother Mekhdikhan Vekilov (1902–1975). In 1922, their father and a year later their grandmother had died and concern for the future poet and his brother passed to their cousin Khangizi Vekilova. He taught literature at village schools of Qazakh, Ganja and Quba. He studied at Moscow State University for 2 years (1929–1930) and then continued his education at Azerbaijan Pedagogical Institute.

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Sami Yusuf
Sami Yusuf is a British singer-songwriter, composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist musician of Azerbaijan origin.
In 2003 Yusuf released his first album "Al-Mu`allim" at the age of 23, selling over two million copies. Following the release of his second album "My Ummah" in 2005, Yusuf was heralded as "Islam's Biggest Rock Star" by Time magazine for his success in attracting a relatively young fan base from diverse regions across the world, many of whom were of Muslim backgrounds. Yusuf has sold over 9 million albums. In October 2010, following a five-year hiatus, Yusuf’s third official album "Wherever You Are" was launched, manifesting his self-coined genre “Spiritique”. Yusuf is involved in humanitarian initiatives, supporting, among others, Islamic Relief and Save the Children.

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Sattar Khan
Sattar Khan (Persian/Azeri: ستارخان, IPA: [sætːɒːɾ xɒn]; (October 20, 1866—November 17, 1914), honorarily titled Sardār-e Melli (Persian: سردار ملی‎ meaning National Commander) was a pivotal figure in the Persian Constitutional Revolution and is considered by many Iranians to be a national hero.
Sattar Khan was born in the village of Janali, in the Iranian province of Azarbaijan, some time in 1868. He was the third son of Haj Hasan Bazzaz, from the Qara Daj mountains. While he was still a child, his eldest brother, who had become a highway robber, was executed by the authorities.
The family later moved to Tabriz where Sattar himself came into conflict with the law when he tried to find a hideout for two Caucasian fugitives to whom his father had given shelter. He was incarcerated for two years in Narin Qalʿa, a notorious local prison. Afterwards he too became a brigand and was subsequently imprisoned again. He also served in the gendarmerie controlling the main road between Khoy and Marand, and for a while found employment as part of the armed escort to the crown prince Mozaffar-al-Din Mirza and was given the title of "khan" (which means "sir" in the Azeri language).

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Scythian
The Scythians (/ˈsɪθi.ən/ or /ˈsɪði.ən/; from Greek Σκύθης, Σκύθοι), or Scyths /ˈsɪθ/, were an ethnolinguistic group of ancient Iranian nomadic tribal cultures who throughout Classical Antiquity dominated the Pontic-Caspian steppe, known at the time as Scythia. By Late Antiquity the closely related Sarmatians came to dominate the Scythians in this area. Much of the surviving information about the Scythians comes from the Greek historian Herodotus (c. 440 BC) in his Histories and Ovid in his poem of exile Epistulae ex Ponto, and archaeologically from the exquisite goldwork found in Scythian burial mounds in Ukraine and Southern Russia.
The name "Scythian" has also been used to refer to various peoples seen as similar to the Scythians, or who lived anywhere in the area known as Scythia,
Sulimirski views the Histories of Herodotus as the most important literary source relating to ancient Scyths. Herodotus provides a depiction that can be related to the results of archaeological research, but apparently knew little of the eastern part of Scythia. He did say that the ancient Persians called all the Scyths Σάκαι (Sacae, Herodotus 7.64). Their principal tribe, the "Royal Scyths", ruled the vast lands occupied by the nation as a whole (Herodotus 4.20), calling themselves Σκώλοτοι (Scōloti, Herodotus 4.6). Oswald Szemerényi devotes a thorough discussion to the etymologies of ancient ethnic words for the Scythians in his work "Four old Iranian ethnic names: Scythian – Skudra – Sogdian – Saka". In it the names of Herodotus and the names of his title, except Saka, as well as many other words for "Scythian," such as Assyrian Aškuz and Greek Skuthēs, descend from *skeud-, an ancient Indo-European root meaning "propel, shoot" (cf. English shoot). *skud- is the zero-grade; that is, a variant in which the -e- is not present. The restored Scythian name is *Skuda (archer), which among the Pontic or Royal Scythians became *Skula, in which the d has been regularly replaced by an l.

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Seljuk Turks
The House of Seljuq (Persian: سلجوقيان‎ Saljūqīyān; Turkish Selçuklular) also Seljuq Turks, were a Turco-Persian Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turkic origin that ruled parts of Central Asia and the Middle East from the 11th to 14th centuries. They established an empire, the Great Seljuq Empire, which at its height stretched from Anatolia through Persia and which was the target of the First Crusade. The dynasty had its origins in the Turcoman tribal confederations of Central Asia.
Prior to the ninth century, hordes of Turks had crossed the Volga River into the Black Sea steppes. Originally, the House of Seljuq was a branch of the Qinik (Kınık) Oghuz Turks who in the 9th century lived on the periphery of the Muslim world, north of the Caspian and Aral seas in their Yabghu Khaganate of the Oghuz confederacy, in the Kazakh Steppe of Turkestan. In the 10th century the Seljuqs migrated from their ancestral homelands into mainland Persia, in the province of Khurasan, where they mixed with the local population and adopted the Persian culture and language in the following decades.

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Shaddadid
The Shaddadids were a dynasty of Kurdish origin who ruled in various parts of Armenia and Arran from 951 to 1174 AD. They were established in Dvin. Through their long tenure in Armenia, they often intermarried with the Bagratuni royal family of Armenia.^{[citation needed]}
They began ruling in the city of Dvin, and eventually ruled other major cities, such as Barda, Ganja. A cadet line of the Shaddadids were given the city of Ani and Tbilisi as a reward for their service to the Seljuqs, to whom they became vassals. From 1047 to 1057, the Shaddadids were engaged in several wars against the Byzantine army. The area between the rivers Kura and Arax was ruled by a Shaddadid dynasty.
In 951, Muhammad bin Shaddadid established himself at Dvin. Unable to hold Dvin against Musafirid incursion, he fled to the Armenian kingdom of Vaspurakan. His son, Ali Lashkari bin Muhammad, ended Musafirid influence in Arran by taking Ganja in 971. He later expanded into Transcaucasia as far north as Shamkur and as far east as Bardha'a. His brother, Marzuban bin Muhammad's reign also lasted only a few years.

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Shams Tabrizi
Shams-i-Tabrīzī or Shams al-Din Mohammad (1185-1248) was a Persian Muslim, who is credited as the spiritual instructor of Mewlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhi, also known as Rumi and is referenced with great reverence in Rumi’s poetic collection, in particular Diwan-i Shams-i Tabrīzī (The Works of Shams of Tabriz). Tradition holds that Shams taught Rumi in seclusion in Konya for a period of forty days, before fleeing for Damascus. The tomb of Shams-i Tabrīzī was recently nominated to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
According to Sipah Salar, a devotee and intimate friend of Rumi who spent forty years with him, Shams was the son of the Imam Ala al-Din. In a work entitled Manāqib al-‘arifīn (Eulogies of the Gnostics), Aflaki names a certain ‘Ali as the father of Shams-i Tabrīzī and his grandfather as Malikdad. Apparently basing his calculations on Haji Bektash Veli's Maqālāt (Conversations), Aflaki suggests that Shams arrived in Konya at the age of sixty years. However, various scholars have questioned Aflaki’s reliability.

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Shatuo
The Shatuo (Chinese: 沙陀; pinyin: shātuó or Chinese: 沙陀突厥; pinyin: shātuó tūjué , also: Shato, Sha-t'o, Sanskrit Sart ) were a Turkic tribe that heavily influenced northern Chinese politics from the late ninth century through the tenth century. They are noted for founding 3 of the 5 dynasties and 1 of the kingdoms during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period.
The Shato tribes descended from the Chigil tribes, belonging to a group of six Chu tribes collectively known as Chuban.^{[citation needed]}
Some argue that early Chinese sources identify them as the Xueyantuo. Others even claim they emerged as part of the Üç-Oğuz confederation of Oghuz Turks.
A detailed analysis of the term Shato (Sanskrit Sart) is given by prof. Chjan Si-man. Their social and economic life was studied by W. Eberhard. In "Tanghuyao" the Shato tamga is depicted as
The Shatuo Turks were gradually assimilated, and held onto their power base in Shanxi (central region of modern-day China). They gained in strength through the 910s until finally in 923, they were able to overcome the Later Liang Dynasty with Khitan assistance to found The Later Tang Dynasty

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Strabo
Strabo,,^{[pronunciation?]}, also written Strabon (Greek: Στράβων; 64/63 BC – ca. AD 24), was a Greek geographer, philosopher and historian.
Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus (modern Amasya, Turkey), a city that he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea. His mother was Georgian. Pontus had recently fallen to the Roman Republic, and although politically he was a proponent of Roman imperialism, Strabo belonged on his mother's side to a prominent family whose members had held important positions under the resisting regime of King Mithridates VI of Pontus.
Strabo's life was characterized by extensive travels. He journeyed to Egypt and Kush, as far west as coastal Tuscany and as far south as Ethiopia in addition to his travels in Asia Minor and time spent in Rome. Travel throughout the Mediterranean and Near East, especially for scholarly purposes, was popular during this era and was facilitated by the relative peace enjoyed throughout the reign of Augustus (27 BC – AD 14). He moved to Rome in 44 BC, and stayed there, studying and writing, until at least 31 BC. In 29 BC, on his way to Corinth (where Augustus was at the time), he visited the island of Gyaros in the Aegean Sea. Around 25 BC, he sailed up the Nile until reaching Philae, after which point there is little record of his proceedings until 17 AD.

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Tajiks
Tajik (Persian: تاجيک‎, Tājīk; Tajik: Тоҷик) is a general designation for a wide range of Persian-speaking people of Iranic origin, 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.
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. 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").
The Tajiks of China, although known by the name Tajik, speak Eastern Iranian languages and are distinct from Persian Tajiks.

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Tatar
Tatars (Tatar: Tatarlar / Татарлар, sometimes spelled Tartars) are a Turkic people, numbering around 7 million. The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of 5.5 million, 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan, 1 million in the republic of Bashkortostan and other 2.5 million in different regions of Russia. Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine.
The Tatars originated with the Tatar confederation in the north-eastern Gobi desert in the 5th century. After subjugation in the 9th century by the Khitans, they migrated southward. In the 13th century Mongol Empire, they were subjugated under Genghis Khan and reassigned once again particularly by his son Jochi. Under the leadership of his grandson Batu Khan, they moved westwards, forming part of the Golden Horde which dominated the Eurasian steppe during the 14th and 15th centuries. In Europe, they were assimilated by the local populations or their name spread to the conquered peoples: Kipchaks, Kimaks and others; and elsewhere with Uralic-speaking peoples, as well as with remnants of the ancient Greek colonies in the Crimea and Caucasians in the Caucasus.

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Tatars
Tatars (Tatar: Tatarlar / Татарлар, sometimes spelled Tartars) are a Turkic people, numbering around 7 million. The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of 5.5 million, 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan, 1 million in the republic of Bashkortostan and other 2.5 million in different regions of Russia. Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine.
The Tatars originated with the Tatar confederation in the north-eastern Gobi desert in the 5th century. After subjugation in the 9th century by the Khitans, they migrated southward. In the 13th century Mongol Empire, they were subjugated under Genghis Khan and reassigned once again particularly by his son Jochi. Under the leadership of his grandson Batu Khan, they moved westwards, forming part of the Golden Horde which dominated the Eurasian steppe during the 14th and 15th centuries. In Europe, they were assimilated by the local populations or their name spread to the conquered peoples: Kipchaks, Kimaks and others; and elsewhere with Uralic-speaking peoples, as well as with remnants of the ancient Greek colonies in the Crimea and Caucasians in the Caucasus.

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Tats
Tat or TAT may refer to:
in ethnology:
in aviation:
in geography:
in medicine:
also:

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Teimour Radjabov
Teimour Radjabov (also spelled Teymur Rajabov; Azerbaijani: Teymur Rəcəbov; born 12 March 1987 in Baku, Azerbaijan) is a leading Azerbaijani chess player. On the May 2012 FIDE list, Radjabov has an Elo rating of 2784, ranking 5th in the world and first in his native Azerbaijan.
Radjabov earned the title of Grandmaster in March 2001 at the age of 14, making him the second-youngest grandmaster in history at the time (to Bu Xiangzhi). Radjabov's playing style has been described as attacking and tactically influenced.
Radjabov was born in Baku. His father is an Azerbaijani Jew.
Radjabov is the youngest player ever to make the FIDE Top 100 Players list, therefore establishing himself as a chess prodigy. His rating of 2599 in January 2002 ranked 93rd in the world while he was still 14 years old.
In 2003, Radjabov defeated Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand, and Ruslan Ponomariov with the black pieces. He is probably the first player ever to beat three former and reigning FIDE World Chess Champions with the black pieces in one year.^{[citation needed]}

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Tofalar
Tofalars (Тофалары, тофа (tofa) in Russian; formerly known as карагасы, or karagas); or the "Tof people" are a Turkic people in the Irkutsk Oblast in Russia. Their origins, Tofa language, and culture are close to those of the eastern Tuvans-Todzhins. Before the 1917 October Coup, the Tofalars used to be engaged in nomadic, living in the taiga; they engaged in reindeer husbandry and hunting. The Tofalars were resettled by the Soviet government by 1932. Young Tofalars learned Russian at new Soviet-built schoherdingols, while cultural traditions such as hunting and shamanism were discouraged or prohibited. According to the 2002 census, there were 837 Tofalars in Russia (2,828 in 1926, 476 in 1959, 570 in 1970, 576 in 1979 and 722 in 1989).

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Tofik Bahramov
Tofik Bahramov (Azerbaijani: Tofiq Bəhramov; Russian: Тофик Бахрамов; 29 January 1925 — 26 March 1993), commonly known as the Russian linesman in England, was an Azerbaijani football referee notable for being the linesman who helped to award a goal for England in the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final against West Germany. He was later rumoured to have been presented with a golden whistle by Queen Elizabeth II for his "services to England". As a referee earlier in the tournament, he drew attention for denying a Swiss goal in a first round game between Switzerland and Spain.
Bahramov was originally a footballer, but a serious leg injury prevented him from continuing his playing career and he became a referee. He was elected onto the FIFA panel of referees in 1964. After retiring as a referee, he subsequently served for some years as general secretary of the Football Federation of Azerbaijan.
In the 1966 World Cup Final, with the score at 2–2 and after 11 minutes of the first period of extra time, Geoff Hurst of England fired a shot on goal which bounced off the crossbar sharply downwards, and then bounced back in the field, away from the goal. There were some moments of indecision by referee Gottfried Dienst before he noticed that Bahramov, who was the linesman at that end of the ground, was signalling to him. Eventually, Dienst awarded a goal to England, who went on to win the game 4–2.

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Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty-five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.
Turkic languages are spoken as a native language by some 165 to 200 million people; and the total number of Turkic speakers is over 300 million, including speakers of a second language. The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish proper, or Anatolian [and Balkan] Turkish, the speakers of which account for about 40% of all Turkic speakers.
Characteristic features of Turkish, such as vowel harmony, agglutination, and lack of grammatical gender, are universal within the Turkic family. There is also a high degree of mutual intelligibility between the various Oghuz languages, which include Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, Balkan Gagauz Turkish and Oghuz influenced Crimean Tatar.
The characteristic features of the Turkic languages are vowel harmony, extensive agglutination by means of suffixes and other affixes, and lack of noun classes or grammatical gender. Subject–object–verb word order is universal within the family. All of these distinguishing characteristics are shared with the Mongolic, Tungusic, and Korean language families, as well as (with the exception of vowel harmony) with Japonic, which are considered by some linguists to be genetically linked with the Turkic languages in an Altaic language family.

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Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are a collection of ethnic groups that live in northern, central and western Asia, northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds. The term Turkic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people including existing societies such as the Turkish, Azerbaijani, Chuvashes, Kazakhs, Tatars, Kyrgyzs, Turkmens, Uyghurs, Uzbeks, Bashkirs, Qashqai, Gagauzs, Yakuts, Crimean Karaites, Krymchaks, Karakalpaks, Karachays, Nogais and as well as past civilizations such as the Göktürks, Kumans, Kipchaks, Avars, Bulgars, Turgeshes, Khazars, Seljuk Turks, Ottoman Turks, Mamluks, Timurids and possibly Huns and the Xiongnu.
The distribution of people of Turkic cultural background ranges from Siberia, across Central Asia, to Eastern Europe. As of 2011^[update] the largest groups of Turkic people live throughout Central Asia—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan, in addition to Turkey and Iran. Additionally, Turkic people are found within Crimea, East Turkistan region of western China, northern Iraq, Pakistan, Israel, Russia, Afghanistan, and the Balkans: Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, and former Yugoslavia. A small number of Turkic people also live in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Small numbers inhabit eastern Poland and the south-eastern part of Finland. There are also considerable populations of Turkic people (originating mostly from Turkey) in Germany, United States, and Australia, largely because of migrations during the 20th century.

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Turkish Cypriots
Turkish Cypriots (Turkish: Kıbrıs Türkleri or Kıbrıslı Türkler Greek: Τουρκοκύπριοι) are the ethnic Turks and members of the Turkish-speaking ethnolinguistic community of the Eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus. The term is used to refer explicitly to the indigenous Turkish Cypriots, whose Ottoman Turkish forbears colonised the island in 1571. About 30,000 Turkish soldiers were given land once they settled in Cyprus, which bequeathed a significant Turkish community; today's Turkish Cypriots.
Ottoman troops landed in Cyprus in mid-May 1570 and conquered it within a year from Venetian rule. The Turkish arrival to the island was welcomed by the Greek Cypriots as it was an improvement on Catholic domination and on the hope that 'anybody was better than the Venetians.' After the defeat of the Venetians in 1571, the Turkish commander, Lala Mustafa Paşa, chose 12,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalrymen to stay behind as colonists. Furthermore, a substantial number of Turkish soldiers and their families from the Mediterranean region of Turkey, approximately 20,000, went to Cyprus and were given fiefs on the island. A fief was a parcel of real estate given by Sultan Selim II to his soldiers in return for their service to him. By the late sixteenth century there was an estimated 40,000-60,000 Turks in Cyprus.

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Turkmen people
The Turkmen (Turkmen: Türkmen/Түркмен, plural Türkmenler/Түркменлер) are a Turkic people located primarily in the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, Syria, Iraq and North Caucasus (Stavropol Krai). They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Western Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages family together with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai, Gagauz and Salar.
Originally, all Turkic tribes that were not part of the Turkic dynastic mythological system (for example, Uigurs, Karluks, Kalaches and a number of other tribes) were designated "Turkmens". Only later did this word come to refer to a specific ethnonym. The etymology of the term derives from Türk plus the Sogdian affix of similarity -myn ,-men, and means "resembling a Türk" or "co-Türk". A prominent Turkic scholar, Mahmud Kashgari, also mentions the etymology Türk manand (like Turks). The language and ethnicity of the Turkmen were much influenced by their migration to the west. Kashgari calls the Karluks Turkmen as well, but the first time the etymology Turkmen was used was by Makdisi in the second half of the 10th-century AD. Like Kashgari, he wrote that the Karluks and Oghuz Turks were called Turkmen. Some modern scholars have proposed that the element -man/-men acts as an intensifier, and have translated the word as "pure Turk" or "most Turk-like of the Turks". Among Muslim chroniclers such as Ibn Kathir the etymology was attributed to the mass conversion of two hundred thousand households in AH 349 (971 CE), causing them to be named Turk Iman, which is a combination of "Turk" and "Iman" إيمان (faith, belief), meaning "believing Turks", with the term later dropping the hard-to-pronounce hamza.

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Turks in Bulgaria
The Turks in Bulgaria constitute the largest ethnic minority in the country. They are also known as Bulgarian Turks (Turkish: Bulgaristan Türkleri, Bulgarian: български турци [bɤɫɡɐrski turtsi]) which name in addition to the Turks in Bulgaria, refers also to the Turks in any country that were born in Bulgaria.
The Turks in Bulgaria are descendants of Turkic settlers who came from Anatolia across the narrows of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus following the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, as well as Bulgarian converts to Islam who became Turkified during the centuries of Ottoman rule. It has also been suggested that some Turks living today in Bulgaria may be direct ethnic descendants of earlier medieval Pecheneg, Oğuz, and Cuman Turkic tribes. The Turkish community became an ethnic minority when the Principality of Bulgaria was established after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. This community is of Turkish ethnic consciousness and differs from the majority Bulgarian ethnicity and the rest of the Bulgarian nation by its own language, religion, culture, customs, and traditions. DNA research investigating the three largest population groups in Bulgaria: Bulgarians, Bulgarian Turks and Gypsies confirms with Y-chromosomal STR haplotype analysis that there are significant differences between the three ethnic groups. The study revealed a high number of population-specific haplotypes and a low degree of haplotype sharing between the three ethnic communities.

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Turks in Kosovo
The Turks in Kosovo, also known as Kosovo Turks, Kosovan Turks and Kosovar Turks (Turkish: Kosova Türkleri) are the ethnic Turks who constitute a minority group in Kosovo.
Turkish settlement into Kosovo began in the early fourteenth century after the medieval Serbian state lost the Battle of Kosovo and the territory came under Ottoman rule. Substantial waves of Turkish colonisers began from 1389-1455 when, during the Ottoman conquest, soldiers, officials, and merchants began to make their appearance in the major towns of Kosovo. However, the Ottoman Turks lost control over Kosovo in 1912, and Kosovo came under the de facto authority of the Kingdom of Serbia. Following the Austrian and Bulgarian occupation during World War I, Kosovo became part of the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918. When the Axis powers occupied Yugoslavia in 1941, Kosovo became part of Albania, which was itself controlled by Italy. With the defeat of the Axis powers, Yugoslavia, then ruled by Communists led by Josip Broz Tito, regained control over Kosovo. Meanwhile, the Turks became an officially recognised minority by Yugoslavia; as a result, the number of registered Turks in Kosovo jumped from a mere 1,313 (or 0.2% of the population) in 1948 to 34,343 (4.3% of Kosovo's population) in the 1953 census. However, many Turkish inhabitants began to emigrate to Turkey until 1958 on the basis of a bilingual contract between Yugoslavia and Turkey.

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Tuvans
The Tuvans or Tuvinians (Tuvan: Тывалар, Tyvalar; Mongolian: Tuva Uriankhai) are a Turkic-speaking ethnic group living in southern Siberia. They are historically known as one of the Uriankhai, from the Mongolian designation. Tuvans' recent ethnic history is rooted in Mongol, Turkic, and Samoyedic groups of peoples.
Tuvans have historically been cattle-breeding nomads, tending to their herds of goats, sheep, camels, reindeer, cattle and yaks for the past thousands of years. They have traditionally lived in yurts covered by felt or chums covered with birch bark or hide that they relocate seasonally as they move to newer pastures. Traditionally Tuvans divided into nine regions called Khoshuun, namely the Tozhu, Salchak, Oyunnar, Khemchik, Khaasuut, Shalyk, Nibazy, Daavan & Choodu, and Beezi. The first four were ruled by Uriankhai Mongol princes, while the rest were administered by Borjigit Mongol princes.
Besides prehistoric rock-carvings to be found especially along the Yenisei banks, the first internationally important archaeological findings have been near Arzhan, in the north central Tuva. Here Scythian kurgan burials are being researched, revealing the earliest (7th, 6th century BC) and easternmost remains of these people who spread all the way to Europe. They may be the origin of the occasional and remarkable blond, freckled, green- and blue-eyed Tuvans. Their story and fantastic gold treasures can be appreciated in the National Museum in Kyzyl.

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Uzbeks
The Uzbeks (Oʻzbek, pl. Oʻzbeklar) are a major Turkic-speaking ethnic group in Central Asia. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, and large populations can also be found in Afghanistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Pakistan, Mongolia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Smaller diaspora populations of Uzbeks from Central Asia, mainly from Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, are also found in Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, North America, and Western Europe.
The origin of the name Uzbek remains disputed. One view holds that it is eponymously named after Uzbeg Khan. Another states that the name means independent or the lord itself, from Oʻz (self) and Bek/Bey/Beg (from the Turkic root meaning a noble title). However there is another theory that the pronunciation of Uz comes from one of the Oghuz Turks variously known as Uz or Uguz united with the word Bey or Bek to form uguz-bey, meaning "leader of an oguz".
Although Turko-Mongol infiltration into Central Asia had started early, as late as the 13th century AD when Turkic and Mongol armies finally conquered the entire region, the majority of Central Asia's peoples were Iranic peoples such as Sogdians, Bactrians and, more ancient, the Saka–Massagetae tribes. It is generally believed that these ancient Indo-European-speaking peoples were linguistically assimilated by smaller but dominant Turkic-speaking groups while the sedentary population finally adopted the Persian language, the traditional lingua franca of the eastern Islamic lands. The language-shift from Middle Iranian to Turkic and New Persian was predominantly the result of an elite dominance process. This process was dramatically boosted during the Mongol conquest when millions were either killed or pushed further south to the Pamir region.

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Uzeyir Hajibeyov
Uzeyir bey Abdul Huseyn oglu Hajibeyov (Azerbaijani: Üzeyir bəy Əbdülhüseyn oğlu Hacıbəyov / عزیر حاجی‌بیوو; Russian: Узеир Абдул-Гусейн оглы Гаджибеков; September 18, 1885, Agjabadi – November 23, 1948, Baku) was an Azerbaijani and Soviet composer, conductor, publicist, playwright, teacher, translator, and social figure from Azerbaijan. He is recognized as the father of Azerbaijani composed classical music and opera. Uzeyir Hajibeyov composed the music of the national anthem of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (which was re-adopted after Azerbaijan regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991). He also composed the anthem used by Azerbaijan during the Soviet period. He was the first Muslim^{[citation needed]} composer of an opera.
Uzeyir Hajibeyov was born in Agjabadi in the Elisabethpol Governorate of the Russian Empire, which is now part of Azerbaijan. His father, Abdul Huseyn Hajibeyov, was the secretary to Khurshidbanu Natavan for many years, and his mother, Shirin, grew up in the Natavan household. Growing up, Hajibeyov was strongly influenced by Natavan's work.

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Vagif Mustafa Zadeh
Vagif Mustafazadeh (born March, 1940), also known as Vagif Mustafa Zadeh, was an Azerbaijani jazz pianist and composer, acclaimed for fusing jazz and traditional Azerbaijani folk music known as mugham. According to many world famous jazz musicians,^{[citation needed]} Mustafazadeh is one of the pioneers and "the architect of jazz in Azerbaijan".
Mustafazadeh was born in Old City, the historical core of the Baku, on March 16, 1940. His name was chosen by the renowned poet, Samed Vurgun, on the request of his mother, who was a piano teacher in local music school and played very influential and immeasurable role in his success.
In 1963, he graduated from Baku State Musical School named after Asaf Zeynally and a year later accepted to Azerbaijan State Conservatoire. He first achieved fame at the Music School where he studied by giving concerts there, later on performing at the parties and evenings held at the universities and clubs, shortly after he became one of the most influential musical performers in Azerbaijan. While performing at the clubs, he mainly played classical jazz, as well as blues and dance music.

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Vagit Alekperov
Vagit Alekperov (Azerbaijani: Vahid Yusuf oğlu Ələkbərov); (Russian: Вагит Юсуфович Алекперов, born September 1, 1950 in Baku, Azerbaijan) is an Azerbaijani businessman and currently a President of the leading Russian oil company LUKOIL.
He is currently rated by Forbes magazine as the eighth richest person in Russia with $13.9 billion of net worth and the 50th richest person in the world.
He was born in Baku, one of the earliest centers of the international petroleum industry. His father, who died when Vagit was a boy, worked in the oil fields all his life and inspired Alekperov to follow in his footsteps. Alekperov's father was a Muslim and his mother, Russian Orthodox. Alekperov is religious, but does not define himself as either Muslim or Orthodox. He was eighteen when he landed his first job in the industry.
Alekperov graduated in 1974 from the Azerbaijan Oil and Chemistry Institute. As a student he also worked as a drilling operator in Kaspmorneft, a Caspian regional production company.

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Yakuts
Yakuts (Yakut language: Саха, Saxa) are a Turkic people associated with the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic.
The Yakut or Sakha language belongs to the Northern branch of the Turkic family of languages. There are about 444,000 ethnic Yakuts (Russian census, 2002) mainly in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in the Russian Federation, with some extending to the Amur, Magadan, Sakhalin regions, and the Taymyr and Evenki Autonomous Districts. Their share of the population of Yakutia lowered during Soviet rule due to forced immigration, and other relocation policies, but has slightly increased since.
The Yakuts are divided into two basic groups based on geography and economics. Yakuts in the north are historically semi-nomadic hunters, fishermen, reindeer breeders, while southern Yakuts engage in animal husbandry focusing on horses and cattle.
Yakuts originally lived around Olkhon and the region of Lake Baikal. But beginning in the 13th century they migrated to the basins of the Middle Lena, the Aldan and Vilyuy rivers under the pressure of the rising Mongols, where they mixed with other northern indigenous peoples of Russia such as the Evens and Evenks.

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Yugur
The Yugurs (Chinese: 裕固族; pinyin: Yùgù Zú), or Yellow Uyghurs as they are traditionally known, are one of China's 56 officially recognized nationalities, consisting of 13,719 persons according to the 2000 census. The Yugur live primarily in Sunan Yugur Autonomous County in Gānsù Province. They are Buddhists, unlike the Xinjiang Uyghurs who had converted to Islam. Scholars like Pál Nyíri and Joana Breidenbach say that the Yugur's culture, language, and religion, is closer to the original culture of the original Uyghur Confederation at Karakorum, than the culture of the modern Uyghur people of Xinjiang.
About 4,600 of the Yugurs speak the Turkic Western Yugur language and about 2,800 the Mongolic Eastern Yugur language. The remaining Yugurs of the Autonomous County lost their respective Yugur language and speak Chinese. A very small number of the Yugur reportedly speak Tibetan. The Yugur have preserved more of the original Turkic language of the Uyghurs than other Uyghurs. They use Chinese for intercommunication. Both Yugur languages are now unwritten, although vertical Uyghur script was in use in some Yugur communities till end of 19th century.

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azeri music

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published: 24 Jun 2011

author: ASHRAFALIRAQE1

AZERİ (Fariz Mammadov) VS ARMENİAN (Jeqise Tomasyan)!!!

Professional box tournament hold on may 12, 2012 in Vaysvater (city of Germany). Fight bet...

published: 30 May 2012

author: resad. alekberov

AySel & Arash - Always (Azerbaijan)

published: 19 Mar 2009

author: eurovision

azeri şarkı super ayrılık ((

azeri şarkı super ayrılık googoosh tan...

published: 08 Sep 2008

author: ulku688

Namiq Qaracuxurlu : Revayet Azerbaijan Music

Namiq Qaracuxurlu : Revayet Azerbaijan Music Song : Clip Klip Kurdish Music Kurdish Son Go...

published: 12 Oct 2009

author: RozeN0

Azerbaijan Girl & Cars --- Азербайджанки и Машины!! 2012

Beautiful Azerbaijan Girl & Car Of Baku City Soundtrack №1: DJ TuRGaY feat.RaMZeS - I Love...

published: 07 Jan 2012

author: komersant28

Azeri Dance

Azeri Dance Mugamatoglu www.facebook.com...

published: 10 Aug 2010

author: 007Dildar

Harika Bir Azeri Şarkısı

Harika Bir Azeri Şarkısı...

published: 28 Sep 2007

author: gereppa1

Azeri Bad Boys (Car stunts) Pt.1

Car stunts in Baku,Azerbaijan.....one of the best countries in the WorlD....X-stream stunt...

published: 22 May 2007

author: 3lmar

вот так знакомится azeri (QILLI BASH)

...

published: 25 Jun 2012

author: elnur seyidov

Azeri Wedding Thriller Dance / Baku, Azerbaijan

Murad & Ula's wedding...

published: 25 Apr 2009

author: lamattik

Ibrahim Tatlises vs azeri kızı Günel 2012

O vasili star 2012 Ibrahim Tatlises vs azeri kızı Günel...

published: 02 Jan 2012

author: vasilis nana

Aganin toyu azeri reqsi nagara

azeri reqsi aganin toyu...

published: 10 Oct 2011

author: Gunduz Mamedov

AZERİ KIZININ DÜNYAYI KASIP KAVURAN PARÇASI

AZERİ KIZININ DÜNYAYI KASIP KAVURAN PARÇASI...

published: 08 May 2011

author: kadriozden

Haluk'un Azericesi.. (Çocuklar Duymasın)

Haluk şantiyede işlerin durması üzerine şantiyedeki Azeri arkadaşını telefonla arar ve ara...

published: 20 Aug 2010

author: MinT Prodüksiyon

About Azerbaijan

This film is about Azerbaijan from the perspective of foreigners. Six people from differen...

published: 24 Mar 2010

author: Anar GARIBOV

Untitled

published: 13 Feb 2010

author: azeri

Azeri dance

Ziba Tabrizi performs dance in Azeri style at the Magic of Persia Norouz weekend at the Br...

published: 17 Jul 2010

author: Ziba Tabrizi

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photo: AP / Sebastian D'souza

FILE - In this Nov. 26, 2008 file photo, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the accused gunman walks at the Chatrapathi Sivaji Terminal railway station in Mumbai, India.

India hangs gunman from 2008 Mumbai attack

Herald Tribune

21 Nov 2012

MUMBAI, India - India executed the lone surviving gunman from the 2008 terror attack on Mumbai early Wednesday, India's home ministry said. Ajmal Kasab, a Pakistani citizen, was one of 10 gunmen who rampaged through the streets of India's financial capital in November 2008, killing 166 people. Kasab was hung at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday at a jail in...(size: 4.5Kb)

photo: AP / Melanie Gouby

People walk past as M23 rebel soldier's take positions near the Heal Africa hospital in the center of Goma, Congo, Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2012.

DR Congo soldiers surrender to M23

Al Jazeera

21 Nov 2012

Hundreds of government soldiers and police in the Democratic Republic of Congo have surrendered to rebels at a stadium in Goma, Al Jazeera's Nazanine Moshiri has reported from the scene. The M23 rebel group, believed to be backed by Rwanda seized the strategic, provincial capital of Goma in eastern Congo on Tuesday, home to more than 1 million...(size: 18.7Kb)

photo: AP / Emilio Morenatti

Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry arrives at the Supreme Court compound in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Tuesday, March 24, 2009.

Pakistan's powerful military under scrutiny

Al Jazeera

22 Nov 2012

A new battle is underway in Pakistan with its powerful military front-and-centre, but the fight is not against armed insurgents or ideological extremists - this opponent is a muscle-flexing Supreme Court. For the first time in decades, the military's iron grip over the South Asian country has been challenged, and it remains to be seen if it will...(size: 23.7Kb)

photo: AP

On March 10, 1973, more than one week after seizing Wounded Knee, S.D., and starting a standoff with federal authorities, members of the Oglala Sioux tribe march to the cemetery where their ancestors were buried following the 1890 massacre at the site.

Amerindians and Politics of Thanksgiving and Black Friday

WorldNews.com

23 Nov 2012

Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. I was fortunate to have been raised near an American Indian archaeological spot located on the Great Plains. In elementary school, a fellow classmate would periodically bring and show grinding stones, arrow- and spearheads, stone farming implements, and pictures of what the excavated site may have...(size: 7.1Kb)

photo: UN / Logan Abassi

Hurricane Sandy passed to the west of Haiti on 25 October, 2012, causing heavy rains and strong winds, flooding homes and overflowing rivers. A woman walks through a flooded market in Port-au-Prince.

UN says carbon cuts too slow to curb dangerous warming

BBC News

21 Nov 2012

A report by the UN says global attempts to curb emissions of CO2 are falling well short of what is needed to stem dangerous climate change. The UN's Environment Programme says greenhouse gases are 14% above where they need to be in 2020 for temperature rises this century to remain below 2C. The authors say this target is still technically...(size: 3.5Kb)

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ONGC plans to raise $900 mln in dollar bond issue-official

Reuters

23 Nov 2012

NEW DELHI Nov 23 (Reuters) - India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp plans to raise up to $900 million in the first quarter of 2013 through a dollar bond issue to fund its acquisition in Azerbaijan, a...(size: 1.3Kb)

ONGC plans to raise $900 mn in dollar bond issue: Official

The Times of India

23 Nov 2012

NEW DELHI: Oil and Natural Gas Corp plans to raise up to $900 million in the first quarter of 2013 through a dollar bond issue to fund its acquisition in Azerbaijan, a top official said. Hess Corp said in...(size: 1.3Kb)

ONGC plans to raise $900 mn in dollar bond issue-official

Indian Express

23 Nov 2012

India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp plans to raise up to $900 million in the first quarter of 2013 through a dollar bond issue to fund its acquisition in Azerbaijan, a top official said. Hess...(size: 1.3Kb)

ONGC unit plans to raise up to $900 mn in bonds

The Times of India

23 Nov 2012

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: A unit of India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp plans to raise up to $900 million in the first quarter of 2013 through a dollar bond issue to fund an acquisition in Azerbaijan, a top official said. ONGC Videsh, part of the country's...(size: 1.7Kb)

Nagorno-Karabakh, the time bomb on Europe's doorstep

France24

23 Nov 2012

The enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh is a powder keg at the heart of a 25-year-old dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Its...(size: 0.8Kb)

UPDATE 1-ONGC unit plans to raise up to $900 mln in bonds

Reuters

23 Nov 2012

* ONGC unit to raise up to $900 mln in dollar bonds * Mandates banks, plans to raise 5- or 10-yr debt-sources * Sale will fund a pipeline acquisition in Azerbaijan NEW DELHI/MUMBAI, Nov 23 (Reuters) - A unit of India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp plans to raise up to $900...(size: 1.8Kb)

Europa League Results: Groups G-L - Sporting & Athletic crash out

Goal

23 Nov 2012

With only one round of matches left, Metalist sealed top spot in Group K with victory over Leverkusen, while Videoton and Basel must fight for progression in a fortnight's time By Livio Caferoglu More On : Athletic Bilbao, Basel, Bayer 04 Leverkusen, FC Internazionale, Hannover 96, Helsingborgs IF, Ironi Kiryat Shmona, KRC Genk, Lazio,...(size: 7.4Kb)

India's ONGC plans bond to fund Azerbaijan oilfield stake buy -report

Reuters

21 Nov 2012

HONG KONG Nov 21 (Reuters) - Oil & Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) , India's biggest energy explorer, is planning to sell dollar bonds to fund the $1 billion acquisition of a...(size: 1.1Kb)

ONGC plans bond to fund Azerbaijan oilfield stake buy: Report

The Times of India

21 Nov 2012

HONG KONG: Oil & Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), India's biggest energy explorer, is planning to sell dollar bonds to fund the $1 billion acquisition of a stake in oilfields in...(size: 1.1Kb)

ONGC Videsh plans to raise $1 bn via dollar bonds issue

Indian Express

21 Nov 2012

ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), plans to raise about USD 1 billion through a dollar bonds issue early next year to fund its recent acquisition in Azerbaijan. "We are planning a dollar...(size: 1.5Kb)

OVL plans to raise $1 bn via dollar bonds issue in Q1 of FY13 to fund its recent acquisition in Azerbaijan

The Times of India

21 Nov 2012

NEW DELHI: ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), plans to raise about $ 1 billion through a dollar bonds issue early next year to fund its recent acquisition in Azerbaijan. "We are planning a dollar bonds issue in first quarter of 2013," a top source said. "Ultimately, what we raise will depend on a lot of...(size: 2.4Kb)

OVL plans to raise $1 b via dollar bonds

The Hindu

21 Nov 2012

ONGC Videsh Ltd. (OVL), the overseas arm of Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), plans to raise about $1 billion...(size: 0.8Kb)

Azeri president says Armenia is a country "of no value"

The Star

20 Nov 2012

BAKU (Reuters) - Azeri President Ilham Aliyev took his verbal attacks on arch enemy Armenia onto Twitter on Tuesday, calling his Caucasus neighbour a "colony" run from abroad. Aliyev and his government have tried to boost their presence online, where dissident Azeri bloggers and members of the Armenian diaspora regularly attack Azerbaijan's human...(size: 2.3Kb)

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This article's factual accuracy is disputed. Please help to ensure that disputed facts are reliably sourced. See the relevant discussion on the talk page. (February 2012)

"Azeri" redirects here. For other uses, see Azeri (disambiguation).

This article is about the Azerbaijani ethnic group. For an analysis of the population of the Republic of Azerbaijan, see Demographics of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijanis
Azərbaycanlılar, Azərilər
آذربایجانلیلار ,آذری لر


Nasimi	Ismail I	Kazembek	Qudsi

Khoyski	Alasgar	Akhundov	Nakhcivanski

Mammadguluzadeh	Javanshir	Chamanzaminli	Huseynzade
	90x105px
Mammadbeyova	Garayev	Kasravi	Almaszadeh

Ibragimbekov	Shahriar	Kerimov	Hajibeyov

Behrangi	Pahlavi	Magomayev	Bahramov

Alekperov	Mustafazadeh	Khamenei	Aliyeva

AySel	Yusuf	Lotfi A. Zadeh	Mousavi

Total population

approx. 22–35 million^[1]^[2]

Regions with significant populations

Iran	11.2 to 30 million	^[3]^[4]^[5]^:28^[6]^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11] ^[12]
Azerbaijan	8,172,800	^[13]
Russia	621,800 to 1,500,000	^[14]^[15]
Turkey	530,000 to 2,500,000	^[16]^[15]
Georgia	284,761 to 500,000	^[17]^[15]
Kazakhstan	78,295	^[18]
Ukraine	45,176	^[19]
Uzbekistan	44,400	^[20]
Turkmenistan	33,365	^[21]
Netherlands	18,000	^[22]
Kyrgyzstan	17,823	^[23]
Germany	15,219	^[24]
United Kingdom	15,000	^[25]
Belarus	6,362	^[26]
United States	5,553	^[27]
Canada	3,465	^[28]
Latvia	1,697	^[29]
Austria	1,000	^[30]
Estonia	880	^[31]
Lithuania	788	^[18]

Languages

Azerbaijani

Religion

Predominantly Shia Islam; minorities practice Sunni Islam, Christianity, Bahá'í Faith, and Zoroastrianism

Related ethnic groups

Other Turkic peoples, Iranian peoples, peoples of the Caucasus

The Azerbaijanis ( /ˌæzərbaɪˈdʒɑːni/; Azerbaijani: Azərbaycanlılar, Азәрбајҹанлылар, آذربایجانلیلار ) or Azarbaijanis^[3] are Turkic-speaking people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as in the neighboring states, Georgia, Russia (Dagestan) and formerly Armenia. Also referred to as Azeris or Azaris (Azərilər, Азәриләр, آذریلر ) or Azerbaijani Turks^[32]^[33] (Azərbaycan türkləri), they also live in a wider area from the Caucasus to the Iranian plateau. The Azerbaijanis are predominantly Shi'a Muslim^[34]^[35] and have a mixed cultural heritage including Turkic, Iranic^[36] and Caucasian elements.

Following the Russo-Persian Wars of 1813 and 1828, the territories of the Qajar Persian Empire in the Caucasus were ceded to the Russian Empire and the treaties of Gulistan in 1813 and Turkmenchay in 1828 finalized the borders between Czarist Russia and Qajar Iran.^[37]^[38] The formation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 established the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Despite living on two sides of an international border, the Azeris form a single ethnic group.^[35] However, northerners and southerners differ due to nearly two centuries of separate social evolution in Iranian Azerbaijan and Russian/Soviet-influenced Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani language unifies Azerbaijanis, and is mutually intelligible with Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz and Anatolian Turkish (including the dialects spoken by the Iraqi Turkmen), all of which belong to the Oghuz, or Western, group of Turkic languages.^[39]^:105

History [link]

Azerbaijani people

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Main article: History of Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan is believed to be named after Atropates, a Persian^[40]^[41]^[42]^[43] satrap (governor) who ruled in Atropatene (modern Iranian Azerbaijan).^[44]^[45]^:2 The name Atropates means "protected by fire". An alternative theory is that Azerbaijan is the combination of two Persian words, "Āzar" meaning "(holy) fire" and "pāygān" meaning "the place of".^[46]

Ancient residents of the area spoke the Ancient Azari language, which belonged to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages.^[47] In the 11th century A.D. with Seljukid conquests, Oghuz Turkic tribes started moving across the Iranian plateau into the Caucasus and Anatolia. The influx of the Oghuz and other Turkmen tribes was further accentuated by the Mongol invasion.^[48] Here, the Oghuz tribes divided into various smaller groups, some of whom – mostly Sunni – moved to Anatolia (i.e., the Ottomans) and became settled, while others remained in the Caucasus region and later – due to the influence of the Safaviyya – eventually converted to the Shia branch of Islam. The latter were to keep the name "Turkmen" or "Turcoman" for a long time: from the 13th century onwards they gradually Turkified the Iranian-speaking populations of Azerbaijan, thus creating a new identity based on Shia and the use of Oghuz Turkic. Today, this Turkic-speaking population is known as Azeri.^[36]

Ancient period [link]

Caucasian Albanians are believed to be the earliest inhabitants of the region where the modern day Republic of Azerbaijan is located.^[49] Early Iranian settlements included the Scythians in the ninth century BC. Following the Scythians, the Medes came to dominate the area to the south of the Aras River.^[46] The Medes forged a vast empire between 900–700 BC, which was integrated into the Achaemenids Empire around 550 BC. During this period, Zoroastrianism spread in the Caucasus and Atropatene. The Achaemenids in turn were defeated by Alexander the Great in 330 BC, but the Median satrap Atropates was allowed to remain in power. Following the decline of the Seleucids in Persia in 247 BC, an Armenian Kingdom exercised control over parts of Caucasian Albania.^[50] Caucasian Albanians established a kingdom in the first century BC and largely remained independent until the Persian Sassanids made the kingdom a vassal state in 252 AD.^[5]^:38 Caucasian Albania's ruler, King Urnayr, officially adopted Christianity as the state religion in the fourth century AD, and Albania remained a Christian state until the 8th century.^[51]^[52] Sassanid control ended with their defeat by Muslim Arabs in 642 AD.^[53]

Medieval period [link]

Muslim Arabs defeated the Sassanids and Byzantines as they marched into the Caucasus region. The Arabs made Caucasian Albania a vassal state after the Christian resistance, led by Prince Javanshir, surrendered in 667.^[5]^:71 Between the ninth and tenth centuries, Arab authors began to refer to the region between the Kura and Aras rivers as Arran.^[5]^:20 During this time, Arabs from Basra and Kufa came to Azerbaijan and seized lands that indigenous peoples had abandoned; the Arabs became a land-owning elite.^[54]^:48 Conversion to Islam was slow as local resistance persisted for centuries and resentment grew as small groups of Arabs began migrating to cities such as Tabriz and Maraghah. This influx sparked a major rebellion in Iranian Azerbaijan from 816–837, led by a local Zoroastrian commoner named Bābak.^[55] However, despite pockets of continued resistance, the majority of the inhabitants of Azerbaijan converted to Islam. Later, in the 10th and 11th centuries, parts of Azerbaijan were ruled by the Kurdish dynasties of Shaddadid and Rawadid.

In the middle of the eleventh century, the Seljuq dynasty overthrew Arab rule and established an empire that encompassed most of Southwest Asia. The Seljuk period marked the influx of Oghuz nomads into the region, and the beginning of the Turkification of Azerbaijan as the West Oghuz Turkic language supplanted earlier Caucasian and Iranian ones.^[46]^[56]

Iranian cultural influence, however, survived extensively, as evidenced by the works of Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi. The emerging Turkic identity was chronicled in epic poems or dastans, the oldest being the Book of Dede Korkut, which relate allegorical tales about the early Turks in the Caucasus and Asia Minor.^[5]^:45 Turkic dominion was interrupted by the Mongols in 1227. Turkic rule returned with the Timurids and then Sunni Qara Qoyunlū (Black Sheep Turkmen) and Aq Qoyunlū (White Sheep Turkmen), who dominated Azerbaijan until the Shi'a Safavids took power in 1501.^[5]^:113^[54]^:285

Modern period [link]

The Safavids, who rose from around Ardabil in Iranian Azerbaijan and lasted until 1722, established the modern Iranian state.^[57] Noted for achievements in state building, architecture, and the sciences, the Safavid state crumbled due to internal decay and external pressures from the Russians and Afghans. The Safavids encouraged and spread Shi'a Islam, as well as the arts and culture, and Shah Abbas the Great created an intellectual atmosphere that according to some scholars was a new "golden age".^[58] He reformed the government and the military, and responded to the needs of the common people.^[58]

After the Safavid state came brief Ottoman rule followed by conquest by Nadir Shah Afshar, a Sunni chieftain from Khorasan who reduced the power of the Shi'a.^[54]^:300 The brief reign of Karim Khan came next, followed by the Qajars, who ruled Azerbaijan and Iran from 1779.^[5]^:106 Russia loomed as a threat to Persian holdings in the Caucasus in this period. The Russo-Persian Wars began in the eighteenth century and ended in the early nineteenth century with the Treaty of Gulistan of 1813 and the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828, which ceded the Caucasian portion of Qajar Iran to the Russian Empire.^[45]^:17 While Azerbaijanis in Iran integrated into Iranian society, northern Azeris were incorporated into the Russian Empire.

Sattar Khan (1868–1914) was a major revolutionary figure in the late Qajar period in Iran.

In Iran, Azerbaijanis such as Sattar Khan sought constitutional reform.^[59] The Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906–11 shook the Qajar dynasty. A parliament (Majlis) was founded on the efforts of the constitutionalists, and pro-democracy newspapers appeared. The last Shah of the Qajar dynasty was soon removed in a military coup led by Reza Khan. In the quest to impose national homogeneity on a country where half of the population were ethnic minorities, Reza Shah banned in quick succession the use of the Azerbaijani language in schools, theatrical performances, religious ceremonies, and books.^[60]

Upon the dethronement of Reza Shah in September 1941, Soviet forces took control of Iranian Azerbaijan and helped to set up the Azerbaijan People's Government, a client state under the leadership of Sayyid Jafar Pishevari backed by Soviet Azerbaijan. The Soviet military presence in Iranian Azerbaijan was mainly aimed at securing the Allied supply route during World War II. Concerned with the continued Soviet presence after World War II, the United States and Britain pressured the Soviets to withdraw by late 1946. Immediately thereafter, the Iranian government regained control of Iranian Azerbaijan.

According to Professor Gary R. Hess:

On December 11, an Iranian force entered Tabriz and the Peeshavari government quickly collapsed. Indeed the Iranians were enthusiastically welcomed by the people of Azerbaijan, who strongly preferred domination by Tehran rather than Moscow. The Soviet willingness to forego its influence in (Iranian) Azerbaijan probably resulted from several factors, including the realization that the sentiment for autonomy had been exaggerated and that oil concessions remained the more desirable long-term Soviet Objective.^[61]

Brief independence for northern Azerbaijan in 1918–1920 was followed by over 70 years of Soviet rule.^[39]^:91 After the restoration of independence in October 1991, the Republic of Azerbaijan became embroiled in a war with neighboring Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.^[39]^:97

Origins [link]

Main article: Origin of the Azeris

Fruit market in Urmia, Persia, 1911

Downtown Baku, Azerbaijan, 2008

In many references, Azerbaijanis are designated as a Turkic people, due to their Turkic language.^[62]^[63] However, modern-day Azerbaijanis are believed to be primarily the descendants of the Caucasian Albanian^[64]^[65] and Iranic peoples who lived in the areas of the Caucasus and northern Iran, respectively, prior to Turkification. Historian Vladimir Minorsky writes that largely Iranian and Caucasian populations became Turkish-speaking:

In the beginning of the 5th/11th century the Ghuzz hordes, first in smaller parties, and then in considerable numbers, under the Seljuqids occupied Azerbaijan. In consequence, the Iranian population of Azerbaijan and the adjacent parts of Transcaucasia became Turkophone while the characteristic features of Ādharbāyjānī Turkish, such as Persian intonations and disregard of the vocalic harmony, reflect the non-Turkish origin of the Turkicised population.^[66]

Thus, centuries of Turkic migration and turkification of the region helped to formulate the contemporary Azerbaijani ethnic identity.

Turkification [link]

The earliest major Turkic incursion of the area now known as Azerbaijan began and accelerated during the Seljuk period.^[62] The migration of Oghuz Turks from present-day Turkmenistan, which is attested by linguistic similarity, remained high through the Mongol period, as many troops under the Ilkhans were Turkic. By the Safavid period, the Turkification of Azerbaijan continued with the influence of the Kizilbash. The very name Azerbaijan is derived from the pre-Turkic name of the province, Azarbayjan or Adarbayjan, and illustrates a gradual language shift that took place as local place names survived Turkification, albeit in altered form.^[47]

Most academics view the linguistic Turkification of predominantly non-Turkic-speaking indigenous peoples and assimilation of small bands of Turkic tribes as the most likely origin for the Azeris.^[45]^:6–7

Iranian origin [link]

The Iranian origins of the Azeris likely derive from ancient Iranic tribes, such as the Medes in Iranian Azerbaijan, and Scythian invaders who arrived during the eighth century BC. It is believed that the Medes mixed with Mannai.^[67] Ancient written accounts, such as one written by Arab historian Al-Masudi, attest to an Iranian presence in the region:

The Persians are a people whose borders are the Mahat Mountains and Azarbaijan up to Armenia and Aran, and Bayleqan and Darband, and Ray and Tabaristan and Masqat and Shabaran and Jorjan and Abarshahr, and that is Nishabur, and Herat and Marv and other places in the land of Khorasan, and Sejistan and Kerman and Fars and Ahvaz ... All these lands were once one kingdom with one sovereign and one language ... although the language differed slightly. The language, however, is one, in that its letters are written the same way and used the same way in composition. There are, then, different languages such as Pahlavi, Dari, Azari, as well as other Persian languages.^[68]

A sample poem from Safina-yi Tabriz written in the old Azari language.

Archaeological evidence indicates that the Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism was prominent throughout the Caucasus before Christianity and Islam.^[69] It has also been hypothesized that the population of Iranian Azerbaijan was predominantly Persian-speaking before the Oghuz arrived. This claim is supported by the many figures of Persian literature, such as Qatran Tabrizi, Shams Tabrizi, Nizami Ganjavi, and Khaghani, who wrote in Persian prior to and during the Oghuz migration, as well as by Strabo, Al-Istakhri, and Al-Masudi, who all describe the language of the region as Persian. The claim is mentioned by other medieval historians, such as Al-Muqaddasi.^[47]

Encyclopædia Iranica says "The Turkish speakers of Azerbaijan (q.v.) are mainly descended from the earlier Iranian speakers" and points out the continued presence of pockets of Iranian Talysh and Tats in Azerbaijan.^[70]

Caucasian origin [link]

According to Encyclopædia Britannica:

The Azerbaijani are of mixed ethnic origin, the oldest element deriving from the indigenous population of eastern Transcaucasia and possibly from the Medians of northern Persia.^[35]

There is evidence that, despite repeated invasions and migrations, aboriginal Caucasians may have been culturally assimilated, first by Ancient Iranian peoples and later by the Oghuz. Considerable information has been learned about the Caucasian Albanians including their language, history, early conversion to Christianity, and close ties to the Armenians. The Udi language, still spoken in Azerbaijan, may be a remnant of the Albanians' language.^[71]

This Caucasian influence extended further south into Iranian Azerbaijan. During the 1st millennium BC, another Caucasian people, the Mannaeans (Mannai) populated much of Iranian Azerbaijan. Weakened by conflicts with the Assyrians, the Mannaeans are believed to have been conquered and assimilated by the Medes by 590 BC.^[72]

Genetics [link]

Iranian Azaris have stronger genetic affinity with their immediate geographic neighbors than with populations from Central Asia.^[73]

Genetic studies demonstrate that northern Azeris are more closely related to other Caucasian people like Georgians and Armenians than they are to Iranians or Turks.^[74] Iranian Azeris are genetically more similar to northern Azeris and the neighboring Turkish population than they are to geographically distant Turkmen populations.^[75] Iranian-speaking populations from Azerbaijan (the Talysh and Tats) are genetically closer to Azerbaijanis of the Republic than to other Iranian-speaking populations (Persian people and Kurds from Iran, Ossetians, and Tajiks).^[76] Such genetic evidence supports the view that the Azeris originate from a native population long resident in the area who adopted a Turkish language through a process of "elite dominance", i.e. a limited number of Turkic immigrants had a substantial cultural impact but left only weak patrilineal genetic traces.^[73]^[74]^[75]

MtDNA analysis indicates that Iranians, Anatolians and Caucasians are part of a larger West Eurasian group that is secondary to that of the Caucasus.^[77]^[78] While genetic analysis of mtDNA indicates that Caucasian populations are genetically closer to Europeans than to Near Easterners, Y-chromosome results indicate closer affinity to Near Eastern groups.^[74]

Iranians have a relatively diverse range of Y-chromosome haplotypes. A population from central Iran (Isfahan) shows closer similarity in terms of haplogroup distributions to Caucasians and Azeris than to populations from southern or northern Iran.^[79] The range of haplogroups across the region may reflect historical genetic admixture,^[80] perhaps as a result of invasive male migrations.^[74]

Ethnonym [link]

Historically the Turkic speakers of Iranian Azerbaijan and the Caucasus called themselves or were referred to by others as Muslims, Turks, or Ajams (by Kurds),^[81] and religious identification prevailed over ethnic identification. When the South Caucasus became part of the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century, the Russian authorities, who traditionally referred to all Turkic people as Tatars, defined Tatars living in the Transcaucasus region as Caucasian or Aderbeijanskie (Адербейджанские) Tatars to distinguish them from other Turkic groups.^[82] The Russian Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, written in the 1890s, also referred to Tatars in Azerbaijan as Aderbeijans (адербейджаны),^[83] but noted that the term had not been adopted widely.^[84] This ethnonym was also used by Joseph Deniker:

[The purely linguistic] grouping [does not] coincide with the somatological grouping: thus the Aderbeijani of the Caucasus and Persia, who speak a Turkish language, have the same physical type as the Hadjemi-Persians, who speak an Iranian tongue.^[85]

In Azerbaijani language publications, the expression "Azerbaijani nation" referring to those who were known as Tatars of the Caucasus first appeared in the newspaper Kashkul in 1880.^[86]

Demographics and society [link]

There are an estimated 22 to 35 million Azerbaijanis in the world, but census figures are difficult to verify. The vast majority live in the Republic of Azerbaijan and Iranian Azerbaijan. Between 11.2 and 30 million Azerbaijanis live in Iran, mainly in the northwestern provinces. Approximately 8 million Azerbaijanis are found in the Republic of Azerbaijan. A diaspora of over a million is spread throughout the rest of the world. According to Ethnologue, there are over 1 million speakers of the northern Azerbaijani dialect in southern Dagestan, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.^[87] No Azerbaijanis were recorded in the 2001 census in Armenia,^[88] where the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resulted in population shifts. Other sources, such as national censuses, confirm the presence of Azeris throughout the other states of the former Soviet Union. Ethnologue reports that 1 million South Azeris live outside Iran, but these figures include Iraqi Turkmen, a distinct though related Turkic people.^[16]

Azerbaijanis in Azerbaijan [link]

Azerbaijanis are by far the largest ethnic group in Azerbaijan (over 90%). The literacy rate is very high, and is estimated at 99.5%.^[89] Azerbaijan began the twentieth century with institutions based upon those of Russia and the Soviet Union, with an official policy of atheism and strict state control over most aspects of society. Since independence, there is a secular democratic system.

Azerbaijani society has been deeply impacted by the war with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, which has displaced nearly 1 million Azerbaijanis and put strain on the economy.^[90] Azerbaijan has benefited from the oil industry, but high levels of corruption have prevented greater prosperity for the masses.^[91] Despite these problems, there is a renaissance in Azerbaijan as positive economic predictions and an active political opposition appear determined to improve the lives of average Azerbaijanis.^[46]^[92]

Azerbaijanis in Iran [link]

Main article: Iranian Azerbaijanis

While population estimates in Azerbaijan are considered reliable due to regular censuses, the figures for Iran remain questionable. Since the early twentieth century, successive Iranian governments have avoided publishing statistics on ethnic groups.^[93] Unofficial population estimates of Azerbaijanis in Iran range from 16–33%.^[4]^[94]^[95]

Azerbaijanis in Iran are mainly found in the northwest provinces: East Azerbaijan, Ardabil, Zanjan, parts of Hamedan, Qazvin, West Azerbaijan and Markazi.^[3] Many others live in Tehran, Fars Province, and other regions. Generally, Azerbaijanis in Iran were regarded as "a well integrated linguistic minority" by academics prior to Iran's Islamic Revolution.^[96]^[97] Despite friction, Azerbaijanis in Iran came to be well represented at all levels of "political, military, and intellectual hierarchies, as well as the religious hierarchy".^[93]

Resentment came with Pahlavi policies that suppressed the use of the Azerbaijani language in local government, schools, and the press.^[98] However with the advent of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, emphasis shifted away from nationalism as the new government highlighted religion as the main unifying factor. Within the Islamic Revolutionary government there emerged an Azeri nationalist faction led by Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari, who advocated greater regional autonomy and wanted the constitution to be revised to include secularists and opposition parties; this was denied.^[99] Islamic theocratic institutions dominate nearly all aspects of society. The Azerbaijani language and its literature are banned in Iranian schools.^[100] There are signs of civil unrest due to the policies of the Iranian government in Iranian Azerbaijan and increased interaction with fellow Azeris in Azerbaijan and satellite broadcasts from Turkey have revived Azeri nationalism.^[101] In May 2006, Iranian Azerbaijan witnessed riots over publication of a cartoon depicting a cockroach speaking Azeri^[102] that many Azeris found offensive.^[103]^[104] The cartoon was drawn by Mana Neyestani, an ethnic Azeri, who was fired along with his editor as a result of the controversy.^[105]^[106]

Despite sporadic problems, Azeris are an intrinsic community within Iran, and living conditions of Azeris in Iran closely resemble those of Persians:

The life styles of urban Azerbaijanis do not differ from those of Persians, and there is considerable intermarriage among the upper classes in cities of mixed populations. Similarly, customs among Azerbaijani villagers do not appear to differ markedly from those of Persian villagers.^[3]

Azeris are famously active in commerce and in bazaars all over Iran their voluble voices can be heard. Older Azeri men wear the traditional wool hat, and their music & dances have become part of the mainstream culture. Azeris are well integrated, and many Azeri-Iranians are prominent in Persian literature, politics, and clerical world.^[107]

There is cross-border trade between Azerbaijan and Iran, and Azeris go into Iran to buy goods that are cheaper, but the relationship is tense.^[100]

Culture [link]

Main articles: Culture of Azerbaijan and Culture of Iran

In many respects, Azerbaijanis are Eurasian and bi-cultural, as northern Azerbaijanis have absorbed Russo-Soviet and Eastern European influences, whereas the Azerbaijanis of the south have remained within the Turko-Iranian and Persianate tradition. Modern Azerbaijani culture includes significant achievements in literature, art, music, and film.

Language and literature [link]

Main articles: Azerbaijani language and Azerbaijani literature

Muhammad Fuzûlî, sixteenth-century poet

The Azerbaijanis speak Azerbaijani (sometimes called Azerbaijani Turkish or Azeri), a Turkic language descended from the Western Oghuz Turkic language that became established in Azerbaijan in the 11th and 12th century CE. Early Oghuz was mainly an oral language, and the later compiled epics and heroic stories of Dede Korkut probably derive from an oral tradition. The first accepted Oghuz Turkic text goes back to 15th century. The first written, classical Azeri literature arose after the Mongol invasion.^[108] Some of the earliest Azerbaijani writings trace back to the poet Nasimi (died 1417) and then decades later Fuzûlî (1483–1556). Ismail I, Shah of Safavid Persia wrote Azerbaijani poetry under the pen name Khatâ'i. Modern Azeri literature continued with a traditional emphasis upon humanism, as conveyed in the writings of Samad Vurgun, Shahriar, and many others.^[109]

Azerbaijanis are generally bilingual, often fluent in either Russian (in Azerbaijan) or Persian (in Iran). As of 1996, around 38% of Azerbaijan's roughly 8,000,000 population spoke Russian fluently.^[110] An independent telephone survey in Iran in 2009 reported that 20% of respondents could understand Azeri, the most spoken minority language in Iran, and all respondents could understand Persian.^[6]

Religion [link]

Main articles: Religion in Azerbaijan, Islam in Azerbaijan, and Islam in Iran

The majority of Azerbaijanis are Twelver Shi'a Muslims. Religious minorities include Sunni Muslims (mainly Hanafi),^[111] Zoroastrians, Christians and Bahá'ís. An unknown number of Azerbaijanis in the Republic of Azerbaijan have no religious affiliation. Many describe themselves as cultural Muslims.^[46] There is a small number of Naqshbandi Sufis among Muslim Azerbaijanis.^[112] Christian Azeris number around 5,000 people in the Republic of Azerbaijan and consist mostly of recent converts.^[113] Some Azerbaijanis from rural regions retain pre-Islamic animist beliefs, such as the sanctity of certain sites and the veneration of certain trees and rocks.^[114] In the Republic of Azerbaijan traditions from other religions are often celebrated in addition to Islamic holidays, including Norouz and Christmas. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijanis have increasingly returned to their Islamic heritage as recent reports indicate that many Azerbaijani youth are being drawn to Islam.^[115]

Performance art [link]

Azerbaijani musicians in performance

Azerbaijani singers Ell & Nikki won the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest.

Chess player Teimour Radjabov

See also: Music of Azerbaijan and Music of Iran

Azerbaijanis express themselves in a variety of artistic ways including dance, music, and film. Azerbaijani folk dances are ancient and similar to that of their neighbors in the Caucasus and Iran. The group dance is a common form found from southeastern Europe to the Caspian Sea. In the group dance the performers come together in a semi-circular or circular formation as, "The leader of these dances often executes special figures as well as signaling and changes in the foot patterns, movements, or direction in which the group is moving, often by gesturing with his or her hand, in which a kerchief is held."^[116] Solitary dances are performed by both men and women and involve subtle hand motions in addition to sequenced steps.

Azerbaijani musical tradition can be traced back to singing bards called Ashiqs, a vocation that survives. Modern Ashiqs play the saz (lute) and sing dastans (historical ballads).^[117] Other musical instruments include the tar (another type of lute), balaban (a wind instrument), kamancha (fiddle), and the dhol (drums). Azerbaijani classical music, called mugham, is often an emotional singing performance. Composers Uzeyir Hajibeyov, Gara Garayev and Fikret Amirov created a hybrid style that combines Western classical music with mugham. Other Azerbaijanis, notably Vagif and Aziza Mustafa Zadeh, mixed jazz with mugham. Some Azerbaijani musicians have received international acclaim, including Rashid Behbudov (who could sing in over eight languages) and Muslim Magomayev (a pop star from the Soviet era).

In Iran, Azerbaijani music has taken a different course. According to Iranian Azerbaijani singer Hossein Alizadeh, "Historically in Iran, music faced strong opposition from the religious establishment, forcing it to go underground."^[118] As a result, most Iranian Azerbaijani music is performed outside of Iran amongst exile communities.

Azerbaijani film and television is largely broadcast in Azerbaijan with limited outlets in Iran. Some Azerbaijanis have been prolific film-makers, such as Rustam Ibragimbekov, who wrote Burnt by the Sun, winner of the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1994. Many Iranian Azeris have been prominent in the cinematic tradition of Iran, which has received critical praise since the 1980s.

Sports [link]

Sports have historically been an important part of Azerbaijani life. Horseback competitions were praised in the Book of Dede Korkut and by poets and writers such as Khaqani.^[119] Other ancient sports include wrestling, javelin throwing and fencing.

The Soviet legacy has in modern times propelled some Azeris to become accomplished athletes at the Olympic level.^[119] The Azeri government supports the country's athletic legacy and encourages youth participation. Football is popular in both Azerbaijan and Iranian Azerbaijan. There are many prominent Azerbaijani soccer players such as Ali Daei, the world's all-time leading goal scorer in international matches and the former captain of the Iran national soccer team. Azeri athletes have particularly excelled in weight lifting, gymnastics, shooting, javelin throwing, karate, boxing, and wrestling.^[120] Weight lifters, such as Iran's Hossein Reza Zadeh, world super heavyweight lifting record holder and two times Olympic champion in 2000 and 2004, and Nizami Pashayev, who won the European heavyweight title in 2006, have excelled at the international level.

Chess is another popular pastime in Azerbaijan.^[121] The country has produced many notable players, such as Teimour Radjabov and Shahriyar Mammadyarov, both highly ranked internationally.

Women [link]

See also: Women in Azerbaijan and Women in Iran

Azerbaijani woman wearing traditional clothing, 1900

In Azerbaijan, women were granted the right to vote in 1919.^[122] Women have attained Western-style equality in major cities such as Baku, although in rural areas more traditional views remain.^[46] Violence against women, including rape, is rarely reported, especially in rural areas, not unlike other parts of the former Soviet Union.^[123] In Azerbaijan, the veil was abandoned during the Soviet period.^[124] Women are under-represented in elective office but have attained high positions in parliament. An Azeri woman is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Azerbaijan, and two others are Justices of the Constitutional Court. In the 2010 election, women constituted 16% of all MPs (twenty seats in total) in the National Assembly of Azerbaijan.^[125] Abortion is available on demand in the Republic of Azerbaijan.^[126] The human rights ombudsman since 2002, Elmira Suleymanova, is a woman.

In Iran, a groundswell of grassroots movements have sought gender equality since the 1980s.^[3] Protests in defiance of government bans are dispersed through violence, as on 12 June 2006 when female demonstrators in Haft Tir Square in Tehran were beaten.^[127] Past Iranian leaders, such as Mohammad Khatami, promised women greater rights, but the government has opposed changes that they interpret as contrary to Islamic doctrine. In the 2004 legislative elections, nine women were elected to parliament (Majlis), eight of whom were conservatives.^[128] The social fate of Azeri women largely mirrors that of other women in Iran.

Notes and references [link]

^ "Azerbaijani". Joshua Project. http://www.joshuaproject.net/people-clusters.php?peo2=126. Retrieved 24 January 2012.
^ Sela, Avraham (2002). The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Continuum. p. 197. ISBN 0-8264-1413-3. http://books.google.com/?id=YJwsAQAAIAAJ&dq=30+million+South+Azerbaijan&q=30-35. "30–35 million"
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "Country Profile: Iran". Federal Research Division Library of Congress. May 2008. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles/Iran.pdf. Retrieved 13 January 2012. "16% of 70 million [11.2 million]"
^ ^a ^b "Iran". CIA: The World Factbook. CIA. 14 November 2011. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ir.html#People. Retrieved 13 January 2012. "16% of 77,891,220 [12.5 million]"
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Swietochowski, Tadeusz; Collins, Brian C. (1999). Historical dictionary of Azerbaijan. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-3550-9. "15 million (1999)"
^ ^a ^b Terror Free Tomorrow (May 2009). "Results of a New Nationwide Public Opinion Survey of Iran before the June 12, 2009 Presidential Elections". New America Foundation. http://www.terrorfreetomorrow.org/upimagestft/TFT%20Iran%20Survey%20Report%200609.pdf. "21.6% of 70,495,782 [15.2 million]"
^ Minahan, James (2002). Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: S-Z. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 1765. ISBN 978-0-313-32384-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=Zu5GpDby9H0C&pg=PA1765. "Approximately (2002e) 18,500,000 Southern Azeris in Iran, concentrated in the northwestern provinces of East and West Azerbaijan. It is difficult to determine the exact number of Southern Azeris in Iran, as official statistics are not published detailing Iran's ethnic structure. Estimates of the Southern Azeri population range from as low as 12 million up to 40% of the population of Iran – that is, nearly 27 million."
^ Shaffer, Brenda (2003). Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity. MIT Press. pp. 221–225. ISBN 0-262-19477-5. "There is considerable lack of consensus regarding the number of Azerbaijanis in Iran ... Azerbaijani student groups in Iran claim that there are 27 million Azerbaijanis residing in Iran."
^ Olson, Robert W. (2004). Turkey-Iran relations, 1979–2004: revolution, ideology, war, coups and geopolitics. Mazda. p. 76. ISBN 1-56859-114-4. http://books.google.com/?id=HxItAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Southern+Azerbaijan%22+30+million&dq=%22Southern+Azerbaijan%22+30+million. "... in Ankara, Johragani denounced 'Persian' chauvinism and Iran's violation of human rights against the '30 million Azeris of Iran'."
^ Brown, E. K.; Asher, R. E.; Simpson, J. M. Y. (2006). Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, Volume 1 (2 ed.). Elsevier. p. 635. ISBN 0-08-044299-4. http://books.google.com/?id=7T0OAQAAMAAJ&q=southern+azerbaijan+%2230+million%22&dq=southern+azerbaijan+%2230+million%22. "Azerbaijani speakers in Iran are more numerous than those in Azerbaijan (13 to 30 million in northern Iran, 6 million in the Republic of Azerbaijan)."
^ Alieva, Leila (2007). "Promoting Cooperation and Integration in the Wider Black Sea Area". In Volten, Peter M. E.; Tashev, Blagovest. Establishing security and stability in the wider Black Sea area: international politics and the new and emerging democracies. IOS Press. p. 157. ISBN 1-58603-765-X. http://books.google.com/books?id=mVQdN7Ryu4YC&pg=PA157. "... large number of Azerbaijanis (30 million in northern Iran and 8 million in present Azerbaijan), ..."
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İbrahim Tatlıses

Background information
Also known as	İbo
Born	1/1/1952
Occupations	Singer, actor, director, writer, producer, businessman
Instruments	davul, zurna, violin
Years active	1970 - present
Labels	Various
Website	İbrahim Tatlıses

İbrahim Tatlıses, also known as İbo (born January 1, 1952), is a Kurdish pop-folk singer (singing in Kurdish & Turkish) and actor. He was born in the city of Şanlıurfa, in southeastern Anatolia. Tatlıses has recorded 25 albums, including notable albums such as Ayağında Kundura and Selam Olsun. He is also the host of the television programme İbo Show and is a leading actor who has appeared in several dozen films. He has directed most of the films he acted in. Also, he is a businessman involved in the restaurant and tourism businesses, as well as in construction projects in Iraqi Kurdistan.^[1] He has been the target of a serious assassination attempt in 2011

1 Biography
2 Shootings
- 2.1 2011 Shooting
3 Discography
4 Filmography
5 References

Biography [link]

İbrahim Tatlıses was born in the south-eastern town of Sanliurfa and is of Arabic and Kurdish descent. His father died when he was a child, and Tatlıses was raised by his Mother Leyla. He began singing at weddings when he was young.

Then while he was working in constructions as a normal worker, singing, his singing was heard by a businessman from Adana, and he started appearing in nightclubs.

Ayağında Kundura, released in 1975 helped him spread his name throughout Turkey.

He now has a lot of companies in various industries and had been a candidate in the 2007 General Elections in Turkey, in which his party, Genç Parti could not overcome the election threshold of 10% which further resulted in him not being elected.

Shootings [link]

He was shot in the leg in 1990, and survived an assassination attempt in 1998. In March 2011, he was attacked and was wounded seriously in the headshot.^[2] ^[3]

2011 Shooting [link]

On Monday March 14, 2011, at 00:30 local time, Ibrahim Tatlises and his spokeswoman Buket Çakıcı were shot at by unknown assailants after leaving the offices of the private Turkish channel Beyaz TV following his weekly television show. While entering their vehicle Tatlises was hit with a bullet that entered the back of his skull and exited through the front. His spokeswoman was also hit in the neck, but survived the attack. The perpetrators carried Kalashnikov rifles and escaped in a black car ^[4]. He was taken to the Acıbadem Hospital in Istanbul for emergency treatment.^[5] He underwent a four-hour surgery to have the bullet removed and slowly recovered from his critical condition.^[6] After Tatlises's operation, he was in a stable condition and put to rest for a week. Then the doctors made the announcement saying he is recovering well and healing. Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited him to see how he was coping. He then made an announcement publicly reporting he is in a good condition and his traveling along fine. The police in Turkey have reported to have caught around 20 criminals involved in the attack. On Thursday April the 7th, Tatlıses left Acıbadem Hospital with a police escort and travelled to the Atatürk International Airport where he boarded the Ministry of Health’s Hawker 900XP air ambulance. He left for Germany, where he will receive six months of physical rehabilitation in a condensed period of one month.^[7] He returned from Germany.

Ibrahim got married to Ayşegül Yıldız in the Dar al Shifa Hospital on Sept. 27th 2011.

Filmography [link]

Actor

1978: Sabuha
1978: Ayaginda Kundura
1978: Toprağın Oğlu
1979: Kara Yazma
1979: Kara Çadırın Kızı
1979: Fadile
1980: Çile
1980: Ayrilik Kolay Degil
1981: Seni Yakacaklar
1981: Yaşamak Bu Değil
1981: Tovbe
1982: Yalan
1982: Alişan
1982: Nasil Isyan Etmem
1983: Yorgun
1983: Günah
1983: Futboliye
1984: Yalnizim
1984: Sevdalandim
1984: Ayşem
1985: Mavi Mavi
1985: Sevmek
1985: Yalnızım
1986: Gülümse Biraz
1986: Yıkılmışım Ben
1986: Sarhoş
1987: Gülüm Benim
1987: Dertli Dertli
1988: Hülya
1988: Aşıksın
1988: Bir Kulum İşte
1988: Kara Zindan
1988: Ben İnsan Değil Miyim
1989: Ceylan
1989: Fosforlu
1992: Aşık Oldum
1993: Tetikçi Kemal
1997: Fırat (mini) TV Series
2003: Hayat Bilgisi (Mini) TV Series

Director

1982: Yalan
1983: Yorgun
1983: Günah
1984: Ayşem
1986: Sarhoş
1986: Gülümse Biraz
1986: Gülüm Benim
1987: Dertli Dertli
1988: Hülya
1988: Aşıksın
1997: Fırat (mini) TV Series

Writer

1983: Günah

Producer

1982: 'Yalan
2009: Mikail Aliyev anadili Atlanta Georgia 1 yerde

References [link]

^ CNN: Turkey Singer Shot
^ "Kurşun sıkanlar en az 2 kişi". ntvmsnbc.com. http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/id/25192018/. Retrieved 2011-03-15.
^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12730390
^ Famous Turkish singer Ibrahim Tatlises headshot (UPDATE)
^ http://www.internethaber.com/iste-ibrahim-tatlisesin-son-durumu-334455h.htm
^ http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=wounded-turkish-singer-in-critical-condition-2011-03-15
^ Tatlises arrives in Germany - http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=press-scanner--hurriyet-2011-04-07

Persondata
Name	Tatlises, Ibrahim
Alternative names	Ibo, Imperator
Short description	Turkish singer
Date of birth	January 1, 1952
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death

This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/İbrahim_Tatlıses

This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.

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