The name is not Khazar but Caspian Sea

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The name is not Khazar but Caspian Sea

Postby maziar » Sun Oct 02, 2011 5:01 pm

The name is not Khazar but Caspian Sea

I have seen so many Iranian people wrongly call the Caspian Sea; Daryay Khazar which bothers me very much. Recently I came across to a book named “Answer to History” written by the Ex-Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who had used the term Khazar in his book. Apparently the Shah had copied the name Daryay Khazar from a high-school text book. My reasoning is; aside from the “Khazar” mistake all the wrong things that we had learn in our high-school history books such as praising the two Iranian Dynasties of Samanian and Taherian were written in “Answer to History” as well.
In reading history books, written by the European historians, I have learned that the above two dynasties were the main cause and the reason for the continuation of the Arab occupation in Iran which subsequently had resulted in the Turkic, Mongolian, and Turkmen invasions and continuous foreign occupations totaling over 900 years.

The reason that the two above dynasties were praised in school books were; as I indicated in my memoir posted on IPC site; IPC.Founder@gmail.com
In 1941 the British exiled Reza Shah and installed Crown Prince Mohammad Reza as the Shah of Iran. From that point-on the mullahs became active in Iran’s political arena again and one of their activities was making the school curriculums Islamic friendly.

This inspired me to write this article and clarify those mistakes. Hopefully this will catch the attention of the future Iranian scholars and the mistakes will be corrected.

During Mohammad Reza Shah’s reign at least three different names were being used for the Caspian Sea in school text books, and also on the maps of Iran, as follows:
1- Daryay Khazar;
2- Daryay Tabarestan, the “T” was the Arabic “Tayn”
3- Daryay Mazandaran

In relying on those foreign sources above, the top two names are incorrect.
a) Calling the Caspian Sea, Daryay Khazar is equivalent to calling The Persian Gulf “Khalige Arabi”. The Khazars were a Turkic people that used to live in North West of Caspian Sea (present day Russia). By the late 13th century the Khazar people, as an ethnic entity, seized to exist and the area that used to be called Khazaria gave its name to “Crimea”. The French historian Rene Grousset in his book “The Empire of the Steppes a History of Central Asia” indicates that “the Khazars were by far the most civilized people of Turkic people”. Also according to historian and linguist Barthold, “the Khazar language and the old language of the Bulgars belonged to the ancient Western Turkic group”. Apparently some times in the past, an uninformed Iranian scholar, for some unknown reason, had used Khazar for the Caspian Sea and gradually the name became accepted by the future Iranian historians and subsequently it found its way into the text books and on the maps of Iran.
b) Tabarestan is an Arabized version of “Tapourestan” which was the ancient name of Mazandaran. The name Tapourestan was derived from the name of “Tapour People” that used to live in ancient Tapouria (South of Caspian Sea area). The name Mazandaran, according to “Sadegh Hedayat”, evolved some times after 9th or 10th century AD. The story is that Maziar the Spahbod of Tapourestan, from about late 210s Tazi calendar (830s AD), was anticipating imminent Arab invasion to Tapourestan. He started building walls across the Western Tapourestan which stretched hundreds of kilometers. In every few meters across the wall there was an opening called “Maaz” (crack) for the guards to be able to see the other side of the wall and detect the approach of the enemy soldiers. The number of the Maazes was so numerous. All the areas inside the wall used to be called “Maaz andaroon” which gradually within a few centuries the whole state acquired the name Maaz andaroon, (officially Mazandaran) but the Mazanadaranies still pronounce it “Mazenderoon”.

As we can see, Daryay Mazandaran is the new version of Daryay Tapourestan (not Tabarestan). But the more ancient and correct name is “Daryay Kaaspy or Caaspy. The reason is; the Aryans that emigrated from Europe to the East consisted of three different major branches. The largest branch of Aryan that scattered from Mesopotamia to Central Asia was the Casps (ancestors of present day Iranians). After they settled in the new land they named the sea up north Daryay Casp or Caspha, and present day Ghazvin (Caspin) area Darvazehi Casp (Caspian Gate).
With above in mind we should call the Caspian Sea either Daryay Mazandaran or if we want to be in line with international community we could call it “Daryay Caspian”.
Thank you Maziar Aptin

Note: In Answer to History, Mohammad Reza Shah also had a great deal of praise for Shah Esmail and Shah Abbas Safavi. Even though those two Shahs have done some services for the country, they had their dark sides that Mohammad Reza Shah did not point it out. To learn about their dark sides please read my article titled “What is wrong with us the Iranians”. It could be found on PayameAshena Magazine site. www.Ashena.com
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Postby Ahreeman X » Fri Oct 28, 2011 8:41 pm

Maziar:

This is a very informative article. I have a question:

“The reason is; the Aryans that emigrated from Europe to the East consisted of three different major branches. The largest branch of Aryan that scattered from Mesopotamia to Central Asia was the Casps (ancestors of present day Iranians).”


By this Aryan migration, do you mean the original Aryan migration or do you mean one of the latest Aryan migrations?

If you mean the original Aryan migration, then tell me what 3 different major branches of migrated Aryans are you talking about?

1. Casps
2.?
3. ?

Also if you are talking about the original Aryan migration, then my problem with your article is that Aryans migrated from Siberia and divided to 5 branches and settled in to these locations of the globe:

1. Scandinavia
2. Germania
3. Greece
4. India
5. Iran


8000 Years of Iranian History!
http://iranpoliticsclub.net/library/eng ... /index.htm

So even though part of Siberia is technically in Europe, yet most of it is in Asia; therefore, Aryans migrated from Asia and not Europe. Unless you disagree and you actually are trying to say that the original Aryan migration did not start from Siberia and it started from Europe! In that case, where in Europe?

In fact Europe was the last stop for the Aryan migration and not the starting point.

Casps have migrated East way after the original Aryan migration!

Also are you trying to say that Casps are the fathers of:

1. Meds
2. Persians
3. Parthians


3 major branches of Iranian Aryans?

So in general the questions are:

What branches are you talking about?
Which migration are you talking about?
Are Casps forefathers of the 3 tribes of Iranian Aryans?


Thanks

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Postby maziar » Sat Oct 29, 2011 2:11 am

Hello Ahreeman:

By this Aryan migration, do you mean the original Aryan migration or do you mean one of the latest Aryan migrations?


I mean the original. Actually the latest were the Scythian, a very aggressive nomadic barbarian consisted of several tribes. A few stayed in today's Ukraine area another group ended up in today's Sistan of Iran we call them Sokaha. The name Sistan is derived from Sokastan.

If you mean the original Aryan migration, then tell me what 3 different major branches of migrated Aryans are you talking about?

1. Casps
2.?
3. ?


#2 are the Hittite. They settled in Asia minor (the Lydian).
#3 I do not remember the name. It starts with letter H and has couple letters P in it. They went toward India

Also if you are talking about the original Aryan migration, then my problem with your article is that Aryans migrated from Siberia and divided to 5 branches and settled in to these locations of the globe:

1. Scandinavia
2. Germania
3. Greece
4. India
5. Iran


That is one of the existing hypothesis. The book of Avesta also talks about very cold climate. In one area 10 months winter and another area 8 months. But my understanding is; that is where they had settled.

So even though part of Siberia is technically in Europe, yet most of it is in Asia; therefore, Aryans migrated from Asia and not Europe. Unless you disagree and you actually are trying to say that the original Aryan migration did not start from Siberia and it started from Europe! In that case, where in Europe?


My understanding is that Aryans migrated from Eastern Europe;
as far west as Lithuania, considering the similarity of Lithuanian language with the Avestan language. And Avestan language is the older sister of all Iranian languages. Something like Latin is to French, Italian, and Spanish;
As near as Greece again because of language similarities.

In fact Europe was the last stop for the Aryan migration and not the starting point.

Casps have migrated East way after the original Aryan migration!


Never heard of such a thing. If that is the case, then how do you explain the Indu-European language that we all share?

Also are you trying to say that Casps are the fathers of:

1. Meds
2. Persians
3. Parthians


Yes that is correct.

3 major branches of Iranian Aryans?

So in general the questions are:

What branches are you talking about?
Which migration are you talking about?
Are Casps forefathers of the 3 tribes of Iranian Aryans?


See; the Casps, as I said before, are the largest branch Of the three major branches which Hittite are the second one. But the Casps had not just three major tribes that you mentioned above but several dozens more smaller tribes as well. Not all Aryans moved out of Europe at the same time. It was a gradual migration. My guesstimate is the first group left Europe about 14,500 to 14,000 years ago when the Earth weather became very turmoil. This weather phenomena that I mentioned was discovered in early 1990s in a lab built by a coalition of several European countries on the frozen lake of Greenland. They dug the Ice three Km deep and studied the Earth's weather for the last 20,000 years.

My guesstimate of the first group of Aryans moving out of Europe is not scientific. It is a mixture of scientific facts and Shahnameh which as I mentioned in my article " The book of Avesta belongs to all Iranians" is an ancient Iranian history book as it is other things. The above 14,000 years ago was the time that humans were hunters and gatherers which Ferdossy refers to that.
My another scientific fact is; According to Scientific American magazine which I read in either late 1990s or early 2,000; there were civilized Indu-European people in lower Mesopotamia that started the firs empire of the world and in that area the archaeologists had found agricultural, leather working, and tread making tools and the carbon dating on those tools were about 12,000 to 12,500 years old.

To me that explains that the Aryans settled there a few thousands years before, invented agriculture, domesticated animals and by about 12,500 years ago they already had a civilized society.
Further more according to another source, which I have to look for it in my messy book shelf, those people were attacked by barbarian Semitic people and consequently an Irano-Semitic society was established. later-on, perhaps around 4,000 BC this civilized people were pushed out by a new nomadic barbarian tribe which came from Western Iran namely the nomadic barbarian Sumerian that later they became civilized and invented cuneiform and writing. Please refer to "The Sumerian Problem" by Thomas B. Jones, 1969.


Actually a few months ago I started writing about this subject but it is unfinished, due to laziness. I will copy and paste it bellow. Again it is unfinished
Maziar

Migration of Aryans

So far I did not find any accurate information about the very first period that the first group of Aryans had started migrating eastward.
The purpose of this article is; looking at different scientific information presented by western scholastic institutions and a nonscientific Iranian source such as “Shahnameh” then by connecting the dots we may come to an understanding of the said subject. Hopefully in the near future genetic research such as DNA testing could give us more accurate information.

Ferdossy’s Shahnaameh is a multifaceted poetry book in pure Persian consisting of historical facts, fictional romantic, and mythical stories such as; migration of Aryans, the beginning of formation of Iranian kingdom, the story of Bijan and Maneejeh similar to the story of Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare , the story of Rostam and Sohraab and so fort.

According to historians, Ferdossy and before him Daghighi got most of their information from the book of Avesta. Consequently there are both, historical information in it as well as fictional and mythical.

What is book of Avesta!

Technically the book of Avesta is considered to be the “sacred book of Zoroastrians” but the word sacred used for Avesta does not have the same meaning of word sacred used for Torah, Bibles, and Quran. It has more of the meaning of “cherished” or “valued”. Because Avesta is a very thick book consisted of recording of day to day events as far back as during the Ice-age through the end of Sassanid era, including; movement of the tribe, climate, calendar, weigh and measure, and also plenty of religious material.

Actually as far as religious material is concerned, the part that has to do with Zarathushtra is the book of “Gathas” the only known book of Zarathushtra that has survived located in Yasna section of Avesta. Gathas consists of only, in some estimate 72 nasks and in Martin Haug, s view only 16 nasks, which constitutes a very negligible part of Avesta. Time-wise, it is located somewhere in the middle part of the Avesta.

With above in mind, in estimating the time of migration of the Aryans from Europe, Shahnameh could be looked at as an unscientific historic source.

The scientific source one:

Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East
By Michael Roaf.
Fact On File, Inc.
An InfoBase holding company

The last Ice-Age peaked about 20.000 years ago and soon after that the Earth temperature started rising. From about 16,000 years ago the sea level started rising at the rate of about one meter per century. Temperature increased rapidly, rising almost 10” Celsius between 12,000 and 8,000 BC creating a more hospitable climate in Mesopotamia.

“The supply of food, the basic requirement for human settlement, depends on the environment and local geography. The Near East has been called the land of the five seas” (PanJ Aab). “Being encircled by the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Gulf and the Red Sea.”

Those bodies of water along with several major rivers and mild weather of that period and the fertile land that emerged out of water only centuries before created an ideal place for human settlement which followed by domestication of animals and invention of agriculture resulting in establishment of villages.

Prior to the invention of agriculture, humans were hunters and gatherers living in caves. It is plausible to assume that in Europe the cave dweller Aryans had constantly to change place due to constant rise of seas level.


Scientific source two:

Scientific American Magazine
Mid. 1990s

Unfinished due to severe laziness of the author. Maziar tanbal
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Postby Atusa Qajar » Fri Nov 04, 2011 9:04 am

Mr. Aptin:

I have changed the title from:

The name is not Daryay Khazar

to

The name is not Khazar but Caspian Sea

Same as the title published in the website version so both article and the forum post are coherent with same titles. I will post this link as the discussion link under the web article, so the readers can follow more information about the article in the forum post. Hope you don’t mind.

Regards,
AQ
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Postby Atusa Qajar » Mon Nov 28, 2011 1:51 pm

Hello Readers:

Related Material, Coming of Aryans to Iran

Check: Aryan Migration Section middle of the page:

Atlas of Iran Maps: Chapter One: Aryan Migration
http://iranpoliticsclub.net/maps/maps01/index.htm

AQ
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