The city has a rich history that dates back to ancient times, and has been an important center of trade, culture, and politics throughout its history. The exact origins of Tabriz are uncertain, but it is believed to have been founded in the 3rd or 4th century BC by the ruler of the Achaemenid Empire, Cyrus the Great.
Chosen as a capital by Abaqa Khan, fourth ruler of the Ilkhanate, for its favored location in the northwestern grasslands, in 1295, his successor Ghazan Khan made it the chief administrative centre of an empire stretching from Anatolia to the Oxus River and from the Caucasus to the Indian Ocean.
Tabriz is a county in East Azerbaijan Province of Iran and it is a centre of Azerbaijani culture. Azerbaijani is the language spoken in Tabriz and most of the people self-identify as Shia Muslim.
Tabrīz was made the capital of the Mongol Il-Khan Maḥmūd Ghāzān (1295–1304) and his successor. In 1392 it was taken by Timur (Tamerlane), a Turkic conqueror, and some decades later the Kara Koyunlu Turkmen made Tabrīz their capital. Under their rule the city's Blue Mosque was built.
Most of Tabrizi people speak “Azerbaijani Turkish” language but there is also an Armenian minority who speaks Armenian language. Tabriz was Iran's capital during the dynasties of Qara Qoyunlu, Aq Qoyunlu & Safavides (the first capital of Shia Islam in the world) and was Iran's crown predominantly during Qajar dynasty.
Demographics and society. The vast majority of Azerbaijanis live in the Republic of Azerbaijan and Iranian Azerbaijan. Between 12 and 23 million Azerbaijanis live in Iran, mainly in the northwestern provinces. Approximately 9.1 million Azerbaijanis are found in the Republic of Azerbaijan.
BCE The earliest elements of the present Tabriz are claimed to be built either at the time of the early Sassanids in the 3rd or 4th century AD, or later in the 7th century. The Middle Persian name of the city was T'awrēš.
The siege of Tabriz was a military conflict during the Ottoman–Safavid War of 1603–1618. As a result of a successful siege, Tabriz was returned to the Safavids after 18 years of Ottoman rule.
The Islamization of Iran was the spread of Islam in formerly Sassanid Iran as a result of the Muslim conquest of the empire in 633–654. It was a long process by which Islam, though initially rejected, eventually spread among the population on the Iranian Plateau.
Iran and Turkey are not Arab countries and their primary languages are Farsi and Turkish respectively. Arab countries have a rich diversity of ethnic, linguistic, and religious communities. These include Kurds, Armenians, Berbers and others. There are over 300 million Arabs.
Changes in the religious make-up of nowadays both nations changed drastically from that time and on. In 1500 the Safavid Shah Ismail I undertook the conquering of Iran and Azerbaijan and commenced a policy of forced conversion of Sunni Muslims to Shia Islam. Many Sunnis were murdered.
Susa and Babylon were the true political and administrative capitals of Persia and the best known before Alexander. According to Xenophon (Cyropaedia 8.6. 22), in winter Cyrus spent seven months in Babylon, the three months of spring at Susa, and the two summer months in Ecbatana.
The Safavid army was able to capture Tabriz on 21 October 1603. For the first time, the Iranians made great use of their artillery and the town – which had been ruined by Ottoman occupation – soon fell.
The Ottoman Empire failed to conquer Persia due to difficult terrain, distance, and religious disputes in the Ottoman-Persian Wars. Selim I declared war on Persia to prevent conflict with a Shi'ite militia, but discontent among Ottoman troops and the arrival of the Safavids caused problems.
It was an Iranian dynasty of Kurdish origin, but during their rule they intermarried with Turkoman, Georgian, Circassian, and Pontic Greek dignitaries, nevertheless they were Turkic-speaking and Turkified.
Today, Pahlavi resides in Great Falls, Virginia. Pahlavi is the founder and leader of the self-styled National Council of Iran, an exiled opposition group, participates in the Iranian democracy movement, and is a prominent critic of Iran's Islamic Republic government.
The Medes are credited with founding Iran as a nation and empire, and established the first Iranian empire, the largest of its day until Cyrus the Great established a unified empire of the Medes and Persians, leading to the Achaemenid Empire (c.550–330 BC).
Iran is home to one of the world's oldest civilizations, beginning with the formation of the Elamite kingdoms in the fourth millennium BC. It was first unified by the Medes in the seventh century BC and reached its territorial height in the sixth century BC, when Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Empire.
Fearing Baku's intentions to fuel secessionism inside its borders, Iran provided vital backing to Armenia in its war against Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which dragged on from 1988 to 1994 and ended in an inconclusive cease-fire.” Iran's siding with Armenia during the first Nagorno-Karabakh ...
Armenians are not Persians, even though they have interacted with each other for hundreds of years. Both of their languages belong to the Indo-European family of languages, and in the distant past they had a similar religion. But when Armenia converted to Christianity in 301 AD, Persians remained Zoroastrians.
In totality, Kurds are about 10% of Iran's total population. According to the last census conducted in 2006, the four main Kurdish-inhabited provinces in Iran – West Azerbaijan, Kermanshah Province, Kurdistan Province and Ilam Province – had a total population of 6,730,000.
