Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 12:14, 3 May 2005

If there's any debate about the nature of the British Ahwazi group, perhaps we should create a page for the organization and lay out the arguments for both sides, instead of trying to delete links or add editorial comments.

I Agree.--Zereshk 23:21, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Zora,

We agreed to have a separate page for the Ahwazi separatist debate. We will then paste all your favorite pro-Ahwazi links there.

I dont know why you insist on pasting those links here. You dont have any clue to our history, just as I dont know anything (or care) about the 25 Hindi and Bengali separatist groups of India.

If you feel you sympathize so much with the cause of "Al-Ahwazi" separatists, please go ahead and contribute to the page The Al-Ahwazi separatism debate like we agreed to, instead of reporting me to your buddy administrators.--Zereshk 21:13, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I care when people are being oppressed, no matter who they are. I don't agree with separatists of any kind -- or nationalists of any kind. IMHO, nationalism is a nasty primate attitude that we should learn to transcend. Thus I'm unlikely to "sympathize" with people trying get their way through violence. However, I think we ought to tell it like it is, rather than pretend that unpleasant things don't exist. Zora 22:52, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

1. We can "tell it as it is", by making a special page for it, instead of dragging the debate to the Ahvaz page itself. Im OK with the Ethnic conflict in Khuzestan link you posted.
2. Im not OK with the section on the "origin of the name Ahvaz" that you have almost blanked out to 3 to 4 sentences. That information is very pertinent.
3. Arabs arent the only people in Iran who are having it rough. Iran's prisons of political dissidents are almost entirely filled up with Persians. Scenes like this are quite ubiquitous in the heartland of Persia. Some people are however trying to fish out of muddy waters, and that's not cool.--Zereshk 00:31, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I've written an Ethnic conflict in Khuzestan page.

As for the etymological analyses -- the writing in the section was extremely confusing, randomly jumping round the centuries. Citations from medieval etymologists are suspect, given that etymology (East, West, anywhere) used to be a matter of "Well, they sound similar to ME, I see a link". You can get from anywhere to anywhere by that method. Modern etymologists are much stricter in their methods. In fact, I'm thinking that the section should be cut down even further, eliminating the Elamite etymology, which is unsourced, and many of the alleged city names. I found citations only for Tarieana, Hormuzd-Ardashir, Suq-al-Ahwazi, Nazeiri, and Ahvaz (which I presume is the Persianized form of Ahwaz). Attempts to argue that Ahwaz/Ahvaz is actually a Persian name strike me as nationalist fantasies. The origin of the name, if it is Arab, doesn't alter the fact that the city seems to have been founded by people who were arguably "Persian" and that the city has been part of Persia for much -- but not all -- of its history.

I'd defer, of course, to any properly sourced citations from modern etymologists. Lacking those, cutting out the debatable material seems like the only honest course. Zora 01:27, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Reply to Zora. Ahvaz IS Iranian.

I will now debate you, not as a westerner, but as an Iranian who speaks the southern dialects prevalent in territories claimed by al-Ahwaz, where I was born, and as a native tongue.

• You said: Citations from medieval etymologists are suspect, given that etymology (East, West, anywhere) used to be a matter of "Well, they sound similar to ME, I see a link". You can get from anywhere to anywhere by that method. Modern etymologists are much stricter in their methods.

1. Modern etymologists being more strict doesnt make the medieval ones wrong.
2. Modern etymologists in fact base their conclusions on the collection of medieval accounts and studies. Without them, there is nothing to study.

• You said: In fact, I'm thinking that the section should be cut down even further, eliminating the Elamite etymology, which is unsourced.

It is far from that in fact. I can give you as many sources as you like. That you dont find them acceptable is simply your POV.

If you studied Old Persian, you would realise that the cuneiform used was not an alphabet, but a cross between an abjad and a syllabary. U-W-J, also U-W-J-I-Y, U-J, U-J-I-Y is read /Hūjiya/; R. Kent (1953) writes that it appears incessantly in the cuneiform inscriptions, which explicitly equals "(h)altamti, (h)alamti". he also notes that the early middle persian form of the same word as /xuuź/, which appears in the arab traveler's writings when describing xuuzii - the language or dialect of xuuz. with the usual ethnonymic addition of the ezade and -staan, c.f. siistaan 'saka-land' etc., we get modern persian Khouzestan /xuz-e stan/. The index of Kent lists UVJ as Elam, but also lists in the *dictionary* section Hū(w)jiya "'Elamite, Susian'; derivation of preceding"; the preceding being Hū(w)ja "'Elam, Susiana', a province of the persian empire; also as ethnic, 'Elamite, Susian': Elam. hal-tam-tu, Akk. e-lam-mat, cf. MPers. Huź".

• You said: Ahvaz (which I presume is the Persianized form of Ahwaz).

Your presumption is simply and firmly incorrect. It's the other way around. Would you like me to give you another analysis for that?

• You said: Attempts to argue that Ahwaz/Ahvaz is actually a Persian name strike me as nationalist fantasies.

The facts remain however, in spite of your opinion. The text you deleted is in fact derived from the publication of The Khuzestan Office of The Governor, held by Arabs by the way. I can give you Arabic citations for that.

• You said: the city seems to have been founded by people who were arguably "Persian".

Not "arguably". But Factually. There are more archeological ruins in Khuzestan proving this than you can muster. The entire region was in fact Persian until the conquests. And the Persians never moved out. The Arabs came in.

• You said: and that the city has been part of Persia for much -- but not all -- of its history.

I'm curious, can you give me relaible sources for this claim? This is one example of a day-light fallacy.

• You said: I'd defer, of course, to any properly sourced citations from modern etymologists. Lacking those, cutting out the debatable material seems like the only honest course.

Granted.

Resources I have (grabbing randomly from the top of the pile): Khačikjan Margaret (1998): Elamite Language. Deshpande & Hook eds. (1979): Aryan & Non-Aryan in India (article: McAlpin, "Linguistic Prehistory: The Dravidian Situation"). Webber & Belcher (eds.) (2003): Indus Ethnobiology: New Perspectives from the Field. Hole Frank (1987): The Archaeology of Western Iran: Settlement & Society from Prehistory to the Islamic Conquest (Smithsonian Series in Archaeological Inquiry).

I hope those will allay any concern you have over my resources.

Also,

Whereas your arguments simply have no academic merit, I'm putting back the section. --Zereshk 02:09, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Your insistence on seeing "Persianness" millenia into the past is the usual nationalistic distortion of history. I imagine that if you were sent in a time machine back to ancient Elam that you'd find it completely alien. What are the salient features of "Persianness"? What makes the Elamites Persian? That's why I said that they were "arguably" Persian -- it's a debatable point.

As to the region ALWAYS being Persian -- well, centuries of Arab rule rather counts against that, unless you've managed to convince yourself that the Ummayads and Abbasids sere Persians.

Several of the books you've cited have nothing to do with Hormuzd-Ardashir/Ahvaz. India? Dravidians? The fact that you have a book about the Elamite language doesn't prove that the derivation of Ahvaz from Ooksin is plausible, unless you cite something to that effect from the book. Ditto the archaeology book. Does it discuss the etymology of Ahvaz? I'll give way happily to the experts.

The quotes you give above re UWJ - xuuzi - Khuzi seem like a plausible etymology for Khuzestan. (Not that I could really tell without knowing the historical sound shift patterns.) But I fail to see any connection between Ahvaz/Ahwaz and Khuzi. It's Ahvaz that's in question, not Khuzi.

As to accepting medieval etymologies -- one has to distinguish between a dated citation showing that a city name was in use at a particular time, and a pre-scientific etymology, which is always a guess to be proven by more scientific methods. Linguists will always accept citations, and may choose to investigate pre-scientific etymological theories. But they may not. I have a number of older sources re Polynesia. One hundred years ago, authors who knew very little about the subject felt quite free to speculate about the derivation of Polynesian words and place names. No one even BOTHERS with Fornander and Reiter's etymologies any longer; they're just too bogus. You haven't shown that your medieval writers are any more trustworthy.

You've restored the section in all its garbled English glory. I'll let it sit for a day or two while I figure out what to do. Right now, I'll just point out that you seem to have misused the word "anagram". Perhaps you meant "acronym"? Do you have any evidence that the ancients used anagrams or acronyms to name their cities? I'm wondering if you may be thinking of modern terms like SF and LA, and extrapolating into the past. But without some citation of intermediate forms, it's just speculation.

The earliest use of an acronym that I know (just off the top of my head) was the Christian uses of the fish (ichthys in Greek) as a Christian symbol, because it stood for something like (Iesu Christo ... I forget the rest). But that was in the context of persecution, and picking a 'secret sign'. Zora 03:04, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Reply to Zora, Trying to change history

• You said: Your insistence on seeing "Persianness" millenia into the past is the usual nationalistic distortion of history. I imagine that if you were sent in a time machine back to ancient Elam that you'd find it completely alien. What are the salient features of "Persianness"? What makes the Elamites Persian? That's why I said that they were "arguably" Persian -- it's a debatable point.

It's not debatable, no matter what you throw at me. In fact, you are supporting Pan-Arabist nationalism. To quote yet another text,

The Elamites, fierce rivals of the Babylonians, were precursors of the Royal Persians. Persians, Masters of Empire, John L. Papanek. ISBN 0-8094-9104-4

• You said: As to the region ALWAYS being Persian -- well, centuries of Arab rule rather counts against that, unless you've managed to convince yourself that the Ummayads and Abbasids sere Persians.

1. And who was there before them? Where do you think Ctesiphon was?
2. When the Arabs arrived, almost every city in Iraq was either Persian or is derived from a Persian name (Examples: read about Kufa, Al Anbar)
3. The Abbaside + Umayid rule lasted only for 2 centruies over Iran. The Samanids brought back the Sassanid heritage with full vigor.
4. The Abbaside dynasty was heavily Persianized itself. In the words of Richard Nelson Frye:

It is clear however, that Iranians not only dominated the bureacracy, but all branches of The Abbasid government. Golden Age of Persia, p151.

The same is also stated by: D. Sourdel, Le Vizirat Abbaside. p699-723.

• You said: Several of the books you've cited have nothing to do with Hormuzd-Ardashir/Ahvaz. India? Dravidians? The fact that you have a book about the Elamite language doesn't prove that the derivation of Ahvaz from Ooksin is plausible, unless you cite something to that effect from the book.

1. Wrong. Read them before giving me an answer. The books in fact talk about the non-semitic, hence non-Arabic language of the Elamites.
2. The Khuzi language was in fact used in the courts of the Persian Empire, as is reported in the Al-fihrist, quoted by Ibn Moghaffa', Richard Frye, and many others. Where do you think Susa was?

Look, if you can't come up with cites from the books you have confirming your derivation, then you don't get away with just telling me to read the books, it's in there. That leads me to suspect that you can't find any cites because it's NOT there, and you're just trying to muddy the waters -- like a squid squirting ink to cover its escape. You have the burden of proof, not me.

The derivation of the town name is of antiquarian interest only; not knowing where the town's name came from doesn't detract from the article in the slightest, from the general information point of view. You want the derivation to prove that Ahvaz was Persian first, Persian forever, Persian in name always, rah rah rah. That's just silly. There are many towns in England, frex, with names that were Roman or Danish in origin. Does pointing that out mean that I want Italy or Denmark to conquer Britain? I don't think so. I don't know Arabic, so I don't know what Ahwazi might mean in Arabic. For all I know, it's a nasty ethnic slur that the Arab tribes used for the traders whom they believed were fleecing them. Maybe it means "penny-pinching rascal". Maybe they called the city "Suq al-Ahwaz" BEFORE the conquest, and once they were in charge, kept on using the name, the conquered being in no condition to object. If that's the case, so what? Does it mean that the city rightfully belongs to Iraq? I don't think so.

Given that you can't cite anything concrete re the derivation of the name, why not just leave out the whole discussion? You haven't cited anyone but yourself in supporting the derivations, so the question doesn't seem to be of great and universal interest. It imbalances the article. It's extraneous.

As for arguing that the Abbasids were "Persian" -- well, all the scholars agree that Islamic civilization was heavily influenced by the Persians -- and also by the Arabs, and the conquered Greeks. The influences went in all directions. That's part of what made it a "Golden Age". My Persian literature text says that Modern Persian (post-Islamic-conquest) was heavily influenced by Arabic, and contains not only imported vocabulary, but imported syntax. So it seems rather beside the point to point to the influences going from Persia to the caliphate, and ignore the influences coming into Persia from the caliphate.

• But I fail to see any connection between Ahvaz/Ahwaz and Khuzi. It's Ahvaz that's in question, not Khuzi.

Really? If Khuzestan is Iranian (and is connected to pre-Arab Iran), how can its member parts (like Ahvaz) not be Iranian?

The derivation of a city's name has NOTHING to do with whether or not it should be counted part of one country or another. Nothing. I don't see why you're so determined on this. Zora

• You said: You haven't shown that your medieval writers are any more trustworthy.

Your opinion. Plain and simple.

1. I dont have to prove anything to you. I can name dozens of sources that are widely accepted. Only, you seem to be oblivious about them, and reluctant to accept anything written before the 20th century as reliable.
2. The burden of proof is actually on you to prove that Ahvaz was not part of Persia, and is Arab in origin.

• You said: You've restored the section in all its garbled English glory. I'll let it sit for a day or two while I figure out what to do.

You wont. First, go learn our language, then give your expert opinion about our culture. You dont even seem to know the difference between the Arabic w and Persian v appearing in the texts.

Look. I really dont have time for this nonsense. Youre trying to change something way out of your league. And it takes me 2 hours to write you a reply that you never accept anyway.

You simply cant revise history, no matter how hard you try. And even if I'm not here, someone else will keep revisionists like you from tailoring history to their opininated whims.--Zereshk 04:30, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Historical debate

I am of the same opinion as Zora. However, this is meant to be an encyclopaedia and all sides have to be represented. The historical debate is an important one and has to be reported without bias. I therefore think that we should work together to bring both sides of the argument - as there evidently is a dispute over Ahwaz - instead of acting divisively and unilaterally, deleting text and links without discussion or adequate reasoning. Perhaps we can have a short section for either side of the argument, accompanied by links to relevant sites.Ahwaz

Dear Zora

I've read the debate several times but I couldnt figure out what do you want to say.Well I've been to Ahvaz and lived there for like a month. I had alot of interaction with people there as I have many both Khuzestani persian and minority arab friends. ( I've studied its history in depth from Elamite Empire to now for one of my projects about historic city of Susa ) So I would want to ask some questions about its ethnic arab population :

1.Do you know where and when did they come to Khuzestan ?

2.where did they historically settle ?

3.What have been their main profession ?

4.When and why did they settle in Ahvaz ?--Amir85

You seem to assuming that Arabic-speakers are necessarily of Arab descent and thus recent arrivals, settlers, in a historically Persian area. Not necessarily so. People adopt the language of their conquerors. Most of the population of the Middle East isn't of pure Arabian descent. Over time, many of the dhimmis converted to Islam and as was the custom of the time, were taken into one of the Arab tribes as a client. So it is very likely that many of the Arabs that you clearly see as "them" are in fact descended from the same stock that lived there during Achaemenid and Sassanid times.

Given that the borders of the area now known as Khuzestan have been shifting back and forth for centuries, it is not at all surprising that the population of the area should form a continuuum with the rest of the population of the lower Mesopotamian valley, rather than there being a sharp discontinuity at the current border. That can be so without the Arabs being "interlopers" and recent immigrants to the current province.

As for the rest of your questions -- based only on my current reading, the Arabs in Ahvaz immigrated from the villages to work in the oil and steel industries, and they are concentrated in the lesser-skilled, manual labor jobs. Given that Ahvaz had become a mere village before it grew again to its present size, just about everyone in Ahvaz is an immigrant. Zora 17:28, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

I see more bold erroneous statements made here and on the main page. I'll have to come in and fix them again. For the time being, I have too much going on this week. Can only drop by intermittently. Gotta keep the advisor happy.--Zereshk 07:38, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

The origin of the name Ahvaz

I have restored Zereshk's original text as it is the most NPOV and factually correct and placed this disputed version by Zora, with Zereshk's comments SouthernComfort 10:29, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

It is neither NPOV nor factually correct. The fact that two people (one Ahwazi and one an outsider) are objecting puts paid to the notion that it's NPOV.

In fact, it's a straight steal from the website of the Khuzestan Province Governor Generalship, which was clearly written by someone who didn't know English well and couldn't organize his/her thoughts.

In a province where separatism or ethnic discontent is rife, where failure to toe the party line is personally dangerous, of course the website is biased. It's like believing U.S. government press releases about the reasons for the invasion of Iraq -- a sign either of fervid nationalism or political naivete. Zora 12:14, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Is Ahvaz derived from the Arabic Ahwaz, or is Ahwaz the Arabic pronunciation of the Persian word Ahvaz?

This apparently minor question has provoked some online controversy, with Persian nationalists insisting that "Ahvaz" was the original Persian name, and that Ahwaz is just an Arabic version. They say that a 12th century Arab named Abu-Mansoor Javalighi wrote:

Ahvaz is the name of an Iranian city which its Persian name has been Arabicized and the Arabs have accepted the Persian dictation of the word.

The translation is clumsy ,

It is BAD UNGRAMMATICAL English. I don't have to read Arabic to know that the English is messed up. It should be something like "Ahvaz is the name of an Iranian city whose Persian name has been Arabicized". The rest of the sentence is nonsensical and must be a mistranslation of some sort. "Accepted a dictation" is just wrong.

no verifiable source is given ,

Without a proper Arabic name and a reference to a particular printed version, I have no way of knowing whether or not the source is a complete fabrication.

and the name of the source seems to have been transcribed by a non-Arabic speaker .

But that is not how Arabic is transliterated into English. I've been reading enough Islamic history over the last year to know darn well what Arabic looks like. What you've got there is a Persian version of an Arab name transliterated into English.

Why a historian writing five hundred years after the adoption of the name should be a trusted source is unclear.

We don't accept Herodotus without checking his statements, for anything OTHER than matters he observed with his own eyes -- and even for those we have to figure out how his culture and upbringing would have affected what he saw, and how he reported it.

Arab Ahwazi separatists have argued that Ahwaz is a version of the Arabic Ahawaz.

... the word of Alahwaz is ploral of the word of the HOZ and in arabic the root of the HOZ is HAZ that means "To own and to pessess in the same time," as it's used in Alahwaz during the people's conversations (dialogues) as they say "This is the hoz of such as a person and the other is the hoz of some one else, that mean the land with the known border belonges to that person". http://www.alahwaz.org/618.htm]

Your idea of what is plausible doesn't convince me in the least. I've seen too many junk etymologies. Real linguists demonstrate an overall pattern of sound shifts, instead of making them up on the spot. Zora 12:14, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

However, an etymology triumphantly put forward in a political argument, without historical citations or any support from a trained linguist, is also suspect.

Apparently, there are no citations of any use of the terms Ahwaz or Ahvaz before the Arab conquest in 630 C.E. Before that, the city was known as Hormuzd-Ardashir, or shortened versions thereof. Arab histories describe the newly conquered town as the Suq-al-Ahwaz, the Bazaar of Ahwaz (referring to the destruction of part of the city, and the survival of the commercial section). Lacking any citations or contemporary inscriptions, it seems to yet other observers that there is not enough evidence, one way or another, to decide whether Ahwaz/Ahvaz was originally an Arabic or a Middle Persian word ]... nor is it clear why the name's etymology is so important that nationalists and separatists should quarrel about it.

It's quite amusing that you think I'm a Bengali. I'm half Swedish and half Texan, I grew up on the U.S. mainland, I speak French and Tongan, and a smattering of Hawaiian, Japanese, and Hindi; I'm a cultural dilettante. I am by no means an expert on Persian culture, but I may be one of the few Westerners you know who has read large chunks of the Shah Nameh and the surviving Zend Avesta in translation, has edited two volumes of English translation of Persian literature (Khayyam, Hafiz, Saadi -- available through Project Gutenberg), and listens to Jamshid and Axiom of Choice. I would defer to you and to Zereshk on matters of Persian culture and history if it weren't so painfully clear that in addition to what you guys DO know, you also "know" a great deal that isn't so.

Arguing with you two reminds me of a year or so I spent in a Usenet discussion group arguing about Tibet with a few ardent Chinese imperialists. The same labored historical arguments -- "the Yuan Dynasty (i.e. the Mongols) conquered Tibet therefore Tibet belongs to China by historical right". I point out that if that claim were carried to its logical conclusion, China would be claiming most of Russia and the Middle East, and it doesn't. Point ignored, return to claiming Tibet. How come you guys aren't claiming the very broadest extent of the old Persian empires?

IMHO, ethnic and linguistic nationalism doesn't work very well for former "empires". The Ottoman, the Russian, the Chinese, and the Persian empires were unabashedly expansionist and managed to grab chunks of all sorts of territories inhabited by people who weren't Turkish, Russian, Han, or Persian. The Ottoman and Russian empires have fallen apart, but the Chinese and the Persians are still trying to hang onto the old imperial possessions even if the the outlying regions aren't culturally or linguistically Han or Persian. It's a basic confusion about the justification for the state.

The other thing that you and Zereshk don't seem to get is that I'm not a nationalist. I don't BELIEVE in ethnic and linguistic nationalism. Abolish the U.S.! Abolish the Islamic Republic of Iran! Abolish Ahwazistan! Abolish everything! I spit on all flags impartially! Explaining what I do believe would take too long; perhaps I ought to put it up on my web page. Yes, this gives me a POV -- but it also allows me to see that many things that other people accept as perfectly "natural" and "obvious" are in fact POV, just a particularly pervasive one. Read Ernest Gellner on nationalism. It might open your eyes. Zora 12:14, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

User who is trying to promote conflict

Zereshk's original version of the above section was NPOV and factually accurate as it was. Anyone who doubts the veracity of his additions is welcome to reference any major encyclopedia or academic text concerning the history of Iran. Zora, for whatever reason, has decided to promote a fringe view that is not accepted by any academic or scholarly source, and this is most certainly not in accordance with the spirit of Misplaced Pages. It must also be said that it is painfully obvious from some of Zora's edits on this page and others related to Khuzestan that her knowledge of this province and it's history, as well as the history of Iran, is limited and one speculates as to what agenda she has in mind when irrationally attacking legitimate and accepted facts. SouthernComfort 10:31, 3 May 2005 (UTC)