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Azerbaijanis, or "Azerbaijani Turks," are a Turkic-Muslim people who number more than 45 million worldwide and are natives of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the South Azerbaijan region of northwestern Iran. They also have sizeable communities in Turkey, Georgia and Russia.

The Azerbaijanis are primaraly the descendants of Oghuz Turks, and are also inheritants of several ancient civilizations such as that Sumer, Elam, Urartu, Mannai, Medi and Caucasian Albania.

Turkic Origins

The Azerbaijanis are descendants of various bodies of Turks who have inhabited the land since antiquity, but especially the Oguz Turks who were a majority in the land by the 10th and 11th century.

The modern statehood, blood, language, literature, culture, garments, dances, folklore and national character of Azerbaijan and the Azerbaijanis comes from the Oghuz Turks.

Pre-Islamic roots

Throughout the history of pre-Islamic Azerbaijan, Turkic peoples had lived in the land for centuries, although they were not fully unified. The Huns, Khazars, Bulgars, Barsils, Sabirs, Gokturks, Kutugurs, Kipchaks and others had been some of the Turkic people who had dwelled in Azerbaijan and participated in pre-Islamic Azerbaijan's state formations .

According to the 1911 encyclopedia "the people of the Mada (Mata), the Medes, appear in history first in 836 B.C., when the Assyrian conqueror Shalmaneser II in his wars against the tribes of the Zagros received the tribute of the Amadai ....Herodotus gives a list of six Median tribes among them the Paraetaceni....names in the Assyrian inscriptions prove that the tribes in the Zagros and the northern parts of Media (Azerbaijan) were not Iranians nor Indo-Europeans, but an aboriginal population.....perhaps connected with the numerous tribes of the Caucasus (northern Azerbaijan, Albania)....Gelae, Tapuri, Cadusii, Amardi, Utii and other tribes in northern Media (Azerbaijan) and on the shores of the Caspian were not Iranians. With them Polybius, Strabo and Pliny mention the Anariaci, whom they consider as a particular tribe; but in reality their name, the Non-Aryans, is the comprehensive designation of all these small tribes.....

Richard N. Frye states the following regarding the ethnic composition of Media: "in Azerbaijan (Media) the Medes were in contact with a settled majority of non-Indo European (non-Iranian) speakers represented by the Urartians, Mannaeans, Hurrians etc..possibly related to the peoples speaking "Japhetic" (Ural-Altaic) languages also spoken in the Caucasus (northern Azerbaijan, Albania).

Frye also states that "The land around the Lake of Urmia, the center of (southern) Azerbaijan, perhaps provided the richest conditions for a livelihood...here the population has been important and active since antiquity...armies marched over these routes as did migrating tribes...in the past as today, Azerbaijan was never an Iranian land."

According to historian Kalankatly, in the period between 191-200 A.D., hordes of Barsil and Khazar Turks crossed the Kura river in Azerbaijan.

According to the historian Tabari, descriptions of incursions into Azerbaijan by Turks (Huns and Khazars) occurred in the 4th and 5th centuries. Tabari also states that by the mid-6th century, there was a significant Turkish presence in Azerbaijan.

Kalankatly also states that in the year 629, the army of the Gokturks as well as a series Khazar Turkic tribes entered Azerbaijan and declared the land to be "eternal possesion" of Turks.

Byzantine sources of the mid 6th century refer to the "settlement of Khazar Turks" in the left bank of the Kura river, and Moisey Khaghankatli, a historian from pre-Islamic Azerbaijan reffered to a "Hun state" on the left bank of the Kura River in the 7th century.

According to Professor Peter B. Golden, "In the course of the seventh century, the two major tribal unions emerged in Azerbaijan under the Turk banner: the Khazars and the Bulgars...the Khazars formed the bulk of the Turk forces used by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (610-640) in his counter-offensive against the Sasanids (rulers) in Azerbaijan"

Pre-Islamic Turkic presence in Azerbaijan is evident in literature after the Islamic conquest of the region, in an era that was famous for it's historical, geographical and scientific analyzations of the world by Muslim scholars and Islamic states. According to the 7th century work of Ubeid ibn Shariyya al-Jurhumi, the Muslim Caliph Mueviyyen (661-680) was told that Azerbaijan "has long been a land of Turks. Having gathered over there, they have mixed with one another and become integrated."

It must also be noted that the famous "Book of Dede Korkut" which is the epic of the Oghuz Turks (considered the main ancestors of Azerbaijanis) was written in Azerbaijan in the 6th and 7th centuries, indicating that the Oghuz Turks, who were a majority in Azerbaijan in the 10th and 11th centuries and henceforth, were also present in the land prior to Islam

Language

Main article: Azerbaijani language

The Azerbaijanis speak Azerbaijani (sometimes called Azerbaijani Turkish or Azeri) which is a Turkic language, close to Turkish and Turkmen (see also Turkic peoples). The standard Azerbaijani language developed from the 10th century onwards.

Prior to the 10th century, there were various Turkish dialects spoken across the region.

Development

The modern written language of the Azerbaijanis developed from the 10th to the 13th centuries, after the Oghuz Turkic migrations and the decline of the Oghuz Yabgu state in Central Asia. This is the timespan that is called Azerbaijan's cultural and linguistic "golden age".

Demographics

There are more than 45 million Azerbaijanis in the world, but census figures are incomplete.

It is estimated that there are more than 28 million Azerbaijanis in Iran, 4-8 million in the Republic of Azerbaijan, 600 thousand to 2.16 million in Russia, possibly over one million in the US, between 50 and 500 thousand in each of Ukraine and Germany, more than 800 thousand in Turkey, 286 thousand in Georgia, and 78.3 thousand to 200 thousand in Kazakhstan. The United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan also have some populations of Azerbaijanis living there.

More than 90% of Azerbaijanis are Shia Muslims Turks, but there are also Sunni Muslims, Jews, Zoroastrians, and Baha'is. In recent years there have been many conversions to Sunni Islam.

• Azerbaijan
• Turkic peoples