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Azerbaijanians
The Azerbaijanians, also referred to as Azerbaijanian Turks or Azeris, are a Turkic-Muslim people who live in the historical land of Azerbaijan, located in a crossroads between eastern Europe and western Asia. The historic territory of Azerbaijan is composed of the independent Azerbaijan, with its capital at Baku, and the northwestern portion of Iran, a region referred to as South Azerbaijan with its traditional capital at Tabriz. The Azerbaijanians are the inheritors of ancient civilizations such as Sumer, Elam, Aratta, Urartu, Mannai, Media and Caucasian Albania and are the descendants of various bodies of Turkic peoples, especially the Oghuz Turks who in the 10th century set the national foundation of modern Azerbaijan.
The Azerbaijanians are a historically divided people, having been seperated in 1828 by Russia and Iran. The northern half of Azerbaijan was annexed by the Russians and the southern half by the Iranians, an event that has kept historic Azerbaijan politically seperated for more than 150 years. They number more than 40 million worldwide, with the majority living outside of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Republic of Azerbaijan has a population of 8 million, while more than 20 million live in the northwestern region of Iran in the provinces of Ardebil, East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan and Zanjan; the territory of South Azerbaijan.
More than 8 million live in various cities in central Iran especially in the capital of Tehran. Most analysts state that at least 50% of the city and province of Tehran including the city of Karaj, is inhabited by Azerbaijanians. The nomadic Turkic tribes of Afshar, Shahseven, Qarapapaq, Qajar and Timurtash who are spread across Iran are tribes of the Azerbaijanians. There are also 2 million indigenous Azerbaijanians living in the eastern region of Turkey (mostly in Kars and Igdir), 2 million throughout the Russian Federation (mostly in the autonomous republic of Dagestan and the capital city of Moscow) 1 million living in northern Iraq (whom are referred to as Turkmens that live mostly in Kirkuk, Erbil and Mosul) and 500,000 living in the southern region of Georgia. There are also scattered populations of Azerbaijanians in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Syria and Afghanistan, including a large diaspora living in North America and Europe.
Origins
The Azerbaijanians are a Turkic people, descending primaraly from the Oghuz Turks. The Oghuz Turks, a confederation of 24 tribes originating in Central Asia migrated to Azerbaijan in the 10th century and became the majority population in the land.
Azerbaijan's ancient ethnic composition seems to consist of Turkic and Caucasian peoples who intermingled with one another. Indo-European (Iranian) peoples had interaction in southern parts of Media (south of Hamedan) yet the ethnic structure of the territory of Media and Albania seems to have been primaraly Turanian and Caucasian, with various tribes of Scythian (Ishkuz) and Caucaus mountain tribes, such as the Chols.
According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica "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 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.....
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 possession" 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 referred 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 its 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 Azerbaijanians) was written in Azerbaijan in the 6th and 7th centuries.
The Turkic and non-Turkic peoples of pre-Islamic Azerbaijan were absorbed by the Oghuz Turks of the 10th century.
Language
Main article: Azerbaijanian language
The Azerbaijanians speak Azerbaijanian (sometimes called Azerbaijanian Turkish or Azeri) which is a Turkic language. The standard Azerbaijanian language developed from the 10th century onwards.
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
It is estimated that there are between 16-28 million Azerbaijanians in Iran, 8 million in the Republic of Azerbaijan, 2 million inRussia, possibly over one million in the US, more than 2 million in Turkey, 500,00 thousand in Georgia,
More than 90% of Azerbaijanians are Shia Muslims Turks, but there are also Sunni Muslims, Jews, Zoroastrians, Christians and Bahá'ís. In recent years there have been many conversions to Sunni Islam.