Ajam (original) (raw)

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Arabic word referring to people whose first language is not Arabic

A letter sent into Iran from the Ottoman Empire in 1839, with Keshvâr-e ʿAjam (lit. 'Country of the Mutes') referring to Iranian lands.

ʿAjam (Arabic: عجم, lit. 'mute') is an Arabic word for a non-Arab, especially a Persian.[1][2][3]: 26-27 It was historically used as a pejorative—figuratively ascribing muteness to those whose native language is not Arabic—during and after the Muslim conquest of Iran.[4] Since the early Muslim conquests, it has been adopted in various non-Arabic languages, such as Turkish, Azerbaijani, Chechen, Kurdish, Malay, Sindhi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, Kashmiri, and Swahili. Today, the terms ʿAjam and ʿAjamī continue to be used to refer to anyone or anything Iranian, particularly in the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf. Communities speaking the Persian language in the Arab world exist among the Iraqis, the Kuwaitis, and the Bahrainis, in addition to others. A number of Arabs with Iranian heritage may have the surname ʿAjamī (عجمي), which has the same meaning as the original word.

According to traditional etymology, the word Ajam comes from the Semitic root ʿ-j-m. Related forms of the same root include, but are not limited to:[5]

Homophonous words, which may or may not be derived from the same root, include:

Modern use of "ajam" has the meaning of "non-Arab".[6]Its development from meaning "mute" to meaning "non-Arabic-speaking" is somewhat analogous to that of the word barbarian (< Greek βαρβαρόφωνος barbarophonos), or Nemtsy for Germans in Slavic languages, which descend from Proto-Slavic *němьcь, itself from *němъ meaning "mute". (From there also comes النمسا (an-Namsa), the Arabic name for Austria).

An old map showing the area of Ajam in Arak, Hamadan, Isfahan and Yazd

The verb ʿajama originally meant "to mumble, and speak indistinctly", which is the opposite of ʿaraba, "to speak clearly". Accordingly, the noun ʿujma, of the same root, is the opposite of fuṣḥa, which means "chaste, correct, Arabic language".[7] In general, during the Umayyad period ajam was a pejorative term used by Arabs who believed in their social and political superiority, in early history after Islam. However, the distinction between Arab and Ajam is discernible in pre-Islamic poetry.[7] According to the book _Documents on the Persian Gulf's name_[_citation needed_] the Arabs likewise referred to Iran and the Persian (Sassanian) Empire as _Bilād Fāris (Arabic: بلاد فارس), which means "Lands of Persia", and using _Bilād Ajam (Arabic: بلاد عجم) as an equivalent or synonym to Persia. The Turks also were using bilad (Belaad) e Ajam as an equivalent or synonym to Persian and Iranian, and in the Quran the word ajam was used to refer to non-Arabs. Ajam was first used for people of Persia in the poems of pre-Islamic Arab poets; but after the advent of Islam it also referred to Turks, Zoroastrians, and others. Today, in Arabic literature, Ajam is used to refer to all non-Arabs. As the book Documents on the Persian Gulf's name explained, during the Iranian Intermezzo native Persian Muslim dynasties used both the words Ajam and Persian to refer to themselves. According to The Political Language of Islam, during the Islamic Golden Age, 'Ajam' was used colloquially as a reference to denote those whom Arabs viewed as "alien" or outsiders.[2] The early application of the term included all of the non-Arab peoples with whom the Arabs had contact including Persians, Byzantine Greeks, Ethiopians, Armenians, Assyrians, Mandaeans, Jews, Georgians, Sabians, Egyptians, and Berbers.

During the early age of the Caliphates, Ajam was often synonymous with "foreigner" or "stranger". [_citation needed_] In Western Asia, it was generally applied to the Persians, while in al-Andalus it referred to speakers of Romance languages – becoming "Aljamiado" in Spanish in reference to Arabic-script writing of those languages – and in West Africa refers to the Ajami script or the writing of local languages such as Hausa and Fulani in the Arabic alphabet.[_citation needed_] In Zanzibar ajami and ajamo means a Persian person which comes from the Persian Gulf and the cities of Shiraz and Siraf. In Turkish, there are many documents and letters that used Ajam to refer to Persian. In the Persian Gulf region, people still refer to Persians as Ajami, referring to Persian carpets as sajjad al Ajami (Ajami carpet), Persian cats as Ajami cats, and Persian kings as Ajami kings.[8]

During the Umayyad period, the term developed a derogatory meaning as the word was used to refer to non-Arab speakers (primarily Persians) as illiterate and uneducated. Arab conquerors in that period tried to impose Arabic as the primary language of the subject peoples throughout their empire. Angry with the prevalence of the Persian language in the Divan and Persian society, Persian resistance to this mentality was popularised in the final verse of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh; this verse is widely regarded by Iranians as the primary reason that they speak Persian and not Arabic to this day.[9] Under the Umayyad dynasty, official association with the Arab dominion was only given to those with the ethnic identity of the Arab and required formal association with an Arab tribe and the adoption of the client status (mawālī, another derogatory term translated to mean "slave" or "lesser" in this context).[10] The pejorative use to denote Persians as "Ajam" is so ingrained in the Arab world that it is colloquially used to refer to Persians as "Ajam" neglecting the original definition and etymology of the word.

According to Clifford Edmund Bosworth, "by the 3rd/9th century, the non-Arabs, and above all the Persians, were asserting their social and cultural equality (taswīa) with the Arabs, if not their superiority (tafżīl) over them (a process seen in the literary movement of the Šoʿūbīya). In any case, there was always in some minds a current of admiration for the ʿAǰam as heirs of an ancient, cultured tradition of life. After these controversies had died down, and the Persians had achieved a position of power in the Islamic world comparable to their numbers and capabilities, "ʿAjam" became a simple ethnic and geographical designation."[11] Thus by the ninth century, the term was being used by Persians themselves as an ethnic term, and examples can be given by Asadi Tusi in his poem comparing the superiority of Persians and Arabs.[12]Accordingly: "territorial notions of 'Iran' are reflected in such terms as irānšahr, irānzamin, or Faris, the Arabicized form of Pārs/Fārs (Persia). The ethnic notion of 'Iranian' is denoted by the Persian words Pārsi or Irāni, and the Arabic term Ahl Faris (inhabitants of Persia) or ʿAjam, referring to non-Arabs, but primarily to Persians as in molk-e ʿAjam (Persian kingdom) or moluk-e ʿAjam (Persian kings)."[13]

According to The Political Language of Islam, during the Islamic Golden Age, 'Ajam' was used colloquially as a reference to denote those whom Arabs in the Arabian Peninsula viewed as "alien" or outsiders.[2] The early application of the term included all of the non-Arab peoples with whom the Arabs had contact including Persians, Byzantine Greeks, Ethiopians, Armenians, Assyrians, Mandaeans, Jews, Georgians, Sabians, Copts, and Berbers.

During the early age of the Caliphates, Ajam was often synonymous with "foreigner" or "stranger".[_citation needed_] In Western Asia, it was generally applied to the Persians, while in al-Andalus it referred to speakers of Romance languages – becoming "Aljamiado" in Spanish in reference to Arabic-script writing of those languages – and in West Africa refers to the Ajami script or the writing of local languages such as Hausa and Fulani in the Arabic alphabet.[_citation needed_] In Zanzibar ajami and ajamo mean Persian, which came from the Persian Gulf and the cities of Shiraz and Siraf. In Turkish, there are many documents and letters that used Ajam to refer to the Persians.[_citation needed_]

In the Persian Gulf region today, people still refer to Persians/Iranians as Ajami, referring to Persian carpets as sajjad al Ajami (Ajami carpet), Persian cat as Ajami cats, and Persian kings as Ajami kings.[8]

A map published in Ottoman Egypt in 1908, with Iran labelled Bilād al-ʿAjam (lit. 'Land of the Mutes [Persians]') and the Persian Gulf labelled Khalīj al-ʿAjam (lit. 'Gulf of the Mutes [Persia]'), from Al-Azhar University.

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  2. ^ a b c Lewis, Bernard (11 June 1991). The Political Language of Islam. University Of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226476936.
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  4. ^ Frye, Richard Nelson; Zarrinkoub, Abdolhosein (1975). "Section on The Arab Conquest of Iran". Cambridge History of Iran. 4. London: 46.
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  9. ^ Firdawsī; Davis, Dick (2006). Shahnameh: the Persian Book of Kings. New York: Viking.
  10. ^ Astren, Fred (February 1, 2004). Karaite Judaism and Historical Understanding. Univ of South Carolina Press. pp. 33–35. ISBN 1-57003-518-0.
  11. ^ "Ajam", Encyclopædia Iranica, Bosworth
  12. ^

    گفتمش چو دیوانه بسی گفتی و اکنون
    پاسخ شنو ای بوده چون دیوان بیابان
    عیب ار چه کنی اهل گرانمایه عجم را
    چه بوید شما خود گلهء غر شتربان
    Jalal Khaleqi Motlaq, "Asadi Tusi", Majaleyeh Daneshkadeyeh Adabiyaat o Olum-e Insani [_Literature and Humanities Magazine_], Ferdowsi University, 1357 (1978). page 71.

  13. ^ Ashraf, Ahmad, "Iranian Identity iii. Medieval Islamic Period", Encyclopedia Iranica
  14. ^ a b "تاريخ العرق الفارسي في البحرين" [History of the Persian race in Bahrain] (PDF). Al-Waqt (1346). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2024-06-12.
  15. ^ Yateem, Abdullah (2014). "Religion, Identity and Citizenship: The Predicament of Shiʿa Fundamentalism in Bahrain" (PDF). Central European Journal of International & Security Studies. 8 (3): 104.
  16. ^ a b Stokes, Corinne (2023-12-01). "Performing Khaleejiness on Instagram: Authenticity, hybridity, and belonging". Arabian Humanities. Revue internationale d'archéologie et de sciences sociales sur la péninsule Arabique/International Journal of Archaeology and Social Sciences in the Arabian Peninsula. 18 (18). doi:10.4000/cy.11297. ISSN 2308-6122.
  17. ^ "العجم السنة في الخليج لم يواجهوا تمييزاً عرقيا" [Sunni Ajams in the Gulf did not face racial discrimination]. مركز المسبار للدراسات والبحوث (in Arabic). 2013-09-15. Archived from the original on 2023-06-10. Retrieved 2024-09-07.
  18. ^ Martin van Bruinessen. "Nationalisme kurde et ethnicités intra-kurdes", Peuples Méditerranéens no. 68-69 (1994), 11–37.
  19. ^ Philip G. Kreyenbroek, Stefan Sperl, The Kurds, 250 pp., Routledge, 1992, ISBN 978-0-415-07265-6(see p.38)
  20. ^ (in Turkish) Qarslı bir azərbaycanlının ürək sözləri. Erol Özaydın
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  22. ^ Mojab, Shahrzad (Summer 2015). "Deçmewe Sablax [Going Back to Sablagh] by Shilan Hasanpour (review)". The Middle East Journal. 69: 488–489.
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