Jun 16

The source of Yazdgerd calendar

The Iranian calendar composers based 16 June 632 AD as the source of Yazdgerd calendar and in this way showed their patriotism and let Iranians remember the kingdom of the Sassanians (Sassanids). This year was the start of the fall of the kingdom of the Iranians as one of the two super powers of the world of that time. We should not forget that later (in the medieval ages in the dark era in Europe), the Iranians made their country into a super power with their power of mind, science and literature.     After celebrating the 2500th year of establishment of a united government in Iran led by Kourosh the Great (Cyrus the Great = Curus = Kooroosh), in mid 1350 Hejrat calendar (1971), the source of Iranian calendar was taken back to Kourosh’s time, but during the revolution of 1357 (1978), once again, the year of hejrat, according to solar calculation, became the source of Iranian calendar.

Parsi once again became the official language of Iran

Yaqub Leis Saffar, an Iranian hero, who was determined to end the Arab rule over Iran, liberated Kerman on 16 June 868 AD.     In Kerman, Yaqub passed strict orders that no correspondence should be done in the language (Arabic) that he did not understand. From the time Iran fell into the hands of Arabs, up to that day, all correspondence had to be in Arabic language. With this order of Yaqub Leis, Parsi once again became the official language of Iran and started flourishing. Yaqub ordered that for characters that did not exist in Arabic and were pronounced in Farsi, alternates were found in order to complete the calligraphy. It took many years for the literary experts to come to a common agreement that the characters such as “p, ch, j and g” were formed by adding dots and oblique strokes to the similar Arabic characters, so that the order of the letters would not change, and he also ordered that specific letters belonging to the Arabic language, should not be used in Farsi words and names. These changes and revision of words and characters took 80 years to be completed finally in 950 AD, when the present Farsi calligraphy was introduced. It should be noted that Iranians were the only Moslems of those days who did not lose their national language. We know that Iranians living in Fararoud and Eastern Khorassan (the present northern Afghanistan) who were called Tajik, had not forgotten the Parsi language and some groups would practically call themselves Parsivan = Parsiban (guards of the Parsi = Persian language).     Yaqub, who had hoisted the flag of independence in Sistan, liberated Herat in 862 AD, and in the coming year, the whole of eastern Iran, up to Kabul, from the agents of the Baghdad Caliph. After liberating Kerman, with the same intention, Yaqub took back Fars and Khuzestan and directly went into war with the Abbasid Caliph. But, soon after turning down the offer of peace by the Caliph in 878 AD, he died of colic, in Khuzestan, and was buried there. His brother, Amrw, succeeded him and decided to reconcile with the Caliph, and in turn, the Caliph officially recognized his rule over Fars, Isfahan, Kerman, Sistan, Makran (Baluchistan), Sind (the southern province of present Pakistan, its capital being Karachi) and parts of Khorassan.          Translation by Rowshan Lohrasbpour (AmordadNews Writer)

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