Persian language in the context of "Humayun's Tomb"

Persians, or the Persian people, are an Iranian ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to the Iranian plateau and comprise the majority of the population of Iran. They have a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language. In the Western world, "Persian" was largely understood as a demonym for all Iranians rather than as an ethnonym for the Persian people, but this understanding shifted in the 20th century.

The Persians were originally an ancient Iranian people who had migrated to Persis (also called "Persia proper" and corresponding with Iran's Fars Province) by the 9th century BCE. Together with their compatriots, they established and ruled some of the world's most powerful empires, which are well-recognized for their massive cultural, political, and social influence in the ancient Near East and beyond. The Persian people have contributed greatly to art and science, and Persian literature is one of the world's most prominent literary traditions both inside and outside of Iran. The regional prestige of their civilization was the basis for the development of many noteworthy Persianate societies, especially among the Turkic peoples, throughout Central Asia and South Asia.

Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the northeast, Afghanistan to the east, Pakistan to the southeast, and the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf to the south. With a population of over 90 million, Iran ranks 17th globally in both geographic size and population and is the sixth-largest country in Asia. Iran is divided into five regions with 31 provinces. Tehran is the nation's capital, largest city, and financial center.

Home to one of the world's oldest continuous major civilizations, most of Iran was first united as a nation by the Medes under Cyaxares in the 7th century BC and reached its territorial height in the 6th century BC, when Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Empire. Alexander the Great conquered the empire in the 4th century BC. An Iranian rebellion in the 3rd century BC established the Parthian Empire, which later liberated the country. In the 3rd century CE, the Parthians were succeeded by the Sasanian Empire, who oversaw a golden age in the history of Iranian civilization. During this period, ancient Iran saw some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanization, religion, and administration. Once a center for Zoroastrianism, the 7th century CE Muslim conquest brought about the Islamization of Iran. Innovations in literature, philosophy, mathematics, medicine, astronomy and art were renewed during the Islamic Golden Age and Iranian Intermezzo, a period during which Iranian Muslim dynasties ended Arab rule and revived the Persian language. This era was followed by Seljuk and Khwarazmian rule, Mongol conquests and the Timurid Renaissance from the 11th to 14th centuries.

The Islamic Golden Age was a period of scientific, economic, and cultural flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 13th century.

This period is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign of the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (786 to 809) with the inauguration of the House of Wisdom, which saw scholars from all over the Muslim world flock to Baghdad, the world's largest city at the time, to translate the known world's classical knowledge into Arabic and Persian. The period is traditionally said to have ended with the collapse of the Abbasid caliphate due to Mongol invasions and the siege of Baghdad in 1258.

Greater Iran or Greater Persia (Persian: ایران بزرگ Irān-e Bozorg), also called the Iranosphere or the Persosphere or Iranzamin (Persian: ایران‌زمین Irān-zamin), is a term used to refer to a broader cultural sphere that has been influenced, at least to some degree, by Iranian peoples and Iranian languages, and primarily includes the Iranian plateau, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and historically stretched as far east as the Tarim Basin.

The regions which make up Greater Iran are defined by having long been under the rule of various Iranian empires and dynasties, during which the local populace gradually absorbed Iranian influence and assimilated it into their cultural and linguistic traditions; or those where a considerable Iranian population settled and retained their culture, such as in the areas surrounding the Iranian plateau. It is referred to as the "Iranian Cultural Continent" by Encyclopædia Iranica.

Isfahan or Esfahan (Persian: اصفهان [esfæˈhɒːn] ) is a city in the Central District of Isfahan County, Isfahan province, Iran. It is the capital of the province, the county, and the district. It is located 440 kilometres (270 miles) south of Tehran. The city has a population of approximately 2,237,990, making it the fourth-most populous city in Iran, after Tehran, Mashhad and Karaj, and the second-largest metropolitan area.

Isfahan is located at the intersection of the two principal routes that traverse Iran, north–south and east–west. Isfahan flourished between the 9th and 18th centuries. Under the Safavid Empire, Isfahan became the capital of Iran, for the second time in its history, under Abbas the Great. It is known for its Persian–Muslim architecture, grand boulevards, covered bridges, palaces, tiled mosques, and minarets. Isfahan also has many historical buildings, monuments, paintings, and artifacts. The fame of Isfahan led to the Persian proverb Esfahān nesf-e-jahān ast ('Isfahan is half the world'). Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan is one of the largest city squares in the world, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Sistan and Baluchestan province (Persian: استان سيستان و بلوچستان) is the second largest of the 31 Provinces of Iran, after Kerman province, with an area of 180,726 km. Its capital is the city of Zahedan. The province is in the southeast of the country, bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The name of the region was Baluchistan at first. Later it became «Baluchistan and Sistan», and today it has become «Sistan and Baluchestan».

The History of Iran (also known as Persia) is intertwined with Greater Iran, which is a region encompassing all of the areas that have witnessed significant settlement or influence by the Iranian peoples and the Iranian languages – chiefly the Persians and the Persian language. Central to this region is the Iranian plateau, now largely covered by modern Iran. The most pronounced impact of Iranian history can be seen stretching from Anatolia in the west to the Indus Valley in the east, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus, and parts of Central Asia. It also overlaps or mingles with the histories of many other major civilizations, such as India, China, Greece, Rome, and Egypt.

Iran is home to one of the world's oldest continuous major civilizations, with historical and urban settlements dating back to the 5th millennium BC. The Iranian plateau's western regions integrated into the rest of the ancient Near East with the Elamites (in Ilam and Khuzestan), the Kassites (in Kuhdesht), the Gutians (in Luristan), and later with other peoples like the Urartians (in Oshnavieh and Sardasht) near Lake Urmia and the Mannaeans (in Piranshahr, Saqqez and Bukan) in Kurdistan. German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel called the Persians the "first Historical People" in his Lectures on the Philosophy of World History. The sustained Iranian empire is understood to have begun with the rise of the Medes during the Iron Age, when Iran was unified as a nation under the Median kingdom in the 7th century BC. By 550 BC, the Medes were sidelined by the conquests of Cyrus the Great, who brought the Persians to power with the establishment of the Achaemenid Empire. Cyrus' ensuing campaigns enabled the Persian realm's expansion across most of West Asia and much of Central Asia, and his successors would eventually conquer parts of Southeast Europe and North Africa to preside over the largest empire the world had yet seen. In the 4th century BC, the Achaemenid Empire was conquered by the Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great, whose death led to the establishment of the Seleucid Empire over the bulk of former Achaemenid territory. In the following century, Greek rule of the Iranian plateau came to an end with the rise of the Parthian Empire, which also conquered large parts of the Seleucids' Anatolian, Mesopotamian, and Central Asian holdings. While the Parthians were succeeded by the Sasanian Empire in the 2nd century, Iran remained a leading power for the next millennium, although the majority of this period was marked by the Roman–Persian Wars.

The Achaemenid dynasty (Old Persian: 𐏃𐎧𐎠𐎶𐎴𐎡𐏁𐎡𐎹 Haxāmanišyaʰ; Persian: هخامنشی Haxâmaneši; Ancient Greek: Ἀχαιμενίδαι Achaimenidai; Latin: Achaemenides) was a royal house that ruled the Achaemenid Empire, which eventually stretched from Egypt and the Balkans in the west to Central Asia and the Indus Valley in the east.

Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian suffix "-stan" (meaning 'land') in both respective native languages and most other languages. The region is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the southwest, European Russia to the northwest, China and Mongolia to the east, Afghanistan and Iran to the south, and Siberia to the north. Together, the five Central Asian countries have a total population of around 76 million.

In the pre-Islamic and early Islamic eras (c. 1000 and earlier) Central Asia was inhabited predominantly by Iranian peoples, populated by Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians, Chorasmians, and the semi-nomadic Scythians and Dahae. As the result of Turkic migration, Central Asia also became the homeland for the Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs, Tatars, Turkmens, Uyghurs, and Uzbeks; Turkic languages largely replaced the Iranian languages spoken in the area, with the exception of Tajikistan and areas where Tajik is spoken.

Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (Persian: جلال‌الدین محمّد رومی), or simply Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a Sufi mystic and poet whose followers went on to found the Mevlevi Order most famous for its whirling dervishes – a practice that he instigated. Rumi is a seminal figure in Sufism, or mystical Islam, whose thought and works loom large in both Persian literature and mystic poetry in general, with his translated works being enjoyed globally to this day.

Rumi's works are written in his mother tongue, Persian. He occasionally used the Arabic language and single Turkish and Greek words in his verse. His Masnavi (Mathnawi), composed in Konya, is considered one of the greatest poems of the Persian language. Rumi's influence has transcended national borders and ethnic divisions: Iranians, Afghans, Tajiks, Turks, Kurds, Greeks, Central Asian Muslims, as well as Muslims of the Indian subcontinent have greatly appreciated his spiritual legacy for the past seven centuries. His poetry influenced not only Persian literature, but also the literary traditions of the Ottoman Turkish, Chagatai, Pashto, Kurdish, Urdu, and Bengali languages.