Aniran

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Aniran (in Middle-Persian انيران pronounced An-Iran meaning region non-Iran). The terms used in the pre-Islamic era, referring to people living on the fringes of the Iranian plateau. The term is the equivalent to Greco-Roman term of the Barbarian Land.

[edit] History

The earliest reference to this word in an Iranian context, however, predates Zoroaster and is attested in non-Gathic Avesta; it appears as airya, meaning noble; as airya dainhava (Yt.8.36, 52) meaning the land of the Aryans; and as airyanam vaeja, the original land of the Aryans. This term, it seems, was adopted in remote antiquity by Iranians as their national identity [2]; hence other peoples were called Anairya and later Aniranian, meaning non-Aryan, probably a derogatory racial designation.

[edit] The Sasanian Adoption of the name

We meet this word again in Pahlavi literature, and in many Sasanian inscriptions, coins, seals and other documents; it is attested in Pahlavi as Ēr, meaning noble, hero and free; as Iran, Iran; as Ērān-Shahr, meaning the Iranian Empire; as Ērān-vēz, meaning the mythical original land of the Aryans; as Anēr, meaning non-Aryan, barbarian; and as Aniran, i.e., barbarity and ignobility.

The term was first appeared on the coins of the Ardashir I, the founder of Sasanian Empire. Ardeshir’s successors retained the designation thus emphasizing their claim to world dominion and over non-Iranian race.

Some scholars believe that the term was mainly referring to non-Persians as well as non- Zoroastrians, living in the Empire.

[edit] Aniran in Shahnameh

In Ferdowsi's epic, Shahnameh, the function and suage of the word changes and becomes homeland of Iranian nomadic tribes known as Turanians and the Oxus river is the border between Iran and Turan. The other name for this region described by Ferdowsi is Transoxiana.