Some words about religion, culture, writing, numbers and language

My blog today is about religion, culture, persian writing, numbers and language.

89-95% of the Iranians are Shias, Sunnis 4-10%.

The profession of faith of Shiism makes Iran different from most of its neighbors. Both believe in God and in Muhammad as the last Prophet. The difference between the two lies in the question of who is legitimized for guiding the Islamic community.

The Shias only recognize direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad as the rightful leader and call them Imams. There lived a total of 11 Imams who are worshipped in Iran (e.g. Imam Reza Shrine, Fatima Masumeh Shrine). They say that the 12th Imam, who has lived in secret, will someday appear, and would lead the world to Islam.

The oldest Iranian religion Zoroastrianism has a high significance from historical and cultural point of view. It was donated by Zarathustra in between 1200-700 BC. For this time the innovative monotheism and religious dualism (Heaven and Hell, God and Devil) undoubtedly influenced later religions what many Iranians are still proud of today.

Their centers are located in Yazd and Kerman, where the sacred flames are still burning in the fire temples.

Since ancient times Jews have lived in Iran until today. Conversely, Iran has a significant place in Jewish history because King Cyrus II. made the return of Jewish populations from the Babylonian exile possible.

Christianity in Iran also has a long history. Before the Islamization of Iran many Nestorians immigrated to today's Iran. Today about 60 000 Assyrian Christians live in Iran, and the descendants of some 300 000 Armenian Christians, who had been brought into the country under the Safavids; its center is still in Isfahan.







Words are written from right to left. Also if you open a book you open it from our back and are reading to the left - to our front page. The persian alphabet consists of 32 letters.

The numbers again are written from left to right, but also looking different:

I'm really looking forward to this diverse country with its different cultures and ethnic groups.

The Iranian people is a mixture of numerous ethnicities. The main groups are 60-65% Persians, Kurds (7-10%), Lures (6%), Baluchis (2%), Azerbaijanis (17-21%), Arabs (2%). There is also a large number of small ethnic groups such as Turkmen, Qashqais, Parse, Ossetians, Tajiks, Jaghnobs, Talishs, Gilaks, Kumzars, Pashtuns, Zazas, Bakhtiaris, Armenians, Masanderans and last but not least the Assyrians, living here before the Persians.

As numerous as the tribes accordingly also are the languages. However, the official language is Persian. Today 85% of Iranians speak Persian, 5% understand it and 10% don´t speak it at all. In the 1930s, every ethnic group spoke their own language. The Arabic language has a share of only 2%, but since the language of the Koran is Arabic, all children need to learn Arabic. English is the second foreign language alongside arabic in school.

I hope that until I will travel, I can speak Persian even a little bit. Alborz thinks that I will, I am not so convinced.