The glory of old Persia

ah I see

Well I respect Iranians enormously not only because of my ancestry but also our shared cultural and historical ties.

If you go around the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal era monuments in Delhi you will see a strong influence of Iranian architecture.

Here are pictures I took from my recent trip to India and it is undeniable:

This is Alai Darwaza from the early 14th Century,I am pretty sure there is Iranian influence here:




Humayun's tomb,built by his Iranian wife, Hamida Banu Begum/Maryam Makani:






A Mughal garden with the distinctive Chahar Bagh design,it was layed out after the second Mughal emperor returned from exile in Iran and brought Iranians nobles and architects etc:



This is the Diwan-i-khas at Red Fort built by Shah Jahan (who built the Taj Mahal):



And who knows maybe Nadir Shah's men looted this:



And this is the Jama Masjid,which was built by Shah Jahan too:

Wow very nice pictures.. I wish I could go one day to India..

anyway I am going to India again tommorrow!

Hey why did you deleted the picture

Yeah, Mughal Emperor Homayoon went to Persia and lived there for some time at the Sawafids!

Some centuries later Nader Shah attacked India

Welcome The Noble Lord! and Awesome pics Chaghatai Khan.

ok here :



well India gots it revenge in a nasty way.Ayatollah Khomeini's grandfather was from India and look what happend with him .

Nice pics Chaghatai Khan, get some pics of yourself in India and post them here. Especially if you go to Delhi and visit the palace of the Muhammad I who was the Sultan of Delhi in the 1340s and he was known as the "Mad Sultan". The irony is that he was so rich that every time when he returns from the battle and before he enters Delhi he would give gold coins to the people that lined up along the road to greet him, and now his pallace in Delhi is public toilet!

Muhammed Bin Tughluq?

One of my ancestors served him and was granted land by him,he was indeed crazy but he conquered most of the subcontinent.I think you're referring to Tughluqabad in South Delhi.

This time I not going to be in Delhi for long,in fact I will be going to Calcutta this time and spending most of my time there.

Yeah send us some pictures of you in front of a monument

I will see lol

Yep, that was the guy. The mad Sultan who was really mad, Ibn Battuta visited him and stayed at his court almost for 7 years and wrote of him to be really deranged individual who is dangerous to everybody around him.
And yes, take some photos of you in front of some monuments and post them in this group.

a picture from my most recent trip to India,this is a Sufi dargah(درگه):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Hey everyone!

I saw this group and knew I had to join. I love old Persia and I have always had a deep interest in Iranian history. Achaemenid, Ashkanian, and Sassanian have been and continue to be a area of interest I return too.

BTW there is a interesting story behind the picture towards the bottom of the page. Its called 'Jahangir's Dream' and represents the Mughal Emperor's (on the right of the miniature) ambition to humble Persia. During Jahangir's reign the Mughals and Safavid Persia fought several times. But Shah Abbas (the man on the left of the miniature) was a military genius and routinely fought off Jahangir handily. Had the picture been called 'Jahangir's Reality' it would show the Mughal emperor having the snot beat out of him by Abbas.

I see that you're referring to Jahangir's loss of Kandahar to Shah Abbas,supposedly this was partly due to the powerful Persian beauty,Nur Jahan,who was Jahangir's wife.But they still respected each other immensely despite this.This sums up the Mughal attitude to Iranians:

If Mughal India, or indeed the whole eastern Muslim world, had a natural aristocracy, they were Persians. Everyone looked up to Persians, and Persians looked down on everyone. Their language was the Mughal court language, their culture the Mughal court culture,and it was from the Shah of Persia that the Mughal emperor sought peer recognition.

Apart from their assumed superior culture, the fair skin of Persians also helped to establish their superior status-a bias for fair complexion was (and still is) a part of the Indian psyche......

The topmost positions in the Mughal empire were invariably held by Persians.It was not, however, merely their racial origin or superior culture that won Persians their privileged place, but rather their high talent, hard work, and devotion.

The Mughal Emperor,Aurangzeb had this to say about Iranians:

No other nation is better than the Persians for clerks.In war,too... none of this nation has turned his face away from the field, and their firm feet have never been shaken.Moreover,they have not once been guilty of disobedience or treachery to their master. But, as they insist on being treated with great honour, it is very difficult to get on together with them.You have anyhow to conciliate them and should employ subterges.

And for those of you know,who know their astrology,he said this:

As the Sun is the guardian planet of the Persians, the intellectual keenness of those men in quickness of perception and foresight is four times as great as that of the Indians whose tutelary planet is Saturn.Their only defect is that by reason of its conjunction with Venus, they have grown ease-loving, whereas men governed by Saturn are accustomed to toil

I want to hear your opinions!

Chagatai,

Very interesting quotes. Persian culture dominated most of the eastern Islamic world, while the influence of the Turks held out in the west. This was especially true in India, even before the coming of the Mughals. Such as in the Sultanates of the Deccan for example.

On Qandahar: Yes that was what I was referring too. There were many skirmishers over that territory after Abbas' invasion, as Jahangir never accepted the fact that had lost Qandahar.

yes,even today Urdu has a lot of Farsi words:

vatan
jahan
sharmaye (comes from sharmavar in Farsi,which means embarrassed)
kinare
nawab
shah
jan
khale

btw in London they are having an exhibition about Shah Abbas The Great.

Nice quotes Chaghatai Khan

I wish I could be in London, now you have the privelege to go there

@R-Teen

even though the Mughal Emperor,Aurangzeb said that Persians are ease-loving and not as hardy as Indians?

@Cyrus Kabir

Well "Kabir" is supposedly used to refer to Shah Abbas right?

In India, Kabir was also the name of a great poet who lived under last Delhi Sultans.