Talk:Azerbaijanis/Archive 5

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Guys, I raised this question here previously (which has been archived without being answered or resolved!). The question was “What does the article want to say?”. In that question I asked how were we going to classify/identify Azeris? Would we use language? Race? Culture? History? What? All these arguments you are having here now is because that question was not answered at the beginning! I can see some people using different cards as and when it suits them! Language becomes the common denominator when it suits them then race when it suits them, then culture and history when it suits them. Why don’t we agree on a common denominator? Is it because there isn’t a good one? What constitutes in a group of individuals being classed as one people? Language? Culture? Race? History? Or the combination of some or all of these?

We cannot decide that. We only report what authoritative sources say. Grandmaster 14:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Grandmaster, but can you tell me what the authoritative sources use? Surly they have a framework and you have to work in that framework! Or maybe you are not following any framework?

The articles here are written in accordance with certain rules. Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research are some of them. To include something in the article you should demonstrate the source of info. Grandmaster 12:39, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

This might seem a piddling question, but would anyone know by what name that style of hat goes? The one in the photo (three men), I'm sure the material is Astrakhan but the cut is one I'm not familiar with.

Not that I disagree with any of the sentiment expressed, but the Women section is not NPOV in its language, UberIcarus

• I think that I've found an error in this section. It says "The Republic of Azerbaijan is also one of the few Muslim countries where abortion is available on demand.[92]"

But the reference is pointing here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:AbortionLawsAroundtheWorld.png ... an image; and I've searched, and the article that should point is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law

If this is true, can someone change it. (Sorry about the english)

Just a little correction, based on the ENGLISH version of this encyclopaedia, in the word ADHARBAYJAN, "DH" means "Z" (according to the pronunciation), since it has been translated from ARABIC to ENGLISH, so by reffering to the original Arabic versions of encyclopaedias - old and new - the word will be آذربايجان EN: Azær ba i jan.

• • Well I don't think that "Ayatollah Khamenei" is an ethnic azeri, he was born in the city of mashhad, north-eastern Iran, his mom was persian, his DAD was a half azeri living in "Najaf" IRAQ, so he doesn't know anything about azeri culture, I would say he is a persian since he speaks persian not turkish! he is just 25% azeri with no azeri education.

Actually his dad is Azarbaijani and has trouble speaking Persian. Ayatollah Khamenei is related to Shaykh Mahmud Khiyabani. As per his mom I am not sure but I am pretty sure she is an Azerbaijani as well. As for being born in Mash-had that is true, but many Azarbaijanis are born in Tehran as well. So just because they are born in a non-Azerbaijani speaking environment, it does not make them non-Azerbaijani. Also Khaemeni speaks Azerbaijani and Turkish well and whenever Erbakan or Aliyev have visited, he didn't need a translator. --Ali doostzadeh 01:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

The spelling of the EI is correct. The Arabic "ذ" is pronounced like "dh", comparable to the English "th". Because Persians cannot prnounce these kinds of sounced, it turned "Azerbaijan". Later, the Turks simply copied from Persian. It should be noted that the name "Azerbaijan" is the ARABIC version of the original Median "Azerpadegan".

As for Khomeini, it is absolutely no secret that he and his family were from India. That's why he always signed his letters with "al-Hindi". The question remains whether his family had setteled in Iran much earlier, or that he himself was an Indian Muslim. Some language experts and reporters (I have no time to google their names right now) maintain that Khomeini was not able to speak correct Persian except for some 100 common words. That's why most of his speeches were written by others and he always refused to give spontanious interviews. Tājik 10:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, my mistake ... you're talking about Khamenei ... lol ...OK, he is deffinitly Azari. :) Tājik 10:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, this is the thing, we say that khomeini has an indian background, that doesn't mean that he is an indian which he wasn't. he was mostly iranian, and about khamenei, he has a turkish background from his father side, but he wasn't even born in azerbaijan, i mean he rathers to speak farsi, if he is a turk, so even if we say he is a turk, me as a turk don't know him as a turk coz he hates turks, if he was a real turk, he wouldn't at least forget his own language, so what was his real first language? No persian teaches his or her child turkish, but some turks do teach their kids persian, and the kids are not turks anymore, this is the problem, i mean we have nothing to do with farsi, we like it as it is, but it shouldn't be in a way so every single turk becomes a persian...in that case turks won't accept it as before, coz they know anyways they are turks, like a persian knows his/her background, and names, i would say let's not talk about "azerbaijan" since the islamic culture affected these lands alot, azerbaijan has been written in arabic that way cause that was the best way of writing with an advanced alphabet at that time, the same thing happened to other names, and for your info: azerbaijan is more turkish that any other name, they kept the name as they did their language, if you knew turkish you wouldn't make similarities between that and "padegan", and for more info: have a look at khazar, and ask turkmens what they still call azerbaijan! and you know medians were not persians right? pure aryans? No. .. azerbaijan and cacasia was full of people when aryans were not even close to persia, "persia" is only respectable for persians,but persians are respectable for us, persians belong to persian lands, turks to turkish lands, and so...being a persian or turk has nothing to do with cyrus or babak or khamenei or hitler or gandi, everyone watns to be something neither me or you can change it.

Please read carefully. Khaemeni speakes both Persian and Azeri-Turkish very well. He says in his biography that he learned as kid as it was a language used in his house. When Aliyev or Erbakan comes to Tehran, he doesn't need a translator. Also the name Azarbaijan is Iranian (it is not in any ancient Turkish source). --Ali doostzadeh 16:28, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I am curious to know, where did Khamnei said he knows Azeri-Turkish very well . On his own official site[1], there is no mention of Azeri what so ever. Can you please direct me to your source of claim. I can't find any information regarding his ability to talk Turkish with Erbakan either. I am an Azeri Turk myself and have grown up within kilometers of the Turkish border, have Turkish friends, yet not comfortable talking simple topics with a Turkish person , how can he talk state matters with head of another state only talking Azeri perhaps with his grandpa? Thanks. Mehrdad 19:38, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

• Mehrdad 19:38, 3 September 2006; Although these languages have lots in common in reality it is not always easy to understand each other. Rep Azerbaijan version of Azeri has lots of Russian words in it which makes it very difficult for Iranian Azeris to understand easily. Even in Iran itself Azeri has different dialects and accents and people of different cities have some difficulties understanding each other. I can speak Azeri a bit and had a trip to Turkey with an Azeri friend of mine a few years ago and I must say he could not really understand them any more than I did; there are so many Arabic and Farsi words is in the Turkish language that you have a better chance of picking them up than the Turkish world! It is the same for different dialects and accents and styles of Farsi, spoken by different countries or even inside Iran. I am a kurd myself (from Kermanshah) but I can hardly understand the Mahabad or Sanandaj kurdi. So I have a feeling that Khamenei may be able to say hello and even talk about the weather with Erbakan but I am sure when it comes to business they use interpreters!

• Tājik 10:32, 15 August 2006; what a load of nonsense! Khomeini could not speak Farsi and his speeches were written for him? He used to give long 1-2 hours speeches once or twice a week on the TV! Can an old man of 70+ memorize all that? There are some videos on Google and youtube take a look for yourself! And also for your information there are millions of Iranians in India! But Indians are dark; Iranians are Caucasians; take a look at Khomeini’s photo and tell me he is Indian color! Kiumars

I'm not sure whether it's accurate to state that Azeris live in Fars. I think those who live there are actually the Qashqai who aren't really Azeri. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Parishan (talk • contribs) 03:42, 21 August 2006.

• It depends on the method of classification one uses. Language wise Qashqais speak a dialect of Azeri and they can converse pretty well with Azeris. There are also other Azeri speaking people in a few small villages near Esfahan that speak Azeri. Kiumars

• Aren't Qâşqâis Turkamans in origin?

It's this a new Style of Rassismus ala Hitler or what ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.72.9.106 (talk • contribs) 13:48, 25 September 2006.

What's wrong with a little genetics? —Khoikhoi 01:41, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Maybe they are scared of the results? And last I checked, Hitler and the Nazi's never used genetics. LOLKhosrow II 02:01, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• I read the Genetics section 3 times and I still cannot work out what to make of it! Can someone with genetics knowledge sums up that section please? Kiumars

Please do not remove sourced material from the article, specially the material from Encyclopaedia of Islam.Heja Helweda 20:44, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

The new encyclopedia of Islam does not consider TOP SECRET declassified information that were recently published by the former USSR within the last 5-10. This changes a lot of the equation and views on Ferqeh. Note the classified documents were memos from Stalin to Baqeroff himself. So unless you have new sources that take this major historic viewpoint shift into account, then it is considered obsolete with that regard. Plus this is not an article on Ferqeh to write 20 lines on it. --alidoostzadeh 21:38, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of Islam is a very old resource and many articles have not been updated in years. It is not the best resource for these kinds of topics. Khorshid 06:49, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

To give example, Encyclopedia of Islam does not even call Iran Iran but Persia and Iranian citizens as Persians despite if even they are not ethnically Persian! LOL Khorshid 06:50, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

The Encyclopaedia of Islam is an authoritative source written by experts. If anyone wants to disprove the EI, he/she has to come up with REALLY good literature. Tājik 10:19, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

True it is good on historical aspects. But information on modern politics can change. The new released top secret materials that are memo's from Stalin to Baqirov is a case point. --alidoostzadeh 14:15, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

The removed sentences were about linguistic and cultural grievances of Azerbaijanis at that time, this does not need top secret documents :) Heja Helweda 00:43, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

This article is not about Ferqeh. And I disagree that there was wide linguistic grievances as the government of Pishevari would not have fallen in oneday if it was popular. Also any analysis of the movement should take the above unclassified secret materials into account since they effect all aspects of the image of Ferqeh. --alidoostzadeh 02:30, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

We cannot rely on our individual beliefs, it is safer to refer to some academic sources. If you can provide any scholarly source regarding your beliefs, it would greatly enhance the article.Heja Helweda 05:27, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with alidoostzadeh, your additions are highly speculative and POV. On top of that, your selective "academic sources" are not verifiable as the links you've provided require registration. --Mardavich 06:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

According to Iran: A country Study by the Federal Research Division, Kessinger Publishing[2] , Without Soviet Backing, the Pishevari government collapsed and Pishevari himself fled to the Soviet Unition. I can show great many instances where the Pishevari government was despised and that is why it collapsed without any resistance unlike the Kurdish democratic party which had some grass root support amongst Sunni Kurds. Also the Encyclopedia of Islam article is old whereas my unclassified top secret sources are new and show there was no internal movement that led to such a party but it was the sole external creation of Stalin. It was previously unknown to some (not all) scholars why the Pishevari government all of the sudden rose up after the USSR invasion of NW Iran, but with the new unclassified information, everything is made clear and the new analysis on the movement should mention these three important sources something the OLD encyclopedia of Islam article does not and tries to find reasons. There is nothing POV about the unclassified top seceret documents showing that the creation of the party was directly by the order of Stalin and thus it was no internal movement within Iran and it collapsed the first day the USSR left within 24 hours. --alidoostzadeh 09:22, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I think one of the reasons for irredentist movement in Iranian Azerbaijan was Persianization campaign, which was pursued by Reza shah. This information is verifiable from scholarly literature.

The steps that the Teheran regime took in the 1930s with the aim of Persianization of the Azeris and other minorities appeared to take a leaf from the writings of the reformist-minded intellectuals in the previous decade. In the quest of imposing national homogeneity on the country where half of the population consisted of ethnic minorities, the Pahlavi regime issued in quick succession bans on the use of Azeri on the premises of schools, in theatrical performances, religious ceremonies, and, finally, in the publication of books. Azeri was reduced to the status of a language that only could be spoken and hardly ever written. As the Persianization campaign gained momentum, it drew inspiration from the revivalist spirit of Zoroastrian national glories. There followed even more invasive official practices, such as changing Turkic-sounding geographic names and interference with giving children names other than Persian ones.

Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition. ISBN: 0231070683

Grandmaster 06:56, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

There was no irredentist movement, except what the USSR created by the direct orders of Stalin as the unclassified top-secret information clearly establishes. It is true that Persian was declared the only official language since 1906 (before Pahlavi and during the constitutionalist movement) and the Pahlavi's only thought Persian the official language in school except for few cases. And there was a Zoroastrianist campaign which was more at an attempt for de-Islamification of Iranian society much like Ataturk's de-Islamification campaign. But as for choosing the name part, I disagree since majority of Iranians have Arabic names, and Turkish names like Yashar, Aidin, Sanaaz are as popular as any other name during the Pahlavid era. A good example is Shohreh Aghdashloo who is the wife of Aydin Aghdashloo. Of course there was more serious Azerification campaign of Kurds, Talysh and Lezgins and etc or even more serious one in Turkey and Ba'athist Iraq. I am not sure how much of all these informations are relavent to Pishevari. But the current discussion is about Pishevari's movement and there should be a separate article on Ferqeh and Pishevari. According to Iran: A country Study by the Federal Research Division, Kessinger Publishing[3] , Without Soviet Backing, the Pishevari government collapsed and Pishevari himself fled to the Soviet Unition. Not much of a popular movement, if it collapsed less than a day without USSR backing. It actually collapsed in about a day because people of Tabriz actually revolted against it and there is a lot of memoirs about this as well another source I brought from Professor. Hess. I am not sure putting up two three pages about Pishevari movement is a good idea on this article and it should have it's own relavent article. It was previously unknown to some scholars why the Pishevari government out of the sudden rose up after the USSR invasion of NW Iran, but with the new unclassified information, everything is made clear and new analsysis should mention these three important sources and I am of the opinion that any old analysis is obsolete because of these three important sources which shows that the party was created by the direct order of Stalin. --alidoostzadeh 09:11, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

The numbers cited for Azerbaijani population in other countries are not accurate. It seems this numbers only include Northern Azerbaijani diaspora whilst the southern azerbaijanis of world are much more. For instance a population of just 1400 Canadian-azerbaijanis is a sheer underestimation. Statistics Canada has only classified northern Azerbaijanis (i.e. those who have stated Azerbaijan as their home country) as Azerbaijani whilst a sizeable portion (at lest 50 000) of Iranian-Canadians are also Azeri albeit from Iranian Azerbaijan or soythern Azerbaijan. There is also a considerable population of southern Azerbaijanis in USA, Australia, Uk, Germany, France, Turkey, UAE, Qatar, Kuweit, Japan, South Korea, etc. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.198.8.137 (talk • contribs) 00:06, 16 October 2006.

First of all, do not get confused. People who speak the same dialect of a language are not necessarily the same people.Khosrow II 00:14, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Does that make Persians of Califonia a different ethnic group? Parishan 00:45, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Thats not what I mean.Khosrow II 00:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

This article is about both northern and southern Azerbaijanis. Isn't it? So the numbers should include both of them.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.198.8.137 (talk • contribs) 00:06, 16 October 2006.

There are no "north" and "south" Azerbaijani's, there are only one Azerbaijani's, and those are Iranian Azerbaijani's. Read up on the history of the name Azerbaijan, the meaning of Azerbaijani, and the genetics, you'll understand what I'm talking about. I dont have time to explain this in detail right now.Khosrow II 01:40, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Hey pal, I know what you mean and I disagree with you (as many do). But your pan-persian views bear no connection to this topic. Read the article anew. Here "Azerbaijani people" refers to both those who live north of Araz river and those who live south of it.So the diaspora population should be consistent.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.198.8.137 (talk • contribs) 00:06, 16 October 2006.

Obviously you dont know what Im talking about then.Khosrow II 02:04, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I would agree with 85.198.8.137 here. The name Azerbaijanis or Azeris generally refers to the Turkic-speaking population of Azerbaijan and northern Iran. And yes, Khosrow II, you are expressing a radical Pan-Persian viewpoint by trying to prove that Azeris on both sides of Araxes are different from each other ethnicity-wise (what else could those "only Iranian Azerbaijanis" and "not necessarily the same people" comments mean?). It's enough to read the first couple of lines of this article to realize, what is meant by Azerbaijanis. I understand where you're coming from, but there's no need in undermining the commonly accepted theory, especially if there are ideological reasons behind that. Parishan 02:28, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Just because you dont know the facts does not mean you can insult me or my intelligence. When I post the irrefutable facts, would you promise me that you will conform your point of view to the facts, instead of conforming the facts to match your point of view or simply refusing to believe them?Khosrow II 03:09, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. I was by no means questionning your intelligence but simply referring to the fact that 85.198.8.137 has a point when talking about including the numbers for Iranian Azerbaijanis outside of Iran to the overall number for Azerbaijanis who live abroad. The article does not talk about Iranian Azerbaijanis (who from what I've understood you claim to be "real" Azerbaijanis) but Azerbaijanis in general as the term is commonly understood by scholars. Parishan 03:20, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I see that you do not want to commit yourself to a situation where you could possibly have to accept something you dont want to accept. Will you promise me that when I post the facts you will accept them for what they are and change your point of view to match the facts, instead of changing the facts to match your point of view or rejecting them out right?Khosrow II 03:39, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Azerbaijani people on both sides of Araks are the same people, and it’s not a subject for dispute. All the major scholarly sources say so, and according with the rules we go with the established scholarly view, and not the original research. Check Britannica, for example:

Azerbaijani - any member of a Turkic people living chiefly in the Republic of Azerbaijan and in the region of Azerbaijan in northwestern Iran. At the turn of the 21st century there were some 7,500,000 Azerbaijani in the republic and neighbouring areas and more than 15,000,000 in Iran. [4] Grandmaster 04:43, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

GM, you know the truth very well. Even you yourself brought some information to my knowledge that I did not even know before. Its amazing that you still deny the truth when you took part in such a revealing discussion.Khosrow II 05:16, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The truth is that Azerbaijani people are the same both in Iran and Azerbaijan, who got separated from each other due to historical reasons. This is confirmed by the major scholarly sources and according to the rules you should keep your personal beliefs out of Wikipedia. Grandmaster 05:27, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I dont have time right now, but when I do, we will all be able to see the information and judge for ourselves (you have already seen the information, and at one point you even told that you already knew about it all...I dont know why you reject all the information we talked about). Even Tadeusz Swietochowski, a person whose quotes you seem to use a lot, contradicts your claims. Even he acknowledges the truth about the situation. Even the Russian Encyclopaedia, which again you seem to like very much, contradicts your claims. Good night for now, and I plead with you to accept facts for what they are. A person has to change his or her point of view to match the facts, not change the facts to suite their point of view or just reject facts period. Thats the scientific way to approach the world and you seem like a very educated and logical person, I just dont know why you find it so hard. Anyway, good night, I'll talk to you tomorrow.Khosrow II 05:29, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

History is not really verifiable. I disagree with your historical claims but even if you can prove your claims, it's not relavant. Stick to actual realities instead of historical myths. The truth is that we are the same people. We have the same language, the same proverbs, same traditions, music, lifestile, etc. After 2 centuries of political separation we look astonishingly alike. 72.232.27.154 17:46, 16 October 2006 (UTC) Shahin

Im sorry, I didnt know you made a comment, I just thought you put the /'s in other peoples comments for no reason. Sorry about that. Also, you just contradicted yourself in your statement.Khosrow II 04:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Neither Swietochowski, nor Russian encyclopedia say that Azeris on both sides of Araks are not the same people. On the contrary, they both say that they ARE the same people. So you please keep your personal opinion out of the article, especially considering that this is a featured article. Grandmaster 04:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Swietochowski clearly distinguishes Arran as a seperate entity from Azerbaijan (Iran). You know this, and I know this. The Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary clearly says that the term Azerbaijani was adopted, not as an ethnic term, but as a linguistic term, and that Iranian Azari's are Iranians by race (this was the quote you came up with yourself, dont deny it). It was the Russians who came up with the term Azerbaijani first, from the name of North Western Iran, since that was the only region ever called Azerbaijan until 1918. They clearly say that the reason they use the term Azerbaijani to refer to this group of Turkic speakers is to differentiate them from the rest, because Azerbaijani's (linguistic term, not ethnic term) were Iranians by race. Language does not determine language group, or else Africans from the Ivory Coast would be ethnic Frenchmen and women. I can go on and on, but since all three of you have made it clear that you have no respect for facts, what is there to discuss? I have all the facts I need to counter your claims.Khosrow II 04:48, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

You have no facts. The only fact you try to use as a proof is that the North was not always called Azerbaijan. But if we assume that the two areas had different names, it still does not prove that the people are different. You know how many Arabic countries there are in the world, each with its own name, but the people are all Arabs nonetheless. And Brochaus says that Azerbaijani people are Iranian by race referring to people on both sides of Araks. But ethnicity is not based on race anyway. Plus, as I said many times, all the scholarly sources say that Azerbaijani people on both sides of Araks are the same ethnicity. I don’t think this issue is worth any further discussion. Grandmaster 05:03, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

First of all, I would like to remind you that the region north of Azerbaijan (the real Azerbaijan, Iranian Azerbaijan) was never called Azerbaijan, and definetly not in its entirety.

Also, your comparison to Arab countries is not correct. Everyone knows that the people of these different Arab nations are not ethnic Arabs, but linguistically Arab. There is now a resurgent feeling, especially in Lebanon, of the people's pre Arabization past, and ofcourse, the Egyptians know where they came from also. They are all linguistically Arab, nothing more, nothing less. Like I said, ethnicity is not determined by language. Good examples of this is the people of the Ivory Coast, who speak French, but are not ethnic Frenchmen. The Russian Encyclopaedia clearly states that the term Azerbaijani was adopted to refer to the people of North Western Iran only because they had no relations with other Turks except linguistically, and were Iranian by race. The Encyclopaedia clearly states this, the Encyclopaedia clearly states this, the Encyclopaedia clearly states (you yourself found and posted this quote from the Encyclopaedia, thinking that you could use it for your own purposes, but obviously, this was a major blunder on your part.).

Lastly, before I go to sleep, I would like to tell you again, that scholarly sources change, and they have especially changed during hte 20th century with the advent of nationalism and pan Turkism. For example, the 1911 edition of Brittanica clearly states the the only Azerbaijan is the region in the North West of Iran. Now what happened between 1911 and now that Brittanica has changed so drastically? New evidence? No, the only thing that has happened is politics, simple as that. Today, instead of facts deciding things, we have politics deciding them, just as we are seeing here on this Wiki discussion page. You will not be able to find one map, one single map, made before the 20th century that has the region north of Iranian Azerbaijan labled as Azerbaijan. I am the one with all the facts here, I can give you historical accounts, I can show you maps, etc... What have you shown me? Nothing. I garuntee you that if I e-mail the editors at Brittanica and show them all of this evidence compiled on Wikipedia, they themselves would be ashamed of the "academic" job they have done. Remeber that it was not so long ago that one of the Iranian Wikipedians had to e-mail Ethnologue to tell them their numbers were wrong. Do you remember what Ethnologue replied to him? They said that they themselves had no sources for the numbers they had put up, and they very well could have been wrong. This alone goes to show that politics has had more to do with the writing of history in the 20th century than facts have. Any educated scholar of hte history of Iran or the region period, can disprove what Brittanica 2006 says. Even I can. Infact, I am thinking of e-mailing the editor who wrote that article and ask him if he took all of the information I have compiled into account before writing his article. Good night. I will talk to you tomorrow.Khosrow II 05:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

You misread the sources. You only see what you want to see. Russian Brochaus encyclopedia clearly says that Azerbaijani people live both in Russia and Persia, i.e. they are the same people. I provided the link to the original article, because unlike some people I never try to suppress the info, whatever it is. I don’t know what you call "ethnic Arab", but linguistically Arab = ethnic Arab. According to your logic, if ethnicity is based on race, then Pushkin is not Russian. Ridiculous. Professor Swietochowski says that the area north of Araks was seldom called Azerbaijan, but it was called so at times. Plus Azerbaijan as a region had fluid boundaries which included parts or the whole of the territory of modern Republic of Azerbaijan from time to time. So please stop insisting on your POV vision of the things. Azerbaijani people are the same ethnicity, no matter how hard you wish it was not so. Grandmaster 05:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

No, I have not misread anything and I see what is written. It is you who see only what you want to see. Secondly, Swietochowski never mentions when the region north of Iran was called Azerbaijan also, he never even givs a time period. Historical accounts, and every map before the 20th century only show one Azerbaijan. The region now known as the R. of Azerbaijan was went by the names of Albania, Armenia, Georgia, Shirvan, Ganja, and Arran, but never Azerbaijan. Thirdly, the encyclopaedia clearly says that the people they term to be Azerbaijani have very little to do with other Turkic peoples, do you atleast agree with this fact? If yes, then you have to acknowledge that Azeri's are not ethnic Turks. Also, the encyclopaedia makes it very clear that the term Azerbaijani is a linguistic term, not an ethnic term. Therefore, both people across the river, speaking the same dialect of a language, were both labled as Azerbaijani.Khosrow II 20:28, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Khosrow II, I don't get it. How does historical usage of a toponym prove differences in ethnogenesis? Surely, you don't claim that Azeris of the Caucasus and Azeris of Iran do not constitute a single ethnic group just because at times a piece of land they populate was referred to by different names? Parishan 08:28, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, thats exactly what I'm saying. If Iran changes its name to Pashtunistan, it wont change the fact that Iran is not Pashtun.Khosrow II 20:28, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Dear Khosrow lets work one article at a time. I think for now me and Mardavich and GM have come to some understanding.. I agree with Mardavich's version who has taken out any disputed quotes which is usually the best way to go. --alidoostzadeh 01:22, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Khosrow II, you just answered your own question. Whether the place was known as Azerbaijan or not, the people who lived on it did not change ethnically or transform into something else. They still represent a single ethno-cultural entity. When one talks about differences in ethnogenesis (because this is what you claim), toponymy has nothing to do with it. You can't say Ukrainians in Poland are not actually Ukrainians because they live on a land that has never been called Ukraine - that doesn't make any sense. You need to prove things like major linguistic or racial differences, different ancestry, etc. Parishan 05:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

No. You are confused. Ukranians living in Poland are Ukranians, but a nation changing its name to Azerbaijan does not make its people Azerbaijani in the ethnic sense does it? Refer to my example, if Iran changes its name to Pashtunistan, do Iranians become ethnic pashtuns?Khosrow II 20:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

One of the ways of forging the history is to tell some of the truth and be silent about the rest of it. According to many old sources such as Ibn Khalddun, Esterabadi, etc. Ganja, Nakhjivan, Gharabagh, and even Darband all were parts of Historical Azerbaijan. for exact sources please see the talk page on Azerbaijan Republic on persian Wikipedia. Nizami Ganjavi and Khaghani Shirvani were considered Azerbaijani poets who have contributed to the Azerbaijani school of persian litterature. As Regards the word "Aran", calling this region Aran does not contradict considering it a part of Azerbaijan. Aran was a part of Azerbaijan, Just as Khurasan is a part of Iran or Prussia a part of Germany. Tezarist regime was avoiding calling this region Azerbaijan to suppress nationalistic sentimesnts and to avoid the prospect of it rejoining Southern Azerbaijan. Some people like to show a distorted image of the reallity. One who knows both northerners and southerners will never make such a blunder as saying these are not the same people. -- Shahin

Please cite your sources then. And by the way, those poets you mentioned were not Azerbaijani's because the term Azerbaijani was has never meant ethnicity, and it was only introduced in the later 19th century by the Russians as a linguistic term. Secondly, they wrote in Persian, and therefore were Persian poets.Khosrow II 20:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Khosrow II, are you arguing the accuracy of the term 'Azerbaijani' or what? Because you can't apply an ethnonym to one part of an ethnic group and deprive the other part of it. And there is no way that the use of an ethnonym may affect ethnic roots of a certain group. Pontic Greeks did not originate in Greece, they don't refer to themselves the way most Greeks do, and they even speak a dialect that is barely intelligible with Modern Greek. But nevertheless, Pontic Greeks are Greeks. My point is, we shouldn't care what Azeris were called prior to the 19th century, as long as we mention this fact in the historical section. Today they are Azeris and nothing else. Parishan 03:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

They are only Azeri's because politics says so, nothing else, not facts nor history. If there was no pan Turkism, if there was no Soviet Union, if there was no European Imperialism, we would not be having this discussion about Azerbaijan right now, because things would have remained as they were before politics got involved.Khosrow II 04:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

That has been your most inadequate argument so far. Anyone may say 'if there was no Cyrus, if there were no Sassanids, if there was no Abbas I, there would be no Persians'. History is not to be talked about in terms of ifs, buts and maybes. Parishan 05:30, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I gave up any hope to persuade Khosrow of anything. Check Talk:History of the name Azerbaijan, so much has been said, and he still keeps on accusing Britannica of pan-Turkism, because it says that Azerbaijanis are the same people in both countries. Moreover, he inserts his POV claims in all articles about Azerbaijan, which caused some articles to be protected from editing. This cannot go on forever, according to the rules we only include in the articles what the authoritative sources say, and they say that Azerbaijanis are the same people. End of story. Personal opinions and wishes should be kept out of the articles. Grandmaster 06:22, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Not at all. GM proved himself wrong on several occasions with source he thought would help his plight, which infact, ended up helping my argument, such as the one from the Russian Encyclopaedia. Also, Brittanica is not pan Turkist, however, it has certainly been affected by the politics that has arisen from movements such as pan Turkism and Turkish nationalism. And yes, I agree, credible sources should only be used, and 1911 Brittanica and the 1890 Russian Encyclopaedia are even more credible, as they were not affected by nationalism and the politics that arose in the Middle East a short while later.Khosrow II 22:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Khosrow still claims there is no historical fact that the area north of Araks was called Azerbaijan. So here I present some facts. These facts are just some instances and far from exhaustive. I have translated and abbreviated these from persian wikipedia: 1. In Ibn Khaldoun's history, Tabriz and Bileghan are mentioned as two of Azerbaijani cities. Bileghan was located near Darband. see Vol 1, p 129. 2. Hafiz Hossein Karbalayi Tabrizi, (16th century) in enumerating some Ansari families of Azerbaijan includes those living in Qarabagh and Nekhjivan. see : Rozat al-jenan va janat al-janan, 2004, Tabriz: Sotude Publication, p.114. 3. Mirza Mehdi Estarabadi, who was Nadir Shah's secretary (18th century) in his dictionary under the word Ganja, Writes: "... Ganja is also the name of an area in Azerbaijan." see: Farhange Sangolakh, 1995, Tehran: Markaz Publication, p.228. 4.Mirza Kazem Beig, in reviewing the book "Darband Name" which was written by german Kalport, repeatedly mentions the area in north of Araks as Northern Azerbaijan. so toy see, although the presnt situation is far more important than the {presumed} history, but even in Terms of history, Azerbaijan includes both sides of Araks. I urge my Azeri friends to search in historical books (all turkish, persian and arabic resources) more evidence will be found. probably If Russia had succeeded in Adhering Tabriz to her Imperial territories, Pan-persians whould claim even Tabriz was not a part of historical Azerbaijan. ~ Shahin

In Ibn Khaldoun's history, Tabriz and Bileghan are mentioned as two of Azerbaijani cities. Bileghan was located near Darband. see Vol 1, p 129. I want to see a map showing the location of Bileghan. The first mention of Azerbaijan ever was in 885, and referring only to Iranian Azerbaijan. Ibn Khaldoun could not have said this, especially in his first volume. The first volume was Muqaddimah and it was not about history, but a pre-discussion about history and criticism of other historians.

Hafiz Hossein Karbalayi Tabrizi, (16th century) in enumerating some Ansari families of Azerbaijan includes those living in Qarabagh and Nekhjivan. see : Rozat al-jenan va janat al-janan, 2004, Tabriz: Sotude Publication, p.114. Aw, here is the first piece of misconstrewed evidence. Families of Azerbaijan, but no where does it that Qarabagh and Nekhjivan were a part of Azerbaijan. It says the Ansari families, influding the ones living in Qarabagh and Nekhjivan. I have a family too, I live in the USA, does that make the USA, Iran? Again, I would like to show how this piece of evidence alone undermines the claim, as it is purposely misconstrewed.

Mirza Mehdi Estarabadi, who was Nadir Shah's secretary (18th century) in his dictionary under the word Ganja, Writes: "... Ganja is also the name of an area in Azerbaijan." see: Farhange Sangolakh, 1995, Tehran: Markaz Publication, p.228. Give me the exact source for this. It makes no reference to what Ganja its specifically talking about, so I want to make sure.

Mirza Kazem Beig, in reviewing the book "Darband Name" which was written by german Kalport, repeatedly mentions the area in north of Araks as Northern Azerbaijan. Sources please? I'm pretty sure you got all of this on a website, rather than actually reading the text yourself with your own eyes.

Also, pan Persianism (if it even exists, lol), has nothing to do with this. Its the facts, and so far, what you have told me so far is either unsourced, misconstrewed, or ify for the most part. I dont deny that certain regions of what is today known as the R. of Azerbaijan were sometimes grouped with the province of Iranian Azerbaijan, but this by no means means that the territory was also called Azerbaijan. In most cases, it was referred to as Armenia, Georgia, Shirvan, or Arran (as evident by the maps of the times). The name Azerbaijan is solely the name of Iranian Azerbaijan.Khosrow II 22:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, further evidence that denounces Shahin's "evidence" is the fact that the terms North and South Azerbaijan were never used until the late 1930's/1940's.Khosrow II 22:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Interesting, recall this quote by Shahin: Mirza Mehdi Estarabadi, who was Nadir Shah's secretary (18th century) in his dictionary under the word Ganja, Writes: "... Ganja is also the name of an area in Azerbaijan." see: Farhange Sangolakh, 1995, Tehran: Markaz Publication, p.228.

I have actually found and read an English translation of Mirza's book The History and Life of Nadir Shah and he clearly differentiates the real Azerbaijan (Iranian Azerbaijan) from the region to the north! Nice try Shahin, but facts are facts, you cannot distort facts in an attemtp to sway opinion. I knew there was something fishy about the "evidence" you posted.

About Azerbaijan: The most remark­able cities of Azarbigián are; 1. ARDEBIL, considered as sacred by the Persians, for contain­ing the tombs of Sefiaddîn and Heider, the venerable ancestors of the Sefi family. 2. TABRIZ, commonly called Tauris, which, in the last cen­tury, was a large and beautiful city

About the region north of Iranian Azerbaijan: The great cities of Arran and Armenia are, GANGIA, and ERIVAN, its Capital

About Shirvan: 1. BACU, a port on the Caspian lake, whence it is called the Sea of Bácu: 2. SHAMAKHI, a city well known to the Russians: and 3. DERBEND or the barrier, which stands at the foot of Mount Caucasus or Keitáf,

Please do not distort facts again Shahin, this is not respectable on Wikipedia. Once again, the facts are against you. He says that Tabriz and Urmia are cities in Azerbaijan, Ganja and Yerevan are cities in Armenia and Arran, and Baku and Darband are cities in Shirvan. So please tell me, where is the reference to the north of Iranian Azerbaijan being called Azerbaijan by Mirza? Also, thanks for bringing my attention to this historian, just like GM, you have given me another very valuable resource.Khosrow II 04:00, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

This discussion belongs to the article Talk:History of the name Azerbaijan. Please consider moving it there. This article is about the people, so let’s discuss the edits to this article. Azerbaijanis are the same people on both sides of Araks, that’s an established scientific view and is not a subject for further discussion, unless you cite some real authoritative source on the level of Britannica saying otherwise. Arguments like “Britannica is influenced by pan-Turkist propaganda” cannot be taken seriously. Grandmaster 06:35, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Again, you fail to address the main issues. Azerbaijani's are not the same people on the different sides of the borders. Thats like saying that Armenians and Azerbaijani's are the same people, Turks and Kurds are the same people, Georgians and Armenians are the same people, just because they live next to each other. That makes no sense at all. Hazaras speak Persian, but they are not Persian, they are Mongolians. Brittanica's article on Hazaras is proof that even encyclopaedia's can be influenced by politics too. If news media can be influenced by politics, if individual historians can be influenced by politics, and if the whole world can be influenced by politics, Brittanica certainly is not exempt.Khosrow II 14:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Pointless argument. See Britannica. It is an authoritative source. I can cite many more.

Azerbaijanis and Armenians don’t speak the same language, Azerbaijanis in both countries speak the same language, and share the same culture. Saying they are not the same people is like saying that Russians living in Baku and Moscow are not the same people. Also, please cite authoritative sources supporting your statement that Azeris in two countries are not the same people. Something on the level of Britannica, please. Grandmaster 13:17, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

If Brittanica is has the last say in every matter for you, then why have you taken out the sourced information about the Persian ruled khanate? You have a double standard GM.Khosrow II 14:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

GM, way to distort information. Here is exactly what Brittanica says: After a series of wars between the Russian Empire and Iran, the treaties of Golestan (Gulistan; 1813) and Turkmenchay (Torkmanchay; 1828) established a new border between the empires. Russia acquired Baku, Shirvan, Ganja, Nakhichevan (Naxçivan), and Yerevan. Henceforth the Azerbaijani Turks of Caucasia were separated from the majority of their linguistic and religious compatriots, who remained in Iran.

a) Brittanica does not say that Iranian Azerbaijan and the region to the North were one region that were split and b) it says nothing about Azeri's across the border being of the same ethnicity, it clearly says that they are linguistically and religiously alike.Khosrow II 14:58, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Which does not mean that they are not the same people, does it? Another quote from Britannica:

Azerbaijan has a growing and youthful population. The Turkic-speaking Azerbaijanis (Azeris), who make up more than four-fifths of the country's population, are predominantly Shi'ite Muslims. They combine in themselves the dominant Turkic strain, which flooded Azerbaijan especially during the Oguz Seljuq migrations of the 11th century, with mixtures of older inhabitants—Iranians and others—who had lived in Transcaucasia since ancient times. About 13 million Azerbaijanis live abroad, most of them in Iran. [5]

It says that they are the same people. End of story. Grandmaster 09:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for another resource GM, Turkic speaking Azerbaijani's. I will put this into the article. Also, no where does this say they are the same people. First of all, it says Turkic speaking, by that definition, they are similar linguistically, just like the other Brittanica souce I brought up.Khosrow II 13:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Turkic-speaking Azerbaijanis, Iranian-speaking Kurds, Latin-speaking Romanians, etc. Turkic-speaking simply means that Azerbaijani is a Turkic language, and the Azeri people speak that language, as they are Turkic people, as attested by Britannica article about Azerbaijani people. Quote from the article about Iran: The largest Turkic group is the Azerbaijanians, a farming and herding people who inhabit two border provinces in the northwestern corner of Iran. [6] Grandmaster 19:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I dont know how much longer you want to go about this. This is turning out to be something like a dog trying to catch its own tail, and ends up running in circles.Khosrow II 19:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. It’s time for you to drop your unsupported claims, it is clear from all sources that Azerbaijanis are Turkic people, living both in Iran and Azerbaijan. Grandmaster 05:21, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I never said Azeri's were not a Turkic people, they are, linguistically, but that doesnt mean a people speaking the same langauge are ethnically the same.Khosrow II 23:01, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

They are. Check Britannica and Iranica. Grandmaster 07:44, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

The Azerbaijani government has also implemented a policy of forceful integration of all minorities, including Talysh, Tat, Kurds and Lezghins.^[1] Thomas De Waal writes:

“

Many people in the republic of Azerbaijan were forcefully assimilated during the USSR era. Smaller indigineous Caucasian nationalities, such as Kurds, also complained of assimilation. In the 1920s, Azerbaijan's Kurds had their own region, known as Red Kurdistan, to the west of Nagorny Karabakh; in 1930, it was abolished and most Kurds were progressively recaterogized as Azerbaijani' '. A Kurdish leader estimates there that are currently as many as 200,000 Kurds in Azerbaijan, but official statistics record only abou 12,000.[2]

”

I removed the above addition from the article as it has no relevance to Azerbaijani people. Consider adding it to Demographics of Azerbaijan. But the claims made in this addition are POV anyway. First of all, Azerbaijan could never implement a policy of forceful integration of all minorities. How could it record Christian people like Russians or Armenians as Azeris? Second, Kurdish autonomy was created by Stalin to promote Kurdish separatism in Turkey and Iran. Later he changed his mind, abolished the autonomy and deported the Kurds from Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia to Kazakhstan. Only those who registered as Azerbaijanis managed to escape deportation. I have sources to prove that, but if I add all that to this article it will take too much space and the issue will be given an undue weight. Grandmaster 06:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, de Waal never says "Many people in the republic of Azerbaijan were forcefully assimilated during the USSR era". Original research. Grandmaster 06:17, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

The part from Many people in the republic of Azerbaijan were forcefully assimilated during the USSR era is from the first book and not De Wall. The Kurdish part is from De-Wal. Also there are many other materials which are from scholarly sources. It could be deemed relavent to this article for many reasons): 1) Many Azerbaijanis can be Kurds, Talysh..2) Demographic figure of the article is wrong. 3) Also the section about the modern period mentions politics that are relavent to Iran and Azerbaijans policy. Also how could not be relavent since we are also writing about assimilation in Iran as well although I have some references that none of the areas before the Pahlavid era have lost their Turkic language. Mainly Edward Brown considers just before Qazvin as the place where Turkish changes to Persian as one travels from Azerbaijan to Tehran. This still holds true today. So there is definitely different political POV's here. I think the current version by Mardavich suprisingly has removed any point of contention between all parties. I am just going to make the part on Pishevari shorter.

I think is neutral for eveyone and I think facts that are disputed (wether about Pishevari's movement or Azerbaijani governments assimilationst policy) should be kept out of this article. I think political issues should be kept as much as possible from this article specially if there are various POV's. --alidoostzadeh 08:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

From the beginning I suggested to make the part on Pishevari movement as short as possible, as it takes too much space and there’s a separate article on that, plus it’s quite controversial. On the other hand, I think that Persianization campaign should be mentioned, as it is a verifiable info. Grandmaster 10:17, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, either we add contentious political issues or we don't. We must then add information on RezaShah's ancestory and how most of the so called Persianization campaign intellectuals were Azerbaijanis to provide a fair balance and also mention the Azerification campaign. So that I why I suggest we removed political statements one way or another to other pages. --alidoostzadeh 19:03, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

So if this is the agreement, GM should take out the quotes he added to other articles as well.Khosrow II 22:35, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Yea, I realized what Mardavich was saying after awhile. Sorry Mardavich, I was a bit confused as to what was going on. I thought you were just taking the info out.Khosrow II 01:47, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, I left the info on Persianization out for the moment. The issue actually deserves its own article, but I'm not interested in creating it right now. I hope we can resolve our differences without further bitter arguments. Let's just focus on issues everybody agrees on. Grandmaster 06:26, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Turkmanchay treaty between Russia, Persia divides Azerbaijan in 1828. Territory of present-day Azerbaijan becomes part of Russian empire while Southern Azerbaijan is part of Persia. [BBC Country Profiles, Timeline of Azerbaijan]. Southern Azerbaijan is a reality, live with these realities...--Karcha 21:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Please note, however, that the article is at Azerbaijan (Iran), not Southern Azerbaijan. If you want to rename the page, please go to that article and discuss it there. Also, the name "Southern Azerbaijan" is primarily associated with politics, while "Iranian Azerbaijan" is more associated with geography, and is therefore more neutral. Khoikhoi 22:14, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

You are amazing me!--Karcha 23:04, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

How so? Khoikhoi 23:15, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

(unintending) Khoikhoi, if you consider the situation from the side of geography, the Azerbaijan is also a regional name. In this context, it's appropriate to label (the region) Southern Azerbaijan for Iranian Azerbaijan and also Northern Azerbaijan for the Azerbaijan state. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong, both can be used. For geograpical cases, better to call Southern or Northern Azerbaijan. Regards. E104421 16:47, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

There is no northern nor souther Azerbaijan, there is only one Azerbaijan, and then there is a nation that just calls itself Azerbaijan. The terms north and south Azerbaijan are part of historical revisionism encouraged during the Soviet era.Khosrow II 16:53, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Anyways, the problem is that the term "Southern Azerbaijan" is mainly used either by people in Azerbaijan (the country), or Azeris who want to separate from Iran. On the other hand, separatists don't use the more common term, Iranian Azerbaijan. It's not Wikipedias job to take sides, which is why although "Southern Azerbaijan" sounds neutral, it is actually too politcally loaded of a term to use.

Futhermore, the place to discuss the title is at Talk:Azerbaijan (Iran), not here. Khoikhoi 22:43, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Is there a difference?

I always thought Azeri would refer to the ethnic group and Azerbaijani to anyone living in Azerbaijan. Correct me if I'm wrong. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Xpehbam (talk • contribs) 18:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC).

• Azeri is short for Azerbaijani, they mean the same thing. You can say “Azerbaijani language or Azeri language”, “Azeris or Azerbaijanis when addressing the people who speak Azeri or Azerbaijani language”, “Azerbaijani food or Azeri food”, etc.Kiumars

Azeri's are not one ethnic group. They are made up of several unrelated different ethnic groups who speak the same langauge.Azerbaijani 16:40, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you have any neutral authoritative sources to attest to that? Grandmaster 06:16, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Persians are mixed too, so you could aruge that they're not one ethnic group as well. Khoikhoi 06:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

This is not about mixing, its about languages. Languages do not determine ethnicity, or else blacks in the USA would be English. Azerbaijani's are several groups who have come to speak the same language. Genetic testing of Azeri's in the republic have shown them to be closer to Armenians and other Caucasian people, while Azeri's in Iran (the descendent's of the Medes) have been shown to be closer to other Iranian groups.

ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT ETHNICITY IS NOT DETERMINED BY LANGUAGE. This is something that people seem to be forgetting these days...Azerbaijani 17:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

This is partially true, but I think the point is that the genetic tests (most of which I put into the article along with Ali Dost. who put in the Iranian study) are meant as a rough barometer rather than the end all. I do believe though that geographic neighbors cluster with each other and probably you have overlap as Azeris closer to the Caucasus in Iran may well also cluster with Armenians etc. rather than Persians whereas Azeris further south cluster with Persians, Kurds, and others. We're on a slippery slope here though as we can't simply go by genetics as there are other factors to consider including morphology, history, popular perception, language/culture, and nationalism to some extent. In short, we're better off presenting what we know rather than what might be (i.e. different Azeris vary according to geography which we already know as Turkmen in Iraq are probably related to their neighbors moreso than other Turkic-speaking peoples necessarily). Tombseye 18:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Just look at history. The Medes, who were a tribe very close to the Persians, and are sometimes called the cousins of the Persians, settle presently where Iranian Azeri's live today. Iranian Azeri's have always been Iranic. Even Arab scholars said this, clearly distinguishing the Caucasian ethnic groups to the north (where the republic is today) and Iranics, where Iranian Azerbaijan is. Those in the Caucasus are of Caucasian origins, remember the kingdom of Albania? Look at where the Medes settled: [7] and here are the Caucasian kingdoms of the same time: [8].

The Turkic origin theory is pure propaganda. It is based solely on language, thats it, it should be taken out completely. Infact, I am taking it out as there is no factual foundation to it other than what pan Turks from Turkey and the republic have been saying for years to take our land and people.Azerbaijani 22:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, the term Azeri that we now go by, was invented in the 20th century. It has never been the name of an ethnic group, so to say that all Azeri's are of the same group today because we all call ourselves Azeri is just not right. We speak the same language, sure, but we are not the same people. We are different in our origins, and each group of Azeri's should be proud of where they come from, not try to distort facts to take from others.Azerbaijani 22:10, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Please remember that we can include in the article only the info published by reputable sources. I can quote many reputable sources, inlcuding Britannica, Iranica and many others that say that Azeris are the same ethnic group, separated by the border between Azerbaijan and Iran. I don't think you can quote any reputable sources saying otherwise.Grandmaster 17:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Azeri's are not of the same ethnic group. Anyone with basic knowledge of history, politics, and the ability to read genetics reports knows this. Its the same reason that Turks from Turkey are only Turks by name, and not ethnicity. Its interesting, Time magazine had an interesting portion on Wikipedia last issue, and they said that Wikipedia was an encyclopaedia based on consensus rather than fact. So why are you here Grandmaster? To present the facts or to just come up with a consensus not necessarily based on the truth?Azerbaijani 18:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Why asking irrelevant questions? You know the rules, we are not interested in anyone's personal beliefs, according to the rules The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. Check Wikipedia:Verifiability. If you have reliable sources to support your edits, you are welcome to present them, but original research should be kept out of Wikipedia. Grandmaster 18:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

The genetic data is already in the article. That only disproves your theory that all Azeri's are one ethnic group. By the way, are blacks in American of English descent? According to you, they are, arent they?Azerbaijani 20:04, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Ultimately, we are going by what most references denote. In terms of 'ethnic' identity the Azeris are currently viable b/c most other references make clear their linkages. Arguably, other groups such as Germans, Italians and even Persians have varied in terms of their ethnic cohesiveness. Basically though, we can only denote what other reference books do as Grandmaster pointed out. Otherwise, we are doing original research which is beyond the scope of this article. Tombseye 05:27, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• Azerbaijani 18:14, 30 December 2006, I said exactly what Time magazine said here a few months ago and stopped contributing to this article (see the archived talk pages). In my opinion Wiki is not even based on consensus, it is based on who has higher administrative power here regardless of their biased opinions and even anti-Iranian comments! Following a major clash on this article another administrator intervened and put up a NOV sign up but it was removed immediately! Welcome to the world of mafia! Kiumars

This page is not about the citizens of the Republic of Azerbaijan but Azerbaijani people in general. The picture is not representative of all Azeris, there are 20 million Azeris in Iran and 7 million Azeris in the Republic of Azerbaijan, there should at least be four Iranian Azeris in the picture to proportionality represent the Azeris of Iran. --Mardavich 03:48, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I've restored the old image for now (I think it makes the article look more professional). Khoikhoi 21:58, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

and it must not include the "Alieyf" picture, Azeris have many other heroes than a Dictator. (I am also half-azeri, I got somehow offended by that!)

I will make a pic that includes

• Ismail I (I think, He is the most prominent Azeri in history, that picture without him doesn't make sense!)
• Sattar Khan (does he need any comment?)
• Mohammad Hossein Shahriar (the greatest contemporary Azeri Poet)
• Fozouli(also a great classic poet)
• Googoosh or Lotfi Zadeh
• (I haven't decided, comments are welcomed!)--Pejman47 22:48, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Pejman, if we're going to include Aliyev then we might as well include Khamenei too, he's Azeri as well. Other prominent Iranian Azeris we could consider are Mossadegh, Rezazadeh, Daei, Samad Behrangi or Iraj Mirza. --Mardavich 01:01, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

We are better off NOT having this collage at all. Showing ordinary Azeris is better (such as the 3 elderly gentlemen from before) AND it doesn't create copyright problems as creating collages can. The articles that present famous people should all ultimately be changed for this approach as encyclopedias tend to use pictures of regular people anyway. See Pashtuns which has a picture of ordinary people as per an example. Tombseye 01:27, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I think showing ordinary people is representative and more encyclopaedic.Azerbaijani 01:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Cool. I'm glad at least a few people agree with me. For the people who are comparing this article to others, keep in mind that this a featured article and thus has to adhere to higher standards whereas other articles do not. Tombseye 04:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

According to the article the number of Iranian Azarbaijanis is estimated to be at least twice to three times the size of the people in the Rep Azerbaijan (some even estimate 4-5 times), so WHY most of the pictures are from Rep Azerbaijan? Haven’t Iranian Azarbaijanis got any famous athletics, artists, writers, scientist, and other personalities? This is defiantly a breach of impartiality and must be corrected immediately. Kiumars 00:13, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Azeri nationalism has oscillated since the Islamic revolution and recently escalated into riots over the publication in May 2006 of a cartoon that many Azeris found offensive.^[3][4] The cartoon was drawn by Mana Neyestani, an ethnic Azeri, who was fired along with his editor as a result of the controversy.^[5][6]

How is "Azeri nationalism" related to the riots over publication of the cartoons? This should be changed. --Rayis 13:16, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I wasnt there for the protests myself, but I dont believe they were out of nationalism, but rather disgust. I dont understand, because the cartoonist was Azeri himself.Azerbaijani 14:46, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I have tried to word it more to be more neutral now. --Rayis 22:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

1. I still strongly object to Notes 1,2,and 3 as per my previous posts that I see have been archived (See 29.2 B. Dispute on accuracy and impartiality of references). If these are going to be included then my comments about their invalidity must be alongside them as well. Kiumars

We don't include personal comments as per Wikipedia:No original research. We include only verifiable information, based on reliable sources. What's wrong with Amnesty International, for example? Grandmaster 13:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Amnesty International is not a reliable source, atleast when it comes to Iran. Just recently they made an accusation against Iran which turned out to be false, and when asked to recant their statement internationally so that the mix up could be cleared, they refused, instead admitted their mistake quietly (thanks to the Iranians out there who cared enough to prove Amnesty International wrong and push them for an apology).Azerbaijani 20:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Grandmaster, read my previous post (it is in Archive, under Disputes) plz. Kiumars

I think CIA estimates should be taken seriously. The problem is that Iran does not publish statistics on ethnic minorities, thus we have to use what's available. Grandmaster 14:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Grandmaster, even when all the evidences indicate that a piece of information (or source) is wrong! And even when the source admits that its data is wrong! That is not acceptable to me, sorry. We have been thru this before; refer to the Disputes in archive please. Kiumars
• Azerbaijani 20:00, 23 January 2007; Compared with Brenda Shaffer (an employee of IDF!) amnesty international is an angel! Read my disputes (that were archived!) and laugh! Grandmaster is taking a piss at all of us and common sense! Come on! Kiumars

Amnesty says 25-30 (17.5-21 million) , but amnesty is not really a population statistics site since I do not think they even travel to Iran? let alone do a census. Irans government has published couple of statistics one during Shah and couple after Islamic republic. Shaffer although not reliable goes by a figure 1/4 which is the CIA number and rejects the 1/3 and 1/5 numbers. I guess what we have is estimates between 16% to 30% in sources, but I think anyone familiar with Iran's provinces can figure it out easily. Either way it is not a big issue. Brenda Shaffer as you mentioned is not reliable since her books has dozens of distortions even distorting the name of a news paper because it did not fit her agenda. This is clear abuse of scholarship. Armenians also seem to find her not reliable : [[9]]. But what was funny is that I was reading one of her talks and she talked about how Farhad in Nizami was Azerbaijani and Shirin was Armenian and thus these countries should get together. It seems she didn't know Farhad was from Kermanshah region (Qasr-e-Shirin) and although no doubt there are tons and tons of great Azerbaijanis, but Farhad was from a time when Pahlavi dialects were spoken as they are currently in kermanshah today. It seems some sections of western scholarship is becoming unreliable much like middle-eastern ones.

Many of these population statistics are also faulty since they do not consider inter-marriage. After constantly hearing about Shi'ite, Sunn'ite, Kurd in Iraq and seeing the sad state, makes you wonder. Either way I do not want to get involved in this discussion but I think that part of the article is okay even though it is somewhat wrong, but giving a range from low(16%) to high(30%) is okay although as I said anyone familiar with Iran's provinces can figure it out fairly easily. BTW lets be polite.--alidoostzadeh 05:21, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Brenda Shaffer even claims that Iran is a fictitious state and a product of the 19th and 20th centuries!Azerbaijani 05:26, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest you cite a reliable source and we use it instead. So far I have not seen any good alternatives to those currently presented. I agree that Amnesty is not dedicated statistical source, but what alternatives do we have? Grandmaster 06:31, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Amnesty is not even a source. I suggest we stick to the main ones like CIA factbook and etc. I have noticed amnesty usually get information from one small political group or another and then writes a report. --alidoostzadeh 12:04, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

That's ok with me, I just want to know what third party contributors think about it. Grandmaster 12:35, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

- Grandmaster 12:35, 24 January 2007; What third-part contributors? Do you see any third-party contributor here? I looked and haven’t found any so far! Look at their names! Look at their contributions! All I can see is Iranians and Rep Azerians! (And some who try to hide their real identity under funny names but we can see who they are from their posts and contributions to other articles!). I repeat my question; can you see any impartial third-party contributor to this article?

• Grandmaster 06:31, 24 January 2007; Ali already presented a few reliable sources! I have already said this but I repeat it again; you cannot use unreliable sources (without even mentioning the arguments against their credibility/reliability!) just because you can’t find reliable sources! Can you? Please think about it yourself and see if this fits the common sense! I give an example, say we did not know if life exists on Mars and had no reliable sources to use to confirm it but we had a science fiction movie like “The men from Mars” that claimed intelligent beings lived on Mars; would you use the movie as a reference to support our document/argument about the life on Mars! I have no problem with mentioning these unreliable sources, as a matter of fact I like them to be mentioned (so that the readers know that all possible sources have been studied by those who compiled the article) but the arguments against their credibility must be presented too! If you read the talk page you see that I objected to removing the Turkish theory from the article and insisted to keep that in the article but informing the readers that this theory has been rejected by this and that reasons/arguments. There is no such a thing as “excess of knowledge”, but the lack of it is! Kiumars

• Grandmaster 06:31, 24 January 2007; I just read your user page and realized that you are from the Republic of Azerbaijan! Don’t you think that the article really needs an impartial moderator?

- It does have an impartial editor, Tombseye, who brought this article up to the featured standard. Grandmaster 12:35, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

- Grandmaster 12:35, 24 January 2007; You call Tombseye impartial? Look at his userpage for God’s sake! He claims to be an American but he does not have even one article on America! Almost all of his works are on Azerbaijan (and a few about other Caspian states)! How many real Americans do you know who could even find Azerbaijan on the map? Come on! Tombseye may have American citizenship but he is not definitely a Native American! He is even lying about his identity! So, let’s find a real impartial moderator; shall we? Kiumars

Uh, do I know you or something? Actually, I've lately been working on the Pashtuns article and I was involved in Iranian peoples and I bounce around, but I do work on Mideast articles quite a bit. Is that a crime? So Americans only write articles on the US? That's funny and myopic of you. I'll be sure to tell my Canadian friend that he can't study Iran and my friend from Texas that she can't study North Africa next time I see them. Actually, I helped with Watchmen, John Carpenter, Carlito's Way and several other articles relating to the US culture, but I'm not sure what you are alluding to. Surely you can't be alluding to something as silly and dense as thinking that only people from the region can write about it. No, that would just be down right stupid. So I take it you've never been to an American university. You know those places where some Americans can not only find countries on maps, but also, well teach and write books and stuff. You know the things that have pages in-between binding. Tell you what dude, do us all a favor and keep your observations to yourself and stick to some actual critiques of the article.Tombseye 06:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

:) Tombseye has worked only on 2 Azerbaijan related articles so far, and I don't think that it is a crime. He brought Iranian peoples article up to the featured status as well, among his numerous contributions. I don't think that it is appropriate to attack people who you don't even know. Grandmaster 06:51, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

- Grandmaster 06:51, 25 January 2007; Look at the Talk page of his user-page and tell me what you see? That is where I looked to find about him. Kiumars

• Tombseye 06:34, 25 January 2007; Of course it is not a crime to research other countries; as a matter of fact it is very noble to try to find out about others. But you see; we have had so many ill wishers in our history that we have learned to question the honesty of anyone who claims to be our friends; see Brenda Shaffer for example (One of your sources by accident!); an Israeli agent who is working on an American project to create ethnic unrest in Iran! Is she a scholar? A real researcher and scholar should not have political motives and ties to security agencies and certain secret government departments! I am sure you already know all these because if I am not mistaken you said you were a scholar yourself!

As for the rest of your post; I am not really going to lower myself to that level and answer those insults by insults, I leave it to people to decide whether a scholar would be open to criticism and answer them logically or attack and insult! Did you say you were a scholar? Just asking because you do not act like those scholars I know! (opps! I almost forgot! You are right I have never been to American Universities! I did my graduate and two postgraduate degrees in the UK! Is that OK?) Kiumars

You should spend more time coming up with sources of your own instead of looking at my talk page. You insulted me by making a baseless claim that I was somehow biased and then make the childish claim that Americans can't find Azerbaijan on a map. We already know that many Americans aren't good with geography, but assuming that everyone is the same is ridiculous. Again, I don't care where you went to school. Shaffer's at Harvard and her motives are not in question, just what she claims. If she's wrong, then prove it. Either put up your academic sources that prove what is in this article is wrong or stop wasting peoples' time. Tombseye 09:54, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Just a correction (although I will not get into the population argument although Iran's government has done some census as mentioned long time). But Shaffer is not part of the Academics of Harvard university, but she is/was just a post-doctoral fellow at a conservative school there. So she not even an assistant Professor. Full Professor Eval Siegel has refuted her book. [10]. So how another Full Professor [11] . Basically by distorting the names of newspapers on purpose, she loses total credibility although she is not even at assistant Professor level let alone associate or full professor. She can not be considered a neutral academic either as her different articles on pressuring Iran's nuclear program is clear (and of course it seems ethnic cards are one way that she is supporting which is unfortunate as we see in Iraq and the Karabagh conflict and Russia using Abkhazia). Also in her book she claims 25% (after giving figures between 1/5 to 1/3) 17.5 mil and the amnesty international is 30% (21 mil), although I personally do not want get to involved in the census issue again, as I discussed it before. Frankly the provincial population of Iran is clear and Tehran is all that remains that is really unclear. But in Tehran majority will become Tehranis within one generation and lose any sort of ethnic identity (even from Persian speaking or related to Persian dialect areas, they forget dialects and customs)..Old tehran actually used to speak Razhi which was Pahlavi dialect. Also Amnesty international which does not set foot in Iran and Brenda Shaffer (despite her source agreeing with CIA factbook) are not reliable sources when it comes to statistics. In the past 30 years, the Azerbaijani and Persian speaking population has remained steady. The Kurdish (on average the Kurdish family has 5 kids in Iran which is much higher than the national average), Luri, Baluchi and Arab speaking population has increased. Either way what I said about the census issue was just for information. But the other issue about reliability needs to be told with regards to Shaffer and unless the post-doc can defend her books from these heavy criticism and actual blatant manipulation (clipping of the name of newspaper is serious forgery), her name should be removed. --alidoostzadeh 02:21, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Ali thanks for the link to Evan Siegel’s review, it is great, he has covered all the issues I raised here (and many more!). Kiumars

When I worked on this article (with help from several people including Grandmaster and alidoostzadeh) we worked hard to find reliable sources. It's easy to criticize them, but we did settle on saying that there is a POSSIBLE range. I'm not sure how this would make me biased, BUT hey that must be why I worked on Iranian peoples because I'm biased against Persians (sarcasm for the slow folks who don't get it that I'm not anti anyone). Sheesh. As for Amnesty Int'l, they aren't Iranian or Azeri so I'm not sure what they have to gain from making up things, but they might be wrong in their figures sure. Amnesty is often the only voice for human rights and Iran, this is no secret, does not have a good human rights record and so even if Amnesty gets some things wrong, it doesn't really make them completely unreliable. They might be wrong and the CIA Factbook is often dated as well. We also have the Library of Congress who believe that Turkic speakers account for over 21% of the population.[12][13] Now Encyclopedia Britannica is very interesting in that they claim that only 15.9% of Iranians are Azeris, but also claim that only 3.9% are Persians and claim that Kurds are 13% of the population (higher than usual). [14] They add that 2.8% are Afghans (makes sense) and that 13.9% are others (this may account for Ali's "mixed" and intermarried group as well). Other sources make the claim that 1/4 of Iranians are Azeris as well. [15][16] SINCE so many sources give so many different ranges (Britannica sounds the most interesting as it seems very detailed), simply giving a range and then putting them up was the logical approach. Encarta puts Azeris at 25% and Persians at 60% with Kurds dropping to only 7%. [17] Given the fact the ranges vary considerably, regardless of the sources which no one has really PROVEN inaccurate so much as possibly incorrect, what is really the problem? Tombseye 06:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Tomseye; I said this before and I repeat it again; there is a society called “Flat earth society”, they believe that Earth if flat and they have websites and publications to prove it! I agree that an impartial article about earth should mention them but not in a way that make the readers believe they are right! As I said before it does not matter to me (and to be honest with you almost all Iranians inside Iran) as how many are Kurds or Turk or Fars, but I hate it when Wiki and other publications mislead people!

Now you tell me, what is your real nationality? Why are you interested in Iran and Azerbaijan? You can see my details on my user-page I have nothing to hide! Kiumars

Tomseye you again removed several citations I added! And your excuse was: every single sentence does not require a citation. Every single sentence that raises a question needs clarification! See below:

1. Despite living on both sides of an international border, the Azeris form a single group^{[citation needed]}. What single group? Based on what? Language? History? Culture? religion? what?

2. Following the Russian-Persian Wars of the 18th and 19th centuries, territories controlled by Persia in the Caucasus (some merely under nominal control [citation needed]) were ceded to the Russian Empire. This included parts of the current Republic of Azerbaijan[citation needed]. - Which parts were under nominal control? Which part of the current Rep Azerbaijan was under full control?

3. Since Azerbaijan's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, there has been renewed interest in religion and cross-border ethnic ties. - What ties? Who, when, what is the source? You could claim that there are even ties between Iran and Israel but you must be able to prove it using impartial reliable sources! Can you? Let me see! Aha http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown_Foundation is your source! The Jamestown Foundation is an American think tank whose mission is to inform and educate policy makers about events and trends which are current strategic importance to the United States. Publications (Eurasia Daily Monitor; Global Terrorism Analysis ; China Brief; Chechnya Weekly ).

Is this a reliable and impartial source? Oh come on! Why not just use Brenda and AEI or even MOSSAD? They all have very impartial articles! Can I use some articles from Hezbollah website here?

If you are going to use these sources you must be able to back their claims! If you cannot back them get them off! This is not research; this is bullshit! That is why I am asking for an impartial moderator! Kiumars

Why do you need a citation that Azeris on both sides of Araks form a single group? It is what all the authoritative sources say. Check Britannica article on Azerbaijanis (included as a quote), or check Iranica article:

Thus the Azeri people, being the result of a blending process in which the Turanian elements are few (Schoch, Beiträge), is the product of a multi-secular cultural Turkicization that is still actively pursued. Although split in two by a recent and artificial boundary, the Azeri ethnic group remains vigorous, and exceeds on all sides the territorial limits accorded to it. Nevertheless, both in Iran and the U.S.S.R., the political-administrative entities that today bear the name Azerbaijan constitute the nuclei of this ethnic region. [18]

Or another source:

The Azeri population of the former Soviet Union and Iran, although separated by political borders for nearly two centuries, retains strong cultural and linguistic ties.

James Minahan. Miniature Empires: A Historical Dictionary of the Newly Independent States. ISBN 0313306109

Grandmaster 08:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Grandmaster 08:46, 25 January 2007; this is why: It say "is the product of a multi-secular cultural Turkicization that is still actively pursued. If you do not include these citations readers will not get the plot behind them! That is why I am insisting that these are included. Do I need to say more? This article is not simply about people, it is a political issue that the west is trying to raise! Kiumars

I didn't know I had to have 'reasons' for editing articles on wikipedia to some guy who claims to have nothing to hide. I don't really know why people like you try to make things personal rather than about the articles, but honestly I don't care. Your so-called fact requests have already been answered. You just haven't bothered to read the citations carefully and your opposition to some of the references sounds more like you just don't like what they have to say, rather than where they are from. Thus far, you don't like US thinktanks, human rights groups, and anything that alludes to a large Azeri population in Iran. How about YOU prove them wrong instead of having other people do your work for you? Here's the first one (in addition to the ones Grandmaster gave above: any member of a Turkic people living chiefly in the Republic of Azerbaijan and in the region of Azerbaijan in northwestern Iran.[19] Nearly every reference in the article talks about Azeris as a single group based upon their language as well as other factors including history, geographic proximity, religion and how many view themselves as a related group. That's how wikipedia functions, by using the preponderance of references, including other reference books. Now if you think this is wrong, then prove it yourself. We all want to see some academic sources that show that Azeris aren't a group at all from reliable sources like other encyclopedias or academic journals and books.

Next, this passage explains the historic situation in the Caucasus and Azerbaijan: The Ottomans, who were Sunni Muslims, went to war with Iran and held Azerbaijan from 1578 to 1603, but the Safavids continued to reign over the area until their dynasty fell in the early 18th century. Turkic Muslim khanates were then established in Baku, Naxçivan, and other areas. Imperial Russia conquered the Caspian coast in the early 18th century, but soon relinquished the territory to the Muslim khans. In the early 19th century Russia again sought control of the area. In 1801 some western territory of present-day Azerbaijan was annexed to the Russian Empire along with adjacent territory in Georgia.[20] This explains the geographic area that corresponds to modern Azerbaijan. Now if Iran actually DID NOT allow these khanates in the north to have autonomy (and thus exercised only nominal control as the article states) then YOU prove it.

The last citation request is silly as the other references in the article discuss INTEREST in cross-border relations as does this link. You apparently don't understand that interest in cross-border ethnic relations takes many forms as the article makes clear. I already proved everything and the other editors who helped me have proven it over and over again. You either don't like the answers (which is your problem) or just want your own view to be placed in the article which is NOT going to happen. This is a featured article because people worked to make it so and the references are MANY (100 at last count) and speak for themselves. Just because you don't like some of them does not make them invalid.

As for an impartial arbitrator, there is no need for one as your citation requests have been taken care of. How about you go complain to an administrator like say Khoikhoi and ask him to arbitrate? Or any administrator at wikipedia and see how that turns out? I'm no longer worried or concerned. Tombseye 09:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Tombseye 09:39, 25 January 2007; Come on Tombseye!

1: As a scholar you should know that people are entitled to ask questions and their questions should to be answered whether we like it or not!

2: I am not the only one who has objected to the credibility of the figures used in the amnesty report as you are trying to suggest and you know it! Read the talk page again! And see my objection for quoting their figures for yourself again: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL public statement says “The largest ethnic minority in Iran, the Azeri Turkish community is believed to number between 25-30 percent of the total population and is found mainly in the north-west.”. Since when “is believed to” is a factual statement to be used as a reference? Believed by whom? What is the source? Tombseye do you find these questions irrelevant and invalid? Would any scholar find a statement like “is believed to” seriously?

3: I don’t have time right now but I will read the rest of your post and answer later.Kiumars

Okay no problem, if you have questions then by all means ask them. I read the talk page and the only reason Amnesty is there is because we found it difficult to find reliable sources as most are estimates. Thus, we went with a wide range to accommodate the possibility that Azeris may comprise as much as 30% of Iran's population to as little as 15%. I don't see how this is a problem really since Iran doesn't have ethnic censuses and MANY observers believe that the Azeri population is a pretty large. The other sources don't necessarily explain their methodology either or we would use an exact census to help reference the data. Of course, I'm not going to be adamant about keeping Amnesty as a source, NOT because they might be wrong, but because we don't know where they data is derived. As for the other objections as to Azeri ethnic identity and the autonomy of khanates, I believe that is established and does not require any further discussion as not only do the sources used in the specific areas you brought explain matters, but other books and references in the article extrapolate on the matter quite effectively. We can discuss the Amnesty situation and probably find a suitable replacement for it if that is what most people want. Tombseye 22:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

"In 2006, Iran’s Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Afshar Soleymani, said the number of ethnic Azerbaijanis in Iran now exceeds 35 million" -- http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/numbers/16/1044.html --AdilBaguirov 09:24, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

" More than a third of Iran’s 66 million people are ethnically Azeri, a beleaguered minority that frequently agitates for more rights and cultural autonomy." http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/world/europe/24azerb.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin --AdilBaguirov 09:27, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure where newspapers have gotten their statistics. Usually they do not provide a source. But the provincial population of Iran is relatively clear and the Azerbaijani areas is clear (mainly Ardabil, East Azerbaijan and Zanja) with pockets in Western Azerbaijan(30-50%), Qazvin(10-20%) and Hamadan (25%) and Gilan (5-10%). Pretty much the area dilenated by this map.[21]. Iran's provincial statistics which add to 70 million also available and have been taken regularly every 10 years with UN help. They don't give ethnic numbers, but just provincial statistics. In terms of actual statistics being done. There are three that I recall. The statistics by Lord Cruzon 1890 puts Azerbaijanis and other Turkic speakers about 1/6. There is a detailed statistics from 1950's in 9 volume discussing every village in Iran and it's population. It is about 1/6-1/5. After the revolution, there has been some statistics as well. For example one sample testing during the month of Mordad, 1370 where the mother tongue of all Iranian mothers who gave birth was required throughout all hospitals and the number for Azerbaijanis is 20%, Persian/Gilaks/Mazandaris 56.6%, Kurds about 10% and Lurs/Bakhtiaris about 9%. Thus 1/3 (taken as upperlimit by such non-pro-Iran people as Shaffer who goes with 1/4) seems highly illogical from the provincial statistics of Iran. Iran's embassy seems to state results similar to CIA factbook [22]. The only other statistics I know of is the provincial population [23]. Either way the current article is good and the issue does not take away from the quality of the article since a range estimate is given. But an accurate enough estimate can easily be derived. Note none of these statistics mention people who are simply Iranians with mult-provincial backgrounds (much like Tehran). --alidoostzadeh 19:47, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The first source is not from a newspaper, but a top journal, equivalent and partner of American "Foreign Affairs", and attributes the 35 million Azerbaijanis in Iran to Ambassador of IRI to AR Mr. Afshar Suleymani. Also, I've cited before the Russian Academy of Sciences 2004 report -- and hence, consistent with Russian intelligence sources -- that Azerbaijanis are about 28% of population, with Turkmens and other Turkic people another 2-3%. That is just under one-third of population.

Meanwhile, you are right about the Tehrani point (multi-provincial backgrounds), but that is a common and typical problem all over the world, as there are no pure Persians or Turks, French or Russian, German or Italian, Spanish or Arab, Polish or Ukrainian, Jewish or English, etc., yet all are somehow identified and counted. Maybe the fact that most Azerbaijanis in Iran can speak Azerbaijani language at least somewhat helps to identify them as such. Perhaps a more correct label "having at least part of their roots ..." could be adopted in Wikipedia to end the quagmire once and for all. Meanwhile, IRI should just make ethnicity field part of its census applicaiton to end the problem, as concealing the numbers doesn't help -- it leads to some Azerbaijani ultranationalists inflate the numbers to 40 million, whilst Persian nationalists undercount to 8 or 16 million. --AdilBaguirov 20:33, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea where these people get their sources from - on both sides: pro- and anti-Azeri. For now, I think the most interesting numbers are given in this suvey, carried out by the "Iranian Studies Group" at MIT in 2005. Take a look at question #10. Considering the large number of Iranian Azeris in America (end elsewhere outside of Iran), the number is quite a surprise. Tājik 21:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the numbers of the MIT survey are interesting, but that's about it, as they are totally unreliable and contradictory to all other evidence. If it would have been so low, I don't think IRI would have been so sensitive about the issue -- at 88% ethnically Persian population, with Kurds (4%), Azerbaijanis (11%), Arabs (less than 1%), being only what is listed, any kind of ethnic separatism is virtually impossible. Plus, it says "check all that apply" so everyone natually checked Persian box too, as everyone has some grandma or great-grandpa who is Persian. --AdilBaguirov 21:23, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually you can even has 3-5% ethnic minority or even less, and have separatism. Basques in Spain, I am not sure what the percentage of Armenians in the Azerbaijan republic is, but I think it is 5%? Iran has helds its own despite many plots and there is a lot of intermarriage between Azerbaijanis, Persiand, Gilaks. The quote from Mr. Afshar Soleymani I have not seen But I would not be suprised by such statements. The Iranian government and Iranian azaris like Mr. Afshar Soleymani are saying in their own that there are more Azerbaijanis in Iran then the republic of Azerbaijan and thus if anyone wants to join, it should be the republic of Azerbaijan not the other way around. Thus they actually use the sort of pan-turkist propoganda against them (If there are 35 million, then why should 35 million join 7 million? So that is reaction of sort). Recently an Iranian azeri MP based on a pan-turkist newspapers claimed that UNESCO has designated Turkish as the third language of the world and Persian as the 37th dialect of Arabic. Later on it became known that issue lied with a magazine called Omid-Zanjan and UNESCO never claimed such thing. The magazine foreign affairs usually quotes the CIA factbook. have seen some MP's quote also unscientific rumors that have been around with regards to many other issues. They read it in a magazine and think of it as a fact. In some places unfortunately some people think right now that anything on the internet might be a fact. I think with the available data (provincial population) it is fairly easy to arrive at accurate estimate since in Iran the predominant Azerbaijani areas are known. My estimate of Turkic speakers based on provincial analysis matches the census information of Lord Cruzon and IRI census in that specific month as well Britannica.. Basically it is easy to do such a census, one counts first the areas that azerbaijanis are predominant and clear majority (East Azerbaijan, Zanjan , Ardabil). Then areas that have significant Azerbaijani population (35-50%) like West Azerbaijan. Then areas in Hamadan (25%), Gilan (5-10%), Qazvin (10-20%) and Arak(10-20%). Then Tehran can be upperbound with 1/3. Take this against the provincial statistics, a very accurate figure comes out that agrees with actual census's done. For example based on the provincial statistics, 100% of the population of Zanjan, East Azerbaijan and Ardabil (not counting few talesh, tat, armenians,..) is 4698463. [24] (note the BBC map where this area is shaded as Azerbaijani since it is overwhelmingly azerbaijani). If we take an upperbound and consider 50% of West Azerbaijan, we have 6361099. This is about 10.5% of the population who live in areas where the Azerbaijani language is predominant. If we take predominantely Gilaki/Taleshi Gilan and predominatetly Persian speaking Qazvin, Hamadan, Arak and count the azerbaijani population there, we can get a very high upperbound of 1.5 million. Which gives 8 million. If we take Tehran and even say half of Tehran for the sake of upperbound, and add another million people from say everwhere else in Iran (although I do not think there is any population area left that I did not count), then the figure is 14 million out of 60 million. Note this is high upperbound. Thus numbers like 30 million or even 1/3 are highly exaggerated, but since Iran's government is a Shi'ite government (90%) and Azerbaijanis are Iranians as any other. Either way, the identity based on language is not an issue for most Iranians, since culturally they are the same and for example the former Shah of Iran was half Azerbaijan and his wife was Azerbaijani and many people in the current government like the head of the revolutionary gaurd (one of the powerful positions) and the leader of the country are Azerbaijanis. one does not take an upper-bound approach and use average, the Britannica figure cited by Tombeyese seems more closer based on provincial analysis. --alidoostzadeh 23:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

@ AdilBaguirov: comments duly noted. But I would not say that the numbers are "contradictory" ... especially not in regard of the claims that "Azeris number 35m in Iran" (which does not have any reliable source). What makes the number of the survey also interesting is the fact that the people were allowed to mark multiple ethnicities. So, the "88%" of the Persians also includes many Azeris, Kurds, and others ... and so does the 11% of the Azeris. If you sum up all the percentages, you will get more than 100%. This perfectly reflects the nature of the Iranian population and reveals the mistake of census-numbers. Honestly, the majority of Azeris I know (and believe me: there is a LARGE Iranian Azeri community in Hamburg) are in fact mixed, almost all having either a Persian mother or father. Almost all of them speak Persian at home (with only a few speaking Azeri). So far, Ethnologue is the only source claiming that there are more Azeris in Iran than Persians. I have contacted ethnologue many times and I asked them many times to name their sources. However, they keep quite, do not react to my e-mails and continue to post their numbers. Interestingly, in case of Uzbekistan, the same source rejects any existance of a Persian-speaking community. I do not know, but seems to me that someone at Ethnologue does not like Persians. Tājik 23:21, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Kiumars actually contacted ethnologue.com (which is really an organization that translates the bible and not really a professional site) long time (in the archive). The direct responsible for Iran's data wrote back: Im not able to locate the original source from 1997. In line with your calculations we agree that the figure is likely closest to 11,000,000. We will do further research and update our figures for the next edition. I also wrote them and they said something similar and they will update their data. Either way, when was does an analysis based on provincial statistics, an accurate figure is easily derived. Note ethnologue 1996 contradicts ethnologue 2000 and that contradicts ethnologue 2004 (whose numbers are about 3-5 million off of Iran's actual population) and their numbers for Kurds or various groups fluctuates greatly although Iran's population is kept relatively the same. Also the point you brought about Uzbekistan is interesting. I wonder why they don't mention Tajiks either?! --alidoostzadeh 23:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, yes I see all the problems here which is the only reason we used a range. Shaffer I'm willing to leave out of this, while Amnesty most likely just picks up figures from someone else. No one has commented on the most interesting stats as derived from Britannica though: Persian 34%, Azerbaijani 15.9%, Kurd 13%, Luri 7.2%, Gilaki 5.1%, Mazandarani 5.1%, Afghan 2.8%, Arab 2.5%, other 13.5%. These figures are very intersting b/c they account for the high Kurdish birthrate and the "other" category could possibly explain the intermarriage situation. The introduction of the Afghan category is interesting in that I'm wondering if that is a reference to Pashtuns (who are ethnic Afghans and do exist in Iran) OR is a cumulative figure of anyone from Afghanistan who is in Iran. Obviously, the figures for Kurds and others being higher means that the Persian and Azeri categories seem to be smaller in this estimate. Tombseye 18:51, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi can you give me the source (web addess)? That is interesting figure although Luri, Gilak, Mazandarani speak dialects now that are pretty much mutually intelligble to standard Persian since they re indo-Iranian and Persian has influeced them. I know that about 95%+ Iranians know Persian (99% in Tehran) according to statistics and many groups speak it as the first language, since Persian by itself is really in my opinion not an ethnicity, but mainly ethnicities that speak Persian now. (Much like many Azerbaijanis in republic of Azerbaijan who might have had Lezgi or Talysh background but are now Azerbaijanis by language). I have done provincial analysis of Azeri areas and the figure you gave actually agreed with what I said above when I take the avearage. It is good also that for the first time someone is counting is the 2-4 million Afghan refugees and I hope they obtain their human rights. But the Afghan refugees in Iran are mainly Tajiks and Hazaras, since most Pashtuns went to NWFP of Pakistan. (Since I think Brtiannica uses Pashtun for the Pashtun group although Afghan is originally another name for this group but now encompasses all of Afghanistan). I am wondering if the Arab Shi'i Iraqi refugees are counted. The Britannica figure does not include Baluchis, Talysh, Armenians, Qashqais, Turkemen, Lak, Bakhtiaris (perhaps counted as Lur which is possible) and also multi-provincial people (which is lumped into others also). About Shaffer, since she goes the CIA factbook of 1/4, it is not necessary to quote the CIA factbook twice and her book is lop-sided as explained. Amensty and HRW and etc. in my opinion are really not reliable with regards to census since they do not even have the qualified people and also the resources and amnesty people are not experts in Iran, they just receive a report and based on any guess publish it. Basically the best census we have is the provincial analysis. Also please provide the Brtiannica address so I may examine it. --alidoostzadeh 19:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I posted it above, but here it is again: [25] It is an interesting assessment as it seems to take account of the high birth rate of the Kurds. The others may account then for the Baluchis, Arabs, Turkmen, Bakhtiaris etc. Obviously, persianization is a very real phenomenon as an Iranian prof. of mine referred to the Arabs as having lost their language and more like people of Arab descent in Khuzestan, which I found interesting. At any rate, I have no problem with removing unverifiable or questionable sources of course. Perhaps we could find another source for the high end estimate. Cheers. Tombseye 20:12, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't see the link, but thanks. About Persianization in Khuzestan, actually I doubt it. Because Arabs are basically tribal (they all have tribal names) and nomads and do not live in the major cities. Your Professor might have just mixed up the Arabs of Khuzestan with the Lur/Dezfuli/Bakhtiari/Behbahani population who are actually predominant there. Either way, no Iranians is a minority in his country since every Iranian with the exception of few (and there are much more in other ME and caucus countries) is proud to be Iranian. As per upperbound (23-25-30.. miil) the number doesn't matter and lowerbound Britannica or again doesn't matter, although I do not mind 70 milion since Azerbaijanis are equiavlent to Iranians. I personally do not care as long as the book referenced is not written by authors who actually falsify materials (as proven above) and does not know Arabic and Persian and thus can not be an expert in the region where the overwhelming number of written sources are in Arabic and Persian. Unfortunately I do not think some circles have good intentions with regards to population census's. For example in all BBC reports about Iraq or Lebanon or whatever, we read minority this majority that, historical animosity.. which is sad. --alidoostzadeh 02:21, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Tajik, not sure if I was clear, but the "over 35 million Azerbaijanis" was provided by Amb. Afshar Suleymani, and quoted in both a highly prestigious Foreign Affairs' type of a journal (I provided the English variant of the article), and, for example, a local newspaper in Baltimore [26]. The latter actually gives the date of Amb. Suleymani's interview during which he made that claim -- 25 march 2006. I did not see the actual interview, but perhaps it could be like Ali said, i.e., the Amb, himself an ethnic Azerbaijani, was leveraging it against Azerbaijani ultra-nationalists. However, the fact remains that I found now two sources, of which one is very credible, taking Amb. Suleymani's very seriously and not seeing any joke, irony or sarcasm.

By the way, another popular Russian political commentator, who is actually anti-Azerbaijani, Mr. Sergey Markedonov, from state-run RIA Novosti, gave an estimate of "Today on the territory of Iran there lives, according to different estimates, from 25 to 35 million ethnic Azerbaijanis ("Azerbaijani Turks"). This, by the way, makes up almost one third of the population of the entire Iran". ("Сегодня на территории Ирана проживает по разным оценкам от 25 до 35 миллионов этнических азербайджанцев (“азербайджанских тюрок”). Это, между прочим, составляет почти треть населения всего Ирана"). [27] And as said, this would be consistent with 2004 estimates by the Russian Academy of Sciences. Anyhow, there are many reasons why in current environment, the number of Azerbaijanis would be artificially less in censuses, sometimes due to volunteer reasons.

Ali, the figure of 14 million Azerbaijanis in Iran, which you also estimate to be generous, is hard to believe. However, what do you think about the Kurdish population? What is your estimate of the number of Kurds in IRI? Also, I have natives of West Azerbaijan province who very much dispute the claim that they now account for only 30-50% of the population -- they maintain they are majority, especially in cities, and that Kurds live in villages in the mountains. They give bunch of additional facts, like majority of mosques being Shi'ia, that Kurds being poorer are mainly day laborers living farther away, some Kurds being refugees from Iraq, that Kurds mainly live in south-western areas of the province, in towns like Mahabad, Boukan, Piranshahr, Sardasht, and Oshnaviyyeh. Meanwhile, the largest city, Urmiya, and others, like Sulduz (Naghadeh), are overwhelmingly Azerbaijani (there are other minorities, like Armenians, Assyrians, etc., who live too). --AdilBaguirov 03:49, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Adil, my provincial analysis of Kurds come out to 10%. But if Laks are included as part of Kurds it is 12%. This is based on provincial analysis which is published every 10 years and the actual census is carried out. Check the link from Tombseye which has the provincial population based on the 1996 actual census. My analysis on Azeri population again was based on provincial analysis. I checked the ambassador soleymani quote in foreign affairs and the article was written by Arif Yunusi. Another ambassador soleymani quote was that Azerbaijanis control Iran. Thus he is actually again contesting separatist propoganda. For example if the government of the republic of azerbaijan had said there 6 million Armenians in Azerbaijan, and Armenians believed it, then separatist Armenians would lose one of their major arguments for separation. Thus ambassador soleimani is smart on this issue in using the small foreign backed separatist propoganda directly against them. About West Azerbaijan, county of Sardasht Piranshahr Mahabad Bukan Oshnaviwyah Siyah Cheshmeh (all cities and villages) are almost 100% Kurdish. Naqdeh is actually 2/3 and Miandoab could be close to one half. Also virtually all the villages of urmia, khoy, Maku Shahin Dozh are Kurds. But the cities of Maku Shahih Dozh are virtually all Azerbaijanis (at least until recently if the Kurdish villages have not migrated). In khoy there is a Kurdish population but the majority is Azerbaijani. About Urmia, virtually all villages of the county are Kurds. Many Kurds from all villages of W. Azerbaijan have migrated there in the last 30 years and 1/3 in the city itself is at least likely. An Azeri lady native of Urmia who is also a friend recently told me she thought majority were Kurds due to migrations from other regions of the province to Urmia (since it is the capital). Urmia might have been overwhelmingly Azerbaijani 30-40 years ago (before WW1 actually it was 50%+ Assyrian and some say more), but today Kurds are significant there where-as the Assyrian/Armenian population has really dwindeled specially after the revolution. Naqdeh actually has the 5th (or 6th) largest city in W. Azerbaijan province (Mahabad is second after Oroomiyeh). The reason there is more shi'i mosques is simply because government is Shi'i regime. Also many or most Kurds are members of various sufist sects who have sufi lodges ( or it could even be in someone's house) and not mosques. Figures such as 35 million Azerbaijanis are simply not factual based on any provincial analysis, but they seem to appear in the republic of Azerbaijans far right media sometimes or in chehregani's website and etc and maybe from there , some people might believe it or use it to counter and etc.. If you look at the census by Tombseye (just the provincial numbers) and if we add all of west Azerbaijan (say 0% Kurd), east Azerbaijan, Ardabil and Zanjan, it will give 8.5 million. These are areas that Azerbaijani is majority (ignoring west azerbaijan). If we count of all Tehran say and consider it 100% azerbaijani (just for super upperbounding arguments case), it is 12 million. That is 20.5 million. The other 14.5 million simply is not possible. There are Azeri-speaking minorities in Gilan, Qazvin, Hamadan,Arak..but not even the population of these four provinces are 14 miilion to make 35 million. I think the large percentage for Azerbaijanis in some census's (CIA factbook around 25%) or more actually reflects their number in the government in both Pahlavi and IRI regime and their visibility in all of Irans socio-political and military aspect. For example many Qajar aristocrats went into the Pahlavi regime and Rezashah's mother alongside his wife and then Farah were Azerbaijani. IRI too has great deal of Azerbaijanis, for example supreme leader and the head of revolutionary gaurds general safavi and etc. Thus traditionally since the Safavid times, Azerbaijanis have played major role in Iranian government system. Also Azerbaijanis being dominant in Iran's economy and specially Tehran's, they become very visible and significant. Couple that with Azerbaijanis historical role in Iran, their marriages with other Iranians, their intellectual contributions to Iran and the Shi'i religion. Thus Azerbaijanis are organic and very very visible part of Iran and if there is a creme of crop amongst Iranians today, it is the Iranian Azerbaijanis. ماشالله وطندوستان آذربایجانی.. --alidoostzadeh 05:06, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

• Ali can you do the same analysis you did for the Azeris for the Kurds and Lurs please. Kiumars

Britanica: Ethnic composition (2000): Persian 34.9%; Azerbaijani 15.9%; Kurd 13.0%; Luri 7.2%; Gilaki 5.1%; Mazandarani 5.1%; Afghan 2.8%; Arab 2.5%; other 13.5%.

CIA: Persian 51%, Azeri 24%, Gilaki and Mazandarani 8%, Kurd 7%, Arab 3%, Lur 2%, Baloch 2%, Turkmen 2%, other 1%.

Interesting! Britanica has not mentioned Baloch and Turkmen but has introduced a new category “Afghan”! In 2000 there were nearly 3 million Afghan refugees in Iran which does more or less correspond with 2.8% but most of them gone back to Afghanistan and the remaining are being repatriated gradually. Or maybe Britanica is confusing Afghans with Baloch? Other points of interest are increases of over 200% in Lurs and almost 100% in the Kurdish populations! But the 64000 dollar question is who the remaining 13.5% other ethnic groups are? Come on guys; let’s find some ethnic groups for almost 10 million people! (I think these people just make it up as they go along!) Kiumars

Yes, but there are accounts that there are native "Afghans" (specifically Pashtuns) who are native to northeastern Iran and it's doubtful that every Afghan is going to go back as some have no doubt intermarried with locals after all the time that has past. Of course, if we include the peripheral Persians such as the Gilaki and Lur and include them as Persians then the Persian stats go back up. The Kurdish estimate sounds correct given their high birth rate. The others could include the smaller groups such as Baluch and Turkmen and intermarried groups as others as well as really small groups like Armenians. Britannica has a reputation to uphold so I doubt they put out statistics without some rationale behind them. Tombseye 00:14, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Tombseye 00:14, 30 January 2007; according to UNHCR statistics only 700,000 Afghan refugees left in Iran by June 2006. http://www.unhcr.org/statistics/STATISTICS/4486ceb12.pdf There are also an estimated 0.5 million illegal Afghan immigrants in Iran that they come to work a few months and make some money and go back. The Iranian naturalisation Law does not grant nationality automatically based on marriage and when Afghan refugees came to Iran the government stressed that Iranian nationality will not be granted to the refugees as far as I recall. Even if there were some inter-marriages they surely could not count for 2.8% of the 68m population (almost 2 million people; almost half of the Afghan refugee population in Iran)! By the way, your favourite source “Ethnologue” estimates Pashtos to be 113k, and this is too far from 2.8% of the population too!

Re: if we include the peripheral Persians such as the Gilaki and Lur and include them as Persians then the Persian stats go back up. Both sources have also mentioned Gilaki and Lur separetly, so these are not included in one and excluded in another source! BTW, Ethnologue also estimates the combined Gilaki and Mazandarani at 10%!

I think Britanica has used Ethnologue figures but with some adjustments because according to Ethnologue analysis the number of Farsi speaking people is only 22 million and that is almost 33% of the population and corresponds with Britanica’s 35% more or less. Britanica has also adjusted the Azeri population to 15.9% and put the rest under others. It is a shame that these people (e.g. britanica and Ethnologue) do not even mention their sources!

As for the Kurdish birth rate, as I mentioned before I am a Kurd and I do not know any one amongst my relatives and friends to have more than 2 or max 3 children! One reason for the higher rate of the Kurds could be that Britanica has included Lakis (over 1 million) as well and that would make Ethnologue estimated Kurdish population over 7.6m (11%) if we trust Ethnologue figures.

As for the Lurs; Ethnologue estimates them to be 4.7% but I cannot see how Britanica has come up with 7.2%!

The main problem is that these figures do not correspond with the regional population unless we believe that the majority of these people have migrated to other provinces.

As for the reliability of Britanica, can you tell me what their previous estimate of the breakdown of Iran’s population was? If these two figures do not tally up then one of them is wrong and that would shows how reliable the source could be! Kiumars

• Guys I opened a stub article for Brenda Shaffer and appreciate your inputs, cheers. Kiumars

Kiumars since the discussion is not about Azerbaijani people, I'll email you my analysis of Lurs later. --alidoostzadeh 01:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't really need to mention sources as they are plenty, also in the article. I am an Iranian Azerbaijani and from what I have seen personally, beside the sources, is that almost 100% of the population in the provinces of East Azerbaijan, Ardebil and Zanjan are Azerbaijanis. Maybe it is not 100% but it is far above 90%. Then I travelled to many other areas around Azerbaijani areas in Iran and from what I saw it is accurate to say that the majority of those in central and northern areas of West Azerbaijan province are Azerbaijanis, probably about 70% but when you go the far south of the province the majority seems to be Kurdish. In Gilan, Hamedan, Qazvin, Tehran, Markazi and Kurdistan provinces somewhere between 15 and 45 percent are Azerbaijanis. And that is not all as there are large numbers of Azerbaijanis in Khorasan, Fars, Mazandaran and other areas of Iran. However I doubt Iranian Azerbaijanis are more than about a quarter of Iran's population. But 25% seems very near to reality. The definition of Azerbaijani is not being from majority Azerbaijani populated areas, but to speak Azerbaijani Turkish. The word Azerbaijani is used to separate the Turks in Iran from those in Turkey, nothing more. Otherwise we could just say Iranian Turks, which is more correct for inside Iran.

And Azerbaijanis in the republic of Azerbaijan have the same language and customs as the Azerbaijanis in Iran, so they are the same people, acording to all reliable and unbiased sources. Persian nationalists and Iranian authorities, fearing nationalism among Iranian Azerbaijanis, have often tried to separate the Azerbaijanis in the north of the Ars from those in Iran, though it has never been accepted by the Azerbaijanis in Iran, though some may dislike their fellow Azerbaijanis in the north of the Ars for being more secular and so on, as some north Azerbaijanis may dislike those from Iran for various reasons!! Roazir 22:31, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia NPOV (No Point of View) and NOR (No Original Research). This is not a forum.Azerbaijani 23:22, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Roazir 22:31, 1 February 2007; I personally believe that people in the world are all related and have far more in common than catches the eye. Geographical borders are only administrative lines; people living on different sides of the borders are not that different. If you prick them don’t they bleed? If you tickle them, don’t they laugh? If you poison them, don’t they DIE? People are people! No matter what they look like, and where they live. Kiumars

User:Azerbaijani, see Wikipedia NPOV and NOR for yourself and stop using and misusing this website for you anti-Azerbaijani debates. This is not a forum! You have written a strong slogan of your in your page: "this user is for the unification of Azerbaijan with Iran." Stop politicising this website! Roazir 18:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Today Azeri's are Turks and speak Turkish. Why are we treated like animals in this article? why are some people trying to categorize us and playing around with who we are.

What on Earth is this Iranian or Caucasian "theory"? THEORY! what has this got to do with us. Identity is based upon perception, not among genetics or race. Who cares what colour, race or genetics we have the fact of the matter is we are Turks.

Why isn't there a section on Turkey Turks claiming they are Hitites, Galatians, Lydians, Lykians? they arn't "pure" Turks, who on this Earth is "pure" for goodness sake.

It's simple, today Azeri's are Turks. There have been many people's on this ancient land and many have mixed with us but today we are not Persians or Caucasians were Turks why can't some Iranians stomach this.

    There is a difference between what azeris are called and what is their origin....
    Ok...Todays' Azeris are called Turk..but Origin section and Genetics section are taking about the origin of Azeris.--behmod talk 22:53, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Behmod and my anonymous friend (IP: 81.154.251.76), there are expatriate Iranians who have lived outside Iran for several generations; we can already see the emergence of the third generation from those who left Iran in late 1970s. Lots of these are the result of mirages between Iranians and although the children speak English / French / German far better than Parsi or Kurdi or Azari (simply because they live in societies with languages other than their mother tongues) they are still Iranians and have Iranian ancestry, identity and genes. This is not only limited to the Iranians, you can see pockets of French and German and Spanish and Chinese and Indians and other nations in foreign countries who have kept their identities after being away from the motherland for centuries and despite the fact that they cannot speak their mother tongues as good as English (USA & Canada are two good examples). Jews are another good example, despite living in different parts of the world for millenniums they still have kept their identity.

You cannot wash your identity or paint a new one on, even if you want to the world knows who you are! A good example is the Japanese who lived in America for generations and by any standard were Americans, but after the Pearl Harbor attack they were all rounded up and put in camps because of the fear that they might had more sentiments for their motherland than the country that their parents and grandparents were born in (i.e. USA). We all saw the same thing happening after the 9/11. Time does not change some-things, you are stuck with your identity and genes, like it or not! Good luck! Kiumars 01:16, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Kiumars! I do not have any problem with your idea and I agree with you--behmod talk 17:36, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Why? I was watching the tape a few hours ago! My understanding is that all you need to put a crap on Wiki is to have a source! I have a source! It may be crap but it is a source! Like most of the carp sources provided on Wiki! Do I need to be a non-Muslim to put on a crap source? Kiumars 22:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

See WP:POINT. Khoikhoi 22:48, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Kiumars! My friend! See Uncyclopedia: [28] ---behmod talk 22:37, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

• That is funny, I loved it, it says all anybody needs to know about this Zionist establishment called Wiki! I wonder how many share Netanyahu has in this crap! Kiumars 23:49, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Khoikhoi 22:48, 24 February 2007; (WP: POINT: Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point) it sounds to me like “Don’t speak your mind when we are feeding you shit!; That is our rule!” Only a retard would take shit like that, I am here to play the game my way not the Zionist way! You want to play or not? Kiumars 00:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

It's unbelievable how wikipedia could consider keeping incorrect and erroneous information like this. On Googoosh:

She was born to Azerbaijani immigrant parents, from the former Soviet Union (Azerbaijan SSR) [1]. She began acting and singing early in her childhood alongside her father/acrobat, Saber Atashin. The name Googoosh is an Armenian boy's name and was given to her at birth. However since it was a boy's name, there was a problem registering the name on her birth certificate so she was registered under the name of Faegheh. She said in an interview that:"I wasn't born in Azerbaijan, I didn't grow up in Azerbaijan, I have never been to Azerbaijan and I do not carry an Azeri Passport so that does not make me Azeri". Googoosh has said in many interviews and concerts that she is, "proud of her Persian culture".

Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/googoosh