The modern tongue of Persia is derived from Mend, as Italian was derived from Latin ; but the Persians now speak a language which is neither Semitic, like Arabic, nor Turanian, like Turkish ; it is a branch of the Indo-European or Aryan family of speech. Also, a large infusion of Persian words, however, found its way into Arabic, and through Arabic into Turkish, and the result is that at the present moment the Turkish language, as spoken by the higher ranks at Constantinople, is so entirely overgrown with Persian and Arabia words, that an uneducated Turk from the country understands but little of the so-called Osmanli, though its grammar is exactly the same as the grammar which he uses in his Tartaric utterance. Throughout Persia the inhabitants of towns all speak the Persian language. It is spoken in Erivan, and a great part of Azerbijan, Shirvan, and Daghestan, north of Caucasus. The tribes to the west of India, especially those of Khorasan, understand Persian generally ; and their dress, arms, and habitations, while they retain their national peculiarities, approach to those of Persia. The Persian language is met with amongst the Hazara Mongols of Ghito in Seistan, Ghorband, Badakhshan, and Baluchistan. Persian is the official language of Afghanistan, but the Pushtu is alike the common tongue of the uneducated people and of the Amir. The Afghans have a few Pushtu works, but they read Persian authors by preference, and through them have formed imperfect ideas of geography, astronomy, medi cine, and history ; these works, full of fictions and deficiencies, have not assisted in developing their faculties. Throughout British India, the written language of the educated Muhammadan is the Persian. This language was formed after the Muhammadan conquest, and its literature is essentially of the middle ages and of modern times. The literatures of the West Aryans, Persia, and of the East Aryans are thus separated by time as well as by space, for the great literature of India belongs strictly to antiquity. The natives of Persia are enthusiastically devoted to poetry. The meanest artisan of the principal cities of that kingdom can read or repeat some of the finest passages from their most admired writers; and even the rude and unlettered soldier leaves his tent, to listen with rapture to the strain of the minstrel, who sings a mystic song of divine love, or recites the tale of a battle of his forefathers. The very essence of Suffeeism is poetry. Many of the tales and stories current throughout central Europe came to it through the Persian.
During the reign of Shah Abbas the Great, the English first established commercial settlements in Persia. Two enterprising Englishmen, Sir Anthony Sherely and his brother, with a few followers, had made their way to the court of Persia, where they met with a distinguished reception. Sir Anthony returned as envoy from Shah Abbas, to establish an alliance with the Christian monarchs of Europe for the destruction of the Turks, and with a grant, permitting all Christian merchants to trade freely with Persia. Under the patronage of Shah Abbas, the English, the French, and the Dutch had. established factories at Gombroon, to which place the Persian monarch afterwards gave the name of Bandar Abbas, or the Port of Abbas, by which it is now known. Shah Abbas, however, had less tolera tion for the Portuguese, who in 1507, under Albuquerque, had conquered and occupied the island of Hormuz, at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, not far from Gombroon, and ho resolved on their expulsion. He was joined in this enterprise by the English, then at war with Portugal, with whom in 1622 he entered into an engagement, granting them half the plunder of the island, and half the future customs of Gombroon and Hormuz. The Portuguese were driven out, but the promises of the king of Persia to the English were not kept. The factory at Gombroon was maintained through many losses and disasters till 1761, when it was withdrawn, in consequence of oppressions of the provincial governor of Lars The death of Shah Abbas, in 1628, was followed by the rapid fall of the Suffavean dynasty. Four weak princes of that house successively ascended the throne of Persia. During their reign the Turks severed from the Persian empire some of the best of the western provinces, the Arab ruler of Muscat possessed himself of the islands in the Persian Gulf, the Afghans of the Abdali tribe made themselves independent in Herat, and the Ghilzies in Kandahar ; and in 1722, within a century after the death of Shah Abbas, Isfahan was besieged by Mahmud of Kandahar, to whom Shah Husain formally resigned his crown. The Afghan dynasty was short-lived. Mahmud died insane in 1725. His cousin and only successor, Ashraf, was slain in 1730, while fleeing in the desert before his conqueror. Nadir Kull Khan. the warrior Nadir Shah. After the abdication of Shah Husain, his son Tamasp had assumed the name and state of king, and was unceasing in his feeble efforts to recover the crown. Shah Tarnasp was permitted to enjoy his nominal sovereignty only two years, when he was dethroned by Nadir Kuli, who with affected reluctance accepted the crown. Little had remained of Persia in the feeble grasp of Shah Tamasp, wheu in the year 1726, Nadir Shah, after a life of vicissitudes, found himself at the head of a predatory band in Khorasan, at the age of about thirty-five.
The genius of this man alone quickly changed the aspect of affairs, and Persia, from being trodden under foot by all, became during his lifetime a formidable power. Within a few years after his murder in 1747, the mighty empirewhich he had re created was dismembered. Ahmed Khan, Abdali, proclaimed himself king of the Afghans, took Kandahar and Herat, and laid the foundation of an empire, which he extended by conquests more brilliant than those of Nadir Shah. The province of Khorasan was all that was left to Shah Rukh, the blinded grandson of Nadir Shah. This was guaranteed in his independenton by Ahmed Khan, but was soon into a number of independent principalities. The southern and western provinces of Lar, Fars, Irak, Azerbijan, and Mazenderan were subdued by Karim Khan of the tribe of Zand, and a prince of the Suffavean house, named Shah Ismail, a son of the sister of Shah Husain, was set up as a king. But he was a mere puppet, and was soon cast into prison, and Karim khan ruled alone. He was a just ruler. In 1763, ho granted to the British a firman for a factory at Bushire, mid for the trade of the Persian rule. Karim Khan died in 1779, after a vigorous rule of 26 years. His death was the signal for fresh revolutions, marked by the most atrocious cruelties, in the course of which the four surviving sons of Karim Khan were savagely mutilated. This state of things ended in 1795, in the elevation to the throne of Persia of Aga Mahmud Khan of the Kajar tribe, the fourider of the present dynasty. In 1788, during the brief rule of Jafar Khan, nephew of Karim Khan, and the last representative but one of the Zand family, the British, who during the revolution had been subjected to many oppressive exactions, obtained, through the chief of their factory at Bussora., another firman for unrestricted trade in the Persian dominions. From the success which had attended the invasion of India by Nadir Shah and Ahmed Shah, Abdali, it was believed that the plains of India were exposed to be periodically ravaged by any ambitious ruler in Afghanistan. In 1796, Zaman Shah, grandson of Ahmed Shah, Abdali, advanced to Lahore, with the professed purpose of restoring the house of Thnur from the domination of the Mahrattas, and, after some years, in 1801 „Captain Malcolm was sent on an embassy to Persia. The re-conquest of Afghanistan was always a favourite dream of the Kajar dynasty, who conceived that their rights of sovereignty over that country were as com plete as in the days of the Suffavean kings. In 1828, Fntteh Ali Shah was induced by the Russians to advance on Herat, the key of Af ghanistan, but two expeditions were unsuccessful. His son Muhammad Shah, who was ever a friend of Russia and an enemy to British interests, revived the project, and with a large force laid siege to Herat, on 23d November 1837. To force the Shah to renounce his ambitious projects, a demonstration was made in the Persian Gulf, by the occupation of the island of Kharak. This induced him to withdraw from Herat, after a siege of ten months, during which all his efforts had been frustrated by the energy and ability of Lieutenant Eldred Pottinger, an officer of the Bombay Artillery. Muhammad Shah died in August 1848, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Nasir-ud-Din. On the death of Yar Muhammad Khan, his successor, feeling himself insecure in power, and being threatened by the Amir of Kabul and by Kohun-Dil Khan from Kandahar, Syud Muhammad Khan made over tures to Persia, and a force was despatched by the Shah nominally to reduce the Turkomans, but in reality to occupy Herat. A force was sent in December 1855, in violation of the agree ment made by the Persian Government. Muham mad Yusuf was taken prisoner, and Herat was captured on 26th October 1856. The quarrel could not be adjusted, a British force was sent from Bombay to occupy Kharak, and on the 1st November 1866, war was declared. After a brief successful campaign under Sir James Outram, a treaty of peace, concluded 3d February 1857, was signed at Paris on the 4th March 1857. In this the previous treaty was adhered to for the abolition of slavery in the Persian Gulf. In 1861 an attempt made to arrange for a telegraph line through Persia to Bandar Abbas, failed ; but in 1863, the king resolved, in constructing a line from Khanakin on the Turkish frontier, through Teheran, Isfahan, and Shirai, to 'meet the British line at Bushire.— Ouseley's Tr. i.451; Bombay Liter. Trans. v.1; Max Muller at the Royal Institution ; Treaties, Engagements, and Sunnuds ; Ferrier's Journ. ; Kinneir's Geog. Mem. ; Ferrier's Afghans ; Pottinger's Travels; Col. Chesney, Euphrates and Tigris ; Skinner's Journ. ; Ward's Ilindoos ; Milner's Seven Churches of Asia ; Elphinstone's Caubul; Burton's Mecca ; De Pauw, Egypt and China ; Ockley's Saracens ; Porter's Travels ; Lieut.-Col. Stuart's Residence in N. Persia ; Augustus H. Mounsey, F.R.G.S., Journey through Caucasus and the Interior of Persia; Sir John Malcolm, Sketches of Persia and History of Persia, p. 398 ; De Gobineau, Ilistoires des Perses, Paris 1869; Quarterly Review, July 1873.