Persian: Why is Persian being de-Arabized?

J

James Bates

Banned
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It is no surprise that as part of his effort to distance Turkey from its Islamic past the ultra-secular Ata Turk not only discarded the Arabic script but sought to rid the Turkish language of its Perso-Arabic vocabulary as well. Similarly, after centuries of Muslim rule it was only natural for Hindus to want to replace all the Arabic loanwords in Hindi with borrowings from Sanskrit, the language of their religion. It is worth mentioning that all neologisms are drawn from Sanskrit as well.

It is also no surprise that once its speakers had converted to Islam, Persian drew heavily on the language of its speakers' religion for lexical enrichment as well as for neologisms. What surprises me greatly is that in the recent past not only has Persian stopped drawing on the Arabic reservoir for enrichment and new terminology, but there in fact seems to be a move to remove the Arabic borrowings that already exist. Does anybody have any idea why? Do Iranians now disown their Islamic past? De-Arabization would certainly have made sense under the secular Shah, but it makes no sense whatsoever under the current regime. Does anybody have any idea how and why the Iranians' attitude toward Arabic has changed in the recent past?
 
    • I think you would get many completely different replies on this issue. To my view, the most natable motive can be easily seen when you read Persian literature. I don't know how much you know about Persian literature, its ups and downs, and Persian history since 1000 years. If you don't have such a knowledge about Persian literature and history I have to start from the scratch:D, so I wait for your reply to see where I should start.

    De-Arabization would certainly have made sense under the secular Shah, but it makes no sense whatsoever under the current regime.
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    First, I don't think Shah was secular;) Second, as for the bold phrase above, I say: "Hahaha:D, you don't know from what "current regime" we are suffering".

    Best,
     
    I must confess I know very little about Persian literature. What I do know however is that for over a millenium Persian drew heavily on Arabic.
     
    Hi,

    The topic of this thread is clear: Why is Persian being de-Arabized? Of course, we first have to try to establish whether or not Persian is "being de-arabized" before we can arrive at the why-question.
    This topic has already been (partially) discussed in this thread.

    What this thread is     not about:
    1. whether or not Arabic is extensively richer than Latin;
    2. whether or not excessive purification leads to impairment of the language being purified;
    3. whether or not excessive purification efforts results from a false concept of identity.

    However, any of these issues can be addressed in separate threads.

    Groetjes,

    Frank
    Moderator EHL
     
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    Frank06 said:
    ... Of course, we first have to try to establish whether or not Persian is "being de-arabized" before we can arrive at the why-question.
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    You hit the nail on the head. No. It's not being de-Arabized (I assume it to mean officially). Some people, according to their personal taste and interest (chacun à son goût), like to use less Arabic words and even write in pure but there isn't truly any organized and official de-Arabization nor a serious and popular one at the moment. How can one expect de-Arabization from a government that makes students learn Arabic in school — which is useless and a waste of time, money, etc. for the majority in practice — and call it "the selected language of God" in the schoolbooks?!! I refuse to consider this government as a supporter of de-Arabization. It's very funny.
     
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    Hello Alijsh,

    I would like to check if you are saying that there is neither official effort at de-Arabisation of existing vocabulary nor a sizeable subcultural influence that attempts the same? [I expect less Arabic influence in the mass culture in the first place]

    Now, how about new vocabulary? When a new idea warrants a new word, what is the language of choice of the people (or the government but I think the history of language is the history of common man, not heroes or politicians :) ) to draw morphemes from? Even when a new word is not created, which language is the source of borrowing? Arabic words, English words or existing Persian words taken to represent new meanings?
     
    Alijsh said:
    How can one expect de-Arabization from a government that makes students learn Arabic in school — which is useless and a waste of time, money, etc. for the majority in practice — and call it "the selected language of God" in the schoolbooks?!! I refuse to consider this government as a supporter of de-Arabization. It's very funny.
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    I beg your pardon, what is wrong in forcing the pupils to learn Arabic at school in a moslem country? Take note that Arabic is also key to understanding Persian literature.
     
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    I don't believe that teaching a certain language at school means that loan words from that language are NOT being removed from the native language. Learning an additional language is mostly (if not always) useful and it's usually adopted for reasons that have little to do with preserving the native language.
     
    Hello Aydintashar,

    I don't think I have heard your stance as to whether or not Persian is officially being de-Arabised but may I take your comments in #9 supra as a negative --since a compulsory education of Arabic does not serve to rid Persian of the influence of Arabic?

    Governments do what governments always do. :) In the meantime, ordinary people may have different ideas. I look forward to answers to my questions at #8 supra.
     
    I think everybody will agree that, despite the past millennium, Persian no longer draws on Arabic for lexical enrichment. What we do not agree on is whether Persian is being de-Arabized or not. I think it is quite clear that it is.

    Just for example, the words مدرسه متوسطه and مدرسه ابتدائيه have been replaced by دبيرستان and دبستان, I think. Similarly, the names of the zodiac used to be Arabic but are now Persian. نياز داشتن is increasingly being substituted for احتياج داشتن. I think there's an effort to replace اين قدر with اين اندازه. Need I go on?
     
    It may not be official state policy to de-Arabize Persian, but it is certainly a strong social movement and has been for a while, post revolution. One should not confuse the Islamic identity of modern Iran with an Arab identity. In general, Iranians are extremely proud of their ancient and rich history, including their pre-Islamic history, and proud of their language. Preferring to use Persian terms for Arabic terms is part of a wider movement to assert and affirm Iranian identity.
     
    I see. Do you have any idea when Iranians started re-identifying with their pre-Islamic past (and perhaps disowning their Islamic past)?
     
    I don't think they are disowning their Islamic past---the Iranians I am thinking of based on your query live here in Dubai and vary in religiosity, but most tend to be fairly religious. They are temporary expats and have close ties to Iran, visiting several times per year. They are not the more secular type people of the broader diaspora. From what I understand, right after the revolution, there was a big movement against Westernisms as well as romanticisimg pre-Islamic culture. In terms of the down play of the pre-Islamic culture, for example it went out of fashion to give baby names like Pedram, Rostum, etc. But now there is a revival in those things. I can't pin point when it started, I am not familiar enough with Iranian issues to know. But I can see it as a strong cultural trend among Iranians in my local community, and it is a frequent topic of discussion. Another distinction from Arabs is that women cover in a very Iranian way and it would raise eyebrows for Iranians to wear a head scarf in an Arab style, or wear an abaya for example. Things like this, combined with linguistic trends and so forth, is just more evidence for what you are talking about.

    I added input to support your notion that it is clear that de-Arabization is a linguistic trend. However, I don't think this is a break with an Islamic heritage. I think Iranian Shi'a Islam has been distinct from other forms of Islam, even other forms of the same branch of Shi'ism that are supposedly guided by Iranian Shi'ism...such as Shi'ism in Pakistan, India, or in the Arabian Gulf. I wonder if the strong cultural trend to be so distinct from Arabs is also a result of 1) they are a completely different people in the first place 2) the Iran/Iraq war, but more importantly 3) there was a strong rise anti-Shi'a and anti-Iranian sentiment in the Arab world since the 80s tied to pan-Arabism and also the rise in the dominace of thought trends from the Wahhabi/Salafi movement in the Arab world, which is a movement that does not see Shi'ism as legitimate, condemns Shi'as, and has been the backbone of anti-Shi'a animosity and oppression in certain countries. It is kind of like by embracing pre-Islamic history along with a Shi'a Islamic identity, the Iranians are snubbing those that snubbed them. They are asserting their rich history, language, and perhaps self-percieved cultural superiority. That's just my take on it.
     
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    As said by others, it is not being "de-Arabized" on any official level in Iran. Sure, it has stopped from being more "Arabized" but this happened a long time ago. I think it is better to ask this:

    Should Persian:
    1. get de-Arabized
    2. more Arabized
    3. neither?

    If your answer is one or two, then why and to what extent should it get so?
     
    You revived an 8 years old thread! In that much time Persian has probably gone through two full cycles of Arabization and de-Arabization. :)
     
    tarkshya said:
    You revived an 8 years old thread! In that much time Persian has probably gone through two full cycles of Arabization and de-Arabization. :)
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    I think that over the past eight years quite a bit of Arabic has been removed from Persian (such as نیاز داشتن for احتیاج داشتن and تلاش کردن for سعی کردن and واژہ for کلمہ) but none has been added.
     
    I think two processes are at play:
    1) Replacing of Arabic words that have perfectly good Persian equivalents.
    2) Introduction of modern, scientific & technology related words, and for this group Persian, as an IE language, is much better suited, and the reasons, for this, are well documented.

    In my view, both of the above have been happening, and under both regimes, and long may it continue.
     
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    gagun said:
    So, Farsi becomes Parsi? Though it may be not a word but a letter
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    Step by step, yes, but let's start with less conspicuous but more urgent cases first. :)

    As you are aware the letter 'p' has been preserved in Persian, Parsee, Persicum etc., so it's reasonable and right that it should come back to the original language's name.
     
    PersoLatin said:
    2) Introduction of modern, scientific & technology related words, and for this group Persian, as an IE language, is much better suited, and the reasons, for this, are well documented.
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    What do you mean by this? Are you saying that Arabic or Semitic languages by nature are less suited for creating scientific or technological words than IE languages? Elaborate.
     
    PersoLatin said:
    Step by step, yes, but let's start with less conspicuous but more urgent cases first. :)

    As you are aware the letter 'p' has been preserved in Persian, Parsee, Persicum etc., so it's reasonable and right that it should come back to the original language's name.
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    Just don't confuse it with Parsi :)
     
    The language's own name for itself doesn't have an F or a P. It resembles "Iran".
     
    Delvo said:
    The language's own name for itself doesn't have an F or a P. It resembles "Iran".
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    What are you talking about? As far as I am aware, the Persian language name for the Persian language (in Iranian Persian at least) is "Parsi" or "Farsi" (the former became the latter through Arabic influence).
     
    Russkitav said:
    Are you saying that Arabic or Semitic languages by nature are less suited for creating scientific or technological words than IE languages? Elaborate.
    Click to expand...

    Not quite what I said. But specifically for Arabic, yes, and only if it used to translate modern words for use in Persian. For its own use, I can not comment, I'm sure others can.

    It is quite natural for Persian to make compound words and many of the imported technology & science related words, are compound. These compounds are easy to understand by an average person, if when seen for the first time, that's not always the case, for instance, for an English speaker when encountering a modern word of Latin/Greek makeup, for the first time, and sometimes.

    Some examples: geology: zamin-šenâsi, (earth-knowledge of) , astronomy: setâré-šenâsi (star-knowledge of), or satellite, originally the all Arabic: qamare-masnuęi, (moon-man made), replaced by Persian mâhvâré (moon-like).
     
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    Is it true that some Iranians are going so far as to replace the Arabic word سلام with the purely Persian درود? Actually, I think it's only secular Iranians who are doing this. As I may have stated before, it's quite clear that the more religious the speaker, the more likely s/he is to use Arabic words. The more secular the speaker, the more likely s/he is to attempt to cleanse his or her speech from Arabic loanwords. And since with each passing generation Iranian society seems to be becoming more and more secular, it's only natural that the number of Arabic loanwords will keep decreasing with each generation. Indeed, based on my experience with Iranians over the last twenty years it's become clear to me that hating Arabic has become a very integral part of secular Iranian identity, perhaps even the most defining feature of it. Whatever their differences, secular Iranians can all agree on one thing: that they wish to have nothing to do with the Arabic language and will stop at nothing to rid their language of all Arabic and Islamic influence.
     
    Ali Smith said:
    Actually, I think it's only secular Iranians who are doing this
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    The word "secular" is a bit confusing, especially in the Iranian context. It can mean non-religious, only religious in its contexts, or not in line with the Iranian theocracy. It doesn't mean non-Muslim. If we are talking about people who only use this word and deliberately refrain from using سلام, there are probably not many of them. My guess is that the Persian nationalism (or identitarianism) is more in play than lack of or opposition to Islam. There are some Iranian Muslims who have a strong impression that the "correct" Islam is more an Iranian thing than Arabian (they may also suggest the root of Islam in Zoroastrianism, etc). They may still say سلام in their prayers (in Arabic) but would rarely use it in their conversations. Another group may belong to religious non-Muslim Iranians (deist, Zoroastrian, neo-Zoroastrian, spiritualist, etc.) who may favor Persian words but they are not necessarily "secular".
    Ali Smith said:
    Indeed, based on my experience with Iranians over the last twenty years it's become clear to me that hating Arabic has become a very integral part of secular Iranian identity, perhaps even the most defining feature of it.
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    No. I don't really think most secular Iranians would care much about Arabic or Arabic loanwords (my extended family, for example, may be defined as "secular" somehow, but only one of them almost exclusively uses درود and he is not anti-Islam but "pro-Iran"). Another example is a popular and renown "secular" author, Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, who has a book romanticizing the Arab hero Amr al-Qays. The kind of anti-Arab hatred you have in mind, can be more a feature of active anti-Islamism or pro-Persian racism than being "secular". Of course, people who are actively anti-Islam are more likely to be secular in one way or another, but the opposite direction is not true.
     
    Thank you, Treaty! I might add that not only have (secular) Iranian intellectuals been making a concerted effort to phase out Arabic loanwords, they have also been changing the orthography of Arabic loanwords in order to make them look less Arabic. The result is that many Arabic loanwords are now spelled differently than they were a few decades ago. For example, yesterday I saw the word جائز (permissible) spelt جايز. Similarly, I think some Iranians have started spelling Arabic words that end in alif maqsoorah (e.g. معنى) with an alif, i.e. معنا. Also, the word مسألة is now spelled مسأله. I don't think ة, which occurs exclusively in Arabic loanwords, is used much these days (but it was used a lot a few decades ago).
     
    Ali Smith said:
    they have also been changing the orthography of Arabic loanwords in order to make them look less Arabic. The result is that many Arabic loanwords are now spelled differently than they were a few decades ago. For example, yesterday I saw the word جائز (permissible) spelt جايز. Similarly, I think some Iranians have started spelling Arabic words that end in alif maqsoorah (e.g. معنى) with an alif, i.e. معنا. Also, the word مسألة is now spelled مسأله. I don't think ة, which occurs exclusively in Arabic loanwords, is used much these days (but it was used a lot a few decades ago).
    Click to expand...
    There’s no real concerted effect, what’s happening is a natural process but the speed of this process might be more obvious now because of modern technology, have you tried typing جائز or مسأله with modern keyboards, there are many more key strokes. Also مسألة is never been the way it is used in normal Persian writing. Anyway the same has happened to a pure Persian word like پائیز which you’ll see as پاییز these days.

    Also changing words like کاملا or فعلا to کاملن and فعلن, which you haven’t mentioned, is with the blessing of the government who are NOT secular, this is done for practical reasons. Words & names like مصطفی , موسی have been confusing for centuries. Also both معنی/ma’ni and معنا/ma’nā are used in modern Persian, the latter being more formal but essentially having the same meaning.
     
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    PersoLatin: Thank you! I had a question though: the Iranian government is as religious as can be. Shouldn't it be trying to introduce more Arabic loanwords and bring Persian orthography closer to Arabic?
     
    Ali Smith said:
    PersoLatin: Thank you! I had a question though: the Iranian government is as religious as can be. Shouldn't it be trying to introduce more Arabic loanwords and bring Persian orthography closer to Arabic?
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    That’s the exact point I was trying to make, they are not secular so why do they do it? Because they need to modernise the language in order to progress, introducing persian words and simplifying the orthography doesn’t mean they are less Islamic, can the number of Arabic words used in a language be used as a measure of religiousness of the speakers of that language?

    Let me provide some examples, equivalent words for policy, approach, activist, active, process, achievement, campaign, strategy, consequence incidence and many many more have Persian equivalents now like راهبرد راهکار کارزار دستاورد رویکرد فرایند کنشگر کنشکار پیامد رویداد رخداد... these words at least for me, are easier to learn, remember & use as new words.
     
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    Yes, even Iranians who are religious are trying to avoid Arabic words these days. Even religious literature has started avoiding words like جواب and سؤال and وقت. Instead, they are using پاسخ and پرسش and ھنگام. I wonder why religious Iranians have a huge problem with Arabic?
     
    At the end of the day, a religious person is also a member of the same society and speaks the current state of the language (de-Arabicised Persian, for example).
     
    zaw said:
    Yes, even Iranians who are religious are trying to avoid Arabic words these days. Even religious literature has started avoiding words like جواب and سؤال and وقت. Instead, they are using پاسخ and پرسش and ھنگام. I wonder why religious Iranians have a huge problem with Arabic?
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    I think you wanted to say the opposite because non-religious people are the ones who are mainly against using excessive Arabic words. But this is just a reaction to what has been done by religious people throughout history. Clearly, Islamic views on whether it is acceptable to speak languages other than Arabic vary but there are always those extremists who want to destroy anything related to per-Islamic cultures including languages.

    I am sure you have come across the below Hadiths (regardless of whether they are genuine or weak):

    وروى أبو بكر بن أبي شيبة في المصنف حدثنا وكيع عن أبي هلال عن أبي بريدة قال: قال عمر: ما تعلم الرجل الفارسية إلا خب، ولا خب رجل إلا نقضت مروءته.

    وقال: حدثنا وكيع عن ثور عن عطاء قال: لا تعلموا رطانة الأعاجم ولا تدخلوا عليهم كنائسهم فإن السخط ينزل عليهم. وهذا الذي رويناه فيما تقدم عن عمر رضي الله عنه.

    وقد روى السلفي من حديث سعيد بن العلاء البرذعي حدثنا إسحاق بن إبراهيم البلخي حدثنا عمر بن هارون البلخي حدثنا أسامة بن زيد عن نافع عن ابن عمر رضي الله عنهما قال قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: من يحسن أن يتكلم بالعربية فلا يتكلم بالعجمية فإنه يورث النفاق.

    ورواه أيضا بإسناد آخر معروف إلى أبي سهيل محمود بن عمر العكبري حدثنا محمد بن الحسن بن محمد المقري حدثنا أحمد بن خليل ببلخ حدثنا إسحاق بن إبراهيم الجريري حدثنا عمر بن هارون عن أسامة بن زيد عن نافع عن ابن عمر عن عمر قال قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: من كان يحسن أن يتكلم بالعربية فلا يتكلم بالفارسية فإنه يورث النفاق.
    ​
    Hence, that movement or tendency to avoid Arabic words and "purify" Persian from Arabic words is just a reaction to such extremist and radical views.
     
    I don't think the above beliefs and quotations have anything to do with it. Since the 1800s, two social changes have led to this phenomenon in different cultures. One was the rise of national identity, with the similarity in language being a basis for union not sharing the same feudal overlord. The other was urbanisation and the rising literacy rates coming with it. This increased the ratio and influence of the simple-language speakers (former peasants) to the posh-speaker elites in the cultural centres (cities). Using cumbersome foreign words was no longer cool and a hinderance to good communication.

    Of course, officials and influencers might push for purification but their efforts only make sense in this sociopolitical context.
     
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    zaw said:
    Yes, even Iranians who are religious are trying to avoid Arabic words these days. Even religious literature has started avoiding words like جواب and سؤال and وقت. Instead, they are using پاسخ and پرسش and ھنگام. I wonder why religious Iranians have a huge problem with Arabic?
    Click to expand...
    I agree. It's hard to imagine a devout Muslim going out of his way to avoid Arabic words in his speech.
     
    I am sorry to tell you that your views are far from reality, with all due respect. If by religsious people you mean clerics then you're absolutely mistaken. And if by religious people you mean ordinary Muslims then you're also mistaken. Clerics actually try to use as much Arabic words and phrases as possible in their Persian speech. Some of them even take it further and pronounce some Arabic letters just like Arabs, letters like ع/ح/ط ...etc.

    Those words mentioned above are synonymous and all of them are used quite frequently by all types of Persian speakers, but I haven't heard any "religious" person avoid the use of سوال/جواب/وقت on purpose. The opposite can happen though. Many clerics avoid the word خدا and even condemn its usage. They only use الله. They also do damage to our language by using Arabic plural-maker suffixes like ات- to genuine Persian words like گزارش/فرمایش/پیشنهاد and say گزارشات/فرمایشات/پیشنهادات ...etc. which sound awful.
     
    Stranger_ said:
    Those words mentioned above are synonymous and all of them are used quite frequently by all types of Persian speakers
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    This is not relevant. The question is whether they are interchangeable, not if they are synonymous (e.g., "respond", "reply" and "answer" are synonyms and common but not always interchangeable). Even without knowing Persian, it is obvious that they may not be interchangeable because apparently many Persian speakers like you are mindful and judgmental of the different origins of the words. This means the words now have distinct emotional and historical baggage attached to them (in addition to their already existing contextual nuances). I guess the ات ending must also have its own semantic characteristics that are distinct from that of the native Persian plural suffix, a fact which would enrich the language, not "damage" it.
     
    elroy said:
    I fail to see how. :confused:
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    Probably "semantic" wasn't the right word. "Register" may be better. For example, it could have originally made it more formal or more honorific. Arabic to Persian was probably like Greek or Latin to English.
     
    What seems to have happened in Iran is:

    Iranian society has secular people and religious people. Religious people are more interested in Islam and so they love Arabic language and don't mind if Persian has lots of Arabic words.

    Secular people don't like Arabic because it is the language of Islam. So they try to not use Arabic words.

    You will only see that secular Iranians try to avoid arabic words.
     
    Stranger_ said:
    They also do damage to our language by using Arabic plural-maker suffixes like ات- to genuine Persian words like گزارش/فرمایش/پیشنهاد and say گزارشات/فرمایشات/پیشنهادات ...etc. which sound awful.
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    Some of the comments on this thread seem to forget or ignore the fact that Iranians aren’t Arabs and that, like all other nations, they have a right to manifest their own cultural and linguistic identity.

    I don’t see what Islam has to do with it given that the vast majority of Muslims don’t speak Arabic as their native language. Besides, Arabic itself underwent a process of Arabisation after absorbing vocabulary from other languages in the wake of the Arab conquests.

    To object to the “de-Arabisation” of Persian seems to imply that Persian must contain Arabic words (presumably, the more the better) in order to qualify as Persian – which is self-contradictory and absurd.

    IMO it is simply wrong to equate the Arab conquest of Persia with the end of Iranian history, language and culture, as if Iranians somehow ceased to exist in the seventh century CE and became Arabs instead of Iranians. In fact, the evidence suggests that Iranians have succeeded in preserving their language and aspects of their culture precisely as a result of resistance to Arabisation and this resistance goes all the way back to the beginnings of Arab colonisation.

    At any rate, this should be a matter for the Iranian people to decide ...
     
    How can we “see” that and what are the criteria for measuring the "immensity" of it?

    According to polls, most Iranians describe themselves as secular. If the majority of Iranians support the “de-Arabisation” of Persian then it seems to be a legitimate democratic process.

    This may be inconvenient to Islamic fundamentalists, but I think they need to adapt themselves to the democratic principles of modern society.

    Iran's secular shift: New survey reveals huge changes in religious beliefs – Phys.org

    Disenchanted Iranians are turning to other faiths - The Economist
     
    Religiosity is dwindling in general everywhere in the region. Dearabisation is of course a legitimate cause if Iranians themselves feel it is needed to strengthen their nationalistic identity. Arabs did that already with more or less success. A lot of times using MSA words feels horrible and sometimes can only be employed sarcastically while loanwords feel just more natural. I guess it is the same in other languages.
     
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    Even if religiosity were not dwindling, this should not really impact on the Arabic content of Persian. Being religious need not be equated with imitating Arabs or becoming Arab.

    The Iranian Constitution states that Arabic “must be taught in school from elementary grades until the end of high school", not that Arabic should be substituted for Persian. And if Iranians know Arabic from school, there is no need for Persian itself to contain Arabic words.

    And, of course, the question of how many words, which words, etc., must be the collective decision of the Iranian people, not of Urdu-speakers from Pakistan, a country with close links to Arab fundamentalist regimes.
     
    It is a monolithic oversimplification to explain de-Arabisation by secular tendencies of Iranians, esp. with recent statistics like in #46. This so-called de-Arabisation (in fact, Persian purification) began long before the 1979 revolution, and when Iranians, even many proponents of purification, were very religious. Post #33 sums it up nicely (simplification and communication for the sake of literacy and unity esp. for new words, which is reflected here) though it doesn't point to other origins of it: nationalism and racism, or more accurately, European-style Aryanism which extended to anti-Arabism and -Turkism, and then occasionally to anti-Islamism or "secularism". In other words, de-Arabisation led to secularisation as well.

    This Persian supremacy had a deep influence on religious views too, esp. Iranian Shi'ism. Although traditional scholars didn't care about nationalism and even opposed it vehemently, many "modernised" ones either academics or politicians were affected by it. In their view, there is a stark gap between the "tribalist usurper" Arabs of early Islam (whom Sunnis venerate) represented by Saqifa event, Uthman's nepotism, Umayyad dynasty, and the Camel war, and the "pure" meritocratic ones (Muhammad's kin, whom Shi'ites venerate) represented by Ali's "tribe-blind" appointments, and later by the multitude of "Ali-loving" scholars and scientists who often hailed from Greater Persia and held both religion and caliphate together. Regardless of the narrative's historicity, this has become a thinking style for one strain of Perso-Shia national identity in Iran. While, the 1900s overtly racist ideas are fading or absent in this viewpoint now, the nostalgia seems to persist. This is why a religious person may also support de-Arabisation, because they can imagine an Islam detached from Arabs but entangled with Persians.

    In contrast, secularism in Iran, and broader Islamic world, has a left-wing root as well, initially from Marxism. It admires multiculturalism, tolerance and inclusion and is weary of supremacist and puritanism, both linguistic and social. Thus, a secular person may not only avoid de-Arabisation but actively use Arabic words to counter what they consider divisive identity politics (one example in #29), parallel to progressives in West embracing non-native words for the sake of inclusion.
     
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    Moderator note: While it may be relevant to dive into politics for explaining the linguistic phenomenon, please do not cross the line to engaging into political rhetoric yourself. This is clearly outside the scope of this forum.
     
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