The Persians came from the Central Asian steppe The Persians and the Medes Around 1200 BC, some Indo-European people from Central Asia moved south into West Asia. These people were [...]
Safavid Iran: the Battle of Hormuz Abbas fights Nur Jahan Abbas, the Shah of Iran, after conquering most of what is now Iraq from the Ottomans, turned east again and [...]
Iran and British colonialism - Fath-Ali Shah Qajar Muhammed Khan Qajar Muhammed Khan Qajar conquered a lot of land for Iran, and made Iran richer. But that didn't stop him from [...]
Nader Shah (Iran, 1736-1747) In 1736 AD, Nader Shah overthrew the last Safavid shah and established the country of Iran, with himself as the Shah (king) of Iran. Like Genghis Khan, Nader Shah was [...]
Rustem kills the treacherous Shaghad When he was an old, old man, Rustem really did die (according to the story in the Shahnameh). Rustem died from treachery and betrayal, by his [...]
Arabic language: Sabataean writing Where did Arabic come from? Arabic is in the Semitic language group. Semitic languages seem to have gotten started before the beginning of writing. That would be before [...]
Ghaznavids: A minaret in Ghazni (Afghanistan), from about 1000 AD Abbasid soldiers Beginning in the 850s AD, the Abbasid caliphs of the Islamic Empire were looking for soldiers they would be able to trust, who [...]
Dancing woman from Mohenjo Daro, in what is now Pakistan Slavery in ancient India There were probably always slaves in India, but until about 1000 AD there were only a few people who were enslaved, [...]
Nader Shah The decline of the Mughal empire in the early 1700s resulted in India splitting up into a lot of smaller countries. In the north, Afghanistan tried to set itself up as an [...]
Taj Mahal, the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal When the Mughal emperor Jahangir died in 1627, his third son, Shah Jahan, became the new emperor. He immediately imprisoned his stepmother Nur Jahan so he could [...]
