History
History of Iran, History of Afghanistan
Before the region fell to Alexander the Great in 330 BC, it was part of the Achaemenid Empire and prior to that it was occupied by the Medes. Following Alexander's brief occupation, the successor state of the Seleucid Empire controlled the area until 305 BCE when they gave south of the Hindu Kush to the Indian Maurya Empire as part of an alliance treaty.
"Alexander took these away from the Aryans and established settlements of his own, but Seleucus Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus (Chandragupta), upon terms of intermarriage and of receiving in exchange 500 elephants." —Strabo, 64 BC – 24 ADThe land that became known as Khorasan in geography of Eratosthenes was recognized as Ariana at that time, which made up Greater Iran or the land where Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion. The southeastern region of Ariana fell to the Kushan Empire in the 1st century AD. The Kushan rulers built a capital in modern-day Afghanistan at Bagram and are believed to have built the famous Buddhas of Bamiyan. Numerous Buddhist temples and buried cities have been found in Afghanistan. However, the region of Ariana (or Khorasan) remained predominantly Zoroastrian but there were also Manichaeists, sun worshippers, Christians, Pagans, Shamanists, Buddhists, Jews and others. One of the three great fire-temples of the Sassanids "Azar-burzin Mehr" is situated near sabzevar in Iran. The boundary of the region began changing until the Kushans and Sassanids merged to form the Kushano-Sassanian civilization.
During the Sassanid era, Persia was divided into four quarters, Khvarvaran in the west, Bakhtar in the north, Arachosia in the south and Khorasan in the east, next to Sind or Hind. Khorasan in the east saw some conflict with the Hephthalites who became the new rulers in the area but the borders remained stable. Being the eastern parts of the Sassanids and further away from Arabia, Khorasan quarter was conquered after the remaining Persia. The last Sassanid king of Persia, Yazdgerd III, moved the throne to Khorasan following the Arab invasion in the western parts of the empire. After the assassination of the king, Khorasan was conquered by Arab Muslim troops in 647 AD. Like other provinces of Persia it became one of the provinces of Umayyad dynasty.
The first movement against the Arab invasions was led by Abu Muslim Khorasani between 747 and 750. He helped the Abbasids come to power but was later killed by Al-Mansur, an Abbasid Caliph. The first independent kingdom from Arab rule was established in Khorasan by Tahir Phoshanji in 821, but it seems that it was more a matter of political and territorial gain. Tahir had helped the Caliph subdue other nationalistic movements in other parts of Persia such as Maziar's movement in Tabaristan.
Other major independent dynasties who ruled over Khorasan were the Saffarids from Zaranj (861-1003), Samanids from Bukhara (875-999), Ghaznavids from Ghazni (963-1167), Seljuqs (1037–1194), Khwarezmids (1077–1231), Ghurids (1149–1212), and Timurids (1370–1506). It should be noted that some of these dynasties were not Persian by ethnicity. The periods of the Ghaznavids of Ghazni and Timurids of Herat are considered as some of the most brilliant eras of Khorasan's history. During these periods, there was a great cultural awakening. Many famous Persian poets, scientists and scholars lived in this period. Numerous valuable works in Persian literature were written. Nishapur, Herat, Ghazni and Merv were the centers of all these cultural developments.
From the 16th century to the early 18th century, Khorasan was ruled by the Shia Safavid dynasty while the region to the east by the Sunni Khanate of Bukhara and the southeast by the Sunni Mughul Empire. It was conquered in 1717, along with the rest of Persia, by the Ghilzai Afghans from Kandahar and became part of the Hotaki dynasty. Following the assassination of Nader Shah Afshar in 1747, Khorasan was annexed with the Durrani Empire or modern-day Afghanistan. In the early 19th century, much of Khorasan's western territory fell to the Qajar dynasty of Persia and remained as Iranian territory until present-day. Some of its northern areas were left under the Tsardom of Russia or later the Soviet Union.
Read more about this topic: Greater Khorasan
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