A Bibliographic Essay on Turks of Eraq-e Ajam

Аннотация

During the Seljuk Empire period, the central region of Iran was known as “Eraq-e Ajam” region. This area that its title was maintained until the beginning of the Pahlavi rule, has always been considered one of the most important geographical regions of Iran throughout history. Among the current provinces of Iran, 14 provinces were completely or partially in the territory of Eraq-e Ajam in different historical periods. The history of Turks settelement in this area goes back to the Ghaznavid period, and since that date, the governments of Turk descent chose the important cities of this region, such as Ray, Isfahan, Qazvin, and Hamadan as their capital, and Turks have always been one of the main residents of this area till now. Although there have been several studies on the bibliography of Iranian Turks, the evidence shows that the mentioned region was neglected by researchers. Meanwhile, as evidenced by the current research, the central region of Iran is very rich in terms of Turkish culture, language, and literature. In this research, a total of 427 works in the form of articles (121 cases), books (260 cases), and dissertations (46 cases) have been introduced in the fields of anthropology, history, linguistics, and literature. In general, regarding the number of published works, the investigated provinces and regions can be classified into three categories: strong (Hamadan, Markazi, and Qazvin provinces beside Khalajistan region), medium (Qom and Kermanshah provinces) and weak (Kurdistan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Tehran, Alborz, Isfahan, Luristan, and Ilam provinces). Considering the speed of social changes and vulnerability of Turkish language and culture in the central region of Iran, it seems so necessary to carry out specialized studies from the perspective of Turkology. Due to the fact that Turks of Central Iran remain unknown to many Turkologists, conducting systematic studies in this geographical unit can produce brilliant achievements for the world of science.