Surf Wiki
Save to docs
geography/iran

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Tajiks

Iranian ethnic group native to Central Asia

Iranian ethnic group native to Central Asia

FieldValue
groupTajiks
Тоҷикон
تاجیکان
imageHappy Tajik children.jpg
captionA Tajik Nowruz festival in Tajikistan, 2018
population
region1Afghanistan
pop1
ref1
region2Tajikistan
pop2(2025)
ref2
region3Uzbekistan
pop31,657,336 (2021)
ref3
region4Russia
pop4350,236 (2021)
ref4
region6Kyrgyzstan
pop659,900 (2022)
ref6
region7Kazakhstan
pop758,712 (2025)
ref7
region8China
pop850,896 (2020)
ref8
languagesPersian (Dari and Tajik)
Secondary: Pashto, Russian, Uzbek
religionsPredominantly Sunni Islam,
minority Shia Islam
related_groupsOther Iranian peoples

Тоҷикон تاجیکان

Secondary: Pashto, Russian, Uzbek minority Shia Islam

Tajiks (Dari: تاجیکان, Tajik: Тоҷикон), also spelled Tadzhiks or Tadjiks, are a group of various Persian-speaking Eastern Iranian groups of people native to Central Asia, living mainly in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Even though the term Tajik does not refer to a cohesive cross-national ethnic group, Tajiks are the largest ethnicity in Tajikistan, and the second-largest in both Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. They speak variations of Persian, a west Iranian language. In Tajikistan, since the 1939 Soviet census, its small Pamiri and Yaghnobi ethnic groups are included as Tajiks. In China, the term is used to refer to its Pamiri ethnic groups, the Tajiks of Xinjiang, who speak the Eastern Iranian Pamiri languages. In Afghanistan, the Pamiris are considered a separate ethnic group.

As a self-designation, the literary New Persian term Tajik, which originally had some previous pejorative usage as a label for eastern Persians or Iranians, has become acceptable during the last several decades, particularly as a result of Soviet administration in Central Asia. Alternative names for the Tajiks are Fārsīwān (Persian-speaker), and Dīhgān (cf. ) which translates to "farmer or settled villager", in a wider sense "settled" in contrast to "nomadic" and was later used to describe a class of land-owning magnates as "Persian of noble blood" in contrast to Arabs, Turks and Romans during the Sasanian and early Islamic period.

The Tajiks are of mixed origin, and are primarily descendants of Bactrians, Sogdians, Scythians, but also Persians, Greeks, and various Turkic peoples of Central Asia, all of whom are known to have inhabited the region at various times. Tajiks are therefore mainly Eastern Iranian in their ethnic makeup but speak a Persian dialect, which is a Western Iranian language, likely adopting the language in the 7th century AD following the Islamic conquest of Persia. This was when the Persian language consequently spread further east leading to the gradual extinction of the Bactrian and Sogdian languages. The Tajiks and their ancestors have inhabited Northern Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and other parts of Central Asia continuously for many millennia. The culture of the Tajiks is predominantly Persianate but with strong elements from other cultures of Central Asia, such as Turkic and heavily infused with Islamic traditions.

History

The Tajiks are an Iranian people, speaking a variety of Persian, concentrated in the Oxus basin, the Fergana valley (Tajikistan and parts of Uzbekistan) and on both banks of the upper Oxus, i.e., the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan, and northeastern Afghanistan (Badakhshan). Historically, the ancient Tajiks were chiefly agriculturalists before the Arab Conquest of Iran. While agriculture remained a stronghold, the Islamization of Iran also resulted in the rapid urbanization of historical Khorasan and Transoxiana that lasted until the devastating Mongolian invasion. Several surviving ancient urban centers of the Tajik people include Samarkand, Bukhara, Khujand, and Termez.

Contemporary Tajiks are the descendants of ancient Eastern Iranian inhabitants of Central Asia, in particular, the Sogdians and the Bactrians. They are also possible descendants of other groups, with an admixture of Western Iranian Persians and non-Iranian peoples. The latter group includes Greeks who are known to have settled in the Tajikistan and Uzbekistan region before and after the conquests of Alexander the Great, and some of them were referred to as Dayuan by ancient Chinese chronicles. According to Richard Nelson Frye, a leading historian of Iranian and Central Asian history, the Persian migration to Central Asia may be considered the beginning of the modern Tajik nation, and ethnic Persians, along with some elements of East-Iranian Bactrians and Sogdians, as the main ancestors of modern Tajiks. In later works, Frye expands on the complexity of the historical origins of the Tajiks. In a 1996 publication, Frye explains that many "factors must be taken into account in explaining the evolution of the peoples whose remnants are the Tajiks in Central Asia" and that "the peoples of Central Asia, whether Iranian or Turkic speaking, have one culture, one religion, one set of social values and traditions with only language separating them."

Regarding Tajiks, the Encyclopædia Britannica states:

The geographical division between the eastern and western Iranians is often considered historically and currently to be the desert Dasht-e Kavir, situated in the center of the Iranian plateau.

Modern history

During the Soviet–Afghan War, the Tajik-dominated Jamiat-e Islami founded by Burhanuddin Rabbani resisted the Soviet Army and the communist Afghan government. Tajik commander, Ahmad Shah Massoud, successfully repelled nine Soviet campaigns from taking Panjshir Valley and earned the nickname "Lion of Panjshir" (شیر پنجشیر).

Etymology

According to John Perry (Encyclopaedia Iranica):

The most plausible and generally accepted origin of the word is Middle Persian tāzīk 'Arab' (cf. New Persian tāzi), or an Iranian (Sogdian or Parthian) cognate word. The Muslim armies that invaded Transoxiana early in the eighth century, conquering the Sogdian principalities and clashing with the Qarluq Turks (see Bregel, Atlas, Maps 8–10) consisted not only of Arabs, but also of Persian converts from Fārs and the central Zagros region (Bartol'd [Barthold], "Tadžiki," pp. 455–57). Hence the Turks of Central Asia adopted a variant of the Iranian word, täžik, to designate their Muslim adversaries in general. For example, the rulers of the south Indian Chalukya dynasty and Rashtrakuta dynasty also referred to the Arabs as "Tajika" in the 8th and 9th century. By the eleventh century (Yusof Ḵāṣṣ-ḥājeb, Qutadḡu bilig, lines 280, 282, 3265), the Qarakhanid Turks applied this term more specifically to the Persian Muslims in the Oxus basin and Khorasan, who were variously the Turks' rivals, models, overlords (under the Samanid Dynasty), and subjects (from Ghaznavid times on). Persian writers of the Ghaznavid, Seljuq and Atābak periods (ca. 1000–1260) adopted the term and extended its use to cover Persians in the rest of Greater Iran, now under Turkish rule, as early as the poet ʿOnṣori, ca. 1025 (Dabirsiāqi, pp. 3377, 3408). Iranians soon accepted it as an ethnonym, as is shown by a Persian court official's referring to mā tāzikān "we Tajiks" (Bayhaqi, ed. Fayyāz, p. 594). The distinction between Turk and Tajik became stereotyped to express the symbiosis and rivalry of the (ideally) nomadic military executive and the urban civil bureaucracy (Niẓām al-Molk: tāzik, pp. 146, 178–79; Fragner, "Tādjīk. 2" in EI2 10, p. 63).The word also occurs in the 8th-century Tonyukuk inscriptions as *tözik*, used for a local Arab tribe in the Tashkent area. These Arabs were said to be from the Taz tribe, which is still found in Yemen. In the 7th-century, the Taz began to Islamize the region of Transoxiana in Central Asia. According to the *Encyclopaedia of Islam*, however, the oldest known usage of the word *Tajik* as a reference to Persians in Persian literature can be found in the writings of the famous Persian poet and Islamic scholar Jalal ad-Din Rumi. The 15th-century Turkic-speaking poet Mīr Alī Šer Navā'ī who lived in the Timurid empire also used *Tajik* as a reference to Persians. == Location == The Tajiks are the principal ethnic group in most of Tajikistan, as well as in northern and western Afghanistan, though there are more Tajiks in Afghanistan than in Tajikistan. Tajiks are a substantial minority in Uzbekistan, as well as in overseas communities. Historically, the ancestors of the Tajiks lived in a larger territory in Central Asia than now. === Tajikistan === Tajiks make up around 84.3% of the population of Tajikistan. This number includes speakers of the Pamiri languages, including Wakhi and Shughni, and the Yaghnobi people who in the past were considered by the government of the Soviet Union nationalities separate from the Tajiks. In the 1926 and 1937 Soviet censuses, the Yaghnobis and Pamiri language speakers were counted as separate nationalities. After 1937, these groups were required to register as Tajiks. === Afghanistan === Despite sharing the same name, Tajiks do not refer to the same group of people in Afghanistan and Tajikistan. In Afghanistan, a "Tajik" is typically defined as any primarily Dari-speaking Sunni Muslim who refer to themselves by the region, province, city, town, or village that they are from, such as *Badakhshi*, *Baghlani*, *Mazari*, *Panjsheri*, *Kabuli*, *Herati*, *Kohistani*, etc. Although in the past, some non-Pashto speaking tribes were identified as Tajik, for example, the Furmuli. By this definition, according to the World Factbook, Tajiks make up about 25–27% of Afghanistan's population, but according to other sources, they form 37–46% of the population. Other sources however, for example the *Encyclopædia Britannica*, previously stated that they constituted about 12–20% of the population before the War in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021, which is mostly excluding Persianized ethnic groups like some Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Qizilbash, Aimaqs etc. who, especially in large urban areas like Kabul or Herat, assimilated into the respective local culture. Tajiks (or Farsiwans respectively) are predominant in four of the largest cities in Afghanistan (Kabul, Mazar-e Sharif, Herat, and Ghazni) and make up the qualified majority in the northern and western provinces of Badakhshan, Panjshir and Balkh, while making up significant portions of the population in Takhar, Kabul, Parwan, Kapisa, Baghlan, Badghis and Herat. Despite not being Tajik, the westernmost Indo-Aryan Pashayi people of northeastern Afghanistan have deliberately been listed as Tajik by census takers and government agents. However, this is probably because Pashayi-speaking Nizari Isma’ilis refer to themselves as Tajik. === Uzbekistan === In Uzbekistan, the Tajiks are the minority of the population of the ancient cities of Bukhara and Samarkand, and are found in large numbers in the Surxondaryo Region in the south and along Uzbekistan's eastern border with Tajikistan. According to official statistics (2000), Surxondaryo Region accounts for 20.4% of all Tajiks in Uzbekistan, with another 34.3% in Samarqand and Bukhara regions. Official statistics in Uzbekistan state that the Tajik community accounts for 5% of the nation's population. During the Soviet "Uzbekization" supervised by Sharof Rashidov, the head of the Uzbek Communist Party, Tajiks had to choose either stay in Uzbekistan and get registered as Uzbek in their passports or leave the republic for Tajikistan, which is mountainous and less agricultural. It is only in the last population census (1989) that the nationality could be reported not according to the passport, but freely declared based on the respondent's ethnic self-identification. This had the effect of increasing the Tajik population in Uzbekistan from 3.9% in 1979 to 4.7% in 1989. According to other sources, Tajiks live exclusively in the centers of cities such as Samarkand, Bukhara, and Termez. There are practically no Tajiks in the countryside outside of the City. If you count the population figures for these cities, it barely reaches one million. It is therefore unreasonable to claim that over six million Tajiks live in Uzbekistan, as Richard Foltz has claimed. **Even Arne Haugen, a Central Asia expert, criticized and noted in 2018:** *While Richard Foltz estimates over 6 million Tajiks in Uzbekistan, official census data reports only ~1.5 million (Stat.uz, 2023). This discrepancy likely stems from counting Tajik-speaking Uzbeks as ethnic Tajiks. Geographically, Tajiks are concentrated in urban Samarkand/Bukhara, with negligible rural presence* – According to the U.S. State Department Report, it is estimated that there are between 1.2 and 1.8 million Tajiks in Uzbekistan. Official statistics in Uzbekistan state that the Tajik community accounts for 4.5% of the nation's population. Approximately 1.7 million Tajiks live in Uzbekistan. It is difficult to accurately count the number of Tajiks in Uzbekistan, as many Uzbeks, Turkmens, Azerbaijanis, and Jews also speak Persian.[[File:Registan square 2014.JPG|thumb|View of the Registan in [[Samarkand]] – although the second largest city of [[Uzbekistan]], it is predominantly a Tajik populated city, along with [[Bukhara]].|250x250px]] === China === **Chinese Tajiks** or **Mountain Tajiks in China** (Sarikoli: , *Tujik*; ), including Sarikolis (majority) and Wakhis (minority) in China, are the Pamiri ethnic group that lives in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwestern China. They are one of the 56 nationalities officially recognized by the government of the People's Republic of China. === Kazakhstan === According to the 1999 population census, there were 26,000 Tajiks in Kazakhstan (0.17% of the total population), about the same number as in the 1989 census. 59,000 in 2025. === Kyrgyzstan === According to official statistics, there were about 47,500 Tajiks in Kyrgyzstan in 2007 (0.9% of the total population), up from 42,600 in the 1999 census and 33,500 in the 1989 census. === Turkmenistan === According to the last Soviet census in 1989, there were 3,149 Tajiks in Turkmenistan, or less than 0.1% of the total population of 3.5 million at that time. The first population census of independent Turkmenistan conducted in 1995 showed 3,103 Tajiks in a population of 4.4 million (0.07%), most of them (1,922) concentrated in the eastern provinces of Lebap and Mary adjoining the borders with Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. === Russia === The population of Tajiks in Russia was about 350,236 according to the 2021 census, up from 38,000 in the last Soviet census of 1989. Most Tajiks came to Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, often as guest workers in places like Moscow and Saint Petersburg or federal subjects near the Kazakhstan border. There are currently estimated to be over one million Tajik guest workers living in Russia, with their remittances accounting for as much as half of Tajikistan's economy. === Pakistan === There are an estimated 220,000 Tajiks in Pakistan as of 2012, mainly refugees from Afghanistan. During the 1990s, as a result of the Tajikistan Civil War, between 700 and 1,200 Tajiks arrived in Pakistan, mainly as students, the children of Tajik refugees in Afghanistan. In 2002, around 300 requested to return home and were repatriated back to Tajikistan with the help of the IOM, UNHCR and the two countries' authorities. === United States === 8,414 Tajiks live in the United States. == Genetics == A 2014 study of the maternal haplogroups of Tajiks from Tajikistan revealed substantial admixture of West Eurasian and East Eurasian lineages, and also the presence of minor South Asian and North African lineages, as well. Another study reports that "the Tajik mtDNA pool gene pool harbors nearly equal proportions of eastern Eurasian and western Eurasian haplotypes." West Eurasian maternal lineages included haplogroups H, J, K, T, I, W and U.{{harvnb|Ovchinnikov|Malek|Drees|Kholina|2014|p=392|ps=: "The western Eurasian component is represented by haplo- groups HV/, HV0, H, J, K, T, and U of the macrohaplogroup R, and haplogroups I and W of the macrohaplogroup N [22]."}} East Eurasian lineages included haplogroups M, C, Z, D, G, A, Y and B. South Asian lineages detected in this study included haplogroups M and R.{{harvnb|Ovchinnikov|Malek|Drees|Kholina|2014|p=392|ps=: "The south Asian component is nine mtDNA sequences (9.9%) belonging to the macrohaplogroups M and R [22]. Two sequences were assigned to main branches of M including M3a1 (1.1%) and M30 (1.1%). Macrohaplogroup R was represented by six mtDNA sequences (6.6%) belonging to R0a (1 sample), R1 (2 samples), R2 (1 sample), and R5a (2 samples). One Tajik mtDNA sequence (1.1%) belonged to aforementioned U2b2, a south Asian autochthonous subhaplogroup of the macrohaplogroup R [25]."}} One lineage in the Tajik sample was assigned to the North African maternal haplogroup X2j. The dominant paternal haplogroup among modern Tajiks is the Haplogroup R1a Y-DNA. ~45% of Tajik men share R1a (M17), ~18% J (M172), ~8% R2 (M124), and ~8% C (M130 & M48). Tajiks of Panjikent score 68% R1a, Tajiks of Khojant score 64% R1a. According to another genetic test, 63% of Tajik male samples from Tajikistan carry R1a. This high frequency combined with low diversity of Tajik R1a reflects a strong founder effect. An autosomal DNA study by Guarino-Vignon et al. (2022), suggested that modern Tajiks show genetic continuity with ancient samples from Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The genetic ancestry of Tajiks consists largely of a West-Eurasian component (~74%), an East Asian-related component (~18%), and a South Asian component (~8%). According to the authors, the South Asian affinity of Tajiks was previously unreported, although evidence for the presence of a deep South Asian ancestry was already found previously in other Central Asian samples (e.g. among modern Turkmens and historical Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex samples). Both historical and more recent geneflow (~1500 years ago) shaped the genetic makeup of Southern Central Asian populations, such as the Tajiks. A follow-up study by Dai et al. (2022) estimated that the Tajiks derive between 11.6 and 18.6% ancestry from admixture with from an East-Eurasian steppe source represented by the Xiongnu, with the remainder of their ancestry being derived from Western Steppe Herders and BMAC components, as well as a small contribution from the early population associated with the Tarim mummies. The authors concluded that Tajiks "present patterns of genetic continuity of Central Asians since the Bronze Age". == Culture == === Language === The language of the Tajiks is an eastern dialect of Persian, called Dari (derived from *Darbārī*, "[of/from the] royal courts", in the sense of "courtly language"), or also Parsi-e Darbari. In Tajikistan, where Cyrillic script is used, it is called the Tajiki language. In Afghanistan, unlike in Tajikistan, Tajiks continue to use the Perso-Arabic script, as well as in Iran. When the Soviet Union introduced the Latin script in 1928, and later the Cyrillic script, the Persian dialect of Tajikistan came to be disassociated from the Tajik language. Many Tajik authors have lamented this artificial separation of the Tajik language from its Iranian heritage. One Tajik poem relates: *Once you said 'you are Iranian', then you said, 'you are Tajik'* *May he die separated from his roots, he who separated us*.Moḥammad Reẓa Shafi‘ī-Kadkanī, ‘Borbad's Khusravanis – First Iranian Songs’, in Iraj Bashiri (tr and ed), From the Hymns of Zarathustra to the Songs of Borbad, Dushanbe, 2003, p. 135.

Since the 19th century, Tajiki has been strongly influenced by the Russian language and has incorporated many Russian language loan words. It has also adopted fewer Arabic loan words than Iranian Persian while retaining vocabulary that has fallen out of use in the latter language.

Many Tajiks can read, speak or write in Russian, while the prestige and importance of Russian has declined since the fall of the Soviet Union and the exodus of Russians from Central Asia. Nevertheless, Russian fluency is still considered a vital skill for business and education.

The dialects of modern Persian spoken throughout Greater Iran have a common origin. This is due to the fact that one of Greater Iran's historical cultural capitals, called Greater Khorasan, which included parts of modern Central Asia and much of Afghanistan and constitutes as the Tajik's ancestral homeland, played a key role in the development and propagation of Persian language and culture throughout much of Greater Iran after the Muslim conquest. Furthermore, early manuscripts of the historical Persian spoken in Mashhad during the development of Middle to New Persian show that their origins came from Sistan, in present-day Afghanistan.

Religion

Main article: Islam in Afghanistan, Islam in Tajikistan

Today, the great majority of Tajiks follow Sunni Islam, although small Twelver and Ismaili Shia minorities also exist in scattered pockets. Areas with large numbers of Shias include Herat, Badakhshan provinces in Afghanistan, the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province in Tajikistan, and Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County in China. Some of the famous Islamic scholars were from either modern or historical East-Iranian regions lying in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and therefore can arguably be viewed as Tajiks. They include Abu Hanifa, Imam Bukhari, Tirmidhi, Abu Dawood, Nasir Khusraw and many others.

According to a 2009 U.S. State Department release, the population of Tajikistan is 98% Muslim, (approximately 85% Sunni and 5% Shia). In Afghanistan, the great number of Tajiks adhere to Sunni Islam. A small number of Tajiks may follow Twelver Shia Islam; the Farsiwan are one such group.

Tajikistan marked 2009 as the year to commemorate the Tajik Sunni Muslim jurist Abu Hanifa, whose ancestry hailed from Parwan Province of Afghanistan, as the nation hosted an international symposium that drew scientific and religious leaders. The construction of one of the largest mosques in the world, funded by Qatar, was announced in October 2009. The mosque is planned to be built in Dushanbe and construction is said to be completed by 2014.

Recent developments

Cultural revival

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Civil War in Afghanistan both gave rise to a resurgence in Tajik nationalism across the region, including a trial to revert to the Perso-Arabic script in Tajikistan. Furthermore, Tajikistan in particular has been a focal point for this movement, and the government there has made a conscious effort to revive the legacy of the Samanid empire, the first Tajik-dominated state in the region after the Arab advance. For instance, the President of Tajikistan, Emomalii Rahmon, dropped the Russian suffix "-ov" from his surname and directed others to adopt Tajik names when registering births. According to a government announcement in October 2009, approximately 4,000 Tajik nationals have dropped "ov" and "ev" from their surnames since the start of the year.

In September 2009, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan proposed a draft law to have the nation's language referred to as "Tajiki-Farsi" rather than "Tajik." The proposal drew criticism from Russian media since the bill sought to remove the Russian language as Tajikistan's inter-ethnic lingua franca. In 1989, the original name of the language (Farsi) had been added to its official name in brackets, though Rahmon's government renamed the language to simply "Tajiki" in 1994. On 6 October 2009, Tajikistan adopted the law that removes Russian as the lingua franca and mandated Tajik as the language to be used in official documents and education, with an exception for members Tajikistan's ethnic minority groups, who would be permitted to receive an education in the language of their choosing.

Notes

References

References

  1. (26 October 2021). "Why Tajikistan Is Taking a Stand Against the Taliban".
  2. "Tajiks in Afghanistan".
  3. "Afghan, Tajik in Afghanistan".
  4. Mobasher, Mohammad Bashir. "Political Laws and Ethnic Accommodation: Why Cross-Ethnic Coalitions Have Failed to Institutionalize in Afghanistan". University of Washington.
  5. "Dissemination of the Republic of Tajikistan Population and Housing Census data 2020".
  6. "Tajikistan Population 2024 (Live)".
  7. "Permanent population by national and / Or ethnic group, urban / Rural place of residence".
  8. "Оценка численности постоянного населения по субъектам Российской Федерации". [[Federal State Statistics Service (Russia).
  9. (2021). "Total population by nationality (assessment at the beginning of the year, people)". Bureau of Statistics of Kyrgyzstan.
  10. "Численность населения Республики Казахстан по отдельным этносам".
  11. "塔吉克族".
  12. "Все новости".
  13. "Tajikistan". U.S. Department of State.
  14. (2013). "Tajik". [[Cambridge University Press]].
  15. (2012). "Tajik". [[HarperCollins Publishers]].
  16. (2022). "Tajik". [[HarperCollins Publishers]].
  17. (19 August 2010). "Oxford Dictionary of English". OUP Oxford.
  18. (1999). "TĀDJĪK". Koninklijke Brill NV.
  19. Nourzhanov, K., & Bleuer, C. (2013). Forging Tajik Identity: Ethnic Origins, National–Territorial Delimitation and Nationalism. In Tajikistan: A Political and Social History (pp. 27–50). ANU Press. Link: [http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hgxx8.10]
  20. Arlund, Pamela S.. (2006). "An Acoustic, Historical, And Developmental Analysis of Sarikol Tajik Diphthongs. PhD Dissertation". The University of Texas at Arlington.
  21. Felmy, Sabine. (1996). "The voice of the nightingale: a personal account of the Wakhi culture in Hunza". [[Oxford University Press]].
  22. (10 February 2014). "Ethnic Groups of North, East, and Central Asia: An Encyclopedia". ABC-CLIO.
  23. Foundation, Encyclopaedia Iranica. "Welcome to Encyclopaedia Iranica".
  24. B. A. Litvinsky, Ahmad Hasan Dani (1998). History of Civilizations of Central Asia: Age of Achievement, A.D. 750 to the end of the 15th-century. Excerpt: "...they were the basis for the emergence and gradual consolidation of what became an Eastern Persian-Tajik ethnic identity." pp. 101. UNESCO. {{ISBN. 9789231032110.
  25. (1999). "AFGHĀNISTĀN". Koninklijke Brill NV.
  26. [https://www.loc.gov/item/97005110/ Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan : country studies] {{Webarchive. link. (20 May 2021 Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, page 206)
  27. Foltz, Richard. (2019). "A History of the Tajiks: Iranians of the East". I.B.Tauris.
  28. Paul Bergne. (15 June 2007). "The Birth of Tajikistan: National Identity and the Origins of the Republic". I.B.Tauris.
  29. (2006). "Medieval Islamic Civilization: L-Z, index". Taylor & Francis.
  30. [https://www.britannica.com/place/Tajikistan/Cultural-life#ref214553] {{Webarchive. link. (21 October 2020 ''Britannica Online Encyclopedia'')
  31. (2002). "A Genetic Landscape Reshaped by Recent Events: Y-Chromosomal Insights into Central Asia". The American Journal of Human Genetics.
  32. (2002). "Al-Hind: The Slavic Kings and the Islamic conquest, 11th–13th centuries". BRILL.
  33. Watson, Burton(1993). ''Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian''. Translated by Burton Watson. Han Dynasty II (Revised Edition), pp. 244–245. Columbia University Press. {{ISBN. 0-231-08166-9; {{ISBN. 0-231-08167-7 (pbk)
  34. [[Richard Nelson Frye]], ''"Persien: bis zum Einbruch des Islam"'' (original English title: ''"The Heritage of Persia"''), German version, tr. by Paul Baudisch, Kindler Verlag AG, [[Zürich]] 1964, pp. 485–498
  35. Frye, Richard Nelson. (1996). "The heritage of Central Asia from antiquity to the Turkish expansion". Markus Wiener Publishers.
  36. [https://www.britannica.com/place/Tajikistan/Cultural-life#ref214553] {{Webarchive. link. (21 October 2020 ''Britannica Online Encyclopedia'')
  37. (1996). "Loan Syntax in Turkic and Iranian". Eurolingua.
  38. Political History of the Chālukyas of Badami by Durga Prasad Dikshit p.192
  39. The First Spring: The Golden Age of India by Abraham Eraly p.91
  40. Lawrence Krader. (1971). "Peoples of Central Asia". Indiana University.
  41. Jean-Charles Blanc. (1976). "L'Afghanistan et ses populations". Éditions Complexe.
  42. [[Clifford Edmund Bosworth. C.E. Bosworth]]/B.G. Fragner, "Tādjīk", in [[Encyclopaedia of Islam]], Online Edition: ''"... In Islamic usage, [Tādjīk] eventually came to designate the Persians, as opposed to Turks [...] the oldest citation for it which Schraeder could find was in verses of Djalāl al-Dīn Rūmī ..."''
  43. Ali Shir Nava'i ''Muhakamat al-lughatain'' tr. & ed. Robert Devereaux (Leiden: Brill) 1966 p6
  44. (5 May 2010). "Tajikistan". [[Central Intelligence Agency]].
  45. Suny, Ronald Grigor. (2006). "The Limits of Culture: Islam and Foreign Policy". MIT Press.
  46. Brasher, Ryan. “Ethnic Brother or Artificial Namesake? The Construction of Tajik Identity in Afghanistan and Tajikistan.” Berkeley Journal of Sociology, vol. 55, 2011, pp. 97–120. JSTOR, Link: [http://www.jstor.org/stable/23345249]. Accessed 15 January 2025.
  47. [https://info.publicintelligence.net/MCIA-AfghanCultures/Tajik.pdfCentral Asian Cultural Intelligence for Military Operations. Tajiks in Afghanistan.]
  48. [https://books.google.com/books?id=4VR0EAAAQBAJ], p. 26
  49. "Ethnic Identity and Genealogies – Program for Culture and Conflict Studies – Naval Postgraduate School".
  50. Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress. (1997). "Afghanistan: Tajik". Library of Congress.
  51. Bellew, Henry Walter (1891) ''An inquiry into the ethnography of Afghanistan'' The Oriental Institute, Woking, Butler & Tanner, Frome, United Kingdom, [https://archive.org/details/aninquiryintoet00goog/page/n130 page 126], {{OCLC. 182913077
  52. Markham, C. R. (January 1879) "The Mountain Passes on the Afghan Frontier of British India" ''Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography'' (New Monthly Series) 1(1): pp. 38–62, p.48
  53. "Population of Afghanistan". [[Central Intelligence Agency]] (CIA).
  54. Country Factfiles. — Afghanistan, page 153. // Atlas. Fourth Edition. Editors: Ben Hoare, Margaret Parrish. Publisher: Jonathan Metcalf. First published in Great Britain in 2001 by Dorling Kindersley Limited. London: [[Dorling Kindersley]], 2010, 432 pages. {{ISBN. 9781405350396 "Population: 28.1 million
    Religions: Sunni Muslim 84%, Shi'a Muslim 15%, other 1%
    Ethnic Mix: Pashtun 38%, Tajik '''25%''', Hazara 19%, Uzbek, Turkmen, other 18%"
  55. "ABC NEWS/BBC/ARD poll – Afghanistan: Where Things Stand". ABC News.
  56. "STATEMENT by the President of the Republic of Tajikistan H.E. Mr. Emomali Rahmon at the General Debates of the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly".
  57. (24 September 2021). "Tajikistan's Rahmon Warns UN Of 'Serious Threats' Emanating From Neighboring Afghanistan". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
  58. Maley, William, ed. ''Fundamentalism reborn?: Afghanistan and the Taliban'', p. 170. NYU Press, 1998.
  59. "Tajik".
  60. (24 March 2016). "Afghanistan's Experiences: The History of the Most Horrifying Events Involving Politics, Religion, and Terrorism". AuthorHouse.
  61. "Afghanistan - Qizilbash".
  62. Fazel, S. M. (2017). ''Ethnohistory of the Qizilbash in Kabul: Migration, State, and a Shi'a Minority'' (Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University), p. 153.
  63. Lehr, Rachel. (2014). "A Descriptive Grammar of Pashai: The Language and Speech Community of Darrai Nur". University of Chicago, Division of the Humanities, Department of Linguistics.
  64. [http://ula.uzsci.net/publishing/ru/etnic.htm ''Ethnic Atlas of Uzbekistan''] {{webarchive. link. (6 October 2008 , Part 1: Ethnic minorities, Open Society Institute, table with number of Tajiks by province {{in lang). ru.
  65. (6 May 2010). "Uzbekistan". [[Central Intelligence Agency]].
  66. Rahim Masov, ''The History of the Clumsy Delimitation'', Irfon Publ. House, Dushanbe, 1991 {{in lang. ru. English translation: [https://www.angelfire.com/rnb/bashiri/Masov/frame.html ''The History of a National Catastrophe''], transl. [[Iraj Bashiri]], 1996.
  67. [http://ula.uzsci.net/publishing/ru/etnic.htm ''Ethnic Atlas of Uzbekistan''] {{webarchive. link. (6 October 2008 , Part 1: Ethnic minorities, Open Society Institute, p. 195 {{in lang). ru.
  68. Rezvani, B.. "Ethno-territorial conflict and coexistence in the Caucasus, Central Asia and Fereydan".
  69. Haugen, A. The establishment of national republics in Soviet Central Asia. Palgrave.
  70. "2022 Report on International Religious Freedom: Uzbekistan".
  71. "Қазақстан Республикасы Стратегиялық жоспарлау және реформалар агенттігі Ұлттық статистика бюросы - Басты бет".
  72. "Демоскоп Weekly – Приложение. Справочник статистических показателей".
  73. ''Population census of Turkmenistan 1995'', Vol. 1, State Statistical Committee of Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, 1996, pp. 75–100.
  74. "Национальный состав населения". [[Federal State Statistics Service (Russia).
  75. "2002 Russian census". Perepis2002.ru.
  76. "4. НАСЕЛЕНИЕ ПО НАЦИОНАЛЬНОСТИ И ВЛАДЕНИЮ РУССКИМ ЯЗЫКОМ ПО СУБЪЕКТАМ РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ".
  77. "2012 UNHCR country operations profile – Pakistan".
  78. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (1 October 2002). "Long-time Tajik refugees return home from Pakistan". UNHCR.
  79. "American FactFinder – Results".
  80. (2014). "Mitochondrial DNA variation in Tajiks living in Tajikistan". Legal Medicine.
  81. Irwin, Jodi A.. (6 February 2010). "The mtDNA composition of Uzbekistan: a microcosm of Central Asian patterns". Springer Science and Business Media LLC.
  82. {{harvnb. Ovchinnikov. Malek. Drees. Kholina. 2014
  83. {{harvnb. Ovchinnikov. Malek. Drees. Kholina. 2014
  84. (August 2001). "The Eurasian heartland: a continental perspective on Y-chromosome diversity". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A..
  85. (September 2002). "A Genetic Landscape Reshaped by Recent Events: Y-Chromosomal Insights into Central Asia". American Journal of Human Genetics.
  86. (September 2002). "A Genetic Landscape Reshaped by Recent Events: Y-Chromosomal Insights into Central Asia". The American Journal of Human Genetics.
  87. (14 January 2022). "Genetic continuity of Indo-Iranian speakers since the Iron Age in southern Central Asia". Scientific Reports.
  88. Dai et al. 2022. (25 August 2022). "The Genetic Echo of the Tarim Mummies in Modern Central Asians". Molecular Biology and Evolution.
  89. Michael Knüppel. [http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/turkic-loanwords Turkic Loanwords in Persian] {{Webarchive. link. (27 July 2017 . [[Encyclopædia Iranica]].)
  90. Abdullaev, K.. (2018). "Historical Dictionary of Tajikistan". Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
  91. link. (10 April 2023 (International Library of Central Asia Studies), page 21)
  92. (24 January 2012). "Background Note: Tajikistan". State.gov.
  93. Shaikh, F.. (1992). "Islam and Islamic Groups: A Worldwide Reference Guide". Longman Group UK.
  94. (9 September 2009). "Today marks 18th year of Tajik independence and success". Todayszaman.com.
  95. Daniel Bardsley. (25 May 2010). "Qatar paying for giant mosque in Tajikistan". Thenational.ae.
  96. "TAJIK ii. TAJIK PERSIAN". Encyclopaedia Iranica.
  97. (1 November 2002). "Post-Soviet Political Order". Routledge.
  98. McDermott, Roger. (25 April 2007). "Tajikistan restates its strategic partnership with Russia, while sending mixed signals". The Jamestown Foundation.
  99. (17 October 1962). "Some 4,000 Tajiks opt to use the traditional version of their names this year". Asiaplus.tj.
  100. (9 September 2009). "Tajik Islamic Party Seeks Tajiki-Farsi Designation". [[Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty]].
  101. (7 October 2009). "Tajikistan Drops Russian As Official Language". [[Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty]].
Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

ethnic-tajik-people ethnic-groups-in-afghanistan ethnic-groups-in-tajikistan ethnic-groups-in-uzbekistan iranian-ethnic-groups ethnic-groups-divided-by-international-borders ethnic-groups-in-central-asia ethnic-groups-in-russia ethnic-groups-in-pakistan ethnic-groups-in-malakand ethnic-groups-in-kabul-province ethnic-groups-in-parwan-province
Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Tajiks — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report