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This is not true. They were likely ethnically Egyptian or Phoenician or Libyan but had Hellenic names. In the same way the Iranian mathematicians in the article
by dingoegret 7y ago
This is not true. They were likely ethnically Egyptian or Phoenician or Libyan but had Hellenic names. In the same way the Iranian mathematicians in the article had Arabic names. Culture and language often cross ethnic boundaries and it's up to historians to piece it all together.
- ignoramous 7y ago> Iranian mathematicians In the middle ages, there was greater Persia and two Iraqs (Iraq al-Arab to the west and Iraq al-Ajman to the east which is today's western and central Iran). If we are being pedantic, either the polymaths in question were Persian (which they are) or Iraqi Arabs, not Iranians. In fact, Persian empire also encompassed parts of modern day Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan, until they came under the Turcko-Mongol rule. Refs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samanid_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samanid_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Intermezzo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Intermezzo
- dingoegret 7y agoI don't necessarily disagree with you but I have to push back on the naming. There has never been a time, before or now, when Iran was called Persia. Persian is a western xenonym and a modern one. Iranians have always been called Iranians. From the Zayandeh River Culture to the early Kura Araxes culture to the Achaemenid Empire to the Sassanid period to today. So the admitted pedantic quibble about "Perisa" is way off.
- jacobolus 7y agodingoegret: your sibling comment here is dead. Anyway, “Persia” (Persis) comes from the Greek version of “Pars”. Persians call their language “Farsi”, from the Arabic version, “Fars”. These all have the same origin, and date back millennia.