Brother Observer.

And we should all be proud of having the blood of the countrymen of Prophet Mohamad (Peace be upon him) flowing in our bodies. And that is the reason we iranian men are so handsome and clever.

I've never been hung up on Aryan this or Aryan that, but certainly do not consider myself an a-rab! But, hey, what do you expect? We don't need to be reminded what the "savages of the peninsula" did when they invaded Persia some 14 centuries ago. 

Dear COP - I think that the study in the Genographic project focuses on the migration routes way before the advent of Islam - by a few thousand years, if I'm not mistaken. I don't know much about genetic makeup of human populations, but I do know a little bit about animals populations. Considering that the process is largely the same, I believe that what the study leaves out is that while the genetic data in Iranians may point to ancient Arabia as the major point of origin in the Iranian population, I think that once those populations settled in Iran and separated from the original Arabian roots, there was a quite a bit of genetic change, base on both environmental and intra-breeding factors, that would set today's Iranian populations apart from those in Arabia. I would THINK so...maybe...again, I'm not a human gentics expert. 

Beware of Persian racists invading the blog and cleansing anyone non-Persian!

I am shocked!

With all my blond hair, white skin and Skandinavian physic, I am not 99.9% Aryan?

This is fixed ... False news!

Obviously, a large majority of Iranians have olive complexions, dark hair, and dark eyes. Anyone and everyone knows that Arabs, Mongols, Turks, Greeks, Macedonians, etc invaded, settled, and bred in our country. That being said, I can usually distinguish a group of Iranians from a group of individuals from most Arab countries. It's not merely a skin color thing, though Iranians are generally lighter in skin tone than most Arabs (with the exception of Lebanese and northern Syrians). To say that all Mideasterners look alike is similar to saying that all Asians, all Europeans, etc look alike. It's like a Venn diagram: there's obviously some overlap, but also some differences.

If Iranians were not Arabs they would not persist with Shi't islam, arabic dance and music and parties and concerts in Dubai.

Of course, you have to take all these studies with a grain of salt because my recollection is Iranians are all Torks or deep down wish to be.

What seems to be an undertone is not so much as any problem with Arabs but how the Aryan aspect seems to rub so many the wrong way.

Aryans as in Persian kings that created relatively civilized empires and freed Jews and built libraries, not Aryans that killed and plundered Jews, Europe and many other parts of the world in the name of racial purity. It is certainly not for blue and blonde colors because even way back when we had unibrows, olive skin and partied hard.

Aryan is a linguistic reference corrupted by European nationalism.  

The NG project website it is deficient. There is no definition of the regional groups in the Research page or the FAQ pages. Neither what these are based on, nor how they relate to the scientific haplogroups. 

https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/about/ 

This also explains a lot of Iranians' obsession with Palestine. They're part of the 56% and want to return to their homeland.

AO jaan ,as usual, your logic makes sense.

For those of you in love with arabs, I suggest spending time there in the peninsula; you'll love it! That's where "real" arabs come from!

There is no pure race on this planet. We are all mixed in one way or the other. Iran survived 3 major attacks.

A. Greek invasion by Alexander and his order of "mass marriage" between Greek soldiers with Persian women

B. Arab invasion and defeating Persian empire which leaded to occupation of Persia by Arabs for 300 years. 

C. Mongol invasion which leaded to massacre of Persians and occupasion of country. 

Ottoman empire also caused some kind of mixer with Turks. Although Shia religion and shah Ismael prevent of Ottoam empire invasion to Persia.

 That could easily explain the genetic diagram. 

As far as Arab concerned,  the historical love or rather hate is more political than genetic. 

Thanks dear COP. I think waht we need to do is to start a genetics project right on this aide. We should select a couple of Palestine chest beaters and test them gentically. If it turns out that they're part of the 56%, we should then do a whole study to see if one's genetic makeup relates to their level of enthusiasm toward a certain cause. It will be pretty revealing, and will have wide-ranging implication throughout the scientific world. We can pick one male and one female subject on iroon.com. I suggest Razi / Minimalist / etc. as the male subject, and Souri as the female subject. :-)

On a more serious note, I think that the Genographic project is somewhat misconstrued. First, in the interest of full disclosure, I did this test for the first part of Genographic project. The result should the root of my acncestors' migration going back thousands of years. This was a while back, but from what I remember, the "arrows" that showed my ancestry did not go through Arabia. So, I MAY not be part of the 56%. I say MAY because really I don't remember. A cousin of mine also did the test, and her ancestry was in Europe (around today's Finland of all places). She's full Iranian--although she's blonde with fair skin and grey eyes. Don't know what happened there. Probably an anomaly.

All of the above being said, and to respond to Amir's points, I think that the Genographic project looks at the Y Chromosome and the mitochondrial DNA going back to ancient, pre-historic times. So, while Iranians and Arabs may have the same ancestral DNA, once those populations were isolated, they developed their own features and characteristics. That's why one can tell an Iranian apart from a Saudi Arabian Arab--for the most parts. The same rule applies in animal population. A bobcat or a squirrel in northeast United States will have special physical traits that differ from a bobcat or a squirrel in southeast United States. Climate, genetic mutations, breeding behavior, and many other factors can - in relatively short term--affect physical appearances.  Again, I am not a genticist. I have very limited knowledge of genetics, but I have studied its effects on ecosystems and animal populations.   

Lastly, now that this has come about, I am motivated to do one of the more detailed genetic tests, like 23 & Me. If I do it, I'll share the results here.

Dear AO, despite being a medical doctor, my B.A. was in History, focusing mostly on Mideast history, though I have a passion for history in general and try to read broadly. My understanding is that there were some Arab migrations out of the Arabian peninsula before the Islamic conquests, but they were mostly confined to what is now the Sinai peninsula, Jordan, Israel/Palestine, the deserts of Iraq and Syria, and to some extent our Khuzestan. Furthermore, I believe that the Arab armies were actually relatively small (at least in comparison to the Sasanian and Byzantine armies) and that they gained their victories through speed and the demoralization and fatigue that had afflicted the Mideast after many, many years of internecine warfare between the Sasanians and Byzantines, as well as religious schisms, heresies, etc in the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean region. While there was obviously some Arab invasion, migration, conquest, settlement, breeding, etc of the Iranian plateau, Iran itself was never Arabized (hence, most Iranians don't speak Arabic) and continued to put up resistance (especially in the regions of Kurdistan, Gilan/Mazanderan, etc). Furthermore, it took a few centuries before Iran even had a Muslim majority -- the process took a while and didn't consist of a mass flooding of Arab Muslims into the country. Anyway, just my two cents. 

Dear Amir - I agree. To your point, I don't think that these genetic markers are due to the Arab invasion of Iran. I think they go back thousands of years before that --for the most part--even way before Arabs themselves identified as Arabs. I think it goes back to the migration out of Africa, where some groups settled in what today would be the Arabian peninsula. Then out of that group some migrtaed further north to what would be today's Iran. Hence, the same basic markers. While a small portion of the markers are certainly due to the more recent Muslim invasion, that percentage must be very small. As evidence, one can look at Egypt and Tunisia, where there was --and still is--total domination of Arab culture since the initial invasion. Only a very small percentage of those populations are genetically Arab.  

Just imagine this conversation, say 500 years from now, if humans are still around, between then Europeans....................ugh!

I see. My understanding is that there were some Semitic peoples already living in the western part of what is now Iran (the Elamites, Kassites, etc), when the Persians and Medes migrated there (generally considered to have originally come from the north). I suppose the former might have been the aboriginal inhabitants of Iran (or at least one component of the aboriginal inhabitants).

Or they could have been the early migrants out of the Arabian Peninsula in pre-historic times, 7-8 thousand years ago. They then went on to compose a major part of the modern Iranian population. Hence, the 56% of the markers.

Yes, you are right, my friend. 

I tried 23&Me and it says I'm 2% Mongolian, 2% Jewish and 2% Italian!! The rest it says "caucasian". Hah. I figure the Italian part must be from a horny low ranked Qajar prince that had some Italian sogoli or something! As for the 2% Mongolian, I'm actually proud. Had Ghengis not conquered Persia, we would have decayed into 40 little tribal chieftain ruled nations today, thanks to the gross incompetence of Kharazmshah. Genghis not only decimated the fundamentalist Islamic movements (sarbedaran crazies, hashashin Ismailis, etc), but postponed the mullah takeover of Iran for some 500 years. And they ended up contributing to Persian culture much more than people give them credit for.

In the Sergei Bodrov's MONGOL film, I love it when the young Genghis goes to ask Tengri (God of the Blue Sky) to free him and give him strength (see 00:25:45 and again at 01:38:45). Interestingly, Tengri appears to him as a wolf, and I suspect this wolf is not unrelated to the grey wolf symbolism we see among Turkey and Azeri nationalists today. Same origin it seems. (if patience is your thing, it's actually a pretty good film. It recounts the rise to power of Genghis.)

Dude, that 2% Jewish is why you're such a Zionist! 

Good observation on the Mongol invasion.

I believe that the 2% "Italian) is probably some leftover Greek genes of some sort of a leftover of some Roman soldier or citizen migrating to Persia having a child with one of your ancestors. As far as Caucasian, if further convinces me of my theory that this whole "Arabia" gene thing really goes back to the first non-European settlers who migrated out of Africa and then re-settled in various parts of the Middle East.   

Yeah, the Romans fought numerous wars with both the Parthians and Sasanians, so that might explain the Italian genes. 

There was also a lot of inter-marriage between Roman and Persian royal families as part of peace deals. They had a lot of offspring as well that could explain the genes.

AO jaan, I seem to recall there were Parthian aristocratic sons who were sent as hostages to Rome for "good behavior", but I don't recall any marriages between the Caesars' families and Iranians. (Of course, I good be wrong). Are you perhaps thinking of Alexander and the Greeks/Macedonians marryiing Persian women?

Hi AO,

The 2% Jewish gene was so unexpected to me and my sister that we decided not to tell our mom, out of fear that she might get a heart attack or something! (She keeps saying we're "seyyed olad-e peghambar" all the time :-))

"2% Italian" is a pretty big number when you think about it. For something that might have happened in Roman times (~1500years ago) it should have been diluted into the gene pool after 10 generations I speculate. That's why I thought of the Qajar prince explanation. Unless perhaps,  the Hellenization of Iran was pretty extensive in the Parthian era as you and Amir point out. I mean, I thought it was fascinating when I saw this:

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pegasus_iran.jpg#mw-jump-to-license

But the 2% Mongol thing is not surprising. My dad is from some village north of Mashhad, and they all have strong Asiatic looks, kinda like Khodadad Azizi!

the 92% "caucasian" thing however doesn't make sense to me because I'm a typical brown boy. Not sure how 23&me is defining Caucasian. But I agree that the Arabization thingy must have happened over longer periods of time and predates the 7th century invasion. Our gene pool got mixed long before that.

Dear Fesenjoon, if I may, for most of the time that people (anthropologists or ethnologists or scientifists or whatever) have been doing these kinds of racial classifications, people of the Middle East have been categorized as "Caucasian" (even if the average North American or West European in this day and age doesn't consider Middle Easterners to be White). As far as the US Census goes, Middle Eastern is white. When I applied to the University of California, I distinctly remember that the application said White includes the Middle East. Now, the average "man on the street" doesn't consider Middle Easterners white, but that probably explains why your test showed "Caucasian". 

Next time I'm born, I might take up genetics as a profession. I took a genetic engineering course in grad school, and it humbled me. Beauty and complexity in one shot. And I still believe we don't have a full picture of how genes work, by far.

I see 3rd generation Iranian Americans that don't speak a word of Farsi, and are completely detached from Persian people and culture. And yet they LOVE cooking koobideh kabobs on a grill and are boastful of their education (ahl-e poz), and are social yet spiteful (zood beheshoon bar mikhoreh). Quintessential Iranian traits! They do things and act in ways that are completely Iranian and yet were never taught it! Even their style of clothing, tastes and choices, so Irani-pasand, even though they were raised by white mother and suburban American culture. As if their Iranian habits simply bubble out from their genes. I mean, how does gene expression make you like Rayban sunglasses and khoresht sabzi and black denim and leather? "Fascinating" , as Spock would say.

I agree Amir. These classifications are a bit confusing.

Dear Fesenjooon - And don't forget the BMW for the high school kids. But that's what happens with most immigrant communities. Look at third generation Italian kids. They love Italian food, and have the Italian way of dressing and hairstyle, they drive similar cars, etc....Genetics is tough dude. I took basic genetics in undergrad, and although I enjoyed it, it was a bit tough for me. I'm generally not the microbiology type. Anything above basic genetics gets me confused. I took courses that touched on genetics in grad school, but that was the extent of it.

Dear Amir - I remeber reading that somehwere. But I'm no expert, so I could be wrong. I had even read that Yazgird III's mother was a a Christian Roman princess names Miriam. But I just did a quick search on his Wikipedia page, and it does not say that. So, I could be wrong. 

AO jaan, you may very well be right. I guess it comes down to semantics somewhat: by the time of Yazdegerd III, the Roman Empire in the West had been mostly overrun by Germanic barbarians, who replaced it with their own kingdoms (Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Franks, etc). The Eastern Roman Empire (aka the Byzantine Empire) was Christian in religion and Greek was the principal language of government not Latin.

AO

Dude, for 20 years I firmly believed that Mercedes and BMW and Porsche were over rated and flashy and extravagant cars. Needlessly expensive. I hated them. Today? I own a top of the line 7-series with an Ahura Mazda decal on the back. 

https://www.etsy.com/listing/94848434/farvahar-decal-zoroastrian-persepolis?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=farvahar%20decal&ref=sr_gallery_7

Couldn't resist the genetic temptation! Don't know how or why, but I just caved in!

Amir,

What if it was the work of "Melikah", the supposed Roman mother of Imam Zaman? ;-p

That's funny man....at least you have a job, and worked hard to get where you are. I see middle class Iranian families competing with each other to buy their 16 year old high school kids BMWs. Insane! I don't even recall anyone in my college driving a BMW, let alone high school--and there were some really blue-blood wealthy kids in my colege. 

I myself drive an Audi. I change cars about every 5-6 years, which is about how long I've had this car. It has a lot of miles on it--all those drives to the woods in upstate NYC. I was looking at an Infiniti the other day. Q50 hybrid. I want to get a hybrid this time. It's better for the environment. I have to put my money where my mouth is. It's used, but only has less than 6K miles on it. I like it. 

Dear Fesenjoon, I had never heard of Melikah -- is that true or just a joke?

Wasn't the 12th Emam basically nonexistent? I seem to recall that Emam #11 probably never had a surviving male heir, but that the Number 12 is more significant from a religious standpoint (e.g. 12 Apostles of Jesus, 12 Tribes of Israel, 72 (i.e. 12 x 6) killed at Karbala, etc), which is why they had to have a 12th Emam.

Dude, bmws have hybrids nowadays. Mine is one. Get an i8! That car is just drop dead sexy.

I know man...Too expensive though. I buy cars cash. I hate car payments. Can't stand them. I've saved up a certain amount. Can't go above that budget. 

Amir,

Hah! They will soon bump it up to 14 with Khomeini and Khamenei. I'm sure you've seen the "ghadam-gaah" signs that are popping up here and there to mark the resting place of his holiness the Rahbar-e mo'azzam!

This twelver business is all bullshit. Seriously. I wonder what my great great great grandfather (the famous ayatollah shirazi) would say if he heard me say this! Especially since I carry around his actual aqeeq ring (the only family 'heirloom' I have from my mother's side)

Fesenjoon, was that the same Ayatollah Shirazi of the Tobacco Revolt?

I'm a seyyed myself. My maternal great grandfather was an akhoond, but not an ayatollah. His daughter (my grandmother) was the one most opposed to the ann-ghollab. She used to say she knew what a bunch of SOBs the akhoonds were!

When I was a little boy, my parents jokingly used to ask me who the 13th Emam was, and I would answer "Khomeini". It was a little joke among the adults to make them laugh.

Amir,

It was the tobacco trouble-maker Shirazi indeed. Though I suspect my brother has his aqeeq, and I actually hold his son's ring. Reminders of why I'm so fucked in the head.

Anyways, funny thing is that in spite of this supposedly illustrious "Sayyad" lineage, my grandfather was a colonel in the Shah's army! Weird how intertwined things are.

And btw, I think Melika is more famously known as Narges Khatoon. But I agree, #12 is just an urban legend. Not that I really care anyway. Me? Me personally thinks we're living in some kind of 'Matrix'. 

Speaking of Narges Khatoon--and knowing how racists Iranians can be toward black people--do Iranians know that Narges Khatoon was African, and that their promised savior is half black? I once mentioned the fact to a religious Iranian friend, and he became really enraged. He thought I was insulting the Imam!  

Oh come on AO,

What more pleasure is there in life than driving a 400HP BMW in the freeway at 80mph and dangerously weaving thru traffic like there's no tomorrow, while playing Haayedeh at full blast? Seriously dude, my 7-series has a Dr Jeckyl and Hyde sorta button on it called "Sport". It shifts the chassis to a sports mode. The car suddenly transforms its engine into something quite more aggressive. You can actually experience the 0-60 in 4.9 seconds. I have a hard time restraining myself from going over 80 in streets. Pure adrenaline. Nothing comes close to the BMW driving experience imo. Not an infiniti (which my sister had), nor a Porsche (which my in law had).

But then again, I do admit I have come a long way. I used to drive an old busted Peykan back in my college days in Iran. (looked like this) It had no seat belt and no AC. And I used it for mosafer-keshi, even though it was technically my dad's.

Dude, you might have Jewish blood in you too! Paying for a car by cash?! Hmmm. Suspicious. Me, I have 300k of student loan debts. But I figured, what the fuck, life is short, better stick to the tanoor while it's hot. I'll soon be an old fart anyway. Cant keep missing out on shit, man :-)

Hah! The Narges Khatoon thing is funny!

I remember once Louis Farrakhan came to give a lecture at our school (Tehran University). Right behind me were two Baseeji guys sitting. When the chancellor introduced Farrakhan, and he walked on the podium with his bodyguards and started quoting the Quran, one of the Baseeji guys resentfully mumbled "een kaka siyah deegeh kiyeh". And I was surprised. I was thinking to myself "whatever happened to Balaal Habashi being a icon celebrity of Islam and all that?!"  

Shit, even Tricia Takanawa knows our weakness :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZyIhtN3PDI

Dude...I've been called a Jew and a Zionist so much here and on the old iranian.com that even I'm convinced that I'm Jewish!!! 

Seriously though...I know. I've driven BMWs many times, but I just can't...I'm too undisciplined for car payments...or any payments for that matter. Debt and payments stress me out. I've lived an austere life after graduation so that I can pay my student loans (which luckily were not as high as yours--I had some scholarships because essentially, no one wanted to major in what I majored in. So, the field was wide open. :-)). So I managed to pay them off. I have two credit cards that I keep for emergencies, and in case I need to rent a car or book a hotel room. They're paid off. I just charge $50.00 a month on them so that they don't get closed, and they're on automatic payment--with the balance paid off at the end of each month. I have a mortgage left, and I'm about 2/3 through it. My plan is to be mortgage free before I'm 45. That's the plan.

I really liked the Infiniti. Drives nice, it's AWD, which is good for the winters here, and I'll save a lot of money on gas. I'm telling you man. I've been putting money away for almost 6 years for this. My unltimate plan is to also buy a Jeep Wrangler within a year or so. I've always wanted one. Plus, I can use it when I go in the field. That's why I think the price on the Infiniti is right. 

Dude, they should give you an award for being so well disciplined. I have the Shirazi people's 'koon-goshadi' gene that always hampers me down.

Though I have managed to dampen the 'negativity' (always complaining) attitude, which also constitutes a large part of the Iranian gene. That, I have the Americans to thank for. 

First of all we have to becareful about the source of all these so called research and studies and don't jump to conlcusion and accept them as  fact! That being said you have several thousand years of history where wars,  invasion and migration of people went on a for a long time. so no one's genetic make up is the same as 3000 years a go,  but I have a tough time believing the 56% number although I am convinced IRI leadership is 100% Arab!!