Shah

Royal and noble ranks in Iran, Turkey, Caucasus, the Indian subcontinent, Afghanistan

Emperor: Padishah, Shahanshah

High King

King: Sultan, Malik, Shah, Khan

Royal Prince : Shahzada (Şehzade), Mirza
Noble Prince : Sahibzada
Nobleman: Nawab, Baig, Begzada
Royal house : Damat
Governmental : Lala, Agha, Hazinedar

Shah (/ˈʃɑː/; Persian: شاه‎, translit. Šāh‎, pronounced [ʃɒːh], "king") is a title given to the emperors, kings, princes and lords of Iran (historically also known as Persia). It was also adopted by the kings of Shirvan (a historical Iranian region in Transcaucasia) namely the Shirvanshahs, the rulers and offspring of the Ottoman Empire (in that context spelled as Şah and Şeh), Mughal emperors of the Indian Subcontinent, the Bengal Sultanate,[1] as well as in Afghanistan. In Iran (Persia and Greater Persia) the title was continuously used; rather than King in the European sense, each Persian ruler regarded himself as the Šāhanšāh (King of Kings) or Emperor of the Persian Empire.

The word descends from Old Persian xšāyaθiya "king", which (for reasons of historical phonology) must be a borrowing from Median,[2] and is derived from the same root as Avestan xšaϑra-, "power" and "command", corresponding to Sanskrit (Old Indic) kṣatra- (same meaning), from which kṣatriya-, "warrior", is derived. The full, Old Persian title of the Achaemenid rulers of the First Persian Empire was Xšāyathiya Xšāyathiyānām or Šāhe Šāhān, "King of Kings"[3] or "Emperor". This word is commonly confused with the unrelated and distinct Indian surname Shah, which is derived from the Sanskrit Sadhu or Sahu, meaning "gentleman".[4]

History

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shahanshah of Iran from 1941 to 1979, was the last ruler to hold the title of shah.

Šāh, or Šāhanšāh (King of Kings) to use the full-length term, was the title of the Persian emperors. It includes rulers of the first Persian Empire, the Achaemenid dynasty, who unified Persia in the sixth century BC, and created a vast intercontinental empire, as well as rulers of succeeding dynasties throughout history until the twentieth century and the Imperial House of Pahlavi.

While the Ottoman Sultans never styled themselves as Shah, but rather Sultan, their male offspring received the title of Şehzade, or prince (literally, "offspring of the Shah", from Persian shahzadeh).

The full title of the Achaemenid rulers was Xšāyaθiya Xšāyaθiyānām, literally "King of Kings" in Old Persian, corresponding to Middle Persian Šāhān Šāh, and Modern Persian شاهنشاه (Šāhanšāh).[5][6] In Greek, this phrase was translated as βασιλεὺς τῶν βασιλέων (basileus tōn basiléōn), "King of Kings", equivalent to "Emperor". Both terms were often shortened to their roots shah and basileus.

In Western languages, Shah is often used as an imprecise rendering of Šāhanšāh. The term was first recorded in English in 1564 as a title for the King of Persia and with the spelling Shaw. For a long time, Europeans thought of Shah as a particular royal title rather than an imperial one, although the monarchs of Persia regarded themselves as emperors of the Persian Empire (later the Empire of Iran). The European opinion changed in the Napoleonic era, when Persia was an ally of the Western powers eager to make the Ottoman Sultan release his hold on various (mainly Christian) European parts of the Ottoman Empire, and western (Christian) emperors had obtained the Ottoman acknowledgement that their western imperial styles were to be rendered in Turkish as padishah.

In the twentieth century, the Shah of Persia, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, officially adopted the title شاهنشاه Šāhanšāh and, in western languages, the rendering Emperor. He also styled his wife شهبانو Shahbānu ("Empress"). Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was the last Shah, as the Iranian monarchy was abolished after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Ruler styles

Shahzadeh

Shahzadeh (Persian شاهزاده Šāhzādeh or Şehzade). In the realm of a shah (or a more lofty derived ruler style), a prince or princess of the blood was logically called shahzada as the term is derived from shah using the Persian patronymic suffix -zādeh or -zāda, "born from" or "descendant of". However the precise full styles can differ in the court traditions of each shah's kingdom. This title was given to the princes of the Ottoman Empire (Şehzade, Ottoman Turkish: شاهزاده) and was used by the princes of the Mughal Empire in India. It is to be noted, however, that the Mughal royalty were not of Indian origin but of Mongol-Turkic origin and were heavily influenced by Persian culture,[9][10][11] a continuation of traditions and habits ever since Persian language was first introduced into the region by Persianised Turkic and Afghan dynasties centuries earlier.[12][13]

Thus, in Oudh, only sons of the sovereign shah bahadur (see above) were by birth-right styled "Shahzada [personal title] Mirza [personal name] Bahadur", though this style could also be extended to individual grandsons and even further relatives. Other male descendants of the sovereign in the male line were merely styled "Mirza [personal name]" or "[personal name] Mirza". This could even apply to non-Muslim dynasties. For example, the younger sons of the ruling Sikh maharaja of Punjab were styled "Shahzada [personal name] Singh Bahadur".

The corruption shahajada, "Shah's son", taken from the Mughal title Shahzada, is the usual princely title borne by the grandsons and male descendants of a Nepalese sovereign, in the male line of the Shah dynasty.

For the heir to a "Persian-style" shah's royal throne, more specific titles were used, containing the key element Vali Ahad, usually in addition to shahzada, where his junior siblings enjoyed this style.[14]

Other styles

See also

References

  1. ↑ Hasan, Perween (2007). Sultans and Mosques: The Early Muslim Architecture of Bangladesh.
  2. ↑ An introduction to Old Persian (p. 149). Prods Oktor Skjærvø. Harvard University. 2003.
  3. ↑ Old Persian. Appendices, Glossaries, Indices & Transcriptions. Prods Oktor Skjærvø. Harvard University. 2003.
  4. ↑ Shakespear, John. A Dictionary, Hindustani and English: with a copious index, fitting the work to serve, also, as a dictionary of English, Nepali and Hindustani. 3rd ed., much enlarged, London: Printed for the author by J. L. Cox and Son: Sold by Parbury, Allen, & Co., 1834, p. 1035
  5. ↑ D. N. MacKenzie. A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary. Routledge Curzon, 2005. ISBN 0-19-713559-5
  6. ↑ M. Mo’in. An Intermediate Persian Dictionary. Six Volumes. Amir Kabir Publications, Teheran, 1992.
  7. ↑ Tim Greenwood, Emergence of the Bagratuni Kingdoms, p52, in Armenian Kars and Ani, Richard Hovannisian, ed.
  8. ↑ Clifford Edmund Bosworth "The New Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical Manual". "The Shāh-i Armanids", p. 197.
  9. ↑ Richards, John F. (1995), The Mughal Empire, Cambridge University Press, p. 6, ISBN 978-0-521-56603-2
  10. ↑ Schimmel, Annemarie (2004), The Empire of the Great Mughals: History, Art and Culture, Reaktion Books, p. 22, ISBN 978-1-86189-185-3
  11. ↑ Balabanlilar, Lisa (15 January 2012), Imperial Identity in Mughal Empire: Memory and Dynastic Politics in Early Modern Central Asia, I.B.Tauris, p. 2, ISBN 978-1-84885-726-1
  12. ↑ Sigfried J. de Laet. History of Humanity: From the seventh to the sixteenth century UNESCO, 1994. ISBN 9231028138 p 734
  13. ↑ "South Asian Sufis: Devotion, Deviation, and Destiny". Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  14. ↑ Shahzada son of shah, Newsvine.com
  15. ↑ David D. Laitin, Said S. Samatar, Somalia: Nation in Search of a State, (Westview Press: 1987), p. 12.
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