The Zargari people are a
Muslim Romani people ethnic group deriving from
Zargar,
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
and neighboring villages. They speak the
Zargari Romani
Zargari (or Romāno) is a dialect of Balkan Romani, spoken in Zargar region (Abyek district) of the Qazvin Province of in Iran by the ethnic Zargari people. The language can be found in surrounding regions as well. It is one of the only Indo-A ...
a distinct dialect of the
Balkan Romani, most closely related to those of
Rumelia
Rumelia ( ota, روم ايلى, Rum İli; tr, Rumeli; el, Ρωμυλία), etymologically "Land of the Names of the Greeks#Romans (Ῥωμαῖοι), Romans", at the time meaning Eastern Orthodox Christians and more specifically Christians f ...
. Historical documentation of their origins is lacking, but one seemingly-accurate tradition traces their origins to three Kuyumcu (Goldsmith) brothers, ( fa, زرگر, zargar), who were migrated from
Ottoman-held Rumelia, Maritsa Valley, today South Bulgaria to Ottoman Damascus from there invited to Shiraz as hostages during the reign of
Nader Shah
Nader Shah Afshar ( fa, نادر شاه افشار; also known as ''Nader Qoli Beyg'' or ''Tahmāsp Qoli Khan'' ) (August 1688 – 19 June 1747) was the founder of the Afsharid dynasty of Iran and one of the most powerful rulers in Iranian h ...
(1736-1747), and given pasture lands as a reward for their skills. As Romani, they were also exempted from taxation and military service.
Although the Zargari once consisted of several clans, most of these have dispersed and lost their native language. The residents of Zargar predominantly belong to the ''Pāshālār'' clan. The Religion is Shia Islam.
References
Bibliography
* Baghbidi, Hassan Rezai. "The Zargari language: An endangered European Romani in Iran", ''
Romani Studies
Romani studies (occasionally Gypsiology) is an interdisciplinary ethnic studies field concerned with the culture, history and political experiences of the Romani people. The discipline also focuses on the interactions between other peoples and Ro ...
'', vol. 13, pp. 123–148 (2003
Wayback Machine* Marushiakova, Elena and Vesselin Popov. 2010. Migrations West to East in the Times of the Ottoman Empire: The Example of a Gypsy/Roma Group in Modern Iran. Anthropology of the Middle East 5 (1): 93–99
Migrations West to East in the Times of the Ottoman Empire: The Example of a Gypsy/Roma Group in Modern Iran* McDowell, Bart. Gypsies: Wanderers of the World (Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 1970), pp. 163-166.
* Windfuhr, Gernot. "European Gypsy in Iran: A First Report." Anthropological Linguistics 12.8 (1970): 271-292
European Gypsy in Iran: A First Report
Ethnic groups in Iran
Romani in Iran
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