Editing Persians (section)

===History of usage===
Although [[Persis]] (Persia proper) was only one of the provinces of ancient Iran,<ref name="Arnold Wilson">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FocirvdZKjcC |title=The Persian Gulf (RLE Iran A) |publisher=Routledge |last=Wilson |first=Arnold |page=71 |chapter=The Middle Ages: Fars |year=2012 |isbn=978-1136841057}}</ref> varieties of this term (e.g., ''Persia'') were adopted through Greek sources and used as an exonym for all of the [[Persian Empire]] for many years.<ref name="Michael Axworthy">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IGRuDQAAQBAJ |publisher=Oxford University Press |title=Iran: What Everyone Needs to Know |last=Axworthy |first=Michael |page=16 |year=2017 |isbn=978-0190232962}}</ref> Thus, especially in the [[Western world]], the names ''Persia'' and ''Persian'' came to refer to all of Iran and its subjects.<ref name="Michael Axworthy"/><ref name="Iranica: Fars"/>

Some medieval and early modern Islamic sources also used cognates of the term ''Persian'' to refer to various Iranian peoples and languages, including the speakers of [[Khwarazmian language|Khwarazmian]],<ref>For example, [[Al-Biruni]], a native speaker of Khwarezmian, refers to "the people of Khwarizm" as "a branch of the Persian tree". See: {{cite book |author=Al-Biruni |title=Al-Athar al-Baqiyya 'an al-Qurun al-Khaliyya |trans-title=The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries |page=56 |location=Tehran |publisher=Miras-e Maktub |year=2001 |quote={{lang|ar|و أما أهل خوارزم، و إن کانوا غصنا ً من دوحة الفُرس}} (...)}}. (Translation: "The people of Khwarizm, they are a branch of the Persian tree.")</ref> [[Mazanderani language|Mazanderani]],<ref>The language used in ''Marzbān-nāma'' was, in the words of the 13th-century historian Sa'ad ad-Din Warawini, "the language of Ṭabaristan and old, ancient Persian ({{Transliteration|fa|fārsī-yi ḳadīm-i bāstān}})". See: {{cite encyclopedia |last=Kramers |first=J.H. |title=Marzbān-Nāma |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of Islam |editor-first=P. |editor-last=Bearman |editor2-first=Th. |editor2-last=Bianqui |editor3-first=C.E. |editor3-last=Bosworth |editor4-first=E. |editor4-last=van Donzel |editor5-first=W.P. |editor5-last=Heinrichs |publisher=Brill |year=2007 |access-date=18 November 2007 |url=https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/marzban-nama-SIM_4990}}</ref> and [[Old Azeri language|Old Azeri]].<ref>10th-century Arab Muslim writer Ibn Hawqal, in his {{Transliteration|ar|Ṣūrat al-Arḍ}}, refers to "the language of the people of Azerbaijan and most of the people of Armenia" as {{Transliteration|ar|al-fāresīya}}. {{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Iranica |first=E. |last=Yarshater |date=18 August 2011 |volume=III |pages=238–245 |title=AZERBAIJAN vii. The Iranian Language of Azerbaijan |url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/azerbaijan-vii}}</ref> 10th-century Iraqi historian [[Al-Masudi]] refers to ''Pahlavi'', ''Dari'', and ''Azari'' as dialects of the Persian language.<ref>{{cite book |author=Al Mas'udi |year=1894 |title=Kitab al-Tanbih wa-l-Ishraf |editor=De Goeje, M.J. |publisher=Brill |pages=77–78 |language=ar}}</ref> In 1333, medieval Moroccan traveler and scholar [[Ibn Battuta]] referred to the [[Afghan (ethnonym)|Afghan]]s of [[Kabul]] as a specific sub-tribe of the Persians.<ref>{{cite book |title=Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325–1354 |author=Ibn Battuta |publisher=Routledge |year=2004 |isbn=0-415-34473-5 |page=180 |quote=We travelled on to Kabul, formerly a vast town, the site of which is now occupied by a village inhabited by a tribe of Persians called Afghans. They hold mountains and defiles and possess considerable strength, and are mostly highwaymen. Their principal mountain is called [[Sulaiman Mountains|Kuh Sulayman]]. It is told that the [[Solomon in Islam|prophet Sulayman [Solomon]]] ascended this mountain and having looked out over India, which was then covered with darkness, returned without entering it.}}</ref> Lady Mary (Leonora Woulfe) Sheil, in her observation of Iran during the Qajar era, states that the Kurds and the Leks would consider themselves as belonging to the race of the "old Persians".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/glimpseslifeand00sheigoog |title=Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia |page=[https://archive.org/details/glimpseslifeand00sheigoog/page/n448 394] |first=Lady Mary Leonora Woulfe |last=Sheil |publisher=J. Murray |year=1856}}</ref>

On 21 March 1935, the king of Iran [[Reza Shah]] of the [[Pahlavi dynasty]] issued a decree asking the international community to use the term ''Iran'', the native name of the country, in formal correspondence. However, the term ''Persian'' is still historically used to designate the predominant population of the Iranian peoples living in the [[Greater Iran|Iranian cultural continent]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Persian |title=Persian |publisher=Merriam-Webster |date=13 August 2010 |access-date=10 June 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Bausani |first=Alessandro |title=The Persians, from the Earliest Days to the Twentieth Century |year=1971 |publisher=Elek |isbn=978-0-236-17760-8}}</ref>