Persian Makran

Persia Makran was a part of the great region of Makran, which today includes Balochistan of Iran and Pakistan.

  Makran is also mentioned in some European sources from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Makran Pars is part of the great Makran province. During the colonial period, the Iranian part was called Makran Pars. The Persian Gulf book, published by the British government in 1917, lists the areas and settlements and cities of Makran Pars from Bandar Abbas to Gwadar. Persian Makran is a name that is also used in Arabic books and it seems that the English took the word Persian Makran from Arabic sources.[1]

Etymology

Map of Mecran

The southern part of Balochistan is called Kech Makran on Pakistani side and Makran on the Iranian side which is also the name of a former Iranian province. The location corresponds to that of the Maka satrapy in Achaemenid times. The Sumerian trading partners of Magan are identified with Makran. In Varahamihira's Brihat Samhita, there is a mention of a tribe called Makara inhabiting the lands west of India. Arrian used the term Ichthyophagi (Ancient Greek for "fish eaters") for inhabitants of coastal areas, which has led to a suggestion to derive Makran from the modern Persian term māhī khorān, meaning "fish eaters".

Pre-history

The remnants of the earliest people in Balochistan were the Brahui people, a Dravidian speaking people closely related to the Dravidian speaking people of South India. The Brahuis were originally Hindus and Buddhists, similar to the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian speaking peoples in the rest of the subcontinent. However, unlike the rest of northern India, where Indo-Aryan languages rose to prominence, the Brahuis retained the Dravidian language throughout the millennia.

Gallery

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  ساحل دریای مکران در ایران
• 
  Makran sea .Makoran coast in Iran
• 
  ساحل دریای مکران چابهار
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  مکران
• 
  Dugong mother and her offspring in shallow water
• Persian Sea
  Persian Sea
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  Dhofar]], Oman
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  Palm

See also

• Chabahar
• Gwadar
• Khor Kalmat
• Lyari Town
• Makran Coastal Highway
• Makran Coastal Range
• Makran Division
• N'aschi
• Sokhta Koh
• State of Makran
• Wildlife of Pakistan § Western highlands, plains and deserts
• 1945 Balochistan earthquake

Bibliography

• Nicolini, Beatrice, The Makran-Baluch-African Network in Zanzibar and East Africa during the XIXth Century, African and Asian Studies, Volume 5, Numbers 3–4, 2006, pp. 347–370(24)
• Al-Hind: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7Th-11th
• Eilers, Wilhelm, Das Volk der Makā vor und nach den Achämeniden, AMI Ergänzungsband 10, 1983, 101–119
• Hansman, John (1973), "A Periplus of Magan and Meluhha", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 36 (3): 553–587, doi:10.1017/S0041977X00119858, JSTOR 613582

External links

• Balochistan and Makran, Pakistan
• 'Music of Makran: traditional fusion from coastal Balochistan' from the British Library Sound Archive
• Holdich, Thomas (1911). "Makran" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). p. 452.