Evaz

Evaz
Country	Iran
Province	Fars Province

Evaz is one of the main cities of Larestan, in the Fars province.

Geographical Location

The town of Evaz in the Fars province of Iran lies between latitude, 27° 45' 48N and longitude, 54° 0' 37E. Evaz is situated 950 meters above the sea level. It is located forty kilometers west of the city of Lar. It lies in a valley approximately thirty kilometers in length and four (4) kilometers in breadth between low mountains on the north and south of Evaz.

The official and internationally recognized name of the town is EVAZ (اوز). Although local people call it 'Avaz', it is not 'Awadh' (عوض).

Demography

The population of Evaz sums up to about 21,000, of which 15,000 reside in the town itself. Many have migrated to other countries, mainly the GCC, Sweden and more recently to the US and Canada. Due to the dispersed nature of its population, the precise number of Evazis in the world is difficult to determine at this stage.

The language spoken is Evazi, one of the three dialects of Larestani. It is distinct from, but a sister to, the New Persian. Both Larestani and Persian have been driven from the Middle Persian or Pahlavi. Unfortunately like many similar cases, Evazi, as mother tongue is more and more being abandoned in the favor of Persian by the younger generation.

Although many Evazis have migrated to the Arab countries in the southern part of the Persian gulf most of them still talk Evazi at home but many of the new generation born in the Arab countries have naturally adopted Arabic.

The people surrounding the area do not share the lineage of Northern Persians (Aryans). As the Kings of Persia began suggesting that Aryans are a superior race, this concept began to sink in with the region and it is unclear why the people of this people don't share the same language, complexion or culture of neighboring towns or cities.

The ethnic relationship of Evazis to the rest of Iranians is linguistically and that is valid for relationships between all other Iranian people groups.

Appearance of Larestanis people differs from one individual to another but it is true that in average they have darker complexion that of a typical Iranian.

On the other hand a typical Iranian is also composed of different races and should not be regarded as the same as a typical Aryan, the appearance of which, is still not certain to this time. Iran is a large and ancient country. It has occurred a lot of people mixing in different region of Iran due to several thousands years of migration, forcefully or peacefully.

Mixing could not have possibly happened homogeneously and could not have possibly involved same portions of the same peoples all over the country. Thus it is not surprising to see affinity of people closer to borders with people in the neighboring countries. And that is sometimes more than affinity with people within the country boarders but geographically further located.

However without any doubt the language and the culture are of Iranian stock. That is scientifically proven and there is no much to dispute.

(The rest of the paragraphs within this section are far-fetched and baseless speculations that are not adding any value to the subject.)

It should also be noted that, although Evaz is mainly Sunni, the region is equally divided among Sunnis and Shi'ites which does not lend credence to the argument that Sunni'ism is what drove people to the South.

In addition, almost all nearby towns were ruled by the Islamic leader (Sheikh, Mullah, Imam) of the town, which conflicts with the ideology of any town North of Evaz.

Most importantly, it is important to note that the emergence of these towns coincides with the time when Islamic conquests began entering Iran from the East of the Zagros Mountains rather than the West of the Zagros Mountains, as they had done previously.

The names of all towns can be related to Arabic in some form of another. As noted in the Wikipedia article called "Islamic Conquest of Persia":

"With regards to Iran, Muslim histories further re-count that at the beginning of the seventh year of migration, Muhammad appointed one of his officers, Abdullah Huzafah Sahmi Qarashi, to carry his letter to Khosrau II inviting him to Islam."

Note that there is a town called Gerash today and linguistically, all gulf Arabs transformed the letter Q to the letter G when speaking. It is well worth consideration that, for this small example, Abdullah Huzafah Sahmi Qarashi is among those who spread Islam into Iran.

Due to the nature of events and the lack of official records, it is impossible to determine the facts from the theories. However, it is important for all sides to consider all arguments in order to come to their respective conclusions.

Ethnicity

The religion of Evazis is the Sunni branch of Islam. Although large majority of Iranians are Shiites but Iran is also homeland for a substantial minority of Sunni Muslims, which are spread through out the entire country.

It is worth to mention that the majority of Iranians have been Sunni Muslims until emerge of the Safavi dynasty for about five hundred years ago.

Although most of the Iranians converted to Shiite Muslim under suppress of Safavis, part of the country especially the peripheral provinces refused to abandon their religion and continued to practice Sunni Islam.

It should be also noted that Safavis established their full control over Larestan, where Evaz is located, first in 1599 about 100 years after emerge of Ismail the first.

It is said that in order not convert to Shia Islam and avoid persecution, ancestors of some of the present day Evazis migrated from other part of the Fars province as Marvdasht and Baiza near Persepolis.

Linguistically Evazis, like the vast majority of Iranians population, belong to the Indo-Aryan group of people but it should be noted that Iranians have gone through thousands of years of mixing with other peoples both pre Aryan groups and post Aryan invaders.

However Evazis have succeeded to preserve most of their culture and language.

The language of Evazis is Larestani, which is derived from Pahlavi. Pahlavi is also mother to modern Persians as well as all other existing dialects included in the southwest branch of the Iranian language group.

Weather Condition

Evaz has hot and dry summer. Its winter is usually cold and almost dry. Spring and autumn temperatures are moderate and pleasant. Evaz is mostly dry during the year with the exception of very few days of rain during autumn, winter, and spring. The night temperature during the summer is pleasant due to the cool breeze blowing across the valley.

Education

Evaz is one of the few towns in the region to consider education among its most important priorities. There are currently four kindergartens, ten elementary schools, eight secondary schools and six high schools in Evaz. In addition, Evaz houses branchs of ISalmic Azad University and Payame Noor University. Asr e evaz is it's only general paper.

See also

• Larestan
• Lar
• Gerash
• Fars province

External links

• Evaz4U A website run by youths in evaz, includes forum and many photos of the town
• ewazstars Blog related to recent news and photos of evaz.
• Khodmooni Forum Connecting Khodmoonis All Over the World
• Asr e Evaz Newspaper website of Asr e Evaz Newspaper.