Persia

Iran

Persia is the historic Western name for Iran, in general use until 1935; here it stands for the lands of the Iranian plateau and the wider Persian world. It was the heart of the Achaemenid empire founded by Cyrus the Great around 550 BCE, and later of the Parthian and Sasanian empires, under which Zoroastrianism flourished. A widespread Christian tradition holds that the apostles Simon and Jude preached in Persia, and in 410 the Church of the East, headed from the Sasanian capital Seleucia-Ctesiphon, was organised as the empire's Christian church. After the Arab conquest of 632-654 the region became a leading centre of Islamic-era science, as at Merv in Khorasan, where the astronomer al-Khazini worked in the twelfth century.