Dehqan

The dehqân (Persian: دهقان) or dehgân (Persian: دهگان), were a class of land-owning magnates during the Sasanian and early Islamic period, found throughout Iranian-speaking lands.^[1] The deqhans started to gradually fade away under the Seljuks and Qarakhanids, due to the increase of the iqta' (land grants) and the decline of the landowning class. By their time of their dissolution, they had played a key-role in preserving the Iranian national identity. Their Islamization and cultural Iranianization of the Turks led to the establishment of the Iranian essence within the Islamic world, something which would continue throughout the Middle Ages and far into modern times.^[2][1]

Etymology[]

The term dehqân descended from Middle Persian dahigān meaning "countryman" or "farmer". The original meaning was "pertaining to the deh" (Old Persian: dahyu)—the latter term not in the later sense of “village” (as in Modern Persian) but in the original sense of “land”.^[1] Deh (ده /