The people of Iran in these days are looking for freedom. The Iranian word for freedom reveals what they are looking for. It is not simply individual liberty, but a definition of themselves and their outlook towards the rest of the world. It reveals who their future friends and allies could be.
Iranian freedom points to a privileged place for Israel and India.
The word in Persian is ‘azadi’ and reveals a central point of their culture. Indeed آزاد azad ‘free’ derives from old Persian *azatah which indicates persons born free (the root is akin the Greek term γένος ‘genos’). Old Persian is the language of the Achaemenid Empire (550-330), established by Cyrus the Great. Persia was the name of the country at this time (Old Persian 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 Parsa, Greek Περσία ‘Persia’), Being free somehow is connected with being part of the nobility. Middle Persian, the court language of the Sassanian Empire (224-651), had a new term for Persia (𐭠𐭩𐭥𐭠𐭭 Eran, ‘land of the Aryans’), the name adopted by the modern state in 1935. It had appeared beforehand in connection to the old term ‘Persian’. It does not seem to denote a state, but a people, and derives from the term Arya.
Arya is a striking term since it means local nobility both in Old Persian (𐎠𐎼𐎡𐎹 arya) and in Sanskrit (आर्य aryah). Both Iran and India have the same term to indicate a nobility specifically in their respective pre-Islamic phase. Scholars have noted a strong connection between Persia and India at a much earlier time, and specifically with the Mitanni Empire (1550-1260bC), centred around the area of Syria and part of Iraq. In Mitanni official texts one finds Sanskrit divinities (Varuna, Mitra, Indra, Nasatya, Agni) and terms connected with horsemanship. Specialists have made much of these terms, but the words themselves indicate a cultural connection at least. The Mitanni, who invoke Sanskrit divinities in their treatises, are known for their correspondence with the pharaoh Akhenaten (1353-1336bC) in his capital city of Akhetaten (Amarna) in Egypt.
The same pharaoh may have been the one who saw the departure of the Jews from Egypt to Israel. He may have been Moses’ pharaoh (at least according to S. Freud and C.S. Lewis, among others). In the case of Iran, there is also a connection with Israel, given that Cyrus the Great, is referred to as a protector of the Jews in the Bible. A number of books of the Bible are directly connected or were even written in Persia (Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, parts of Daniel, Isaiah 40-55, Haggai, Zechariah).
Iran not only has political, economic, and geopolitical reasons to look at India and Israel as potential allies, but also cultural. Such an Iran, is not focused on minorities, but on the Persian speaking majority. The ruler in the old Persian language is 'Shah' (𐏋).
Does this old outlook reflect the freedom which Iranians are looking for today?