Gabr

Gabr is a <a href="/facts/Persian_language/jfUYbHbt">New Persian</a> term originally used to denote a <a href="/facts/Zoroastrianism/rM0QUMtg">Zoroastrian</a>.
Historically, gabr was a technical term synonymous with mōg, "<a href="/facts/Magi/dmepY2Y7">magus</a>", denoting a follower of <a href="/facts/Zoroastrianism/rM0QUMtg">Zoroastrianism</a>, and it is with this meaning that the term is attested in very early New Persian texts such as the <a href="/facts/Shahnameh/34GaVlKn">Shahnameh</a>. In time, gabr came to have a <a href="/facts/Pejorative/UId8vPsx">pejorative</a> implication and was superseded in literature by the respectable Zardoshti, "Zoroastrian".
By the 13th century, the word had come to be applied to a follower of any religion other than <a href="/facts/Islam/zDLbL45C">Islam</a>, and it has "also been used by the <a href="/facts/Muslim/W2ukq4pg">Muslim</a> <a href="/facts/Kurds/kV90PCdW">Kurds</a>, <a href="/facts/Turkish_people/3Rg0k6vU">Turks</a>, and some other ethnic groups in modified forms to denote various religious communities other than Zoroastrians, sometimes even in the sense of <a href="/facts/Infidel/lwMLcCn2">unbeliever</a>." As a consequence of the curtailment of social rights, non-Muslims were compelled to live in restricted areas, which the Muslim populace referred to as Gabristans.
In the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish version gâvur, borrowed into English via French as "<a href="/facts/Giaour/Mb78Grau">giaour</a>", was used to refer to <a href="/facts/Christians/15hE11VR">Christians</a>. It is sometimes still used today in former Ottoman territories and carries a strong pejorative meaning.
The etymology of the term is uncertain. "In all likelihood," gabr derives from the <a href="/facts/Aramaic_language/FpvKez1w">Aramaic</a> gabrā, spelt GBRʼ, which. in written <a href="/facts/Middle_Iranian_languages/JaJyqM4t">Middle Iranian languages</a>. serves as an ideogram that would be read as an Iranian-language word meaning "man." (for the use of ideograms in Middle Iranian languages, see <a href="/facts/Pahlavi_scripts/z39MEQrj">Pahlavi scripts</a>). During the <a href="/facts/Sasanian_Empire/JvbRevkA">Sasanian Empire</a> (226–651), the ideogram signified a free (i.e. non-slave) peasant of <a href="/facts/Mesopotamia/f0mmbhTK">Mesopotamia</a>. After the collapse of the empire and the subsequent rise of Islam, it "seems likely that gabr used already in Sassanian times in reference to a section of Zoroastrian community in Mesopotamia, had been employed by the converted <a href="/facts/Fars_province/rV5P1YEg">Persians</a> in the Islamic period to indicate their Zoroastrian compatriots, a practice that later spread throughout the country."
It has also been suggested that gabr might be a mispronunciation of Arabic <a href="/facts/Kafir/xHYqhKbY">kafir</a> "unbeliever," but that theory has been rejected on linguistic grounds both phonetic and semantic: "there is no unusual sound in kafir that would require phonetic modification", and kafir as a generic word probably would not refer to a specific revealed religion such as Zoroastrianism.

Gabr open-in-new

Gabr