Iranians

The Iranians, i know what you are thinking, Iran, Persia etc. but the Iranian ethnicity at least as far as etno-linguistics is concerned spreads far beyond the current borders of iran .. ethno-linguistically the Pashtuns, Tajiks, Baluch, Hazaras etc. all fall within the Iranian spectrum .. The contribution to humanity of Persian speakers in unquestionable, Biruni, Khwarezam, Rumi etc. are all credited with major honors. The masses do not know linguistically that Baluchi ,Tajiki, Pasthun are pure iranian languages.

But an important note is that they were born outside of present day iran, i.e. in Afghanstan, Takistan, Uzbekistan etc.

Just as Arabs from all parts of the planet call themseleves Arabs why don't the Iranian speakers call each other Iranian rather than specifically by our locality (which is being more divided) Persian was replaced as the lingua franca for many iranian speakers, who spoke mainly other Eastern iranian languages ..the "East" being the old east of the vast iranian plateau.

Persian spread into the indian subcontinent was the Dari(Afghan) form ... rather than the iranian spoken in present day iran .. The Samanid empire formed the nationalistic renaissance for Iranians against Turkic expression and from there rivaled Baghdad for learning and Eminence which was from outside of iran as present day iran society was not fruitful for its evolution. Thereafter many of the learned scholars of islam stemmed which contributed to Islamic civilization stemmed from there ... Imaam Bukhari just to mention one and the others mentioned above ....

The Hindu Shahis Of Kabul, Kambojas, Asponosai (400 BC) are thought to be iranians who fought Alexander to stop him in his trail .... still the contribution of Iranian character is forgotten in its true sense !