What is 'hormuz' strait?#4

Following the roots of the name Hormuz leads us to a very old god. There is a prevailing interpretation that this name originated from the supreme god of ancient Persia, Ahura Mazda.

There is a theory that it started from Ahura Mazda in the Avestan language, went through Auramazda in Old Persian, then Ohrmazd in the Middle Ages, and became the Hormuz we call today. The name of this god is interpreted to mean Wise Lord.

So, Hormuz is a Persian word. However, if you unfold a map, you can see the Arabian Peninsula tightly attached right across from this Gate of Wisdom. To the eyes of an outsider, the residents of these two lands separated by a narrow waterway, the Arabs and the Persians, might just look like a similar group painted with the single color of the Middle East.

But in fact, they do not seem to consider each other to be on the same side. Rather, they are closer to the most familiar others who have endured cultural clashes through thousands of years of undermining each other’s identities, 호competing, and at times, intense contempt. Now, we intend to look at how they have defined each other differently and fought.

About 1,400 years ago, there was a vast empire called Sassanid Persia in the lands of today’s Iran and Iraq. They were not just large in terms of land. They were the top civilized people of the time who wore silk, drank wine from gold cups, and discussed the principles of the universe. To them, the people coming from the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula were just others with whom language did not communicate and outsiders from a harsh environment.

“We are an empire that sits on a golden throne and goes head-to-head with the Roman Emperor, and those people from the desert are threatening us?” This was the deep-seated rapid categorization held by the Persians at the time. But when Persia lost its energy after fighting bloodily with Rome for hundreds of years, an anomaly occurred in the desert. Arabs united under the banner of Islam crossed the strait and invaded. The Persians laughed. “Those hungry camel drivers dare to climb the walls of our empire?” But the momentum of those Arab forces was terrifying. They had nothing to lose and were tightly united by a religious passion they had newly accepted. The Persian army in silk clothes could not keep up with the speed of the Arab army rushing like hungry wolves.