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History of Persian Music
As Safvar and Caron mentioned in their book, Musique D’iran, “the history of Persian music dates back to the ancient times, and one cannot possibly conduct a research on it based on what one knows now, as it is intertwined with tales and myths of the old times, each more than thousands of years old. Thus, a systematic research cannot possibly be carried out as almost all documents related to Persian music have been destroyed due to numerous attacks and invasions of the land (The Roman invasion of Persia in 300 B.C., The Arab invasion, The Mongol invasion in 13th century, and The attack of the Afghans, to name a few)” (pp. 28). Meanwhile, based on the limited information left in hand, we can draw out some extra-musical theories regarding different aspects of music within Persian culture as well as some characteristics of the music itself. In this path the history of music in Iran can be divided into two main periods: