Ajam

Ajam is a word used in Persian and Arabic literature, but with different meanings.

In Arabic, Ajam () has two meanings: "non-Arab", and "Persian". Literally, it has the meaning "one who is illiterate in language", "silent", or "mute" and refers to non-Arabs in general. Although traditionally developed as a derogatory term, in modern sense, it is a neutral term meaning "stranger" or "foreign",

ʿajam has one primary meaning in Arabic: "non-Arab".

Homophonous words, which may or may not be derived from the same root, include:

According to The Political Language of Islam, during the Islamic Golden Age, 'Ajam' was originally used as a reference to denote those whom Arabs in the Arabian Peninsula viewed as "alien" or outsiders. The early application of the term included all of the non-Arab peoples with whom the Arabs had contact including Persians, Byzantine Greeks, Ethiopians, Armenians, Assyrians, Mandaeans, Arameans, Jews, Georgians, Sabians, Samaritans, Egyptians, Berbers and the somewhat related Nabataeans.

The term has a derogatory meaning as the word is used to refer to non-Arab speakers (primarily Persians) as illiterate and uneducated. Arab conquerors tried to impose Arabic as the primary language of the subject peoples throughout their empire. Angry with the prevalence of the Persian language in the Divan and Persian society, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf ordered the official language of the conquered lands to be replaced with Arabic, sometimes by force (including cutting out the tongues of Persian speakers, further popularising the term "mute"). Persian resistance to this mentality was popularised in the final verse of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh; this verse is widely regarded by Iranians as the primary reason that they speak Persian and not Arabic to this day. Official association with the Arab dominion was only given to those with the ethnic identity of the Arab and required formal association with an Arab tribe and the adoption of the client status (mawālī, another derogatory term translated to mean "slave" or "lesser" in this context).

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