Fahran

Second Gheirav Republic of Fahran [Jumhuriyyah al-Gheiravyat al-Thaniyyah al-Fahraaniyyah]  (language?)
Flag Coat of Arms of Fahran Coat of Arms
Motto: "Ma zal lahabna yahtariq" "Our flame still burns"
Anthem: Mawtini "My Homeland"
Location of Fahran (dark green) – in Catai (green & dark grey) – in the CDN (green) Location of Fahran (dark green) – in Catai (green & dark grey) – in the CDN (green)
Map of Fahran (including overseas holdings) Map of Fahran (including overseas holdings)
Capital	Haqara
Largest city	Qhor am-Sadf
Official languages	Gheiravic
Recognised regional languages	Kanso Osai-Resenga Nimanheric
Ethnic groups	Gheiravin (56.91%) Kel Damazin (13.22) Kanso (11.44%) Nimanis (5.84%) Resenyas (5.47%) Baghalis (4.89%) Kazhwiris (2.23%)
Demonym(s)	Fahrani, Gheirav, Fahranic
Government	Unitary presidential constitutional republic
• President	Mohammed Sabbagh (AP)
Legislature	Congress
• Upper house	Assembly of Elders
• Lower house	Assembly of the People
Establishment
• Caliphate Established	20 BCE
• Unification	1571 CE
• Independence from X	1892 CE
Area
• Total	527,015.78 km2 (203,481.93 sq mi)
• Water (%)	Negligible
Population
• Estimate	35,084,331
• 2005 census	31,209,994
• Density	66.57/km2 (172.4/sq mi)
GDP (nominal)	2010 estimate
• Total	$473.5 billion (x)
• Per capita	$13,495
Gini (x)	53.9 high
HDI (2010)	.745 high
Currency	Riyyal (RYL)
Time zone	UTCx (x)
Date format	dd ˘ mm ˘ yyyy
Driving side	right
Calling code	+1121
Internet TLD	.frn

Fahran (Gheiravic: al-Fahraan) officially the Second Gheirav Republic of Fahran (Gheiravic: Jumhuriyyah al-Gheiravyat al-Thaniyyah al-Fahraaniyyah), is a Gheirav sovereign state and semi-presidential unitary republic in western Catai, located within Aeia. Fahran occupies 527,015.78 km² and straddles the series of straits and canals that link the Asur Sea to the Iranic Sea. Its Cataian territories are bordered by Kazhwir, Sidi Synnia, and the Iranic Sea to the west and the Iranic Sea to the south, while its Majulan territories are bordered by Habasha to the north, west, and south and the Iranic Sea to the east. Fahran comprises six provinces, seventeen governates, and one overseas territory. The capital is Haqara. The largest city is Qhor am-Sadf. Fahran numbers among the most ethnically and racially diverse countries in the region and is home to Gheiravin, Kel Damazin, Kanso, Nimanis, Resenyas, Kazhwiris, Asuran expatriates, and mixed-race Baghalis. Around 93% of the country's 35 million citizens are Muridin, with Alydians and non-religious people making up small but significant minorities, especially in the large coastal cities. The sole official language is Gheiravic, though regional languages have been nominally recognized since the Winter Intifada and the ratification of the 1996 Constitution.

Fahran possesses a comparatively short but historically important coastline, encompassing the Strait of Asmara, the Strait of Sabatha, the Nalmorian Archipelago, and the Gulf of Nimanher, which allowed it to play a pivotal role in the spice and incense trades until the late medieval period. While much of its terrain is dominated by semi-arid plains, sandy deserts, and seasonal wadis, the River Aynúr with its numerous tributaries, located in northern Nimanher, and the River Fénya, located in western Tammuz, create alluvial flood plains. Aquifers and underground springs play a similarly important role, often serving as the life blood of oases, and support many of the most populous cities of Fahran. The Grey Sea, an important inlet north of Yamtar, is the region's largest interior body of salt water. Fahran is enclosed by the Zabalan Mountains, which rise up from the hills of eastern Amran, to the east and the Ramlat Abu al-Dhiyb Desert to the north. The varied and often harsh terrain of the country has left a profound imprint on the peoples who inhabit it.

Fahran is a developing country. Since the tenure of President Ali Adnan Guirguis, who was indicted for and convicted of charges of corruption, money-laundering, and misappropriation of public revenues in 2016, Fahran has often been described as a kleptocracy or a plutocracy, and has consistently numbered among the most corrupt countries in the region. In the absence of strong civilian institutions, elite politics has constituted a de facto form of collaborative governance, where competing tribal, regional, religious, and political interests agree to hold themselves in check through tacit acceptance of the balance it has produced. This system was largely bolstered and upheld by the role of the military, under the command of Field Marshal Cebrail Osman al-Nerraphne, as the guardian of the republic. The recent election of President Mohammed Sabbagh and the Irsadic Unity Party has suggested the end of power sharing between elitist interest groups and the advent of popular democracy in the Irsadist mold.

Culturally, Fahran has a very rich heritage and celebrates the achievements of its past in both pre-Irsadic as well as post-Irsadic times. It is well-known for its poetry, including such epics as the Epic of Barsalan, the Aydhariadh, and the Lament of Qasim and Izgadhil, and its finely crafted knives, jewelry, and trinkets, often making use of copper, gold, precious gems, and ivory. Its architecture is among the most renown in the Irsadic world and is home to a great many palaces, gardens, and shrines erected in the elegant style of the Irsadic Golden Age. Fahran is a member-state of the World Assembly and the Council of Irsadic Cooperation, and a signatory of the Global Trade and Security Accord.

Etymology

The Gheiravic name al-Fahraan first appears in the El Haddah manuscript, dated to around 452 BCE, where it referred to a region encompassing modern Yamtar and as-Souhr provinces. It's etymology is derived from the Old Fahranic word fahrih, meaning "blissful" or "paradise", as the country was well-known in antiquity for its vineyards and fertile soil during the rainy season. This is in contrast for the name Radhayaan, used to describe the more arid geographical range in what is now the Hasidhmawt. By the reign of Ramil-Qahirnisat II, the name had come to apply to all lands south of and including the Ramlat al-Dhiyb Desert, with the Fiorentines referring to the landmass and cultural sphere as Garabia Felix.

Following the Aydurid Conquest in 1571 CE, it became customary to refer to subjects of Fahran as Fahrani in the singular and Fahranis in the plural, with Fahrani also serving as the adjective to describe things relating to the country. This constitutes both an ethnonym and a demonym, and, while it theoretically applies to subjects of overseas territories like Tammuz and al-Bahriyyah, most subject peoples self-identify based on their own local ethnonyms and demonyms. The older adjective Fahranic occasionally appears in popular parlance, though it's more generally restricted to discussions of pre-Irsadic cultures, pre-Gheiravic languages, and national epics like the Aydhariadh.

The people who inhabit Fahran are part of a broader linguistic and ethnic community known as the Gharbiyyun. The word gharib is derived from an Old Lysanic root meaning "western" or "westernesse", alluding to their ancestral homeland in Arabekh far to the west of Catai. It is often used interchangeably with Fahrani in describing the citizens of Fahran, though, notably, this doesn't apply to ethnic minorities who tend to prefer their own ethnonyms.

History

Prehistory

Between 52,000 BCE and 38,000 BCE, the hypothetically fertile Falaqan Valley was home to a collection of Gleanmóric cultures, remains of which have been uncovered as far south as the Gap of Sawad. This region is likewise the location of a cluster of primitive communal burials, dating from approximately 9,000 BCE, which provide the earliest evidence for modern humans in the region.

Organized, permanent human habitation in Fahran occurred as early as 5,400 BCE, with widespread evidence of animal husbandry, especially of horses, goats, sheep, and dogs, in the form of obsidian tools, statuettes, and ceremonial burials that yielded human and animal skeletons. This collection of sites has been collectively referred to as the Sawad culture. The various discoveries reflect the significance of the sites as an important ancient civilization and gives it significant prehistoric importance with enough proof and detailed data to rewrite the Neolithic history of Western Catai in particular. Sawad also reveals additional information about the relationship between human economic activities and inherent climate change, how hunter-gatherer societies became sedentary, how they made use of natural resources available to them, and how they set into motion the domestication of plants and animals.

The succeeding Ubaid (4,800 BCE - 4,000 BCE), Dismaya (4,200 BCE - 3,500 BCE), Erakkûr (4,000 BCE - 3,500 BCE) cultures demonstrate ever-increasing levels of advancement in agriculture, tool-making, architecture, and proto-writing. A notable absence of written records from this period has left archaeologists and linguists stumped regarding the languages spoken by these early civilizations, though some theories have postulated that their language as Iranic or Majulo-Cataian in origin. Others have argued that it was an isolate that became extinct after the Rhûnyic Migrations into the region around 2,900 BCE.

Antiquity

The earliest historic culture in Fahran dates back to the Tel Gezir Period, which began around 2800 BCE. Compelling evidence of complex civilization exists in the form of pottery shards, clay tablets, temples, and ritualistic catacombs scattered around sites near the modern city of Qhor am-Sadf. While some experts have argued that Barseh, a site located in the southern coast of Yamtar, near modern Fatima, would have been more hospitable to an early civilization, the archaeological record has yet to yield substantive evidence of habitation there prior to 2,700 BCE. The settlements in mainland Fahran likely belonged to the broader Rhûnya Culture, which had migrated from their ancestral homeland of Kazhwir. One of the oldest recorded myths, the Epic of Barsalan, was put down in writing during this period. Its contents and themes suggest that institutions such as kingship, the priesthood, and a rigid caste system had become formalized across a multitude of independent but economically intertwined city-states.

By the early Bronze Age, circa 2400 BCE, large polities like Sai, Umma, Kšayr, Sidura, and Birzana had formed intricate and expansive commercial networks. Sai, the most powerful of these early kingdoms, exerted suzerainty over a number of the burgeoning city-states that had cropped up along the straits. It's ruined capitol at Aaxo-Menhet, based on the island of al-Bahriyyah, has yielded extravagant palatial complexes and the remnants of what would have been the largest harbor in the world at the time. Sidura was the most prominent of the mainland city states, occasionally exerting hegemony over Umma and much smaller hamlets. The middle of the Bronze Age saw increasing violence and tumult across the region, reflecting the jockeying that occurred between disparate city-states and tribes, who often spoke unique dialects and worshiped deities particular to their locality. These conflicts culminated in the ascendancy of the Empire of Ilarin on the mainland and the trade-power of Qaraax in the Nalmorian Archipelago and on the Straits.

According the Annals of the Rhûnyic Kings, a semi-historical chronicle detailing the lives and deeds of the priest-kings of Anšan, King Ahru-Nunamnir established what would become the administrative and cultural capital of the Empire of Ilarin. The story is fantastical, involving a forty year wandering, intercession from a plethora of deities, and the slaying of a great serpent, and Ahru-Nunamnir is usually read by historians as a semi-mythical ruler. However, inscriptions on the primary ruins of Anšan's walls do indicate that they were possibly erected by a figure of that name. This has lent some credence to the argument that the reign of Ahru-Nunamnir marked an important event in the transition of Anšan from a city-state to a territorial state that would come to effectively rule much of Yamtar and as-Souhr. Details about the reigns of kings after Ašušumer, who is speculated to have been Ahru-Nunamnir's great grandson, are more readily available, both in the uncovered records of court scribes and in more general archaeological contexts.

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Geography

The land area of Fahran is approximately 203,481.93 square miles (527,015.78 km²), with mainland Fahran making up 169,568.28 square miles of that. The overseas territories of al-Bahriyyah and Tammuz comprise 33,913.65 square miles of land in total.

The western peripheries of mainland Fahran are defined by marshes, natural gulfs and capes, and man-made oases formed by intricate irrigation networks going back three thousand years. Mangroves occur sporadically in these semi-tropical climes. Further east and north, coastal and semi-arid plains begin to appear as elevation ascends. These are punctuated by the Valley of Adhanah and, as foothills become the defining feature of the terrain, the Gap of Sawad. The province of Nimanher and the eastern governates of Yamtar possess a much higher elevation than those of regions to the south and west respectively, boasting rugged foothills and, in the case of the former, one of the country's only permanent fresh-water bodies of water, the River Aynúr. Gradually, as one moves even further east, as-Souhr's foothills give way to the tall, often impassable mountain ranges that snake along the border with Hisaristan. Going more northward, the mountains and hills give way to the Ramlat Abu al-Dhiyb Desert. While it is spotted with oases and wadis such as those at Zabral, Na'man, and Wadi Banu Harith, the Ramlat Abu al-Dhiyb is considered among the harshest and driest places on Aeia.

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Demographics

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Fahrani identity

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