History of Khoy City

Khoy City, for which ancient Pahlavi name is a testimony to its ancient civilization, lies beneath the foot of the Orin Mountains. The name of this mountain is also derived from Pahlavi language and it comes from the word (OR) which is the ancient form of (ABR) in Persian that means cloud. Because of this mountain, Khoy plain is one of the most fertile regions of Iran, after the Caspian Sea. Therefore it is known as the oldest prosperous residentials of Iran.
Another feature of the Orin Mountain is that it has always been the natural frontier of the tribes on both sides, and the city of Khoy has witnessed wars, migration, and caravan acceptance for more than a thousand years, standing as a loyal frontier against invasions and wounds.
The last golden years of Khoy were in Karim Khan-e- Zand era that the Emirates of Danube (Ahmed Khan and Hossein Khan) inhabited in Khoy, subjugated the neighboring cities, and made it one of the most important cities of that era. On one hand, by bringing social justice and securing caravans and collecting taxes from neighboring cities, they boosted their economy, and on the other hand, they attracted the poets and literary scholars and scientists and by supporting them, changed the city to an important cultural center.
Khoy has repeatedly prosperity and wealth, historical texts tell of its importance and credibility and the well-being of its people, and its beauty has been reflected in poetry. However, with the continued efforts of the Danubian and Abbas Mirza in the development of Khoy, the city came to be called the "Bride among Iranian Cities”. In the Qajar period, each city had a nickname, and Khoy's nicknae was "Darosafa" which means the house of happiness. As long as Abbas Mirza was alive, Khoy was ruled by him or his uncle, Amir Khan Sardar, but after him, one of the king's sons from Tehran was the king of Khoy.

Etymology

Talking about the names of geographical locations in general is not new, and it is done  scientifically and is liked all over the world.
But in our country, and especially in the past seventy-eighty years, this has lost its mere scientific status and has become a case of proving the excesses and supremacy of some of its compatriots. Etymology of Khoy city is also affected by these ideas.
Armenians in the early twentieth century, like many geographical names of Azerbaijan, consider Khoy means ram in Armenian language) an Armenian word for achieving their goals. However, Mahdi Aghasi is against this idea. Because the Armenians themselves  called Khoy city as "Hir" throughout history, and this proves that the word "Khoy" does not have a root in the Armenian language, because at least they should have used it themselves.

The official state apparatus during the Pahlavi and Mr. Aghasi, the author of the valuable book "Khoy History", era have searched the root of this word in Pahlavi, Persian and Kurdish languages and have stated that Khoy is a word meaning salt. However, the mere existence of a word similar to "Khoy" in Persian does not mean that the origin of Khoy's name is Persian. Rather, it must be consistent with other regional realities. (Note that at the surface of the globe there are many places whose names are literally similar to Khoy's, while there is no historical-cultural link between them and Khoy city.) Whether living Persian and Kurdish people during some time in this area, made the name of this place as Khoy, is not confirmed by impartial historians. It is true that the Persian language has been used as a literary language in Azerbaijan since the 5th and 6th centuries, but this does not mean that the Azerbaijani people also speak the Persian language or one of its branches, for example Kurdish language. Another point is that the same word that means salt in Persian and also in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh has the meaning of sweat originally is pronounced as khay- not khoy and was pronounced khoy in later centuries.

Another thing is that even today, the place cannot be named "salt" or one of its synonyms. It may be possible to find a portmanteau that include the word salt but to name a geographical area just as "salt" or its equivalents seems unlikely.

The origin of Khoy's name in the Persian-Pahlavi word "khay" was so baseless that Dr. Mohammad Amin Riahi, the author of the book "Khoy History", did not insist on this word in his book and sought a better alternative.

Mr. Sadraei Khoyi in his book also offered another suggestion to root the word Khoy, namely that it derives from the word "Goyun- Goy", meaning "sheep" in Turkish, and due to the Turkish language of the Khoy people was an interesting suggestion.

Finally, mentioning the name Khoy from the early years of the Islamic period in the same way makes us to search the root of the word Khoy in BC languages. What Dr. Riahi and after him, Mr. Nasiri did in his book called -Khoy over time-, though they did not reach a definite conclusion.

Mentioning the words "Ulkhu" and "Huyhwa" in the Assyrian inscriptions, as well as "Huvylah" in the Bible, and their approximate correspondence with the region of Khoy city, at least indicates that this name must be thoroughly rooted. In the book "Khoy Over Time", although about 12 pages have been discussed about Khoy's name, despite its beautiful and efficient content, the term Khoy has no independent meaning. This was not far from expectation. As long as archaeological excavations are not carried out in our area and written works from that period are not available and neutral language speakers will not study them, Khoy's name will remain ambiguous. (As Kasravi mentioned this too).

Not long ago, an article was published, in which a new piece was written about the etymology of Khoy city. That the word "Khoy" means "Chokhor"(Concavity in English) and this name is in line with the adjective we all use for this region. The Khoy people call Khoy "Khoy Chukhoro" which means the plain which is lower than the neighboring areas. The query revealed that the word appears to have been used in the Sumerian language, known as the earliest founders of human civilization, as well as the ancestors of modern Turks.

On the other hand, we have two similar names to "Khoy": one is "Khiyyov" (the original name of the city of Meshkinshahr) and the other one is "Khiyyoh" (in Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan). Latest findings of archaeologists and historians show  that the Sumerian tribes from Central Asia (Turkistan) have moved to the Mesopotamian territory from Azerbaijan, and during this period of migration, many have settled in Azerbaijan for many years, and many of them have been permanently residing in Azerbaijan.

By considering that the Aratta civilization area ,mentioned in the Sumerian inscriptions, coincides with the Khoy region and the whole of West Azerbaijan and Eastern Anadolu, it is very probable that the name Khoy is a Sumerian word (Turkish proto) means land and plain.

It is also mentioned that the ancestors of the Khoy and the Azerbaijanis and the early inhabitants of this land called "Mad" people. But this too is inconsistent with historical facts. Unfortunately during the Pahlavi period and afterwards it was also said that the history of this land dates back to 2500 years ago with the presence of the so-called Aryan tribes and it was considered that the land had a civilization that was not worthy of attention before this date. However, the extensive research of impartial historians and, at the head of them, Professor Zahtabi has revealed many facts. Accordingly, prior to the appearance and formation of the Median tribes - whose assignment to the so-called Aryan tribes is also not well founded - in the land of Azerbaijan civilized tribes such as the Hittites, Hurrians, Qutti, Lolubi, Urartu and Manna have lived and ruled, and nowadays everywhere in Azerbaijan they find only a trace of their civilization.

Therefore, it should be acknowledged that the land of Azerbaijan and Khoy as a corner of it, has a history of more than seven thousand years and it should be added with pride that the ancestors of today's Azerbaijanis have greatly contributed to the formation and development of world-renowned civilizations and this role becomes clearer with time and newer discoveries.