A. TAFAŻŻOLĪ: DEHQĀN. In: Encyclopædia Iranica. online ed., 2010: "... In the early Islamic centuries many important political figures of eastern Persia were dehqāns (e.g., the Samanid amir Aḥmad b. Sahl b. Hāšem, q.v.) or descendants of dehqān families (e.g., the Saljuq grand vizier Neẓām-al-Molk, q.v.; Gardīzī, S.151; Ebn Fondoq, S.73, 78) [...] The profound attachment of the dehqāns to the culture of ancient Iran also lent to the word dehqān the sense of “Persian,” especially “Persian of noble blood,” in contrast to Arabs, Turks, and Romans in particular ..."
