What it means
ملت (mellat) means nation or the people of a country. The word is borrowed from Arabic ملة (millah), which in classical Islamic usage meant a religious community or creed, that is, the followers of a particular faith. During the Constitutional Revolution of 1905 to 1911, Persian political writing repurposed mellat to mean the modern civic nation, the body of citizens as the source of political legitimacy. Today it is the standard word for nation in everyday and formal speech. A close synonym is مردم (mardom), which means people or the public, but mardom refers more to everyday people, while mellat carries a stronger political and collective weight.
How to use it
- ملت ایران به آزادی علاقه دارد. (Mellat-e Irân be âzâdi alâqe dârad.) “The Iranian nation values freedom.”
- دولت باید به ملت پاسخگو باشد. (Dowlat bâyad be mellat pâsokh-gu bâshad.) “The government must be accountable to the nation.”
- ملتهای مختلف فرهنگهای متفاوتی دارند. (Mellat-hâ-ye mokhtalef farhang-hâ-ye motafâveti dârand.) “Different nations have different cultures.”
- صدای ملت باید شنیده شود. (Sedâ-ye mellat bâyad shenide shavad.) “The voice of the nation must be heard.”
Cultural note
The shift in meaning of ملت from “religious community” to “civic nation” is one of the most significant semantic transformations in modern Persian. Before the Constitutional Revolution, Iranians were subjects of a monarch; the idea of ملت as the sovereign political body was a new and radical concept introduced through translations of European political philosophy. Today the word appears in the Iranian constitution, national anthems, political speeches, and everyday conversation. Its original Arabic meaning survives mainly in Islamic scholarly texts, where you may still find phrases like ملت اسلام (the Islamic community).