Kurdish-Luri identity dispute
The Kurdish-Luri identity dispute refers to disputes regarding the relationship of the Luri people to the Kurdish people. Although sharing common origins with Kurds, and historically being classified as Kurds, the Lurs were later classified as a distinct nation and mostly identified as such. The distinction began in the 11th and 12th centuries. However, several tribes in the Luri and Kurdish borderlands were divided along the Luri, Luri-Kurdish, and Kurdish identities.
History
After the Islamic conquest of Iran, the Lurs were referred to as Kurds. The term "Lur" first appeared as the name of a small settlement between Khuzestan and the Luristan mountains, bordering the Zagros range. While the settlement was administratively categorised as part of Khuzestan, which lacked mountains, geographers recognized its mountainous climate akin to the Zagros region. In the 13th and 14th centuries, "Lur" expanded from the city itself to the entire region from Khuzestan to Isfahan. While the land was known as Lur, the inhabitants were described as Kurds. Many more geographers referred to the people of Luristan as Kurds. Hamdullah Mustawfi wrote that "Lur is termed as such because it lies within the confines of Manroud. Thus, they are referred to as Kurds, and colloquially, their language is called Luri. Within that vicinity, there exists a district known as Lur, and its inhabitants are regarded as Lurs due to their ancestral roots in that area." Hamdullah Mustawfi listed Kurdistan and Luristan as two different entities, with Kurdistan being centered around Bahar city in Hamadan and encompassing Alashtar, Dinvar, Sultanabad, Chamchamal, Shahrizor, Qorveh (Kermanshah), Kangavar, Harsin, Halwan, and Karend, and Luristan being southwards, with Samani claiming that Luristan was adjacent to Alashtar and Isfahan. Around the fall of the Abbasids and the rise of the Ilkhanate and the Atabegs in Luristan, the Kurds and Lurs were increasingly separated. In Masalik al-Absar, Ibn Fadlullah claimed that the Zagros mountains had four distinct nations, the Kurds, the Lurs, the Shul, and the Shabankara. The gradual separation of Lurs from Kurds and Luristan from Kurdistan was shaped by the changing political, historical, and geographical circumstances at the time.
A 2023 study by Boris James, the first scholar to carefully analyze and interpret the writings, focusing on the 12th to 14th centuries, concluded that by the 12th century, the broad term of "Akrad" used by the Islamic historians had narrowed down, and that the Kurds and their subgroups began to solidify as an ethnic group.
During the early centuries after the Islamic conquest of Iran, many Arab and Persian historians wrote about Kurdish communities well outside of Kurdistan, especially in Fars. It was known that the label "Kurds" included Lurs at that time. Historians stated that the Kurds of Fars and the surrounding region, which were mentioned in Islamic sources, were most likely not Kurds but Lurs, although there was still a possibility that they were Kurds. Before the 20th century, no basic distinction was recognized between Kurdish and Luri, only afterwards were they divided along the Northwest-Southwest (or Mede-Persian) divisions. Lurs and Kurds became increasingly separated afterwards.
In the Sharafnama, written in 1597, Sharafkhan Bidlisi mentioned the Lurs, including Bakhtiaris, as part of the Kurds and gave detailed information on their dynasties and tribes.
Outside of Islamic sources, Lurs were still considered Kurds. While giving a description of a historical battle, Bar Hebraeus wrote "now Ahmed being disgraced, and Arghon having triumphed, Shams ad-Din fled to the mountains of the Medes, and he took refuge with a race of Kurds who are called Lurs." Marco Polo wrote that "the Lurs are akin to the Kurd and speak a Kurd dialect as do all those Ilyáts, or nomads of Persia who are not of Turkish race."
By the early 2000s, although some Kurds claimed the Lurs as Kurdish, most Lurs rejected the claim. While more extreme Kurdish nationalists claimed that the Lurs were Kurds, the core factions of Kurdish nationalism were realistic and did not claim the Lurs as Kurds. Most 20th century maps of Kurdistan drawn by Kurdish nationalists did not include Luristan. The Iranian government also held the view that Lurs were not Kurds.
In Luri oral tradition, there were well-known stories claiming common origins with Kurds.
Lak tribes
The first mention of Laks was in the Sharafnama of Sharafkhan Bidlisi, where they were mentioned as a Kurdish tribe and Shia subjects of Iran. Zayn al-'Abidin claimed that the term "Lak" was a Persian word meaning 100,000, which was said to have been the original number of Lak families when the Laks established themselves. Since most of the Lak homeland, known as Lakestan, was in the northern and northwestern parts of Lorestan province (Pish-e-Kuh), Laks were often confused with Lurs, whom they resembled somatically and ethnically, although scholars believed they were distinct. Minorsky stated that historic evidence showed that Laks immigrated to their settlements in Lorestan province from lands further north. Rabino believed that Laks were settled in Luristan by order of Shah Abbas who wanted to consolidate support for the newly appointed vali of Luristan, Hossein Khan, the first of the Feyli dynasty. Oskar Mann and Rabino listed the Lak families of Luristan as Silsila, Dilfan, Tarhan-Amra'yi, Beyranvand, and Dalvand. All of Dilfan and many Amala of Tarhan were Yarsani in the early 20th century. The Laki language was explicitly noted for having Kurdish (Northwestern Iranian) characteristics rather than Luri (Southwestern Iranian). Chirikov wrote in his 1875 travelogue about Luristan that the Lurs and Laks spoke different dialects and hated each other. A list of Lak tribes compiled by Rouseau at Kermanshah in 1807 listed the Lak tribes as Kalhor, Mafi, Nanaki, Jalilwand, Payrawand, Kolya'yi, Sufiwand, Bahramwand, Karkuki, Tawali, Zuyarwand, Kakawand, Namiwand, Ahmadwand, Bohtu'yi, Zuliya, Harsini, and Sheikhwand. However, many of them were also considered Kurdish or Luri, including the known southern Kurdish tribes of Kalhor, Mafi, Sufiwand, Karkuki, Jalilwand, and Kolya'yi. Ahmed Cevdet Pasha wrote that the Lurs, Laks, Bakhtiaris, and Goran were all Kurds. Edmonds emphasized the differences between Lurs and Laks in his travelogue, writing that Laks were taller, had purer features, aquiline noses, and that their women were prettier than Lurs. Elisée Reclus wrote in 1891 that the Lurs belonged to the same ethnic group as Kurds and that their languages differed little, although Lurs felt insulted when considered Kurds, whom they collectively called "Laks". Curzon wrote in 1892 that Kurds and Lurs appeared to belong to the same ethnic group and their languages did not materially differ, although the Lurs hated being confounded with Kurds, who they called "Laks".
By the early 2000s, the Laks, numbering up to a million people, lived in between the Kurdish and Luri cultures and their area defined by the multifaceted interaction of Kurds and Lurs. The Laks were not homogenous. There were two main groups of Laks, the Laks of Pish-e-Kuh (Lorestan province) and the Laks of Posht-e-Kuh (Ilam and Kermanshah provinces). The two groups were historically independent of one another. The Laks of Pish-e-Kuh identified strongly as Lurs whereas the Laks of Posht-e-Kuh were generally fluid in their ethnic identity and alternatively identified as Kurds or Lurs. Some Laks identified as Lak only. Even the Laki dialects of Pish-e-Kuh and Posht-e-Kuh were different. The Laks of Pish-e-Kuh who identified as Lurs claimed that they were Lurs just like the other Lurs in Lorestan province, with the only difference being that they spoke Laki instead of Luri. They identified as Lur first and claimed that Laki was a purely linguistic identity. However, the Laks of Pish-e-Kuh identifying as Lurs led to all Laks being generalized as Lurs, affecting some Laks in other regions who did not identify as Lurs. Even though the Luri language spoken in Lorestan was under intense pressure from Persian and was shifting towards Persian, many Laki-speakers in Lorestan province considered Luri as more valuable than Laki, and adopted it to "get ahead". Social catalysts behind the Laks of Pish-e-Kuh identifying as Lurs stemmed from the fact that the Lurs were historically dominant as the ruling class of Luristan, where the main corpus of the Laks was. The Laks of Pish-e-Kuh were more populous and better concentrated than the Laks of Posht-e-Kuh. Despite the Laks of Pish-e-Kuh identifying as Lurs, their language Northwestern Iranian and closer to Kurdish than Luri.
Minorsky stated that the overwhelming majority of Laks were Yarsani. Laks believed that the first native Yarsani theophany rose from among the Lak. Yarsani Laks shared several rituals with Kurdish Alevis of the Dersim region.
Regardless of what they identified as, the Laks acknowledged their intermediary position between Kurds and Lurs. Many Laks claimed that the etymology of the ethnonym "Lak" (لک) was formed by the letter "L" (ل) representing Lurs and the letter "K" (ک) representing Kurds. While the etymology was recurrent among many Laks, it was generally dismissed by academics who claimed that it came from the Persian numeral for 100,000.
Feyli tribes
The Feyli tribes emerged in the 16th century with the rise of the Feyli dynasty in Lur-e-Kuchak. Beforehand, the Annazids, a Kurdish dynasty, had ruled over Lur-e-Kuchak and much of the Iran-Iraq frontier for around 130 years. When the Annazids dissolved, they were replaced by the Khorshidi dynasty which rose in 1184 and incorporated the formerly Annazid territories. The Khorshidi dynasty came from the Jangravi tribe of northern Lurs and was named Khorshidi after its founder Shuja al-Din Khorshid, who had the title of Atabek. The Khorshidis ruled over Lur-e-Kuchak which had a mixed population of Kurds and Lurs. The Khorshidi rulers of Lur-e-Kuchak were bordered by the Hazaraspid rulers of Lur-e-Bozorg. In 1508, the Khorshidis accepted the suzerainty of the Safavid shah Ismail I, who confirmed the Khorshidi ruler Shah Rostam Abbasi as the governor of Lorestan, which included the districts of Sadmareh, Harunabad and Silakhur. During the 1540s, the Safavids established more direct control in Lur-e-Kuchak, such as in Khorramabad. Shahverdi Abbas, the last Khorshidi ruler, was insubordinate and rebelled against the Safavids, leading to his defeat and execution in 1598, after which the Safavid ruler Shah Abbas had all Khorshidi men blinded or jailed, marking the end of their rule. The Safavids then installed Hoseyn Khan Solvizi, the maternal cousin of Shahverdi Abbas, as the governor of Lur-e-Kuchak. The Khorshidi dynasty was effectively replaced by the Solvizi dynasty by 1603. At the same time, the Safavids introduced the term Luristan, although it specifically referred to Lur-e-Kuchak and not Lur-e-Bozorg. After the fall of the principality of Lur-e-Bozorg in the 15th century, the term Luristan was used only for Lur-e-Kuchak, also known as Feyli Luristan. Meanwhile, the northern part of the former Lur-e-Bozorg became known as Bakhtiari. Furthermore, Luristan was divided into three regions, Posht-e-Kuh, Pish-e-Kuh, and Bala Gariva. The Lurs of Bala Gariva were considered the purest Lurs.
The term "Feyli" was another name of the Solvizi dynasty, which came from the Solvizi tribe of Lurs. While the term Feyli initially referred to Solvizi dynasty only, it later expanded to include all tribes under their rule. The Feyli dynasty ruled over all of Luristan in the 17th and 18th centuries. The tribes of the region, whether Kurdish, Lur, or Lak, were all called Feyli. In the 19th century, after a campaign led by Mohammad Ali Mirza Dowlatshah, the Qajars captured Pish-e-Kuh, reducing the rule of the Feyli dynasty to only Posht-e-Kuh. As the Feyli dynasty was reduced to only Posht-e-Kuh, the term "Feyli" was also reduced to only refer to the tribes of Posht-e-Kuh, but was still occasionally applied loosely to some in Pish-e-Kuh, Bala Gariveh, and even Kermanshah. Posht-e-Kuh, under the Feyli valis, was mostly inhabited by Kurds, with minorities of Lurs, Laks, and a few Arabs of Bani Lam. Pish-e-Kuh, under the Qajars, was mostly inhabited by Lurs and Laks. Pish-e-Kuh was named Luristan province, while Posht-e-Kuh was named Ilam province. The Bani Lam were Turkish subjects and the "sworn enemy" of the vali of Luristan. Conflicts erupted between the vali of Luristan and the Bani Lam continued whenever they migrated to Ilam province until Reza Shah captured it in the 1920s, also ending the migrations of Bani Lam. In Ilam province, which bordered the Kurdish-speaking Kermanshah province to the north, the Luri-speaking Lorestan province to the east, as well as Khuzestan province to the south which spoke Luri, Arabic, and Persian. Most of Ilam province, including northern and central Ilam, spoke Kurdish. The eastern regions on the border with Lorestan province spoke Luri and the southern region more dominantly spoke Persian and Arabic. In 1928, Reza Shah captured the remaining territory of the Feyli dynasty in Ilam province and ended 744 years of their autonomy.
In Posht-e-Kuh, or Ilam province, the Kurdish and Luri tribes, including Laki ones, regularly converged and were so intermingled that it was difficult for outsiders to tell them apart. The Kurdish tribes of Ilam, which were the Jayervand, Mamsivand, Koll-e Kith, Qa'ed-e Khorda, Dinarvand, and Dast-Alivand, inhabited Abdanan, Zarrinabad, parts of Mehran, Dehloran, and Miusian. There were even mixed Kurdish-Luri tribes, mainly the Arkawazi, Malekshahi, Gaci, Shuhan, Khezel, Bijanvand, Hendomini, 'Alishirvan, and Miskas, among several others. It was common for Luri tribes to identify as Kurds after migrating to Kurdish lands, and vice versa. In Hamadan, the Torkashvand tribe of the Laks was initially considered a Luri tribe, but after migrating and settling among Kurdish tribes and adopting their customs, they gradually came to be considered a Kurdish tribe. Similarly, a Kurdish man named Sabzevar of the Kalhor tribe from Kermanshah was disowned by his tribe, around the year of 1550, after a serious dispute, afterwards he migrated to Robat, near Khorramabad, where his grandson Bahar established the Baharvand tribe, and married the daughter of Dirak, the leader of the Dirakvand tribe of Lurs. In 1830, the Baharvand split into the Kord-Alivand and Morad-Alivand sections. Despite its Kurdish origins, the Baharvand was considered a Lur tribe and part of the Dirakvand. The southern part of Lur-e-Kuchak also had a Kurdish presence, especially near the Karkheh valley, north of Susa.
Some scholars later adopted the term "Feyli" to denote the peoples and languages of the region. Some used it to refer to all northern Lurs, while some used it to refer to all southern Kurds. Ismail Fattah stated that none of the Kurdish or Lur communities designated as Feyli actually used the term "Feyli" as a self-designation, except for the Southern Kurdish-speaking community of Baghdad. There was even a Feyli neighborhood in Baghdad known as "Aqd al-Akrad" (Neighborhood of the Kurds). Unlike the Lurs in Iran, the Feylis of Iraq strongly identified as Kurds.
There was a Feyli dialect of southern Kurdish, considered northwestern Iranian, and a Feyli dialect of northern Luri, considered southwestern Iranian. However, usage of the term "Ilami" to refer to Feyli Kurdish increased, to avoid confusion with Feyli Luri, which was almost identical to Persian. Another term for Feyli Kurdish was "Kurdi-ye Vali" ("Kurdish of the Vali"), given to the language spoken by the Kurdish tribes subjected to the Feyli Valis of Luristan. Usage of the term "Feyli" for the Luri dialect also declined, with "Luri proper" or "Luristani" being used more commonly.
In 1655 or 1656, Evliya Çelebi travelled from Baghdad to Shahrizur and Erbil, in which he passed through territories under the vali of Luristan, which he stated was independent from both the Safavids and Ottomans. He wrote about the presence of "Luristani Kurds" (Ekrad-i Luristan) in the region, as well as several mixed towns inhabited by both Luristani Kurds and Sunni Kurds. Martin van Bruinessen stated that it was likely that the "Luristani Kurds" mentioned by Evliya Çelebi were Feyli Kurds. Almost two centuries later, Mehmed Hurşîd Paşa, a member of the Russian-Ottoman-Persian boundary commission that took four years (1848-1852) surveying the borders, also wrote a travelogue. Hurşîd wrote that along the southern parts of the Ottoman and Iranian borders, there were two large tribal groups, the Arab Bani Lam and the Fayli. He wrote that the Fayli were "Persian subjects" (İran'a tâbi'i), and listed the tribes of Pusht-i Kūh and Pīsh-i Kūh, which he estimated to be 50,000, also adding that the Fayli tribes were "entirely Kurds" (kāffesi Ekrād) and spoke Persian. He added that they were mostly Shia with Yarsani minorities and that they had many scholars and poets who wrote in Persian "and their own language, Gurani." Hurşîd listed the Feyli tribes, which were the Kirda, Rizawand, Mahaki, Charkhiston, Dinarwand, and Shadkhun tribes in Posht-e-Kuh, the Kakawand, Bitiyawand, Muminawand, Bitirnawand, and Jawari tribes in Pish-e-Kuh, the Silsilah tribe in Dilfan, the Amala tribe of non-nomadic farmers and peasants, the Hulaylani tribes (Osmanwand, Jalalwand, Dajiyawand, Balawand, and Suramiri), the Bajalan tribes (Daliyawand and Sagwand), and the Beyranvand tribes (Aliyyawand and Dushiyyawand). Hurşîd wrote that Khanaqin city and Kermanshah province were Kurdish but not Feyli, and that the center of the Feyli Kurds was Dih-i-Bala.
See also
- Iranian peoples