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Iran
Index
Lurs and Bakhtiaris
In the central and southern Zagros live the Bakhtiaris and the
Lurs, two groups that speak Luri, a language closely related to
Persian. Linguists have identified two Luri dialects: Lur Buzurg,
which is spoken by the Bakhtiari, Kuhgiluyeh, and Mamasani tribes;
and Lur Kuchik, which is spoken by the Lurs of Lorestan. Like the
Persians, the Bakhtiaris and Lurs are Shia Muslims. Historically,
each of the two groups was organized into several tribes. The
tribal leaders or khans, especially those of the Bakhtiari
tribes, were involved in national politics and were considered part
of the prerevolutionary elite (see
table 3, Appendix).
The Bakhtiaris have been considered both a political and a
tribal entity separate from other Lurs for at least two centuries.
They are concentrated in an area extending southward from Lorestan
Province to Khuzestan Province and westward from Esfahan to within
eighty kilometers of the present-day Iraqi border. A pastoral
nomadic tribe called Bakhtiari can be traced back in Iranian
history to as early as the fourteenth century, but the important
Bakhtiari tribal confederation dates only from the nineteenth
century. At the height of Bakhtiari influence, roughly from 1870 to
1930, the term Bakhtiari came to be associated not just with
the nomadic tribes that provided the military prowess of the
confederation but also with the villagers and even town dwellers
who were under Bakhtiari jurisdiction. Thus, some Arabic-,
Persian-, and Turkic-speaking peasants were considered part of the
Bakhtiari. Beginning in the 1920s, the Pahlavi shahs gradually
succeeded in establishing the authority of the central government
in the Bakhtiari area. Several campaigns also were undertaken to
settle forcibly the nomadic pastoral component of the Bakhtiari.
The combined political and economic pressures resulted in a
significant decline in the power of the Bakhtiari confederation.
Detribalized Bakhtiaris, especially those who settled in urban
areas and received an education in state schools, tended to be
assimilated into Persian culture. By the time of the Revolution in
1979 the term Bakhtiari tended to be restricted to an
estimated 250,000 tribespeople, most of whom still practiced
pastoral nomadism.
Historically, the Bakhtiaris have been divided into two main
tribal groups. The Chahar Lang are located in the northwest of the
Bakhtiari country and until the middle of the nineteenth century
retained the leadership of all the Bakhtiari tribes. The Haft Lang,
the southwestern group, have been more closely associated with
modern Iranian politics than the Chahar Lang and in some instances
have exercised significant influence.
The Lurs (closely related to the Bakhtiaris) live in the Zagros
to the northwest, west, and southeast of the Bakhtiaris. There were
about 500,000 Lurs in Iran in the mid-1980s. The Lurs are divided
into two main groups, the Posht-e Kuhi and the Pish-e Kuhi. These
two groups are subdivided into more than sixty tribes, the most
important of which include the Boir Ahmadi, the Kuhgiluyeh, and the
Mamasani. Historically, the Lurs have included an urban segment
based in the town of Khorramabad, the provincial capital of
Lorestan. Prior to 1900, however, the majority of Lurs were
pastoral nomads. Traditionally, they were considered among the
fiercest of Iranian tribes and had acquired an unsavory reputation
on account of their habit of preying on both Lur and non-Lur
villages. During the 1920s and 1930s, the government of Reza Shah
undertook several coercive campaigns to settle the nomadic Lurs.
Following the abdication of Reza Shah in 1941, many of the recently
settled tribes reverted to nomadism. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi's
government attempted with some success through various economic
development programs to encourage the remaining nomadic Lurs to
settle. By 1986 a majority of all Lurs were settled in villages and
small towns in the traditional Lur areas or had migrated to cities.
Data as of December 1987
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