A version of this article is available in print Volume XVI, Fascicle 6, pp. 591-672 KHORASAN, a historical region with…

KĀKĀVAND, a Lor tribe of the Delfān group. In the second half of the 20th century they had settled in…

KEYVĀNLU, a Kudish tribe of Khorasan. It was one of those Kurdish tribes that Shah ʿAbbās I (r. 1588-1629) forced…

MOKRI, a Kurdish tribe of western Iranian Azerbaijan. According to Šaraf-al-Din Bedlisi (1543-1603/4), it descended “from the princes of Baban”…

FĀRS vii. Ethnography The largest part of the population of Fārs is of Iranian stock, but since the rise of…

FEYLĪ, group of Lor tribes located mainly in Luristan. During the two centuries in which the whole of Luristan was…

FĀRSĪMADĀN, one of the most important tribes of the Qašqāʾī tribal confederacy. The popular explanation of the name is that…

ḎU’L-QADR (arabicized form of Turk. Dulgadır), a Ḡozz tribe (Taḏkerat al-molūk, ed. Minorsky, p. 194) that became established mainly in…

DOŠMANZĪĀRĪ, name of two Lor tribes in southern Persia, the Došmanzīārī-e Mamasanī and the Došmanzīārī-e Kūhgīlūya. The Došmanzīārī-e Mamasanī were…

DONBOLĪ, name of a turkicized Kurdish tribe in the Ḵoy and Salmās regions of northwestern Azerbaijan and of the leading…

DĪRAKVAND, Lor tribe belonging to the Bālā Garīva group and inhabiting a mountainous area between Ḵorramābād and Dezfūl in the Pīš-Kūh…

DELĪKĀNLŪ, tribe of the Ḵalḵāl region in eastern Persian Azerbaijan. In spite of its Turkish name (deli “young, wild, frolicsome”;…

DEH-BOKRĪ,Kurdish tribe of Kurdistan. Henry Rawlinson (p. 34 n.), who visited northwestern Persia in 1838, referred to the Deh-bokrīs as…

DARRAŠŪRĪ,one of the five major tribes of the Qašqāʾī tribal confederation (see CONFEDERATIONS, TRIBAL). According to Zīād Khan Darrašūrī, a…

ČERĀM or ČORŪM, a small tribal confederacy (īl) inhabiting the dehestān of Čerām, in the Kūhgīlūya region, in southwestern Persia….

ČEGĪNĪ or Čeganī, a tribe that originated in northwestern Persia but is now scattered in Luristan, the Qazvīn region, and…

ČALABĪĀNLŪ, a Turkicized tribe dwelling, for the most part, in the dehestān of Garmādūz in Aras­bārān (q.v., formerly Qarājadāḡ) region…

ČAHĀR DOWLĪ (Davālī), or ČĀR DOWLĪ, a tribe of western Iran. According to tribal legend the Čahār Dowlīs acquired their…

BOČĀQČĪ, a Turkic tribe of Sīrjān in Kermān province. Its name in Turkish means both “knife-maker” and “quarrelsome.” The latter…

BELBĀS, a former Kurdish tribal confederacy of northwestern Iran and northeastern Iraq. According to C. J. Edmonds, it consisted of…

JUDAKI, a small Lor tribe of the Ḵorramābād region in western Persia. It forms part of the Bālā Gariva group…

JALILAVAND, a small Laki-speaking tribe inhabiting the Kermānšāh and Lorestān regions, most of whom belong to the Ahl-e Haqq sect. Originating from Shiraz…

JALĀLI, a Kurdish tribe of eastern Anatolia and northwestern Persia. Basile Nikitine (p. 162) believed that the Jalāli were Kurdicized…

IGDIR, a Turkic tribe in Persia and Anatolia. It was one of the 24 original Oghuz tribes (Houtsma, p. 225;…

ḤAYĀT-DĀWUDI, a sedentary Lor tribe dwelling in the dehestān of Ḥayāt-dāwūd, stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Māhur-e Mīlāti…

ḤASANVAND (or ḤASANAVAND), a Lor tribe of the Piškuh region in Lorestān. In the 1870s it numbered some 2,500 families…

HARKI (Herki), a Kurdish tribe of western Azerbaijan, eastern Anatolia, and northeastern Iraq. As of 1963, the Harki of Persia…

ḤAMĀVAND (from MOḤAMMADVAND), a Kurdish tribe of northeastern Iraq which has been described as “the most celebrated fighting tribe of…

ḤAMAYD, an Arab tribe of Ḵuzestān, which claims descent from the large Bani Rabiʿa tribe (Bani Ṭoraf, p. 47). In…

ḤĀJI ʿALILU, a Turkic tribe of Persian Azerbaijan. Its main branch lives north of Varzaqān and Ahar, in Qarājadāḡ (Arasbārān);…

GURĀN, a tribe dwelling in the dehestān of Gurān, between QasÂr-e Širin and Kermānšāh (Bāḵtarān), in Kurdistan. Šaraf-al-Din Bedlisi mentioned…

GUKLĀN (Turk. Göklen), a Turkmen tribal confederacy of the Gorgān region in northeastern Persia, the district of Qara Qalʿa in…

GOWRAK, a Kurdish tribe in northwestern Persia. It is an offshoot of the Mokri tribe (Tābāni, p. 74) and is…

ḠĪĀṮVAND, a Kurdish tribe of the Qazvīn region. According to Parvīz Varjāvand (pp. 456-57), the Ḡīāṯvand were moved from western…

GERĀYLĪ, a Turkic tribe of Khorasan, Gorgān, and Māzandarān. According to Eʿtemād-al-Salṭana (pp. 157-58), the Gerāylī are descendents of the…

GEORGIA viii. GEORGIAN COMMUNITIES IN PERSIA Many thousands of Georgians, Armenians, and Circassians who were transplanted to Persia by Shah…

KORA-SONNI, a tribe in western Persian Azerbaijan. Basile Nikitine, who spells the tribe’s name “Kuresinli,” describes it as an only…

NAFAR, a tribe of Fārs and the Tehran region. Although of Turkic origin, the Nafar of Fārs have become a…

MILĀN, a Kurdish tribe in western Persian Azerbaijan. Its territory borders that of the Jalāli tribe. Its winter quarters are…

KURUNI(KORĀNI), a Kurdish tribe of Kurdistan and Fārs. Most of the tribe was transplanted from Kurdistan to Fārs by Karim…

LAŠANI, a Turkicized Kurdish tribe in Fārs. The Lašani accompanied Karim Khan Zand to the province in the mid-18th century….

KURDISH TRIBES. Kurdish tribes are found throughout Persia, eastern Anatolia and northern Iraq, but very few comprehensive lists of them…

ḴᵛĀJAVAND,a Kurdish tribe in the Caspian province of Māzandarān. According to L. S. Fortescue, the tribe “was originally brought from…

ḴAMSA, a tribal confederacy in Fārs province. As Vladimir Minorsky pointed out, the leadership of a tribal confederacy is “either…

KAŠKULI BOZORG, one of the five major tribes of the Qashqāʾi (Qašqāʾi) tribal confederacy of Fārs province. Its name is…

QAŠQĀʾI TRIBAL CONFEDERACY i. History Like most present-day tribal confederacies in Persia, the Il-e Qašqāʾi is a conglomeration of clans…

ḴĀLU, a small Turkic tribe of Kermān province. According to the Iranian Army files (1957), this tribe once lived in…

KOLUKJĀNLU, a Kurdish tribe in the Ḵalḵāl region of eastern Azerbaijan. According to Ḥosayn-ʿAli Razmārā, this tribe, as well as…

ḴALAJ  i. TRIBE The Ḵalaj/Khalaj are usually referred to as Turks, but Josef Marquart (pp. 251-54) claimed that they were…

KHORASAN i. ETHNIC GROUPS Ethnically speaking, the population of Khorasan is extremely varied. It consists principally of Persians, Arabs, Turks,…

KALHOR, a Kurdish tribe in the southernmost part of Persian Kurdistan. Ely Soans (p. 386) and Hyacinth Louis Rabino (p….