The Lurs, Lors or Luris () are an Iranian peoples living in western and southern Iran.
Lorestan province is named after the Lurs, but not all Lurs live in Lorestan, nor are all the inhabitants of Lorestan ethnic Lurs. Many Lurs live in other provinces of Iran including Fars province, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Khuzestan,
Origin
Ancestry
There are several disputes over the origin of the Lurs, but they are believed to be of
and
Kassites origin.
Name
The first sighting of the word Lur is in the writings of some historians and geographers of the 10th century and later in the form of , , and (Lur). Hamdallah Mustawfi in
Tarikh-i guzida (1330 AD) referred to the settlement of Luri tribes in
Levant and then their mass migration towards the current Luri-inhabited areas. There are several hypotheses that discuss the origin of the name Lur or Lor, prominent amongst them is its attribution to a person called Lur or Lohraseb and some believe that the name refers to the area of first settlement of this ethnic group. The word Ler or Lir (literally forest or forest mountain) is a probable source for this word.
[H.Mostawfi. 2000. Tarikhe Gozide (in Persian). Amir Kabir Publications, Tehran]
History
Lurs are a mixture of
Iranian peoples tribes, originating from
Central Asia and the pre-Iranic tribes of western Iran, such as the
Kassites (whose homeland appears to have been in what is now
Lorestan) and
Gutians. In accordance with geographical and archaeological matching, some historians argue that the
were the Proto-Lurs, whose language became Iranian only in the Middle Ages.
The distinctive characteristics of the Lur dialects imply that they were Iranized by
Persis rather than Media.
The history of the Lurs is closely linked with the dynasties that ruled in Khuzestan, Shiraz, Isfahan, Hamadan and in the Zagros Mountains. The Buyid dynasty is known to have produced coins at Izeh. In 935, they marched their forces through Lorestan. The Karkheh River was later controlled by the Hasanwayhids, who used Sarmadj as their capital. In , they conquered Shapur-Khwast (Khorramabad). In 1042, the Seljuk Empire besieged Shapur-Khwast, then ruled by the Kakuyids. Between 1152 and 1174/75, Lorestan and some of Khuzestan was controlled by a Turkic lord named Husam al-Din Shuhla. The tribal structure of the Lurs, whose development culminated with the arrival of the Atabegs, was unaffected by any outside attempts to conquer Lorestan or seize portions of its land.
The new Iranian monarch Reza Shah () brought the Bakhtiari lands into the normal system of Iranian government, which included forcibly making semi-nomadic tribesmen settle. The semi-nomadic way of life that many Bakhtiaris and Lurs were familiar with, however, returned as a result of Reza Shah's toppling in 1941 and the period of less effective rule during the early years of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's reign. In 1986, at the time of the publication of Vladimir Minorsky's entry on the Lurs in the 2nd edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, a sizeable portion of the Lurs and Bakhtiaris were still living that way of life.
Elam
The first people who ruled areas of Luristan were Elamites. The extent of the influence of the Elamites has been to the present Mamassani area. They were indigenous peoples of Iran, but there is no proper knowledge of how communities are formed and the beginning of their history. They were able to establish a state before the arrival of Aryan ethnic groups in parts of western Iran.
The Elam government included Khuzestan, modern Luristan, Poshtkuh (Ilam province and some western Iraqi areas), Bakhtiari mountains and Southern Luri settlement. Babylonians called the land of Elamites
Elam or
Elamto, meaning "the mountain" and perhaps "the land of sunrise". Elamite is generally accepted to be a
language isolate and thus unrelated to the much later-arriving Persian and Iranic languages. In relation to geographical and archaeological matching, historians argue that the Elamites to be the Proto-Lurs, whose language became Iranian only in the Middle Ages.
Achaemenids to Sassanids
During the rule of Achaemenid, Luristan was part of the rule of the Kassites and when the Achaemenids moved from Babylon to Hamadan, they had to cross the Luristan area and pay ransom to the Kassites.
Pahle was the name of a vast land in west of Iran which was included many cities and areas in the current Zagros. The province of Pahla was named after the Sasanian times and the word Pahlavi refers to the people, the language, and the alphabet related to this region. At the time of the Achaemenids, the current Luristan, along with Ilam and Khuzestan, were the third state of this great empire. During the Parthian period, this land was one of the Satraps (states) of this dynasty and finally, during the Sassanid period, the area was named "Pahla".
Luristan
The word Luristan or Lorestan, is attributed to the areas inhabited by the Lurs.
The boundaries of Luristan stretch from the eastern Iraqi plains to the west and southwest of Iran.
[Minorsky, V. Articles "Lur" and "Luristan" in Encyclopedia of Islam] Today, Lorestan is the name of one of the western provinces of Iran.
Branches
There are several established branches of the Luri language.
Culture
The authority of tribal elders remains a strong influence among the nomadic population. It is not as dominant among the settled urban population. As among
Kurds, Lur women have much greater freedom than women in other groups within the region. The women have more freedom to participate in different social activities, to wear diverse types of female clothing and to sing and dance in different ceremonies.
Bibi Maryam Bakhtiari is a notable Luri woman.
,
Luri clothing and
Luri dances are some of the most distinctive ethno-cultural characteristics of this ethnic group.
Many Lurs are small-scale agriculturists and shepherds. A few Lurs are also traveling musicians. Luri textiles and weaving skills are highly esteemed for their workmanship and beauty.
Religion and language
Religion
Most of the Lurs are
Shia Islam Muslims. The Lurs converted to
Islam after the Muslim conquest of Persia, and adopted the Shia sect during the Safavid conversion of Iran to Shia Islam. However, they had always mixed Islam with their native beliefs and were never orthodox. By the 19th century, the Lurs were so unorthodox in their religious practices that the governor, Mohammad-Ali Mirza Dowlatshah, did not consider them Muslims at all, and invited Shia clerics from southern Iraq to "convert" the Lurs to Islam.
[Hyacinth L. Rabino, Les Tribus du Louristan: Médailles des Qadjars, Paris, 1916. pp.24][Vladimir Minorsky, "Lur," in Encyclopedia Iranica 2, V, 1978, pp. 821-26.] Historically,
Yarsanism Lurs made up a significant part of the Lurs, although the vast majority of them converted to Shia Islam by the 20th century.
Luristan was considered the heart of Yarsanism before the Islamization.
[The Iraqi Ba'th Regime's Atrocities Against the Faylee Kurds: Nation-State Formation Distorted, Adel Soheil, 2025, pp. 108] A small
Sunni Islam community of Lurs also exists.
There is also a small minority of
Christianity Lurs. Christianity was first introduced to Lurs during the reign of Constantine the Great, developing a unique Christian Lur tradition.
[The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Volume 5, 1986, pp. 823] According to the
Encyclopaedia of Islam, the Lurs revere bread and fire like the
Zoroastrianism.
In Iran, a common
stereotype about Lurs was irreligiousness. The topic of many famous Iranian jokes was that Lurs not only failed to adhere to Islam and practice it, but also had no understanding of even the most basic Islamic tenets.
[Muslims and Humour: Essays on Comedy, Joking, and Mirth in Contemporary Islamic Contexts, 2022, pp. 126, ]
Language
Luri is a Western Iranian language continuum spoken by about four million people. The continuum constitutes the three dialects of Bakhtiari, Luristani and Southern Luri which linguist Anonby situates between
Kurdish language and
Persian language.
The Luri language was historically the principal link between the Lur branches and helped consolidate Lur ethnic identity.
[Gibb, H.A.R., ed. (1954). "LUR". The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Brill Archive. p. 821. .]
Genetics
Considering their
Y-Chromosome variation, the Lurs are distinguished from other Iranian groups by their relatively elevated frequency of Y-DNA Haplogroup R1b (specifically, of subclade R1b1a2a-L23).
Together with its other clades, the R1 group comprises the single most common haplogroup among the Lurs.
Haplogroup J2a (subclades J2a3a-M47, J2a3b-M67, J2a3h-M530, more specifically) is the second most commonly occurring patrilineage in the Lurs and is associated with the
Demic diffusion of agriculturalists from the Neolithic
Mesopotamia c. 8000-4000 BCE.
[Semino O, Passarino G, Oefner P J, Lin A A, Arbuzova S, Beckman L E, de Benedictis G, Francalacci P, Kouvatsi A, Limborska S, et al. (2000) Science 290:1155–1159][Underhill P A, Passarino G, Lin A A, Shen P, Foley R A, Mirazon-Lahr M, Oefner P J, Cavalli-Sforza L L (2001) Ann Hum Genet 65:43–62][ Lineages Q1b1 and Q1a3 present at 6%, and T at 4%.][
]
Diaspora
The Luri diaspora is widespread from western Iran and Iraq to Kuwait and Bahrain. According to Ibn Fadlallah al-Umari, many Lurs migrated from Luristan to the Levant and Egypt and established a significant presence, although Saladin, who was always wary of Lurs, ordered the massacre of all Lurs in those regions, after which the Luri population in the Levant and Egypt had entirely disappeared.[The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Volume 5, 1986, pp. 822] Luri presence in the Levant was also noted by Hamdallah Mustawfi.[H.Mostawfi. 2000. Tarikhe Gozide (in Persian). Amir Kabir Publications, Tehran] There were around 80,000 Lurs in Iraq, mostly in the south, east, and central parts, although they were sent to Iran by the government of Saddam Hussein as part of their deportations of Iraqis of Iranian background.
Notable Lurs
-
Qasem Soleimani, was an Iranian military officer who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
-
Ahmed Lur, He was one of the disciples of Fazlallah Na'imi, the founder of the Hurufism sect.
-
Baba Lura, a Yarsani poet, saint, reincarnation of Pir Benyamin, and close disciple of Bahlul Mahi.
[ دهورهی بههلوول، در سرانجام: مجموعه کلامهای یارسان، پژوهش و نوشته: طیب طاهری، ویراستار کلامها: استاد سروش، جمعی از سادات یارسان، اربیل: چاپخانه آراس، چاپ اول: ۲۰۰۷؛ ص ۱۷-۱۴.]
-
Qadam Kheyr, was a notable Luri woman of the late Qajar period.
[Richard, Y. (Ed.).(2009). East and West of Zagros: Travel, War and Politics in Persia and Iraq, 1913-1921. Brill.]
-
Shahmirza Moradi, was an Iranian Lur especially versed in playing sorna.
-
Bibi Maryam Bakhtiari, was a revolutionary and activist of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution.
-
Rais-Ali Delvari was an Iranian Lur military leader.
See also
Further reading
External links
