Lurs

Infobox Ethnic group
group = Lors


caption = Lori traditional attire
population = 2,600,000
region1 = flagcountry|Iran
pop1 = 2,600,000
ref1 = [Ethnologue Report on Iran [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=iran] ]
languages = Lori, Persian
religions = Shi'a Islam
related = Other Persians, Bakhtiaris, Mazandaranis, Gilakis, Kurds, and other Iranian groups.

Lors (also Lurs, Persian:لر) are a branch of Iranian people living mostly in south-western Iran. Lor people mostly speak in Lori, a Southwestern Iranian language, closely related to Persian.

Lors primarily inhabit the provinces of Lorestan, Khuzestan, Hamadan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Isfahan and Ilam of Iran.

Like most Iranians, Lors are a mixture of indigenous inhabitants of the Zagros Mountain and Iranian speaking tribes migrating from Central Asia. Lori language, which is closely related to Persian, has two distinct dialects: 1) Lor-e-Bozorg (Greater Lor), which is spoken by the Bakhtiaris (mainly in Khuzestan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari), parts of Lorestan, and parts of Isfahan and 2) Lor-e-Koochik (Lesser Lor), mainly in Lorestan.

The overwhelming majority of Lors are Shia Muslims. In Khuzestan, Lor tribes are primarily concentrated in the northern part of the province, while in Ilam they are mainly in the southern region.

Prior to the 20th century, the majority of Lors were nomadic herders, with an urban minority residing in the city of Khorramabad. There were several attempts by the Pahlavi governments to forcibly settle the nomadic segment of the Lor population. Under Reza Shah, these campaigns tended to be unsuccessful. The last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, used less forceful methods along with economic incentives, which met with greater, though not complete, success. By the mid-1980s the vast majority of Lors had been settled in towns and villages throughout the province, or had migrated to the major urban centres.

A number of nomadic Lor tribes continue to exist in the province. Amongst the settled urban population the authority of tribal elders still remains a strong influence, though not as dominant as it is amongst the nomads. As in Bakhtiari and Kurdish societies, Lor women have had much greater freedoms than women in other groups.

See Lorestan page for more details.

ee also

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPlXAm7j-8 Traditional Luri Music (Mehrdad Hedayati)]
* [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9049403/Lur Encyclopedia Britanica's Entry on Lurs]

{| class="wikitable" table style="border:1px #000000;" cellspacing="0" align="right"
-Ethnologists classify the Lurs as aboriginal Persians. Their language forms a dialect of Persian and does not differ materially from Persian. Traditionally the Lur people outwardly profess Shia Islam, but some of them show little veneration for either Prophet or Koran, and the religion of some of them seems to consist of a mixture of Ali-Illahism involving a belief in successive incarnations combined with mysterious, ancient, heathen rites. The Lurs are some of the most devout Shias in the world. While they are ethnically close to the Kurds and Persians they consider themselves to be a group on to themselves, and especially resent being labeled as Kurdish. In fact, during the Iran-Iraq war, the Lurs proved themselves to be amongst the fiercest fighters protecting Iran against the Iraqi/Arab invasion.

Notes and references