The Kurds of the Zagros

Who rules

Name

not named for 1199-1200 in the sources read

Title

No single ruler: tribal chiefs (amirs) of separate tribes and valleys

Since

not pinned

Born

not pinned

Family

not pinned

Confidence

low

No Kurdish chief of this zone is named for the winter of 1199-1200 in Ibn al-Athir's years 590-593 or the other sources read.

Overlord

None effective; the tribes pay what they must to whoever is strong at Hamadan, and the caliph's officers keep the Hulwan pass below them

What the realm holds

• The Kurdish uplands of Saqqez, Baneh, Marivan, Sanandaj and Bijar (province record)
• The Avroman range, Mahidasht and the Kerend hills above Hulwan (province record)
• Summer pastures on the Zagros crests and winter grazing toward the Iraqi foothills
• The passage of the Khurasan road between Hulwan and Kermanshah, which pays them when the Jibal is weak

How it was acquired

Ancient occupation; the Kurdish dynasties of the 10th and 11th centuries (the Hasanwayhids at Dinawar and Sarmaj, the Annazids at Hulwan and Shahrazur) had faded or been broken by the Seljuk period, leaving tribal chiefs under Turkish governors.

Allies and rivals

No alliance recorded for 1199-1200. They face the Turkish emirs of the Jibal, the Iwa'i Turkmen for pasture, the caliph's officers on the Hulwan road, Gokbori of Irbil in Shahrazur and the Eldiguzid and Ahmadili lords south of Lake Urmia.

The realm that morning

The Kurdish highlands govern themselves under tribal chiefs whose names are not recorded for that winter. To the west the Shahrazur plain belongs to Gokbori of Irbil (Latin East map); to the north the Lake Urmia lands to the Eldiguzid atabeg Abu Bakr and the Ahmadilis of Maragha (Anatolia map); to the south-west the Hulwan pass to the caliph (irq); to the east the Jibal towns to the Khwarazmshah's order. No chief is known to hold a town or castle that winter.

Wealth

Flocks, horses and mules; wool and felt; gall-nuts and timber from the oak forests; tolls taken on the Khurasan road and the roads over the Zagros to Shahrazur and Maragha.

Military

Tribal horsemen, used as hired troops by the caliph and the Turkish emirs; mountain refuges rather than castles. No figures in the sources.

Threats

• A strong master at Hamadan
• Caliphal armies marching up the Khurasan road
• Turkmen competition for pastures

Places of note

• Bahar, old seat of the Seljuk province of Kurdistan: A small town north of Hamadan, in Turkish hands

Where the sources disagree

• The Anatolia map left Bijar, Saqqez, Piranshahr and Sardasht to this sheet ('outside'); they are anchored here as Kurdish.

Evidence: The tribes are almost invisible in the chronicles of the 1190s; the shape of their country rests on the geographers (Mustawfi's Kurdistan) and on the general pattern of the Seljuk period.

On the map: The Kurdish ground is drawn through the two province records; the line against the Jibal towns is rough.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Dictionary of Countries, Yaqut al-Hamawi (1224 to 1228, at Aleppo). An alphabetical gazetteer of every place Yaqut had read of or seen: he travelled as a bookseller's agent through Syria, Iraq, Persia, Khurasan and Khwarazm (about 1213 to 1220) and settled in Aleppo. Read online