LURS

'Lors' are an ethnic group of Iranian peoples living mostly in south-western Iran. Lors speak a Persian dialect and are infact Persian.
Lors primarily inhabit the province of Lorestan, Khuzestan, Hamadan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari and Ilam of Iran and speak Luri language.
Like most Iranians, Lors are a mixture of indigenous inhabitants of the Zagros and Iranian speaking tribes migrating from Central Asia. As stated above, their dialect, called Lori, is closely related to regular Persian, and there are two distinct dialects of this language. Lor-e-Bozorg (Greater Lor), which is spoken by the Bakhtiaris (mainly in Khuzestan and Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari), and Lor-e-Koochik (Lesser Lor), spoken by the Lors themselves (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 populace 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 Iranian groups.
See Lorestan Province#People and culture for details.

Contents

See Also

Notes and references

See Also

Traditional Luri Music (Mehrdad Hedayati)
Encyclopedia Britanica's Entry on Lurs
{| class="wikitable" table style="border:1px #000000;" cellspacing="0" align="right"
|-

Notes and references

1. Ethnologue Report on Iran [1]