ČEGĪNĪ or Čeganī, a tribe that originated in northwestern Persia but is now scattered in Luristan, the Qazvīn region, and Fārs. According to Bedlīsī (p. 189) and Eskandar Beg (I, p. 141; tr. Savory, I, p. 227); it is a Kurdish tribe. However, O. Mann (p. xxiv) suggested that the name Čegīnī might be related to the term for gypsy, čingāna (whence Fr. tsigane, Ger. Zigeuner, etc.) and, interestingly, Rabino (1928, p. 77) points out that the gypsies of Astarābād are often called Chigini.
The Čegīnīs first rose to prominence under the Āq Qoyunlūs. Two leaders of the tribe, Manṣūr Beg and his son Šād Beg, were in the service of Sultan Yaʿqūb (r. 883-95/1478-90). Šād Beg was governor of Kurdistan until 894/1489 (Woods, p. 203). The Čegīnīs reached the apex of their power and influence under the Safavids. According to Bedlīsī (pp. 189-91), they carried out extensive raids in northwestern Persia. So many merchants complained to Shah Ṭahmāsb I (r. 930-84/1524-76) that he finally ordered some 500 of their top warriors to leave his domains. These headed for India but finally decided to settle in Khorasan. Shah Ṭahmāsb allowed them to reside in the neighborhood of Ḵabūšān (Qūčān) and appointed as their leader one Būdāq (Bodāḡ) Čegīnī.
Upon the accession of Shah Moḥammad Ḵodābanda in 985/1578, Būdāq Khan was made governor of Ḵabūšān and the surrounding districts (Eskandar Beg, I, p. 227; tr. Savory, I, p. 339). In 997/1588-89, when Shah ʿAbbās I (r. 996-1038/1588-1629) reorganized the administration of Khorasan, Būdāq Khan was made atabeg of Prince Solṭān-Ḥasan Mīrzā and governor of Mašhad, and his territory in Ḵabūšān was divided among his sons and brothers. But shortly thereafter he ran afoul of the shah and fled to Ḵabūšān and was dismissed as governor of Mašhad (ibid., I, pp. 402-03; tr. II, p. 579). When the shah left Khorasan, Būdāq Khan tried to regain ascendancy there, but before he could reach Mašhad the Uzbeks launched a new offensive. Būdāq Khan and his erstwhile enemy, Ommat Khan; the new governor of Mašhad, made common cause against the invaders, but they were defeated (ibid., I, pp. 407-08, 414-16; tr. II, pp. 584-85, 591-92).
In 999/1590-91, Ḥosayn-ʿAlī Khan, Būdāq Khan’s younger son, who had been given a place among the boon companions of the shah, was executed for seditious behavior. On the other hand, Būdāq Khan and his remaining sons were restored to favor, and Būdāq Khan’s older son, Ḥasan-ʿAlī Khan, was appointed governor of Hamadān (ibid., I, pp. 433-34; tr. II, pp. 608-09, where wrongly “younger”). In 1004/1595-96 he was dismissed as governor of Hamadān (ibid., I, p. 515; tr. II, pp. 691, where wrongly Ḥosayn-ʿAlī Khan) but was reinstated as the governor of Besṭām; in 1006/1597-98 he was killed while fighting the Uzbeks (ibid., I, pp. 532-33, where the text has Ḥosayn Khan once, but Ḥosayn-ʿAlī Khan twice; tr. II, p. 711).
For several years thereafter Būdāq Khan was employed at court. Then, in 1004/1595-96, he was appointed governor of Esfarāʾīn (ibid., I, p. 510; tr. II, p. 685). Finally, in late Ḏu’l-ḥejja 1006/late July 1598, he was once more given the governorship of Mašhad (ibid., I, p. 568; tr. II, p. 752).
Other Čegīnī amirs of note during the reign of Shah ʿAbbās I were Bayrām-ʿAlī Solṭān, Ḥasan-ʿAlī Khan’s brother and successor as governor of Besṭām (ibid., I, p. 533; tr. II, p. 712); ʿĀšūr Khan, who was made governor of Marv-e Šāhījān, or Great Marv, in 1032/1622-23; and Aḥmad-Solṭān b. Jāmī-Solṭān, who served as governor of Sabzavār (ibid., I, pp. 1008, 1038; tr., II, pp. 1230, 1313).
The only trace of the Čegīnīs in Kurdistan seems to be a tiny village by that name in the dehestān of Gāv Bāza, in the šahrestān of Bījār (Razmārā, Farhang V, p. 127). In Luristan, however, there is still a remnant of the Čegīnī tribe. These Čegīnīs are now mostly sedentary, having settled at the foot of the Kūh-e Safīd, between Ḵorramābād and the Kašgān river, in a baḵš bearing their name (Wilson, p. 23; Razmārā, Farhang VI, pp. 112-13). In the early 1900s, they comprised the following subtribes and clans: Ṭahmāsbḵānī (clans: Ḥājī, Sabzavār, Būdāq, Fatḥ-Allāh Jomāʿat Karīm, Ḥātemvand, Šakarvand, Wayskāra); Ḥātemḵānī (clans: Hosīvand, Mīrzāvand, Šaraf, Darvīš, Ḥammām, Jawwār); Fatḥ-Allāhī; Ḥājīhā (Wilson, p. 23). The presence among them of clans by the name of Būdāq, which A. Houtum-Schindler called Jomāʿat Būdāq (p. 85), and Sabzavār suggests that at least some of the Čegīnīs who had moved to Khorasan during the reign of Shah Ṭahmāsb I later returned to western Persia.
When Wilson visited the Čegīnīs in l329/1911 he estimated their number to be 2,000 families (p. 23). The same figure was given by Kayhān some twenty years later (Joḡrāfīā II, p. 66). Mardūḵ (I, p. 87, published in the 1970s but based on much earlier research), gives a total of 5,100 families; including 300 in Kerkūk and Solaymānīya in Iraq. Buk Īrānšahr (early 1960s; I, p. 140) mentions only 50 (nomadic?) families in Luristan.
According to the 19th-century Persian traveler Mīrzā Ebrāhīm Nāmī (quoted in Afšār Sīstānī, I, pp. 207-08, the Čegīnīs of the Qazvīn came from Luristan during the reign of Āqā Moḥammad Shah Qājār. At the time of Mīrzā Ebrāhīm’s visit (approx. 1860), the tribe consisted of about 850 families.
Many of these Čegīnīs have become sedentary, living in villages located in the dehestāns of Eqbāl, Qāqazān, and Tārom, northwest of Qazvīn (Varjāvand, p. 456), while others have remained tent-dwellers. They have their winter quarters in the Šahrūd valley and their summer quarters in the hills to the southwest of that area, between the Qazvīn-Menjīl and the Sīāhdahān-Solṭānīya roads (Fortescue, pp. 324-25). According Varjāvand (p. 456), the Čegīnīs of Qazvīn comprise the following clans: Bahādīvand, Bābāʾī, Pāpāʾī, Pīrmardvand, Pīrqolīvand, Pāčenār, Ḵarakānī, Darvīšvand, Kalvand, Gūgir, Gudarzvand, Mālamīr, Mīrḵᵛānd, Moḵtārvand, and Neẓāmīvand. Fortescue (p. 325) and Varjāvand (loc. cit.) both estimated their number to be between 800 and 1,000 families, Mardūḵ (I, p. 87) at about 1,500 families.
There is also a clan of the ʿAmala tribe of the Qašqāʾī tribal confederacy by the name of Čegīnī, whose winter quarters are around Mengarak, a village 22 km southwest of Fīrūzābād, and whose summer quarters are the Šeš Nāḥīa district, west of Samīrom. Some of the tribespeople have settled in the village of Būšgān, 72 km northeast of Ḵūrmūj (Magee, p. 77). According to G. F. Magee (p. 77), these Čegīnīs comprised some 350 families in the 1320s Š./1940s. A Qašqāʾī tribal leader estimated their number to be between 200 and 300 families in 1957 (Oberling, p. 255).
Finally, there is a clan of the Šīrī tribe of the Jabbāra Arabs of Fārs by the name of Awlād-e Čegīnī. According to a list of tribes given to the author by the Persian Army in 1957, it comprised some 120 families at that time.
It is possible that the Čegīnī of Fārs were among the Kurdish tribesmen who accompanied Karīm Khan Zand to southern Iran.
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(Pierre Oberling)
Originally Published: December 15, 1990
Last Updated: December 15, 1990
This article is available in print.
Vol. V, Fasc. 1, pp. 109-110
