LAŠANI, a Turkicized Kurdish tribe in Fārs. The Lašani accompanied Karim Khan Zand to the province in the mid-18th century. In summer 1754, they fought heroically against the forces of Āzād Khan the Afghān on the Marvdašt plain, north of Shiraz, and, in November of that year, the Lašani leader, Hādi Khan, made it possible for Karim Khan to seize the citadel at Shiraz (Moḥammad Kalāntar-e Fārs, pp. 48-52; Fasāʾi, I, pp. 209-10).
After the fall of the Zand dynasty at the end of the 18th century, the Lašani were absorbed by the Qashqāʾi (Qašqāʾi) tribal confederacy. But in 1874 they once more became an independent tribe (Field, p. 223). Already in the 1890s, many of them had become sedentary, dwelling in the districts of Ḵafrak and Marvdašt, north of Shiraz, while others still lived in tents in the district of Ābāda-ye Ṭašk, on the north shore of Lake Neyriz (Fasāʾi, II, p. 332). In 1918, the Lašani of Ḵafrak and Marvdašt numbered some 500 families and comprised the following tiras (clans): Bānusar, Bāzwand, Ḵalilwand, Šāhwand and Tutāki; the Lašani of Ābāda-ye Ṭašk numbered some 1,000 families and were divided into two sections, Iriwand (comprising the ʿAbd-Allāhwand, Eliāswand, Ḵeżerwand, Morādwand, Najm-al-Dinwand and Yazdānwand clans), and Bahmanwand (comprising the Owlād-e Šeiḵ ʿAli and Owlād-e Amir Āqā clans, and, later, the Molḥaq, Tolamāki and Kuškāki clans as well; Field, p. 223).
The Lašani of Ābāda-ye Ṭašk were highly enterprising robbers, raiding as far as the Yazd and Kermān regions (Demorgny, p. 131). The Lašani are Shiʿites and speak a Western Ghuz Turkic dialect which they call Turki.
Bibliography:
Gustave Demorgny, “Les réformes administratives en Perse: les tribus du Fars,” RMM 22, March 1913, pp. 85-150.
Ḥasan Fasāʾi, Fārs-nāma-ye nāṣeri, 2 vols. in 1,Tehran, 1895-96; repr. Tehran, n.d. Henry Field, Contributions to the Anthropology of Iran, Chicago, 1939.
Moḥammad Kalāntar-e Fārs, Ruznāma, ed. ʿAbbās Eqbāl Aštiāni, Tehran, 1946.
(PIERRE OBERLING)
March 19, 2004
(Pierre Oberling)
Originally Published: July 20, 2004
Last Updated: July 20, 2004
