KURUNI(KORĀNI), a Kurdish tribe of Kurdistan and Fārs. Most of the tribe was transplanted from Kurdistan to Fārs by Karim Khan Zand, along with several other Kurdish tribes, when he established himself permanently in Shiraz during the 1760s (Perry, p. 225). The remaining part of the tribe can be found in the village of Korāni, 23 kilometers east of Kermānšāh (Rabino, p. 35).
After the fall of the Zand dynasty at the end of the 18th century, the Kuruni of Fārs were absorbed by the ʿAmala and Keškuli Bozorg tribes of the Qashqāʾi (Qašqāʾi) tribal confederacy, and, in time, they became Turkophone and Shiʿite. During the first half of the 20th century, some of these Kuruni settled down in the Beyżā valley, northwest of Shiraz, and others moved to the provincial capital, where they formed the Maḥalla-ye Kuruni. Thus, today, there are at least three separate groups of Kuruni in Fārs (Oberling, pp. 84-85).
The Kuruni of Fārs were mentioned by Lady Mary Leonora Sheil in 1856 (p. 398), George Nathaniel Curzon in 1892 (Vol. II, pp. 112-14), and Henry Field in 1939 (Vol. I, p. 224). In the 1950s, there were still some 50 families of Kuruni among the ʿAmala and 190 families of them among the Kaškuli Bozorg (Oberling, p. 84). According to Ḥosayn-ʿAli Razmārā, there is a village by the name of Kuruni near Kāzerun, in southern Fārs (Razmārā, VII, p. 193). It is possible that Kuruni settled there too.
Bibliography:
George Nathaniel Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, 2 vols., London, 1892.
Henry Field, Contributions to the Anthropology of Iran, 2 vols., Chicago, 1939.
Pierre Oberling, The Turkic Peoples of Southern Iran, Cleveland, Ohio, 1960.
John R. Perry, Karim Khan Zand, Chicago, 1979.
Hyacinth Louis Rabino, “Kermanchah,” RMM 38, March 1920, pp. 1-40.
Ḥosayn-ʿAli Razmārā, Farhang-e joḡrāfiāʾi-e Irān. Ābādihā, 10 vols., Tehran, 1949-54.
Lady Mary Leonora Sheil, Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia, London, 1856.
(PIERRE OBERLING)
March 19, 2004
(Pierre Oberling)
Originally Published: July 20, 2004
Last Updated: July 20, 2004
