Afshar people

The Afshar, also spelled Awshar or Afşar, are one of the Oghuz Turkic peoples.[1] These originally nomadic Oghuz tribes moved from Central Asia and initially settled in what is now Iranian Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan Republic, Eastern Turkey. Later some of them relocated by the Safavids to Khurasan, Kerman and Mazandaran.[2] Today, they are variously grouped as a branch of the Turkmens[3] or the Azerbaijanis.[4]

Afshars in Iran remain a largely nomadic group,[5] with tribes in central Anatolia, northern Iran, and Azerbaijan.[6] They were the source of the Afsharid, Karamanid dynasties,[7] Baku Khanate, Zanjan Khanate and Urmia Khanate.

Nader Shah, who became Shah of Iran in 1736, was from the Qerekhlu (Persian:قرخلو) tribe of Afshar.[8][9]

Afshars in Turkey mostly live in Sarız, Tomarza and Pınarbaşı districts of Kayseri province, as well as in several villages in Adana, Kahramanmaraş and Gaziantep provinces.[10]

Afshars in Turkey

Most of Afshars in Turkey are descendants of those who migrated from Iran after the fall of Nader Shah. This is hinted in one of poems by Dadaloğlu, famous Afshar bard during Afshar resistance against forced settlements in Ottoman Empire:

"Kabaktepe asıl köyüm
Nadir Şah'tan gelir soyum"

(Kabaktepe is my home village,
Down from Nader Shah comes my lineage)

While Afshars had remained nomadic and retained their Oghuz lifestyle, forced settlements caused them to adopt a settled lifestyle. A resistance against Ottomans under spiritual leadership of the bard Dadaloğlu and local Afshar lord Kozanoğlu was proven futile.[11]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Oberling, P. "AFŠĀR". Encyclopedia Iranica. Retrieved 9 July 2009. AFŠĀR, one of the twenty-four original Ḡuz Turkic tribes
  2. ↑ Iran's Diverse Peoples: A Reference Sourcebook, ed. Massoume Price, (ABC-CLIO, 2005), pp. 75, 89.
  3. ↑ From multilingual empire to contested modern state, Touraj Atabaki, Iran in the 21st Century: Politics, Economics & Conflict, ed. Homa Katouzian, Hossein Shahidi, (Routledge, 2008), 41.
  4. ↑ Richard V. Weekes. Muslim peoples: a world ethnographic survey. AZERI. — Greenwood Press, 1978 — p. 56 — ISBN 9780837198804
  5. ↑ Encyclopedia of The Modern Middle East and North Africa, (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2004) P. 1112
  6. ↑ http://www.baluch-rugs.com/History/People/Afshar_Anatolia.htm
  7. ↑ Claude Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey: a general survey of the material and spiritual culture and history c. 1071-1330, trans. J. Jones-Williams (New York: Taplinger, 1968), 281-2.
  8. ↑ Tribal resurgence and the Decline of the bureaucracy in the eighteenth century, A.K.S. Lambton, Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic History, ed. Thomas Naff; Roger Owen, (Southern Illinois University Press, 1977), 108-109.  – via Questia (subscription required)
  9. ↑ The Struggle for Persia, 1709-1785, Cambridge Illustrated Atlas, Warfare: Renaissance to Revolution, 1492-1792, ed. Jeremy Black, (Cambridge University Press, 1996), 142.
  10. ↑ Özdemir, Ahmet Z., Avşarlar ve Dadaloğlu, ISBN 9789756083406
  11. ↑ Özdemir, Ahmet Z., Avşarlar ve Dadaloğlu, ISBN 9789756083406

References

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