Mukri

The Mukri or Mokri are a Kurdish tribe from western Iran . In the Kurdish history of the Scherefname from the 16th century, the Mukri are considered to be a split off from the Baban . Its name is said to come from the Baban prince Mekkār. When the orientalist Henry Creswicke Rawlinson visited the tribe in October 1838, he found that almost all of them were sedentary. The Mukri inhabited an area 65 by 80 km south of the Miandoab plain and west of the Zarrineh River. The capital was Sablakh, today's Mahabad . Rawlinson stated the size of the tribe with more than 12,000 families.

According to the orientalists Ely Banister Soane and Basil Nikitin , the Mukri should have been an important part of the Iranian army and rendered great services to the kings. But according to the chronicler of Shah Abbas I Eskander Beg, the Mukri were a troubled tribe. Their position on the Iranian-Ottoman border was critical, especially when the leader of the Mukri named Amira Bey met the Ottoman Sultan Murad III in the 1580s . - who had conquered the Iranian Azerbaijan - committed to. As a result, the Mukri plundered large areas in the Ottoman-Safavid War from 1578 to 1590 and did not stop after Amira Bey's death. In 1603, Shah Abbas I conquered Azerbaijan and the Mukri again recognized Iranian suzerainty. Her leader, Sheikh Haydar, was enfeoffed with Maragha and was to take part in the campaign to the north. He died in the siege of Yerevan in 1603. His son and successor Qobad Khan began looting again, so that the king had him executed in 1610. The king made Shir Beg chief of the tribe, but took away the Mukri Maragha. From 1624 to 1625, Shir Beg revolted, conquered Maragha, killed many residents and sacked the city. When a punitive expedition was sent against him, he fled to the mountains.

After this troubled period, more and more parts of the tribe became settled and, over time, people who held important offices emerged from the Mukri. These included the grand vizier under Tahmasp II. Mohammad-Ali Khan Mokri, the army commander from 1853 to 1857 Aziz Khan Mokri, the scholar Dr. Mohammad Mokri (1921-2007) and Hemin Mukriyani (1920-1986).

Web links

Mukri . In: Ehsan Yarshater (Ed.): Encyclopædia Iranica (English, including references)