Lur

Lur, any member of a mountain Shīʿite Muslim people of western Iran numbering more than two million. The Lurs live mainly in the provinces of Lorestān, Bakhtīārī, and Kohgīlūyeh va Būyer Aḥmad. Their main languages are Luri and Laki. Luri, which has northern and southern variants, is closely related to Persian, while Laki is more nearly related to Kurdish. Still other Lurs speak Bakhtyārī, which is mutually intelligible with Luri. The Lurs are thought to be of aboriginal stock, with strong Iranian, Arabic, and other admixtures.

The Lurs and their neighbours, the Bakhtyārī, are partly agricultural and partly pastoral tribes. Lush grazing pastures between the mountain ranges enabled the Lurs to maintain themselves as pastoral nomads until the 20th century, when they developed agriculture largely in response to economic and political pressures from outside. Lurs on the western frontier, south of Kermānshāh, Iran, were once almost independent under their own vālīs (viceroys) until Reza Shah Pahlavi brought them under control of the central government and deported some segments of the Lurs to Khorāsān. The economic and political life of the Lurs resembles that of their northern Kurdish neighbours. The traditional authority of the tribal chiefs remains a more viable force among nomadic groups than among those who are more fully settled. As with the Kurds and Bakhtyārī, women among the Lurs have traditionally had greater freedom than other Arab or Iranian women.