Chihriq
Exported from Holy-Writings.com on 2026-06-18 - 1 clipping

Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Juan Cole, Chihriq, New York: Columbia University, 1990, bahai-library.com.
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Chihriq

Juan Cole
Amir Hassanpour
published in Encyclopaedia IranicaVolume 4

New York: Columbia University, 1990

ČAHRĪQ, a dehestān, village, and fortress in Salmās (Šāhpūr in the Pahlavi period) šahrestān in Azerbaijan between Ḵᵛoy and Urmia. The fortress served as the place of imprisonment of the Bāb.

1. History

by Amir Hassanpour

Čahrīq dehestān is bounded in the north by Kora­-Sonnī (Kurd. Köra Sunnī) dehestān, in the east by the dehestān-e ḥawma, formerly called Kohnašahr, of Salmās, in the south by Urmia šahrestān, in the southwest and west by Gerdīān and Šīntāl dehestāns and in the northwest by the Persian-Turkish border (see map in Iran Government, 1966, unpaginated). The western parts of the dehestān are mountainous, giving rise to numerous snow and rain-fed springs, streams, and rivers including Zūlārūd (Zōlāčāy), which discharges into Lake Urmia. In 1329 Š./1950, Čahrīq, then part of Ḵᵛoy šahrestān, had 35 villages (Ketāb-e asāmī-e dehāt-e kešvar, p. 451). According to the 1345 Š./1966 decennial census, the dehestān had a population of 5,348 (Iran Government, 1966).

Čahrīq village is situated about 20 kilometers to the southwest of Salmās town. The fortress (Qaḷʿa-ye Čahrīq) is built on a rising rock formation in the gorge of Zōlāčāy. According to the 1335 Š./1956 decennial census, the village’s population was 185 (Iran Govern­ment, 1961). The dehestān is populated mostly by the ʿAwdōʾī clan of the now settled and largely detribalized Šakāk (Kurd. Šikāk) tribe (see Minorsky; van Bruines­sen). They speak the Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish and are Shafeʿites. The traditional economy of the region is based on animal husbandry and agriculture (grain, tobacco, and cereals).

Čahrīq does not seem to have been mentioned in Safavid literary sources. Like other territories to the west of Lake Urmia, Čahrīq has had a troubled history especially since the 13th/19th century, when it became a scene of conflict between Ottoman, Persian and Russian states and between the Kurds and the Persian govern­ments. These struggles for the control of the region resulted in ethnic and religious clashes involving the Kurds, Turks, Assyrians, and Armenians and were characterized by destruction and massacres (Tamad­don; Kāvīānpūr, pp. 197-284).

In 1243/1828, during the Perso-Russian wars of 1241­-43/1826-28, Čahrīq was captured by Russian troops. Later, before and during World War I, the region fell to Russian hands again. In spite of the 1263/1847 settle­ment of the border between Persian and Ottoman Turkey, dispute over the region continued (Mohandes­bāšī, pp. 170-71), and Turkish troops occupied the region several times as recently as 1324/1906 (Ghilan) and World War I (Tamaddon).

The conflict between the Persian governments and the Kurds of the region, which most of the time belonged to the Barādūst principality, dates back to the 10th/16th and 11th/17th centuries, when the Safavid state attempted to extend its direct rule over Kurdish principalities (See barāduᵛst). The Kurds were weak­ened by the Persian government policy of resettlement of Turkish tribes in western Azerbaijan. Resisting the centralization policy Kurdish princes and tribal chiefs revolted repeatedly, and the region changed hands between the Kurds and the central governments throughout the 13th/19th century (see, e.g., ʿAlī Afšār on the 1880 revolt) and as recently as the 1300s Š./1920s (see van Bruinessen on the revolt by the Šakāk tribe led by Esmāʿīl Āḡā Simkō/Semītqū). Qaḷʿa-ye Čahrīq became a familiar name when the Bāb was imprisoned there before his execution (see ii, below) and when Simkō made it a base for his operations against the Persian army (Arfa, p. 137).

Read the rest of this article online at www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cahriq.

Bibliography : ʿA. Afšār, Šūreš-e Šayḵ ʿObayd-­Allāh, in Mīrzā ʿAbd-al-Rašīd Afšār Maḥmūdlū Adīb-al-Šoʿarāʾ, Tārīḵ-eAfšār, ed. P. Š. Afšār and M. Rāmīān, Tabrīz, 1346 Š./1967, pp. 527-79 (p. 573 on Čahrīq). G. A. Arfa, Under Five Shahs, London, 1964. Ghilan, “Les Kurdes persans et l’invasion ottomane,” RMM 2/5, May 1908, pp. 1-22; 2/10, October 1908, pp. 193-210. Iran Government, Minis­try of Interior, Public Statistics, National and Prov­ince Statistics of the First Census of Iran, November 1956 I: Number and Distribution of the Inhabitants for Iran and the Census Provinces, Tehran, August 1961, p. 281. A. Kāvīānpūr, Tārīḵ-eʿomūmī-e Āḏarbāyjān, Tehran, 1346 Š./1967. Ketāb-e asāmī-e dehāt-e kešvar, Wezārat-e Kešvar, Edāra-ye Koll-e Āmār wa Ṯabt-e Aḥwāl, vol. 1, 1329 Š./1950, p. 451. V. Minorsky, “Shakāk,” in EI1, p. 290. Idem, “Salmas,” ibid., pp. 117-18. J. K. Mohandesbāšī Mošīr-al-Dawla, Resāla-ye taḥqīqāt-e sarḥaddīya, Tehran, 1348 Š./1969, pp. 170-71. Razmārā, Farhang IV, p. 166. Sāzmān-e Barnāma. Markaz-e Āmār-e Īrān, Saršomārī-e ʿomūmī-e nofūs o maskan. Ābān 1345 Š. (November 1966) LIII, Šāhpūr šahrestān. M. Tamad­don, Awżāʿ-e Īrān dar Jang-e Awwal yā tārīḵ-e Reżāʾīya, Reżāʾīya (Urmia), 1350 Š./1971. M. van Bruinessen, “Kurdish Tribes and the State of Iran. The Case of Simko’s Revolt,” in R. Trapper, ed., The Conflict of Tribe and the State in Iran and Afghanistan, New York, 1983, pp. 364-400. Ḥ. Zāhedī, Barrasī o taḥqīq dar bāra-ye Šāhpūr-e Āḏarbāyjān, Tabrīz, 1350 Š./1971.

2. Place of Imprisonment of the Bāb

by Juan Cole

In Jomādā I 1264/April 1848 Grand Vizier (Ṣadr-e Aʿẓam) Ḥājī Mīrzā Āqāsī had the Bāb (q.v.) exiled to Čahrīq from the fortress of Mākū, both because he felt the young sayyed had too much access to the outside world from the former prison and because the Russian minister in Tehran, Dolgorukov, put pressure on the Qajars to remove the Bāb from the vicinity of the Russian border. The fortress and the new prisoner fell under the responsibility of Yaḥyā Ḵān-e Kord, brother-in-law of Moḥammad Shah and governor of Urmia. Although the Bāb faced greater restrictions in corre­sponding with followers in Čahrīq, he and his followers had letters smuggled back and forth. He spent the last two years of his life in the fortress, with the exception of his interrogation in Tabrīz in the summer of 1264/1848. Observers report that he gained enough freedom to address large crowds in the courtyard of the fortress, and that local Kurdish tribes people respected, after a manner, his religious charisma (Wright and Mochenin in Momen, pp. 73, 75). He produced manuscripts and letters that circulated in the Babi community during the clashes with the state that began late in 1264/1848 and intensified in the spring of 1266/1850. By these writings he brought into his religion such figures as the govern­ment official Mīrzā Asad-Allāh Dayyān and the Indian nawab he named “Qahr-Allāh,” who later became a Babi missionary in India. As his chief disciples gradually met their deaths in the clashes, he appears to have depended more and more in the spring of 1850 on a second rank of leaders, such as Shaikh ʿAlī Toršīzī ʿAẓīm and the Nūrī brothers.

Bibliography : Anonymous, Ketāb noqṭat al-kāf, ed. E. G. Browne, Kitāb-e nuqṭatu’l-kāf, London, 1910, pp. 122-23. Moḥammad “Nabīl” Zarandī, Maṭāleʿ al-anwār, tr. and ed. Shoghi Effendi, The Dawnbreakers, New York, 1932, pp. 309-23. ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ, Maqāla-ye šaḵṣ-ī sayyāḥ, tr. and ed. E. G. Browne, 2 vols., Cambridge, 1891; I, pp. 24-25; II, pp. 17-21, 275-77. M. Momen, ed., The Bābī and Bahāʾī Religions, 1844-1944. Some Contemporary Western Accounts, Oxford, 1981, pp. 72-75. P. Smith, The Bābī and Bahāʾī Religions. From Messianic Shīʿism to a World Religion, Cambridge, 1987, pp. 21-30.

-->

METADATA

Views8785 views since posted 2002; last edit 2012;

previous at archive.org.../cole_iranica_chihriq;
URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org
Language
English
Permission
fair use
Share

Shortlink: bahai-library.com/3437
Citation: ris/3437

select Collection:
Archives
Articles
Articles-unpublished
Audio
Bibliographies
BIC
Biographies
Books
Chronologies
Compilations
Compilations-NSA
Compilations-personal
Documents
East-asia
Encyclopedia
Essays
Etc
Excerpts
Fiction
Glossaries
Guardian
Histories
Introductory
Letters
Maps
Music
Newspapers
NSA-documents
NSA-letters
Personal
Pilgrims
Poetry
Presentations
Resources
Reviews
Scripts
Software
Statistics
Study
Talks
Theses
Transcripts
Translations
UHJ-documents
UHJ-letters
Video
Visual
Writings

home

sitemap

series

chronology

search:
author

title

date

tags

adv. search
languages

inventory

bibliography

abbreviations

links

about

contact

RSS

new
-- Chihriq (Used by permission of the curator)