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Feyli Kurds (Kurdish: فه‌یلی/فەێلی, romanized: Feylî^[11][12]) are a collection of Kurdish tribes in the borderlands between Iraq and Iran. Historically, the lands of the Feyli Kurds were ruled by the Vali dynasty. Feyli Kurds are distinct from Feyli Lurs, and they speak the Feyli dialect of Southern Kurdish, which is also known as “Ilami” and is distinct from the Feyli dialect of northern Luri.^[7][1]

Feyli Kurds are recognized in the Iraqi constitution.^[13] In January 2019, Feyli Kurds received a reserved minority seat in Wasit Governorate,^[14] which was won by Mazen Abdel Moneim Gomaa with 5,078 votes in the 2018 Iraqi parliamentary election.^[15]

Today, the 1,500,000 Feyli Kurds live mainly in Baghdad, Maysan, Diyala, Wasit, Sulaymaniyah, in Iraq, and provinces of Lorestan, Ilam, Kermanshah in Iran.^[16][17]

The term “Feyli” was another name of the Vali dynasty, and was applied to all tribes that were under their authority. While the Vali dynasty was Lur, it ruled over Kurdish, Lur, and Lak tribes.^[18][19][20] By the 21st century, scholars agreed that the term “Feyli” referred to the Vali dynasty and was applied to the tribes under their rule, although there were disagreements over what “Feyli” actually meant.^[21] Some academics suggested that the term “Feyli” was an Arabized form of “Pahla” or “Pahlavi”.^[22] By the early 21st century, the term Feyli was applied to the Kurds of Ilam province in Iran and the Shia Kurds in Iraq.^[23]

Feyli Kurds were often mislabeled as Feyli Lurs in historical documents. Because Posht-e-Kuh was historically considered a part of Luristan, specifically Lur-e-Kuchak, and was under Lur governance for over 700 years until the fall of the Vali dynasty in 1928, many writers at that time generalized all natives of Luristan, including Posht-e-Kuh, as Lurs. However, writers who personally went to Posht-e-Kuh or had sufficient knowledge did write about the Feyli Kurds.^[24] From the Safavid to the Qajar eras, because of the rule of the Vali dynasty, also known as the Feyli Valis, Lur-e-Kuchak was referred to as Feyli Luristan and all of its tribes, including the Kurdish ones, were referred to as Feyli Lurs.^[25]

Feyli Kurds are native to the historical region known as Mahsabadhan, which during the Parthian era was considered a subregion of Pahla, and during the Sasanian era was considered a subregion of Azarbaijan. After the Islamic conquest of Iran, Mahsabadhan was considered part of Jibal. When the term Luristan came into use, it included historical Mahsabadhan, which became known as Posht-e-Kuh and made up the western part of historical Lur-e-Kuchak.^[26] In 1655-1656, Evliya Çelebi travelled from Baghdad to Shahrizur and Erbil, passing through territories under the vali of Luristan, which he stated was independent from both the Safavids and Ottomans. He wrote about the presence of the “Kurds of Luristan” (Ekrad-i Luristan) in the region, as well as several mixed towns inhabited by both Luristani Kurds and Sunni Kurds. Martin van Bruinessen stated that it was likely that the “Luristani Kurds” mentioned by Evliya Çelebi were the Feyli Kurds.^[27]

When the Russian-Ottoman-Persian boundary commission surveyed the borders from 1848 to 1852, Mehmed Hurşîd Paşa, a member of the commission, wrote a travelogue in which he wrote that along the southern parts of the Ottoman-Iranian borders, there were two large tribal groups, the Arab Bani Lam and the Fayli. He wrote that the Fayli were “Persian subjects” (İran’a tâbi’i), and listed the tribes of Pusht-i Kūh and Pīsh-i Kūh, which he estimated to be 50,000, also adding that the Fayli tribes were “entirely Kurds” (kāffesi Ekrād) and spoke Persian. He added that they were mostly Shia with Yarsani minorities and that they had many scholars and poets who wrote in Persian “and their own language, Gurani.”^[28] Hurşîd listed the Feyli tribes, which were the Kirda, Rizawand, Mahaki, Charkhiston, Dinarwand, and Shadkhun tribes in Posht-e-Kuh, the Kakawand, Bitiyawand, Muminawand, Bitirnawand, and Jawari tribes in Pish-e-Kuh, the Silsilah tribe in Dilfan, the Amala tribe of non-nomadic farmers and peasants, the Hulaylani tribes (Osmanwand, Jalalwand, Dajiyawand, Balawand, and Suramiri), the Bajalan tribes (Daliyawand and Sagwand), and the Beyranvand tribes (Aliyyawand and Dushiyyawand). Hurşîd wrote that Khanaqin city and Kermanshah province were Kurdish but not Feyli, and that the center of the Feyli Kurds was Dih-i-Bala.^[29]

At the beginning of the 19th century, many Feyli Kurds migrated westwards from Posht-e-Kuh (Ilam province) across the border to eastern Iraq, where there was already a Feyli Kurdish community, and some went to Baghdad.^[30][31] The connection of the Feyli Kurds to the trade routes between Iran and Iraq made them play an important role in Baghdad’s commerce. Furthermore, the Exodus of Iranian Jews to Israel in 1948, which included Jewish merchants, allowed Feyli Kurdish merchants to take over the trade industry.^[31] In the 1970s, many Feyli Kurds were leaders in the Kurdish national movement in Iraq and the wealthy Feyli Kurdish businessmen greatly contributed to the financing of the movement.^[32]

Hossein-Ali Razmara, an officer in the geography unit of the Iranian Army, and older brother of Ali Razmara, visited Posht-e-Kuh in 1941 and wrote that most tribes were Kurdish and had an ancient presence there.^[33] In 1916, Muhammad Amin Zaki Beg went on an official trip to Posht-e-Kuh where he met the Vali. He wrote that he had no issues speaking Kurdish with the locals, who identified themselves as Kurds. He also wrote that even the Vali of Posht-e-Kuh knew Kurdish.^[34]

In 1953, British historian Stephen Hemsley Longrigg wrote about the political history of Iraq and wrote that “these hardy natives of the southern Zagros, and subjects of their hereditary Wali, were familiar in Baghdad and Basra as porters of heavy loads, which occupation they monopolized. They were resident also as traders and craftsmen in the middle-Tigris and Gharraf regions, known there as Fayliya Kurds; and they dominated the border towns of Mandali and Badra and the villages near by. Of all this the last half-century has changed nothing. North of Arabistan and almost equally independent of the Qajar dynasty lay Luristan, the province of the Lurs, who are racially and dialectically distinct from the Persians. It fell into two areas, the Greater and the Lesser. The Pusht-i Kuh, western zone of the latter and home of the Fayliya Kurds, formed its boundary with Basra and Baghdad wilayas. It had remained for three centuries under a single line of Walis. The obligations of the government were confined to a small tribute to the central Government, its powers unlimited within Pusht-i Kuh, its influence considerable in eastern Iraq. Quolam Reza Khan, fourteenth of his line, was respected for his pomp and his religious observances, but hated for his morbid avarice.”^[35]

By the early 2000s, around half of the Feyli Kurds in Iraq were native to eastern Iraq, while the other half descended from those who migrated from Posht-e-Kuh.^[36]

Historically, the Feyli Kurds in Posht-e-Kuh were traditionally divided into two branches, the Kord and the Mahaki. The Kord and the Mahaki were further divided into the individual Feyli Kurdish tribes. The Kord tribes lived in the south, while the Mahaki tribes lived in the north.^[37][38]

The Feyli Kurds speak the Feyli dialect of southern Kurdish. Their dialect was also known as Ilami, due to most of its speakers being located in Ilam province, and to distinguish it from the Feyli dialect of northern Luri.^[39] Feyli Kurdish dialects were also called “Kurdish of the Vali” (کردی والی; Kordi-ye Vali), referring to the Vali of Luristan.^[40]

Historically, due to Lur dominance, the Kurdish dialects of Ilam province (Posht-e-Kuh) were often incorrectly classified as Luri, although later and deeper studies in the 20th and 21st centuries revealed their Kurdish nature.^[41]

Linguist Ismaïl Kamandâr Fattah argued that Feyli Kurdish and the other dialects of Southern Kurdish were ‘interrelated and largely mutually intelligible.’^[42] The term Feyli was sometimes incorrectly used as a name for all Southern Kurdish dialects.^[43]

Feylis of Iraq have taken actively part in the Kurdish fight for independence and ^[44] many Feylis have risen to position of great power, including Fuad Hussein of Kurdistan Democratic Party.^[45][46][3] Feylis have been involved in the Kurdistan Democratic Party since its founding in 1946 and were also actively involved in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan since its establishment in 1975.^[47] Unlike the Lurs in Iran, the Feylis in Iraq strongly identified as Kurds.^[48] In addition, Feylis have had notable contributions to the Iraqi culture, including the acclaimed oud player, Naseer Shamma.^[49]

In the mid-1970s, Iraq expelled around 40,000 Feylis who had lived for generations near Baghdad and Khanaqin, alleging that they were Iranian nationals.^[50] From 1971 to 1980, more than 300,000 Feyli Kurds were banished by the Iraqi Government to Iran.^[51] In 1980 Saddam Hussein offered 10`000 ID (ca. US$30`000) for Iraqi citizens who divorced their Faylee Kurds, who afterwards were deported to Iran.^[52] In 2010, the Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration reported that since 2003 about 100,000 Feylis have had their citizenship reinstated.^[53]

On Monday 29 November 2010, an Iraqi court found Saddam Hussein’s longtime foreign minister Tariq Aziz guilty of terrorizing Feylis during the Iran–Iraq War (see Kurdish rebellion of 1983 and Al-Anfal Campaign), sentencing him to 10 years in prison. Mohammed Abdul Saheb, a spokesman for Iraq’s high criminal court, said: “Today a judge found Tariq Aziz guilty and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. The evidence was enough to convict him of displacing and killing Feyli Kurds. Aziz was a member of the revolutionary command council which cancelled the Iraqi nationality for many of the Feyli Kurds.”^[54] The spokesman also said Aziz was spared a death sentence for the crimes against humanity because he had a lesser involvement than some of his co-defendants in the atrocities against the Feyli Kurds.^[55] Of the other 15 defendants in the Iraqi High Tribunal case, three Saddam Hussein loyalists were found guilty and sentenced to death. Two, including Aziz, were sentenced to 10 years in prison. The remaining 10 were acquitted, including Hussein’s two half brothers, Watban Ibrahim al-Hassan and Sabbawi Ibrahim al-Hassan. The Feyli Kurd minority comes mainly from an area in northeastern Iraq that straddles the Iran–Iraq border. Saddam Hussein’s regime killed, detained and deported tens of thousands of Feylis early in his 1980–1988 war with Iran, denouncing them as alien Persians and spies for the Iranians.^[55]

In October 2011, the National Conference for Feyli Kurds held a conference in the Iraqi capital Baghdad which was attended by the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Al-Maliki said in a speech “the Feyli Kurds have been targets for harming, similar to other Iraqi communities”. He also called “for the unity of Feyli Kurds under a common tent, uniting them and organizing their activities, together with other Iraqi communities”. He ended his speech by saying “we shall support the rights of the Feyli Kurds, beginning with the restoration of their official documents and their presence in their homeland and ending with the paying back the funds that were confiscated from them (during the former regime)”. The Iraqi Prime Minister also recognized “that over 22,000 Feyli Kurds had been deported from Iraq by the former regime, calling for the restoration of their rights”.^[56]

• Ghulamrezakhan Arkawazi, poet
• Fuad Hussein, politician
• Leyla Qasim, Kurdish national hero

• Kurdish tribes