Mukriyan’s history includes a Kurdish ruling house, changing imperial allegiances and the growth of Savojbolagh, now Mahabad. Its political history and continuing linguistic identity can be traced through studies, a mosque inscription and archival records.

Pointed brick arches and doorways around the paved courtyard of Mahabad’s Red Mosque, with trees growing in rectangular stone beds
The courtyard of Mahabad’s Red Mosque, photographed by Houshang tabrizi in April 2009. The mosque and school preserve a material connection with Mukri rule. Houshang tabrizi · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons.

A principality and a region

Mukriyan refers to a Kurdish historical and cultural region in northwestern Iran as well as the territory associated with the Mukri, or Mokri, ruling house. Pierre Oberling locates the tribe south of the Miandoab plain and west of the Zarrina River. His account of Henry Rawlinson’s 1838 visit identifies Savojbolagh, today Mahabad, as its capital and describes an already largely settled population. [1] These are observations about a particular nineteenth-century community, rather than fixed borders or population figures for every period.

Early rulers and imperial choices

Siamand Khalili and Osman Yousefi’s research places the emirate’s formation under Saif al-Din in the Aq Qoyunlu period, before the Safavid state. Their study of Sarem Beg, identified as the second ruler, relates his conflict with Shah Ismail I to territorial expansion and religious policy, and describes his eventual turn toward the Ottomans. A separate study by the same authors interprets Budaq Sultan’s later closeness to Shah Suleiman as a basis for architectural development, religious endowments and learning. [2] The two studies show changing strategies across generations, rather than one permanent relationship with an imperial ruler.

Budaq Sultan and the Red Mosque

A record published by the Iranology Foundation’s West Azerbaijan branch connects Budaq Sultan with Mahabad’s congregational mosque, also called Mizgewtî Sûr, the Red Mosque. It cites Mirʾat al-Buldan’s attribution of the building and its endowments to him, with the date 1089 AH, corresponding to 1678–79. The complex combined mosque and school: student rooms surrounded a courtyard, and an entrance inscription recorded its function and date. [3] This surviving building gives the political history an architectural setting. It also shows how patronage supported institutions of worship and education.

Mukri language and local scholarship

The region’s cultural history is documented beyond dynastic chronicles. The Berlin-Brandenburg Academy’s Mann/Hadank collection preserves a Mukri Kurdish–Persian dictionary in twenty-two notebooks. Its catalogue credits the principal work to Mirza Abdul Khalegh Ghazi of Savojbolagh, assisted by his younger brother Mirza Mohammed Dschwad Ghazi. The scribes’ note dates completion to 27 July 1903, on Oskar Mann’s commission. Mann added transcriptions and occasional German translations. [4] Naming the local compilers makes visible the Kurdish scholarly labour behind a collection often associated chiefly with a European researcher.

Mahabad in 1946: a later political chapter

The Republic of Kurdistan proclaimed at Mahabad under Qazi Muhammad on 22 January 1946 belonged to a different political setting from the hereditary emirate. Borhanedin Yassin’s archival study places it amid the wartime occupation of Iran and Great Power rivalry. Iranian forces recovered Mahabad in December 1946; Qazi Muhammad was executed on 31 March 1947. [5] The republic’s establishment, its fall and the subsequent executions are separate events. Their connection with Mukriyan is geographical and historical, without making the twentieth-century republic a continuation of the older ruling house.

Sources and further reading

  1. Pierre Oberling, “Mokri Tribe,” Encyclopaedia Iranica (2000; updated 2012): geography and account of Rawlinson’s 1838 visit.
  2. Siamand Khalili and Osman Yousefi, Sarem Beg and Shah Ismail I, Research Journal of Iran Local Histories 7/13 (2019), pp. 73–92; Osman Yousefi and Siamand Khalili, Budaq Sultan, 5/9 (2017), pp. 213–238. Published abstracts reproduced by Magiran.
  3. Iranology Foundation, West Azerbaijan branch, “Mahabad’s Congregational Mosque: A Safavid Monument,” 13 May 2019: inscription, mosque–school and Budaq Sultan’s endowments.
  4. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Mann/Hadank archive, “Kurdisch-Persisches Wörterbuch im Dialekt von Mukri,” folder 201, catalogue DE-611-HS-1721690.
  5. Borhanedin A. Yassin, Vision or Reality? The Kurds in the Policy of the Great Powers, 1941–1947, Lund University Press (1995), pp. 125–126, 145–147 and 166.