III.  LUR or Luristan. [On Luristan, see Curzon, Persia, II. pp. 273-303, with the pedigree of the Ruling Family of the Feili Lurs (Pusht-i-Kuh), p. 278.—­H.  C.] This was divided into two principalities, Great Lur and Little Lur, distinctions still existing.  The former was ruled by a Dynasty called the Fasluyah Atabegs, which endured from about 1155 to 1424, [when it was destroyed by the Timurids; it was a Kurd Dynasty, founded by Emad ed-din Abu Thaher (1160-1228), and the last prince of which was Ghiyas ed-din (1424).  In 1258 the general Kitubuka (Hulagu’s Exp. to Persia, Bretschneider, Med.  Res. I. p. 121) is reported to have reduced the country of Lur or Luristan and its Atabeg Teghele.—­H.  C.].  Their territory lay in the mountainous district immediately west of Ispahan, and extended to the River of Dizful, which parted it from Little Lur.  The stronghold of the Atabegs was the extraordinary hill fort of Mungasht, and they had a residence also at Aidhej or Mal-Amir in the mountains south of Shushan, where Ibn Batuta visited the reigning Prince in 1327.  Sir H. Rawlinson has described Mungasht, and Mr. Layard and Baron de Bode have visited other parts, but the country is still very imperfectly known.  Little Luristan lay west of the R. Dizful, extending nearly to the Plain of Babylonia.  Its Dynasty, called Kurshid, [was founded in 1184 by the Kurd Shodja ed-din Khurshid, and existed till Shah-Werdy lost his throne in 1593.—­H.  C.].

The Lurs are akin to the Kurds, and speak a Kurd dialect, as do all those Ilyats, or nomads of Persia, who are not of Turkish race.  They were noted in the Middle Ages for their agility and their dexterity in thieving.  The tribes of Little Lur “do not affect the slightest veneration for Mahomed or the Koran; their only general object of worship is their great Saint Baba Buzurg,” and particular disciples regard with reverence little short of adoration holy men looked on as living representatives of the Divinity. (Ilchan. I. 70 seqq.; Rawlinson in J.  R. G. S. IX.; Layard in Do. XVI. 75, 94; Ld.  Strangford in J.  R. A. S. XX. 64; N. et E. XIII. i. 330, I.  B. II. 31; D’Ohsson, IV. 171-172.)

IV.  SHULISTAN, best represented by Ramusio’s Suolstan, whilst the old French texts have Cielstan (i.e.  Shelstan); the name applied to the country of the Shuls, or Shauls, a people who long occupied a part of Luristan, but were expelled by the Lurs in the 12th century, and settled in the country between Shiraz and Khuzistan (now that of the Mamaseni, whom Colonel Pelly’s information identifies with the Shuls), their central points being Naobanjan and the fortress called Kala’ Safed or “White Castle.”  Ibn Batuta, going from Shiraz to Kazerun, encamped the first day in the country of the Shuls, “a Persian desert tribe which includes some pious persons.” (Q.  R. p. 385; N. et E. XIII. i. 332-333; Ilch.