Place:Ilam, Iran

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NameIlam
Alt namesĪlāmsource: Getty Vocabulary Program
̄lām provincesource: Getty Vocabulary Program
TypeProvince
Coordinates33.167°N 47.0°E
Located inIran
Contained Places
Deserted settlement
Ali Kosh
Inhabited place
Dehlorān
Ilam
Mehran
Ābdānān
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Ilam Province is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It is located in the western part of the country in Region 4 and covers , while sharing of the border with Iraq, and also bordering on the provinces of Kermanshah, Lorestan, and Khuzestan. The largest city and also the provincial capital is the city of Ilam with a population 194,030. As of 2016 census, the population of the province was 580,158 people and is the least populated province in Iran.

Contents

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Pre-history

The name "Ilam" comes from "Elam", the pre-historic civilization that ruled the area in modern southwest Iran from 2700 BC to 539 BC. Archaeological findings dates human settlement of the area to around 5000 BC.

Ashurbanipal, the then king of Assyria, invaded Elam in 639 BC and totally destroyed it. Although not as united as before, the Elamites survived and continued to live in the area after the invasion. Between 612 and 546 BC, Elam was incorporated into the Median Empire and later into the Achaemenid Empire in 539 BC. During the Achaemenid Empire, Elam lost its independence forever and became the third province of the empire after Persis and Media.

During the reign of the Medes, Achaemenids, Seleucids and Parthians, owing to its proximity to the districts of Hamadan, Kurdistan, Kermanshah, Lorestan and, most notably, Susa, the area and its settlements took on importance.

During the Sassanid era, the present-day Ilam was composed of two states: Mehrjanqazaq in the east, which was the modern day Darreh Shahr and Masbasan in the west.

Arab reign

After the Muslims conquest of Mesopotamia in 640 AD, the Arabs named the area the "Land of the Mountains," or "Jibal". During the Arabs' rule, the kingdom of Jibal, whose capital was Seymareh, was one of the territories under the control of Baghdad and Basra, and lasted until 961 CE.

The Rashidun Caliphate conquered Mesopotamia by 640 CE and later the whole Sasanid Empire by 643 CE and kept the control until their collapse in 661 CE. Prior to their collapse, civil war had taken over the caliphate, after which Muawiyah faction won and thus established the Umayyad Caliphate. The Umayyad controlled the area until their own collapse in 750 AD, after which the Abbasid Caliphate took over and reigned for around two hundred years until 945 CE. After conquering the western Iran in 945 CE, the Buyid Dynasty ruled over this area until 1055.


Kurdish reign

For 270 years, between 1155 and 1424, the reigned the Zagros Mountains, especially areas around Lorestan. Hazaraspids who are also known as Lorestan Atabegs were composed of two groups, the Little Lor, who were mostly of Lor descent and Big Lor Atabegs who were of Kurdish descent. The former controlled parts of present-day provinces of Markazi, Hamedan, Kermanshah, Lorestan, Khuzestan and Ilam.

From 961 to 1015, the Ḥasanwayhid dynasty ruled over western Iran under the influence of the Buyid Dynasty. Centred at Dinawar, near present-day Kermanshah, Hasanwyhids, Kurdish Muslims with ties to the Kurdish Barzikani tribe, controlled central areas of the Zagros Mountains. At its greatest extent, the dynasty included the modern-day areas around Khorramabad, Borujerd, Nahavand, Asadabad, Borujerd, Ahwaz, Ilam, Kermanshah, Hulwan and Kirkuk. The Ḥasanwayhid dynasty was overthrown by the Annazids, who, with help of the Buyid dynasty, controlled the area until their collapse in 1116 CE.

Khorshidi dynasty

The capital of Little Lor was Shapourkhwast or the modern-day Khorramabad, especially the Falak-ol-Aflak Castle. The Little Lor Atabegs or the Khorshidi dynasty ruled over the area for over 412 years, from 1184 to 1597 CE, after which Shah Abbas the Great executed the last ruler, Shahverdi Khan, and replaced Shahverdi's nephew, Hossein Beyg/Khan, thus ending the rule of Little Lor and beginning of the Vali/Wali dynasty also known as Feyli Vali.

Qajar era (1789-1925)

During the Qajar era, Lorestan was divided into two regions: Poshtkoh (present-day Ilam province) with the center of Ilam city and Pishkouh (present-day Lorestan) with the center of Khorramabad. Poshtkhouh literally means “back of mountain” and it was due to the fact that Ilam was situated at the westernmost parts of the Zagros Mountains and to the rest of the country it was plainly considered at the back of mountains.

From that point on, Ilam was ruled independently from Lorestan, and the governor reported directly to the central government, thereby ending Lorestan control of Ilam and Poshtkouh. The two districts were later renamed "Deh-e Bala" and "Deh-e Pa'een", which basically means the upper and lower villages.[1] During the rule of Hossein Qoli Khan over "Deh-e Bala" (1863-1900 CE), it was renamed to "Hossein-Abad Poshtkuh".

The Vali Castle of Ilam was built by the next Vali, Gholamreza Khan Feyli, in 1908. The castle is now a nationally registered heritage and also the Ilam Museum of Anthropology.

20th century

Following the establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925, Reza Shah suppressed the local governments to consolidate his dominance. In 1928, the government forces took over Poshtkouh and Gholamreza Khan Feyli, the last Feyli governor left Poshtkouh with any resistance and went to Iraq, thus abolishing the rule of the Feylis in Ilam after 332 years.[2] A year later, in 1929, "Hossein-Abad" was renamed to "Ilam" by the suggestion of Academy of Persian Language and Literature.

On November 7, 1937, the parliament passed a law on the political division of the country under the title of "Act of Division of the Country and the Duties of the Governors", thereby dividing the country into 6 provinces and 50 counties. Poshtkouh, being a county, was part of the "West Province".

The 1937 political division law did not last long and a while later on January 9, 1938, an amendment was passed which divided the country into 10 province and 49 counties. Based on the new division, "Ilam" was a county of the "Fifth Province".

In 1964, Darreh Shahr, Abdanan and Dehloran from Lorestan province and Mousian from Khuzestan were annexed to Ilam, thus upping its status to "general governorate" as part of the Kermanshah Province.[3] Ilam subsequently became a province in March 1974.

After the Islamic Revolution, Ilam was of the main battlegrounds of the Iran-Iraq war for years. The war began with the Iraqi invasion of western and southwestern parts of Iran on September 22, 1980. ‌As a border province, Ilam was a constant target for the Iraqi bombing campaign and suffered heavily in terms of economic infrastructure. The war left Ilam province devastated for years, making it one of the least developed provinces in Iran.

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