Khuzestan province
Khuzestan Province
استان خوزستان | |
|---|---|
From the top to bottom-right, Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System, Shush Castle, Tomb of Daniel, Ziggurat in Chogha Zanbil, Ahvaz | |
 Location of Khuzestan Province within Iran | |
| Coordinates: 31°20′N 48°40′E / 31.333°N 48.667°E[1] | |
| Country | Iran |
| Region | Region 4 |
| Capital | Ahvaz |
| Counties | 30 |
| Government | |
| • Governor-general | Mohammad-Reza Mavalizadeh (Independent) |
| Area | |
• Total | 64,055 km2 (24,732 sq mi) |
| Population (2016 Census)[2] | |
• Total | 4,710,509 |
| 4,936,000 | |
| • Density | 73.539/km2 (190.46/sq mi) |
| Time zone | UTC+03:30 (IRST) |
| Area code | 061 |
| ISO 3166 code | IR-06 |
| Main language(s) | Khuzestani Arabic, Luri, Persian dialects of Khuzestan, Mandaic |
| HDI (2017) | 0.802[4] very high · 12th |
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Khuzestan province ([xuːzest̪ʰɒːn] ⓘ; Persian: استان خوزستان)[a] is one of the 31 Provinces of Iran. An extension of the Mesopotamian Plain, it is located in the southwest of the country, bordering Iraq and the Persian Gulf, and covering an area of 63,238 square kilometres (24,416 mi2). Its capital is the city of Ahvaz.[5] Since 2014, it has been part of Iran's Region 4.[6]
Khuzestan comprises much of what historians refer to as ancient Elam, whose capital was at Susa. It was once one of the most important regions in the Ancient Near East. In modern Iran, there has been episodic conflict between the province's Arab population and the central government. In 1982, an Iraqi invasion of Khuzestan was defeated at the Battle of Khorramshahr. Containing Iran's largest oil field, it is a key strategic province.
Etymology
[edit source]The Old Persian word Hūjiya "Elam"[7] appears abundantly in many texts and on Achaemenid inscriptions at Naqsh-e Rustam,[8] and on Darius's epigraphs at Persepolis and Susa among others.[9] Hūjiya, or its Greek counterpart Uxi,[10] were names used to refer to the land or the peoples inhabiting Susiana. In Middle Persian, Hūjiya "Elam, Susiana Province" became Huź "Susiana", and the modern form of this word is Xuz.[7] The Hūjiya are the Shushan of Hebrew sources, a borrowing from Elamite Šuša. In Middle Persian, the term evolved into "Khuz" and "Kuzi." The pre-Islamic Partho-Sasanian inscriptions give the province the name Khwuzestan. The name of the city of Ahvaz also has the same origin as the name Khuzestan, being an Arabic broken plural from the compound name, Suq al-Ahvaz 'Market of the Huzi'. This was the medieval name of the town that replaced the pre-Islamic name.[citation needed]
The entire province was still known as "the Khudhi" or "the Khuji" until the reign of the Safavid king Tahmasp I (r. 1524–1576) and, in general, the course of the 16th century. The southern half of the province—south, southwest of the Ahvaz Ridge, had come by the 17th century to be known, at least to the imperial Safavid chancery, as Arabistan. A contemporaneous history, the Tarikh-e Alam-ara-ye Abbasi by Iskandar Beg Munshi, written during the reign of Abbas the Great (r. 1588–1629), regularly refers to the southern part of Khuzestan as "Arabistan". The northern half continued to be called Khuzestan. In 1925, the entire province regained its old name, and the term Arabistan was dropped.[citation needed]
There is also a very old folk etymology which maintains the word "khuz" stands for sugar and "Khuzi" for people who make raw sugar. The province has been a cane sugar-producing area since the late Sassanian times, such as the sugar cane fields of the Dez River side in Dezful. Khuzhestanis cultivate sugarcane even today in Haft Tepe. The province's name in Syriac is Beth Huzaye.[citation needed]
History
[edit source]Antiquity
[edit source]
The province of Khuzestan is one of the centres of ancient civilization, and one of the most important regions of the Ancient Near East, based around Susa. The first large scale empire based here was that of the powerful 4th millennium BC Elamites.
Archeological ruins verify the entire province of Khuzestan to be home to the Elamite civilization, a non-Semitic, and non-Indo-European-speaking kingdom, and the earliest civilization of within the borders of what would later be called Persia.[11] The name Khuzestan is derived from the Elamite (ʰŪvja), likely pronounced /xuʒa/, later Middle Persian Hūzīg, Arabic al-Xūzīya.[12][13]
In fact, in the words of Elton L. Daniel, the Elamites were "the founders of the first 'Iranian' empire in the geographic sense."[14] Hence the central geopolitical significance of Khuzestan, the seat of Iran's first empire.[11]
In 640 BC, the Elamites were defeated by Ashurbanipal, coming under the rule of the Assyrian Empire who brought destruction upon Susa and Chogha Zanbil. After the death of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian Empire began to experience internal conflict, which was quietly taken advantage of by the Medes who had hitherto been subjects of Assyria. During the reign of the Median Cyaxares (625-585 BCE), Elam was incorporated into the Median Empire, but in 538 BC, the Persian Cyrus the Great who established the Achaemenid Empire, was able to conquer the Elamite lands from the Medes. The Persians regarded highly of Elam and the city of Susa was proclaimed as one of the Achaemenid capitals. Darius I then erected a grand palace known as Apadana there in 521 BC.
In 331 BC, following Achaemenid defeat at the Battle of the Uxian Defile, Susa was conquered by Alexander the Great, and a year later in 330 BC after suffering defeat at the Battle of the Persian Gate, Persia (the Achaemenid Empire) was conquered by the Macedonian Empire. The Susa weddings was arranged by Alexander in 324 BC in Susa, where mass weddings took place between the Persians and the Macedonians.[15] After Alexander, the Seleucid dynasty came to rule the area.
As the Seleucid dynasty weakened, Mehrdad I the Parthian (171–137 BC), gained ascendency over the region.
Over centuries, Elam culture and peoples eventually were absorbed into these later Indo-European migrating populations. Speakers of the Elamite languages may have persisted in isolated regions of Khuzestan up until the 10th century by servants based on interpretations of a Xūzī language reported in Arab sources. Now Elamite is extinct.[16]
Sassanid period
[edit source]In 224, after the Parthians suffered defeat at the Battle of Hormozdgan, the Sassanids established control over the area. The Sassanids were responsible for the many constructions that were erected in Ahvaz, Shushtar, and the north of Andimeshk. During the early years of the reign of the Sassanian Shapur II (AD 309 or 310–379), Arabs crossed the Persian Gulf from Bahrain to "Ardashir-Khora" of Fars and raided the city. In retaliation, Shapur II led an expedition through Bahrain, defeated the combined forces of the Arab tribes of Taghleb, Bakr bin Wael, and Abd Al-Qays and advanced temporarily into Yamama in central Najd. The Sassanids nonetheless resettled the aforementioned tribes in Kerman and Ahvaz. Arabs named Shapur II, as "Shabur Dhul-aktāf" after this battle.[17]
The existence of prominent scientific and cultural centers such as Academy of Gundishapur which gathered distinguished medical scientists from Egypt, the Byzantine Empire, and Rome, shows the importance and prosperity of this region during this era. The Jondi-Shapur Medical School was founded by the order of Shapur I. It was repaired and restored by Shapur II (a.k.a. Zol-Aktaf: "The Possessor of Shoulder Blades") and was completed and expanded during the reign of Anushirvan.
Muslim conquest of Khuzestan
[edit source]Rashidun period
[edit source]
In 639, the Muslim Rashidun Caliphate forces under the command of the Arab Abu Musa al-Ash'ari defeated the Sassanids in Ahvaz and drove the Persian satrap Hormuzan out of the city. Susa later fell, so Hormuzan fled to Shushtar. The Muslims led by Abu Musa thereafter imposed a siege on the Sassanid forces in Shushtar that lasted for 18 months. Shushtar finally fell in 642 and the Muslims subsequently established full control over the area. The Khuzistan Chronicle records that an unknown Arab, living in the city, befriended a man in the army, and dug tunnels through the wall in return for a third of the spoil. The Arabs purged the Nestorians—the Exegete of the city and the Bishop of Hormizd, and all their students—but kept Hormuzan alive.[18]
There followed the conquests of Gundeshapur and of many other districts along the Tigris. The Battle of Nahāvand finally secured Khuzestan for the Muslim armies.[19]
During the Muslim conquest the Sassanids were allied with non-Muslim Arab tribes, which implies that those wars were religious, rather than national. For instance in 633–634, Khaled ibn Walid leader of the Muslim Army, defeated a force of the Sassanids' Arab auxiliaries from the tribes of Bakr, 'Ejl, Taghleb and Namer at 'Ayn Al-Tamr.[20]
The Muslim settlements by military garrisons in southern Iran was soon followed by other types of expansion. Some families, for example, took the opportunity to gain control of private estates.[21] Like the rest of Iran, the Muslim conquest thus brought Khuzestan under the rule of the Arabs of the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, until Ya'qub bin Laith as-Saffar, from southeastern Iran, raised the flag of independence once more, and ultimately regained control over Khuzestan, among other parts of Iran, founding the short-lived Saffarid dynasty. From that point on, Iranian dynasties would continue to rule the region in succession as an important part of Iran.
Umayyad and Abbasid periods
[edit source]In the Umayyad period, large groups of nomads from the Hanifa, Banu Tamim, and Abd al-Qays tribes crossed the Persian Gulf and occupied some of the richest Basran territories around Ahvaz and in Fars during the Second Fitna in 661–665 / 680–684 AD.[22]
During the Abbasid period, in the second half of the 10th century, the Assad tribe, taking advantage of quarrels under the Buwayhids, penetrated into Khuzestan, where a group of Tamim had been living since pre-Islamic times.[citation needed] However, following the fall of the Abbasid dynasty, the flow of Arab immigrants into Persia gradually diminished, but it nonetheless continued. In the latter part of the 16th century, the Bani Kaab (pronounced Chaub in the local Gulf dialect), from Kuwait, settled in Khuzestan.[23] And during the succeeding centuries, more Arab tribes moved from southern Iraq to Khuzestan.[24][25]
Qajar period
[edit source]
According to C.E. Bosworth in Encyclopædia Iranica, under the Qajar dynasty "the province was known, as in Safavid times, as Arabistan, and during the Qajar period was administratively a governor-generalate." Half of Khuzestan was not known as Arabistan. Khuzestan's northern, more populous parts, with the capital at Shushtar, retained the old name, but also occasionally was incorporated into the district of the Greater Lur due to the large Bakhtiari population in half of Khuzestan.
In 1856, in the course of the Anglo-Persian War over the city of Herat, the British naval forces sailed up the Karun river all the way to Ahvaz. However, in the settlement that followed, they evacuated the province. Some tribal forces, such as those led by Sheikh Jabir al-Kaabi, the Sheikh of Mohammerah, fared better in opposing the invading British forces than those dispatched by the central government, which was quite feeble. But, the point of the invasion of the province and other coastal regions of southern Persia/Iran were to force the evacuation of Herat by the Persians and not the permanent occupation of these regions.
Pahlavi period
[edit source]Arab rebellion
[edit source]In the two decades before 1925, although nominally part of Persian territory, the western part of Khuzestan known as the Emirate of Muhammara functioned for many years effectively as an autonomous emirate known as "Arabistan". The eastern part of Khuzestan was governed by Bakhtiari khans. Following Sheikh Khazʽal Ibn Jabir's rebellion, the western part of Khuzestan's emirate was dissolved by Reza Shah government in 1925, along with other autonomous regions of Persia, in a bid to centralize the state. In response Sheikh Khaz'al of Muhammerah initiated a rebellion, which was suppressed by the Pahlavi government in late 1924 and early 1925. A low level conflict between the central Iranian government and the Arab nationalists of the province continued since.
The name of 'Khuzistan' came to be applied to the entire territory by 1936.[26] Over the next decades of the Pahlavi rule, the province of Khuzestan remained relatively quiet, gaining to hold an important economic and defensive strategic position.
Oil
[edit source]Oil has been produced commercially in the province since 1908 when the Masjed Soleyman oil field was discovered 50 miles north-east of the provincial capital, Ahvaz.[27] This initiated a period of intense foreign exploration and political involvement, culminating in the discovery in 1953 of a further, much larger, oil field in the region by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. The new Ahvaz field entered into production a year later, after the parliamentary regime of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, which had sought to nationalise the oil industry, had been overthrown in a British and United States backed coup d'état in Tehran.[28][29]
In the aftermath of the coup, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi consolidated power and negotiated the Consortium Agreement of 1954.[30] Under the agreement, a consortium of European and American companies, the Iranian Oil Participants (IOP), formally acknowledged ownership of the oil and facilities by that the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), and agreed as the operator to share profits with Iran on a 50–50 basis. The IOP did so, however, on the understanding that the western consortium would "not to open its books to Iranian auditors or to allow Iranians onto its board of directors".[31] The IOP continued to operate until the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini, brought to power in Shia Islamic Revolution in 1979, confiscated their assets.
Despite declining production, the Ahvaz field, owned by NIOC and operated by National Iranian South Oil Company (NISOC), remains the largest oil field and producer in Iran.[32]
Oil production, and related investment, paved the way for the arrival in the province of other Iranian peoples, Persian and non-Persian. In the course of the 20th century, the new immigrants reduced the province's Arab majority to a plurality among its ethnic groups.[33]
Islamic Republic
[edit source]After the revolution
[edit source]With the Iranian Revolution taking place in early 1979, minority ethnic rebellions swept the country. In April 1979, there was an uprising in Khuzestan led by the Arab separatist group Arab Political and Cultural Organisation (APCO) which protested the introduction of theocratic rule from Tehran and sought local autonomy or independence.[34]
In the wake of the uprising's suppression, in 1980 a separatist group called the Arab Popular Movement in Arabistan (See Arab separatism in Khuzestan) seized the Iranian Embassy in London, taking 26 hostages. The standoff over their demand for the release of 91 of their comrades held in Iranian jails, ended in the storming of the building by the British SAS, with only one hostage-taker and one embassy staffer surviving.[35] Decrying "the racist rule of Khomeini", APMA threatened further international action but their standing as an internal opposition group compromised by their links to Ba'athist Iraq.[36]
Iran–Iraq war
[edit source]
During the Iran–Iraq War, Khuzestan was invaded by Iraq. As a result, Khuzestan suffered the heaviest damage and population displacement of all Iranian provinces during the war.[37][38][39] What used to be Iran's largest refinery in Abadan was destroyed, never to fully recover. Many of the famous nakhlestans (palm groves) were annihilated, cities were destroyed, and historical sites were demolished.[40]
Despite leading a Sunni-minority regime, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had been confident that the predominantly Shia Arab population of Khuzestan would react enthusiastically to the prospect of union with Iraq and would undermine the Iranian resistance. However, the Iranians successfully stalled the Iraqi military advance, and eventually opened the window for a counter-offensive. While there were Ahwazi Arab groups ready to cooperate with the invaders, the war "forced Iran to help integrate the Arabs of Khuzestan by publishing Arabic texts" and by placing the defense of Khuzestan at the forefront of national propaganda.[40]
The Battle for Khorramshahr in May 1982, proved to be a turning point in the war and is officially celebrated every year in Iran. The city, which prior to the war had been Iran's most important port, was almost completely destroyed as a result of the scorched earth policy ordered by Saddam Hussein. Iranian forces were able to prevent the Iraqis from attempting to spread the execution of this directive to other major urban centres.[41][42]
Postwar recovery and development of the province was slow. Despite benefiting from abundant natural resources, including oil, Khuzestan has compounding economic, environmental, social, and construction problems. High unemployment, water scarcity, degraded air quality, and lack of civil infrastructure are among the factors that fed popular dissatisfaction.[43][44][45] The frustrations manifested in protests and rallies.[46][37][38][47][48][49]
Arab unrest
[edit source]In 2005, Ahvaz witnessed a number of bombing incidents which followed upon the violent riots in Ahvaz. Another wave of Arab protests occurred in the Ahvaz and surrounding districts in 2011. The unrest, which marked the anniversary of the 2005 riots, and was interrupted by some as a response to the regional Arab Spring, lasted for 4 days and resulted in the death of more than a dozen protesters.[50][51]
In 2018, Amnesty International reported that the authorities were engaged in a sweeping crackdown against Arab activists. This was in the wake of an armed attack on a military parade in Ahvaz in September, during which at least 24 people, including spectators, were killed.[52] Tehran, meanwhile, has accused Britain, Israel, and Saudi Arabia being behind the violence.[33]
Before the Iran–Iraq War of the 1980s, the Arabs of Khuzestan mostly resided in the rural regions along the Karkhe and Karun rivers in the southwest of the province. But after the end of the war, many displaced Arabs were relocated by the government in the urban centres and smaller towns. The previously rural population had to make difficult adjustments with few resources. When in May 2022, a ten-story residential and commercial building collapsed in Abadan, killing at least 41 people,.[53][54] frustrations came to the surface, and there were extensive demonstrations.[55][56][57]
Khuzestan Arabs have complained of discrimination and the lack of linguistic and cultural rights, of poverty ("despite inhabiting the most economically productive part of the country"), of related problems of widespread drug addiction, and of the oil industry's environmental costs (Ahvaz is reputedly the most polluted urban area in the world).[58]
2026 U.S.–Israeli airstrikes
[edit source]On 28 February 2026, Israel and the United States launched surprise airstrikes on multiple sites and cities across Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and numerous other Iranian officials. On March 12 and 13, the Israel Defense Forces struck multiple internal security sites in Khuzestan Province. Among their reported targets were the provincial headquarters of the Law Enforcement Command and of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Ahvaz (hit the week before in an attack claimed by the Arab insurgent group, the Ahwaz Falcons),[59] and the base of the Artesh (Iranian Army) 292nd Armored Brigade in Dezful.[60] On March 11, Iranian authorities announced they had dismantled of an armed cell in Khuzestan, seizing weapons, ammunition and explosives intended for sabotage operations.[61] On March 24, there were further air strikes on energy sites in Khorramshahr.[62]
Demographics
[edit source]Languages
[edit source]Persian has long been the language of wider communication in the cities of Khuzestan, and there are several urban Khuzestāni Persian-speaking communities in the south of the province too.[63]
Apart from Persian, other languages and dialects are also spoken in Khuzestan. For instance, a portion of Khuzestan's populace speaks Khuzestani Arabic.[64][65] Another part of Khuzestanis speak the Bakhtiari dialect of the Luri language.[66][67][68][69] Neo-Mandaic is spoken by no more than a few dozen elderly Mandaeans.[70]
| Language | Dialect | Population | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arabic | Khuzestani Arabic | 1,600,000 | 33.8% |
| Persian | – | 1,300,000 | 27.5% |
| Luri | Bakhtiari | 940,000 | 19.9% |
| Bahmai | 190,000 | 4.0% | |
| Northern Luri | 120,000 | 2.5% | |
| Shushtari–Dezfuli | — | 310,000 | 6.6% |
| Behbahani–Qanavati | — | 140,000 | 2.9% |
| Southern Kurdish | — | 39,000 | 0.8% |
| Qashqai | — | 22,000 | 0.4% |
| Neo-Mandaic | — | 100 | — |
| Mixed | — | 67,000 | 1.4% |
| Total | 4,728,100 | 100% | |
Ethnic groups
[edit source]Khuzestan is known for its ethnic diversity, the population of Khuzestan consists of Persians (including Dezfulis, Shushtari), Arabs, Qashqai from the Afshar tribe, Bakhtiaris, Northern-Lurs, Mandaeans, Kurds and Armenians.[72][73][74] As part of a 2010 research commissioned by the General Culture Council, the following Iranian ethnic groups in Khuzestan were sampled: Arabs, Persians, Lurs, Qashqais, Kurds and others. A field survey was conducted as well as a statistical community among residents of 288 cities and about 1400 villages across the country.[75] Khuzestan's population is predominantly Shia Muslim, there are small Christian, Jewish, Sunni and Mandean minorities as well.[73]
According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Culture in 2010, 33.6% of the population of Khuzestan (about 1.6 million people) are Iranian Arabs.[76] According to Bettina Leitner (2022): "Although no official numbers exist, it has been estimated that around 2 to 3 million people of the inhabitants of Khuzestan are Arabs. Yet it is hard to determine, what percentage of this population uses Arabic actively."[77] Iran Atlas (2024) estimates around 1.6 million Arabic speakers in Khuzestan, noting that its data does not account for ethnicity or multilingualism.[78]
Population
[edit source]According to the 1996 census, the province had an estimated population of 3.7 million people, of which approximately 62.5% were in the urban centres, 36.5% were rural dwellers and the remaining 1% were non-residents. According to the most recent census taken in 2016, the province had 4,710,509 inhabitants.[2]
At the time of the 2006 National Census, the province's population was 4,192,598 in 862,491 households.[79] The following census in 2011 counted 4,531,720 people in 1,112,664 households.[80] The 2016 census measured the population of the province as 4,710,509 in 1,280,645 households.[2]
Administrative divisions
[edit source]
The population history and structural changes of Khuzestan province's administrative divisions over three consecutive censuses are shown in the following table.
| Counties | 2006[79] | 2011[80] | 2016[2] |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abadan | 275,126 | 271,484 | 298,090 |
| Aghajari[b] | — | — | 17,654 |
| Ahvaz | 1,317,377 | 1,395,184 | 1,302,591 |
| Andika[c] | — | 50,797 | 47,629 |
| Andimeshk | 154,081 | 167,126 | 171,412 |
| Bagh-e Malek | 103,217 | 107,450 | 105,384 |
| Bandar Mahshahr | 247,804 | 278,037 | 296,271 |
| Bavi[d] | — | 89,160 | 96,484 |
| Behbahan | 172,597 | 179,703 | 180,593 |
| Dasht-e Azadegan | 126,865 | 99,831 | 107,989 |
| Dezful | 384,851 | 423,552 | 443,971 |
| Dezpart |