³Ò·¡¸éÄ€³Û³¢Äª, a Turkic tribe of Khorasan, GorgÄn, and MÄzandarÄn. According to EÊ¿temÄd-al-Salá¹ana (pp. 157-58), the GerÄylÄ« are descendents of the once powerful Kereit of Mongolia, whose leader, Wang Khan, was defeated by ÄŒengÄ«z Khan (q.v.) in 1203. But there is no solid evidence to support this claim. Nor is there any way to substantiate EÊ¿temÄd-al-Salá¹ana’s conjecture that the GerÄylÄ« accompanied ÄŒengÄ«z Khan or Hülegu (HolÄkÅ«) Khan to northeastern Persia. What is known is that the GerÄylÄ«, after their arrival in Persia, occupied a large area stretching from GorgÄn to KalÄt-e nÄderÄ«, midway between Darragaz (MoḥammadÄbÄd), and Saraḵs (Napier, p. 100). We also know that in Safavid times there was a close association between the GerÄylÄ« and Chaghatay tribes, for Eskandar Beg described three different GerÄylÄ« chiefs as amirs of the Chaghatay, namely MÄ«rzÄ Ê¿AlÄ« Khan GerÄylÄ«, who in 938/1531-32 helped the governor of DÄmḡÄn defeat the Uzbeks; MÄ«rzÄ Ê¿AlÄ« ḴalÄ«fa, who headed the GerÄylÄ« tribe in 984/1576-77; and Ê¿AlyÄr (Ê¿AlÄ«-yÄr) Khan GerÄylÄ«, who headed the GerÄylÄ« tribe in 1038/1628-29 (Eskandar Beg, pp. 59, 141, 1087, tr. Savory, pp. 97, 227, 1314).
In 1004/1595-96, the GerÄylÄ« chief, Ê¿AlÄ« Khan, rebelled against Shah Ê¿AbbÄs I. Two years later, he was apprehended and executed (Eskandar Beg, pp. 510, 533, 541-42, tr. Savory, pp. 686, 712, 721-22). It was also during the reign of Shah Ê¿AbbÄs I that the GerÄylÄ« lost many of their grazing lands in Khorasan to the Kurdish tribes that were transplanted from northwestern Persia to that province (Napier, p. 87). A GerÄylÄ« chief by the name of Raḥīm Khan is mentioned among the ranking generals of NÄder Shah AfšÄr (1148-60 /1736-47) in his wars against the Afghans and the Ottoman Turks (MarvÄ«, pp. 64, 90, 153, 180, 188, 192, 276-78). Rabino (p. 164) refers to him as the governor of GorgÄn. AllÄhyÄr Beg GerÄylÄ«, a warrior in the Persian army, is credited with the killing of the Ottoman general TÅ«pÄl Ê¿OṯmÄn Pasha and the bringing of his head to NÄder (EstrÄbÄdÄ«, p. 341; MarvÄ«, I, pp. 331-32). Later, Ä€qÄ Moḥammad Khan QÄjÄr (r. 1779-97) moved many GerÄylÄ« from the KÄlpÅ«š region, between GorgÄn and BojnÅ«rd, to the districts of QarÄá¹aqÄn, MÄ«ÄndorÅ«d and AndarÅ«d, northeast, east, and southeast of SÄrÄ«, in eastern MÄzandarÄn (Rabino, p. 12).
During the 19th century, the GerÄylÄ« gradually settled down in villages and towns throughout their former territories, and they lost their cohesiveness as a tribe. As a result, they have been increasingly rarely mentioned in the literature on northeastern Persia. We learn that some of them settled down in Ašraf (Behšahr, q.v.), where there was even a GerÄylÄ« quarter (³¾²¹á¸¥a±ô±ô²¹), and that some 1,000 families of them settled down in six or seven villages, including Now Dehak and ÄŒÄla Pol, in the vicinity of NekÄ, on the SÄrÄ«-Ašraf road (Abbott, p. 9; Melgunof, p. 161; Rabino, pp. 64, 160). We also learn that in the early 1900s, the eastern districts of the province of GorgÄn were inhabited chiefly by GerÄylÄ« (Rabino, pp. 78, 82), and that in 1874 there were approximately 1,000 families of them in the town in ŠÄ«rvÄn, between Bojnurd and QÅ«ÄÄn (Napier, p. 100).
According to the British Naval Intelligence (p. 388), there were in the 1940s some five thousand families of GerÄylÄ« in the JÄjarm, Jovayn and SabzavÄr regions of Khorasan, as well as on the plain east of GorgÄn. According to AfšÄr SÄ«stÄnÄ«, the GerÄylÄ« speak Turki and are ShiÊ¿ite (p. 1011).
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(Pierre Oberling)
Originally Published: December 15, 2001
Last Updated: February 7, 2012
This article is available in print.
Vol. X, Fasc. 5, p. 498
