Coll 28/128 ‘Persia. Tour of 12thIndian Division Mobile Dispensary in Tribal areas.’ [‎16r] (31/145)

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f c Qnn^ ro ?f 2 ur j° urne y at the foot of the next range-Bard Isfeed
(,alt. 5,800) which we crossed by a less difficult track the next
morning. The mountains here are a fossil bearing limestone, moulded
gigantic upheavals of nature into fantastic shapes and folds,
olate outcrops are also common, while the valleys are wet with trickles
of brackish water. From Bard Isfeed the track steadily descends
through thraing oak forests and green valleys covered with heather and
other highland flowers. Kuh-i-Rish (6,300 feet) looms out to the
right throughout this part of the journey, until the track enters the
Tashan plain and one knows that the first outpost of civilisation,
Behbehan, is only 20 miles away.
III. Description of the A reas Visited .
. , , I s a nondescript town of some 2,000 flat roofs
- S r lt ^ at(:;d a S >0U i 4 miles from the Maroon River as it passes through the
vVestern end of the vast alluvial plain separated from Ram Horuz by
gatch hills. It is almost devoid of colour and historic edifices, but
is still surrounded by the remains of a mud wall with irregularly
located bastions and watch-towers of the 17th century. Behbehan is
^ PP Sfu d ^ tC \ have A s P run g up after Arajan was destroyed by the Arabs in
the 7th Century A.D. , but there is no definite records of this.
The word Behbehan is
i. e.
better than tents
said to be derived from f Beh-az-Behun’
, on the surmise that the original dwellers
gradually replaced their tents for more permanent fixtures which they
fi/i+u Sharif ud-Din Ali Yazdi, the historian, states that Tamur Lane
Ihf , Ce ^ Ury b Sp y ed T t while on his wa y Shustar to Shirazf
This is the oldest reference to Behbehan.
s ^ tua ^ tjCi as it is the foot of the Kuh Galu mountains,
Behbehan has been sacked and depopulated by repeated tribal raids and
internal feuds while epidemics of cholera, influenza and plague ravaged
the town regularly, as late as the 18th century. In 1B71 it was
mss'er; 1 C f 1 th pl ™ d( r red b y Mansur Khan, who ordered a wholesale .
ass-cre of the people also. The governor, Mirza,Kumu, fled and for
several decades the Bakhtiyari Khans held'the governorship.
Iph w ^ eh ^ ehan s tiH split up into t<vo opponent factions
y ht Qanayati and the Behbehani families respectively, the
ormer representing the Sayyed element of the town. Bitter and
drawn out feuds have always been the method of choice in settling
disputes between them, a policy still followed though perhaps in a
more subtle way. Today its chief significance is that it is a
Boir^hmadr^ibes^ ^ ^ market for the Bahmai > Taibi, and
are notorious misers, and their meanness and
i S ^'l^y directed against strangers. These undesirable
cnaracteristics have given rise to a widespread belief that the
original Behbehanis were Jews, who were later converted to Islam
lo back this curious assumption is the fact that contrary to other
t °?? 3 4 , o mark o t + da ^s ar f held Saturdays instead of the conventioml
. ^ 1S on Saturda^/s too that they visit the most ancient of
heir shrines. T dese have..nothing, either about their architecture or
h~ orientation of the tombs, to indicate a Jewish site, in.spite of
rumours among the Kuh Galu that they contain hidden Hebrew inscriptions.
Politically, Behbehan is still unsettled. The land-owning
t^ ho ® t \ Mo ? savi » ranks are supporters of
thc Hizb i Iradeh Melli , which also has the backing of the religious