The association of the house of Mihran with the Kurd-label is found in Ottoman sources, as in the passage from Katib Celebi quoted below:
The word "Kurd" presumably means courageous, brave. The most famous and brave figures from early times were from this people, such as Rustam son of Zāl, Bahrām Chūpīn, Gurgīn-i Milãd and Farhād the champion of Shirin, who was from the Kelehran clan.
He, in turn, appears to have drawn upon Persian sources written relatively close to his own time. Yet both the Ottoman and Persian accounts are considerably removed from the period in which the house of Mihran actually flourished. The earliest attestations of this association are instead found in Arabic sources, whose authors lived much closer to the time of the historical house of Mihran.
Among the better-known 'historians' are al-Dinawari and al-Tabari, both of whom associate the house of Mihran with the Kurd-label. A less familiar testimony, however, is preserved by the ninth-century historian Ibn Wadih. His account of Bahram Chubin's family is given in the following words:
When Bahrām Chubin learned of the forces that had been amassed for Kisrā, he sent letters to the latter's chief companions, telling them of the evil conduct of the Sasanian dynasty and inviting them to to him. The letters fell into Kisrã's hand before they reached the intended recipients, and Kisrā wrote an exceedingly harsh reply on behalf of the intended recipients and sent the messenger back to Bahrām. Bahrām advanced against them until he reached Azerbaijan and fought fiercely against him; the fighting took its toll on both sides. The Roman who was as valiant as a thousand men came forward and said to Kisrā, "'Where is this slave of yours who has wrested your kingdom from you,that I may kill him?" Kisrā answered, "He is the one with the piebald horse."
So he charged him. Bahrām fell back but then turned against him, struck him with his sword, and cut him in two. Kisrā laughed and said "Bravo!" whereupon the brother of the king of the Romans became angry and said, "Are you happy that our man has been killed?" "No," replied Kisrā, "but your companion asked me, 'Where is the slave who has angered you and taken your kingdom? and I wanted him to know that the slave strikes several blows just like this, every day." 'The fighting became so fierce that Kisrā was put to flight and climbed a hill. He almost perished, but then his troops rallied. Bahrām Chūbin was routed and kept retreating, turning aside for nothing, heading toward the king of the Turks. When matters had stabilized for Kisrā Abarwiz, he wrote about it to the lord of the Romans, and the king of the Romans presented him with two robes having crosses on them. Kisrā Abarwīz wore them, so the Persians said that he had become a Christian. Furthermore, he wrote concerning the Christians that they should be honored, promoted, and treated generously; he told of what had to pass between himself and the Roman in the way of defense, marriage alliance, and conciliation, and that no king before him had ever said this. However, Kisrã's maternal uncle Bindĩ attacked Theodosius, the brother of the king of the Romans, and beat him, so evil broke out. The brother of the king of the Romans said, "Either you hand over Bindi to me, or evil will return," Kisrā managed to placate him.
Bahrăm Chūbĩn arrived in the country of the Turks. Khāqān honored him and was generous to him. Khāqān had a brother named [..] whom Khāqān used to treat indulgently. Bahrām saw this and said to Khāqān, "How dare this man be so insolent to you?" The brother of Khāqăn heard these words and challenged Bahrām to a duel. Bahrām said, "Whenever you wish, come forth!" Khāqān, the king of the Turks, gave his brother an arrow and Bahrām an arrow, and sent them out to the open plain. Khāqān's brother shot at Bahrām, hit him, and pierced his armor, but then Bahrăm shot him and killed him. Khāqān was happy that his brother had been killed, because the latter had defied him and because he feared him. Kisrā, on the other hand, was terrified by Bahrām Chubīn's being with Khāqān and feared that he would stir up evil against him.
So he dispatched a Persian notable named Bahrām Jarabzïn, a powerful man among the Persians, with whom he sent presents to Khäqān, asking him to send Bahrām Chūbĩn to him. He commanded Jarābzīn to use subtlety in the affair. The latter presented the gifts to Khāqān and mentioned the case of Bahrām to him but did not get from him what he wanted. So he delicately approached Khāgān's wife Khātun, gave her jewels and other goods, and made a request to her in the matter of Bahrām. She sent one of her retainers, a man of resolution and boldness, and told him to make his way into Bahrām Chūbīn's presence and kill him. The man set out and asked to be admitted, but it was Bahrām's sleeping time, I and he was not admitted. So he said, "King Khāqãn has sent me on an important matter," and he was admitted. Having come into Bahrām's presence, he said, "The king has charged me with a message that I am to deliver to you in secret with no one else present." Bahrām rose from his seat. The man approached as if to impart a secret to him and stabbed him with a dagger that he had with him under his arm. The Turk left in haste and mounted his horse. Bahrām's companions entered and, seeing him in such a state, said: "O king, valiant lion, who has felled you? O towering mountain, who has demolished you?" He told them what had happened and wrote to Khāqān, telling him that he had neither loyalty nor gratitude. Bahrām died and was carried to the tomb. As soon as Jarābzin learned of his death, he journeyed to Kisrā and informed him. Kisrā was delighted; he proclaimed the news in his kingdom and sent letters about it far and wide.
After Bahrām died, the king of the Turks sent a message to Bahrām's wife Kurdīya and to his retainers, telling them of his grief and that he had killed every- one who had been a party to the murder of Bahram. He dispatched his own brother Natrā to them and wrote to Bahrām Chubin's wife Kurdīya, saying that he would espouse her interests" and commanding her to marry Națrā. Bahrām's wife Kurdīya, however, took [the troops] of her brother Kurdi and set out with her retainers and whoever had been with her, heading for the country of the Persians. Națrā, the brother of Khāqān, overtook her, but she came out to meet him fully armed and said: "I will marry only someone equal to Bahrām in courage and strength. So come forward to fight me!" Khāqān's brother came forward. She killed him and continued on her way.
Kisrā had become angry with his maternal uncle Bindi and had put out his eyes, cut off his hands and feet, and crucified him alive for what he had one to his father. When Bindr's brother Bisțām learned what Kisrā had done to his brother, he threw off his allegiance to Kisrā, went to - al-Rayy, and gathered troops. He received word that Bahrām's sister Kurdīya and his wife had arrived from the country of the Turks; he met with the two them and those who were with them; he denounced Kisrā to them and told them of his treachery and wickedness. He asked the two of them to stay with him, together with their and that she should give herself in marriage to him; which she did, and she wrote to her brother Kurdi, informing him of this and asking him to obtain for her and her entourage a safe-conduct from Kisrā. [Meanwhile, Kisrā had learned]" of Kurdiya's going to al-Rayy with those of Bahrām's troops and retainers who were with her and of his uncle Bistām's marriage to her [and] her residing with him. Kisrā learned of this. He summoned her brother Kurdī and asked him to win her over by subtle means, so that she would kill Bisțām and come in order that he might marry her. Kurdi therefore sent his wife Abrakha to his sister Kurdīya to carry out what the king had mentioned to him. He conveyed to her letters of safe-conduct for her and those with her, sworn with the most binding of oaths. And so they killed her companions" and attacked and killed Bisțām. Kurdīya came to Kisrā, who married her and gave her a high place. Kisra's affairs stabilized, and his country became submissive.
Although the narratives of al-Tabari, al-Dinawari and Ibn Wadih differ in certain details, they are consistent in associating the house of Mihran with the Kurd-label. The later Persian and Ottoman authors, in other words, were continuing an attribution that had already existed for many centuries before their own works were written.
As with the Parthian house of Zik, it is difficult to establish a convincing historical connection between the house of Mihran and the later Kurdish tribes bearing the same name or names. But that question is of little importance here. What is considerably more interesting is to understand why Ibn Wadih made this association in the first place.
In his ninth-century account, Ibn Wadih speaks of the abode of the hard-hearted Kurds and, in doing so, sketches the boundaries of a considerable territory. Ibn Wadih writes:
....When the caliphate passed to the clan of the uncle of the Prophet-God's blessing be upon him and his family---among the descendants of al-Abbās b. 'Abd al-Muttalib, they recognized, thanks to the excellence of their discretion, the soundness of their intelligence, and the perfection of their judgment, the merit of Iraq: its grandeur, its spaciousness, and its centrality in the world. It is not like Syria with its pestilential climate, cramped towns, barren soil, continuous epidemics of plague, and uncouth people. Neither is it like Egypt with its tainted air and frequent outbreaks of pestilence, owing to its location between a damp and putrid river full of vile vapors that give rise to maladies and spoil food, and arid, barren mountains where, owing to their dryness, salinity, and sterility, nothing green can grow and no spring of water can gush up. Nor is it like Ifriqiya, distant from the peninsula of Islam and from the sacred House of God, with coarse, often hostile, people; nor like Armenia, remote, bitterly cold, infertile, and surrounded by enemies; nor like the harsh, tough, icy, rural districts of al-Jabal, home of the hard-hearted Kurds...
Why should Ibn Wadih have associated so vast a mountainous region with the abode of the Kurds? From our modern perspective, the association may seem unexpected but therein is the answer. If "the mountainous region" was regarded as the home of the Kurds, it is not difficult to understand why Bahman's family came to be associated with the Kurd-label. I believe, however, that there is another factor at play: the Kurd-label in the historical sources is closely associated with the same regions that were regarded as Pahlavi-speaking. This does not mean that premodern authors had a clearly defined theory of ethnic designation or applied rigid criteria for determining who could or could not be called a Kurd. Rather, my point is that the geographical distribution of the Kurd-label corresponds strikingly well (though not 1:1) to the geographical distribution of Pahlavi-speaking regions.
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