‘Military report on Persia Volume I 1930’ [‎33r] (70/154)

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been required. They are hardy, and with training make
good soldiers.
(4) Hazaras are Shiahs who emigrated from the Haza
rajat in Afghanistan. In 1891 they were conquered by the
Amir Abdur Rahman, were dispossessed of their lands and
enslaved. Many migrated to Khurasan, and a few to
Baluchistan in India. They are called Berberis by the
Persians after the Band-i-Berber in Hazarajat, and also
perhaps, from the fact that, being foreigners they “ berber ”
in their talk.
This name distinguishes them from the Sunni Hazara
tribe which live partly in Herat and partly in Persian
Khurasan but does not originate from Hazarajat.
They are spread over a large area of Khurasan, as far as
Bujnurd, Shirvan, Darreh Jaz, Sarakhs and the valleys of
the Jam and Kashaf Rud. There is a colony of them in
the Merv oasis in Soviet Turkmenistan. There hereditary
chiefs are Saiyid Haidar and Saiyid Murtaza who live at
Garma near Fariman and Kariz (Taibad) respectively.
There are two main divisions of the tribe, the Dezangi and
the Jaghur which are sub-divided into many minor sec
tions. They are the descendants of the “ 1,000 families ”
left behind by Jenghiz Khan as a colony in the Oxus
y alley.
They muster about 6,000 fighting men, of which some
4,000 are armed. Many enlisted in the Khurasan Levy
Corps, which was disbanded in 1921. With training they
make good soldiers.
A regiment of Hazaras was recruited in Quetta in 1904.
The first recruits were all taken from refugees from
Afghanistan. After a few years the supply of recruits
failed to a great extent and later recruits were obtained
practically entirely from settlers in Khurasan. Nowadays
the Regiment sends a recruiting party annually to Meshed.
The Hazaras who had served in the Indian Army or in
the Khurasan Levy Corps during the War in Persia, and
who had since migrated to and settled in Khurasan, have
been given land north-west of Bujnurd where a Hazara,
colony has been formed. This project had been kept pend
ing with the Persian Authorities for a considerable time, but
was finally approved by the Shah in September 1928.
Under the Perso-Afghan Treaty of 1921, Berberis who
migrated into Persia from Afghanistan, before the establish
ment of the Afghan legation in Tehran, are Persian subjects.