Karun

Karun, an important river of Persia. Its head-waters are in the mountain cluster known since at least the 14th century as Zardeh Kuh (13,000 ft.) and situated in the Bakhtiari country about 115 m. W. of Isfahan. In its upper course until it reaches Shushter it is called Ab i Kurang (also Kurand and Kuran), and in the Bundahish, an old cosmographical work in Pahlavi, it is named Kharāē.1 From the junction of the two principal sources in the Zardeh Kuh at an altitude of about 8000 ft., the Ab i Kurang is a powerful stream, full, deep and flowing with great velocity for most of its upper course between precipices varying in height from 1000 to 3000 ft. The steepness and height of its banks make it in general useless for irrigation purposes. From its principal sources to Shushter the distance as the crow flies is only about 75 m., but the course of the river is so tortuous that it travels 250 m. before it reaches that city. Besides being fed on its journey through the Bakhtiari country by many mountain-side streams, fresh-water and salt, it receives various tributaries, the most important being the Ab i Bazuft from the right and the Ab i Barz from the left. At Shushter it divides into two branches, one the “Gerger,” an artificial channel cut in olden times and flowing east of the city, the other the “Shutait” flowing west. These two branches, which are navigable to within a few miles below Shushter, unite after a run of about 50 m. at Band i Kir, 24 m. S. of Shushter, and there also take up the Ab i Diz (river of Dizful). From Band i Kir to a point two miles above Muhamrah the river is called Karun (Rio Carom of the Portuguese writers of the 16th and 17th centuries) and is navigable all the way with the exception of about two miles at Ahvaz, where a series of cliffs and rocky shelves cross the river and cause rapids. Between Ahvaz and Band i Kir (46 m. by river, 24 m. by road) the river has an average depth of about 20 ft., but below Ahvaz down to a few miles above Muhamrah it is in places very shallow, and vessels with a draught exceeding 3 ft. are liable to ground. About 12 m. above Muhamrah and branching off to the left is a choked-up river bed called the “blind Karun,” by which the Karun found its way to the sea in former days. Ten miles farther a part of the river branches off to the left and due S. by a channel called Bahmashir (from Bahman-Ardashir, the name of the district in the early middle ages) which is navigable to the sea for vessels of little draught. The principal river, here about a quarter of a mile broad and 20 to 30 ft. deep, now flows west, and after passing Muhamrah enters into the Shatt el Arab about 20 m. below Basra. This part of the river, from the Bahmashir to the Shatt, is a little over three miles in length and, as its name, Hafar (“dug”) implies, an artificial channel. It was dug c. A.D. 980 by Azud ed-Dowleh to facilitate communication by water between Basra and Ahvaz, as related by the Arab geographer Mukaddasi A.D. 986\. The total length of the river is 460 to 470 m. while the distance from the sources to its junction with the Shatt el Arab is only 160 m. as the crow flies. The Karun up to Ahvaz was opened to international navigation on the 30th of October 1888, and Messrs Lynch of London established a fortnightly steamer service on it immediately after.

To increase the water supply of Isfahan Shah Tahmasp I. (1524-1576) and some of his successors, notably Shah Abbas I. (1587-1629), undertook some works for diverting the Kurang into a valley which drains into the Zayendeh-rud, the river of Isfahan, by tunnelling, or cutting through a narrow rocky ridge separating the two river systems. The result of many years’ work, a cleft 300 yds. long, 15 broad and 18 deep, cut into the rock, probably amounting to no more than one-twentieth of the necessary work, can be seen at the junction of the two principal sources of the Kurang.

On the upper Karun see Mrs Bishop, Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan (London, 1891); Lord Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question (London, 1892); Lieut.-Colonel H. A. Sawyer, “The Bakhtiari Mountains and Upper Elam,” Geog. Journal (Dec. 1894).

(A. H.-S.)

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1 The real principal source of the river has been correctly located at ten miles above the reputed principal source, but the name Kurang has been erroneously explained as standing for Kuh i rang and has been given to the mountain with the real principal source. Kuh i rang has been wrongly explained as meaning the “variegated mountain.”