Leading and chief of the well-known Malekshahi tribe, commander of the Iranian army during the Qajar era, and the most revered hero of Iran during the Qajar era Pahlavan Musa Khamis
Shah Mir, who had eleven sons named Khamis, Kazim, Hussein, Hassan, Taqi, Shukr, Khudadad, Ruska, etc., is their highest ancestor and these reflect the significant branches of the tribe. Two of them passed away during his lifetime; the descendants of the others created clans with their names. Khamis gained notoriety for his remarkable physical power, to the degree that the governor Ismail Khan Fayli assigned him military command and assigned him to quell the Maliman uprising. Apart from his celebrity, he was well-known for his humanism and compassion.
The Malikshahis have their roots among the Kurmanji Kurds. Originally speaking Kurmanji, Kurmanji Kurds—also known as Kurmanji Kurds—make up the Malekshahi tribe. The Zaza Kurds are the progenitors of the Kurmanji Kurds, who make up the most of the Kurdish country split in four parts. Their great grandfather, His Excellency Prince Shahmir and Hajj Rustam Beg Chamsgazig, from the descendants and sons of Malik Shah and from the princes of the Kurdish tribe Malik Shahi Chamsgazig, ruled Kurdistan from Diyarbakir in Turkey to the city of Malik Shahi in Ilam Province, and they migrated to the Pashtkuh district in Ilam Province.
The princes of the Jamziyeh Malikshahi tribe engaged in numerous wars under the rule of Nader Shah Afshar, including the campaigns against the Turkmen in 1147 AH, Balkh in 1149 AH, and Kandahar in 1151 AH. Khamis, the chief of the Malikshahi tribe, rebelled due to Nader Shah’s taxation towards the end of his rule; the other Fayli tribes joined in revolt. The remaining Fayli tribes followed suit; twenty of Nader Shah’s tax collectors were slain. Arai Naderi related: “A group of leaders of the Fayli tribe [the Malikshahi tribe, headed by Pahlawan Khamis] resolved to kill 20 tax collectors as a result of the extreme tyranny and its reaching its maximum.
The other tribes executed their tax collectors and followed the same when the word got to them. Dehkhoda told in the language: “When the news of the tax collectors killed by Khamis reached Nader Shah.” He aimed at punishing them. But he was perplexed and understood they would create problems when he observed their power. He thus decided to send a wrestler to Khamis and murder his eldest son in a wrestling bout. Should he beat him, he would pardon him. He would murder them both in combat otherwise.
The sons of Khamis rebelled during the Qajar period, Fath Ali Shah Qajar and Musa and Malkeh also rebelled alongside the Malik Shahs. Fath Ali Shah, Muhammad Ali Mirza Qajar, sent the rebelling Khamis sons to Tehran.
The eldest son Khamis was directed by the court to combat Pahlavan Asgar Yazdi, the hero of the Shah. Malkeh and his brother reportedly were in a black tent waiting for the wrestler of the Shah. Musa, meantime, gazed at his brother and questioned him curiously: Why did Fath Ali Shah develop this idea? Malkeh said, considering the implications and outcomes: I am confident the man sent by the Shah will wrestle me, and thereafter the Shah will kill us both.
When Musa told the Shah this from his brother, he advised him to wrestle the wrestler instead of his brother Malkeh. Why, the Shah inquired, did you wrestle instead of your brother? May God sacrifice myself for you, Your Majesty, Malika said. You sent a wrestler that will definitely kill me. I cannot wrestle with him personally; I appear younger than him. I will come and wrestle with him should he beat my brother. Musa reportedly had a big chest and was really muscular; he reportedly dislocated one of the wrestler’s breasts on the day of the wrestling fight with the Shah’s wrestler.
They tell that the Shah issued an order to unconditionally free Musa Khamis Pahlawan from the seizure of their money after he was able to toss the wrestler of the Shah to the ground. He also bestowed upon Musa Khamis Pahlawan a jeweled ring, therefore making Musa Khamis the first wrestler in Iran. Musa and Fath Ali Shah received the titles of Amir and Toshmal, which bestowed upon them leadership both of their clan and the Iranian guards.
Some also believe that since Musa and Malekah titled their work Padshah, the name Malek Shah derived from them. Nevertheless, this narrative does not fit the period since this incident occurred during the lifetime of Fath Ali Shah, 1821–1836 AD. Although the name of the Malikshahi clan surfaced between 1037 and 1093, at the same period Malik Shah I, the father of Alp Arslan Izz al-Dawla Muhammad Abu Shuja, the Seljuk Sultan who governed from 1063 to 1037, was a courageous man who was able to seize Aleppo.
Open Nameh
A section of the tropical lands of Ilam Province, with an area of 36,000 hectares , was registered in the name of Sheikh Hajj Faramarz Asadi, the general emir of the Malekshahi tribe, by order of Fath Ali Shah Qajar and in the handwriting of Prince Mohammad Ali Mirza Dowlatshah, the eldest son of the Shah, dated Dhu al-Hijjah 1236 AH corresponding to 1199 AH (this order is known as the Fath Nameh) to encourage the Malekshahis to fight the Ottomans and to use Sulaymaniyah, Shahrizor, Mosul, Kirkuk, and Samarra to besiege Baghdad, cities of the Ottoman Empire, through the Malekshahi tribe during the time of Prince Musa Khamis.
Musa Khamis was the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armies at the time; he had trained four thousand soldiers from the Malikshahi army, one hundred horsemen and one hundred fighters bearing the cherzeh, who were front-runners of the army under Musa Khamis’s command. Over the whole Iranian army, Musa Khamis, the acrobat, oversaw three thousand eight hundred regular soldiers from various Pushtouh clans and a number of Faylis.
For the Malikshahi, this causes pride as well. Still visible in the Pars Museum and the Shiraz Museum’s grounds are an inscription of this army. Musa Khamis Malikshahi oversaw the Faylis army, the Malikshahi army, and the rest of the Iranian army. They were able to besiege Baghdad and free the areas of (Sulaymaniyah, Shahrazur, Kirkuk and Samarra) from the Ottomans during this struggle.
Preserved in Kermanshah, the estates transferred stayed under the name Hajj Faramarz Asadi and according a legal document numbered (566). After the revolution, nevertheless, their ownership was passed to other persons and the Natural Resources Administration in Ilam without any legal documentation.
In his book, Shamim notes the Fayli tribe, headed by Hassan Khan Fayli, the governor of Ilam and Lorestan, with Muhammad Ali Mirza Dowlatshah, the Qajar prince and son of Fath Ali Shah Qajar, attacking and besiege the Ottoman Empire; also mentioned are the Malekshahi (Chamshgazag) tribe headed and led by Pahlavan Musa Khamis.
“The Iranian forces, led by Dowlatshah, were around Shahrizor and the Sirwan River, with the help of Hassan Khan Fayli and the Fayli fighters from Pushtouh and the Malekshahi (Chamshgazag) tribe, led by Musa Malikshahi,” he said. He notes that the Iranian army beat Muhammad Agha Al-Kahya and Mahmud Pasha, the Ottomans, and they withdrew leaving Kirkuk behind. Dowlatshah then seized Sulaymaniyah, therefore attacking Baghdad from the Samarra route. Dawud Pasha, the governor of Baghdad, was besieged, therefore the latter dispatched Sheikh Musa bin Sheikh Jaafar Al-Najfi to arbitrate with Dowlatshah. Al-Mada’in, where he was sick, the death of Dowlatshah coincided with the Iwan of Mada’sin, sometimes known as Taq-e-Kisra in… The Fath Nameh also notes the courage of the Royal Shahid (Chamsgazag) horsemen and the Feili cavalry in the campaign against the Ottoman army in the year 1236 AH.
Hidayat also penned in his book about the bravery of the Kurdish tribes in Ilam (Pashtkuh), particularly the Malekshahi tribe, in their battle against the Ottomans in the year 1236 AH, as follows: (The Kurdish and Fayli horsemen of Ilam taught the Ottoman fighters (Yeni Chiri) a lesson they will never forget throughout their life). They slaughtered all of each other and retired from life.
Muhammad Taqi Khan, the tongue of King Sepehr, notes in his book (Nasakh al-Tawarikh) regarding the presence of Prince Musa Khamis, in the army of Prince Muhammad Ali Mirza Qajar, so: (Prince Muhammad Ali Mirza Dowlat Shah, one day after sunrise, accompanied by Musa Khamis Malikshahi and ten British officers in charge of artillery battalions and a number of Malikshahi forces, attacked the enemy without they noticing the attack. From the right and left wings, Musa Malikshahi possessed the command of the attack.
While the enemy was showering missiles and hurling weapons on him, he moved the army and ascended a hill and directed the attack. He was able to impart knowledge to them and saturate the territory with Roman (Ottomans) blood. Along with Muhammad Agha Kahya, the minister (Sultan Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire), Mahmud Pasha, the governor of Shahrizor and Sulaymaniyah, left to Kirkuk and left all the military equipment, including the cannons, as share of the Iranian army. Arriving at Sulaymaniyah, Muhammad Ali Mirza Qajar assigned Abdullah Pasha, the uncle of Ali Pasha, the Diyarbakir governor who had fled to Iran and was seeking shelter from the Iranians, named him governor of Shahrizor at that period. When Muharram arrived, the Qajar prince halted battling the Ottomans momentarily and stayed in Sulaymaniyah during that month. Aiming to invade Baghdad, he set tents and got the army ready at the end of Muharram and the start of Safar in 1237 AH; but, the prince passed that month. Hassan Khan Feili and the Malekshahi tribe had more than four thousand fighters engaged in this struggle, whereas the Ottoman force was bigger than the Iranian army. Leading the Iranian army under the hero Musa Malekshahi, one hundred Malekshahi riders, one hundred karzeh-bearers, and 3,800 Malekshahi fighters were at the vanguard; but, the Ottoman army was unable to resist and most of them were dead while the others escaped. Prince Mohammad Ali Mirza Qajar awarded several of the Malekshahi fighters the title “karzedivand” in this encounter.
These lands were a gift from the Iranian king for their services in their war against the Ottomans; they are shown in the official record known as (Fath Nameh), in the year 1821 AD corresponding with 1236 AH, which was with the Malikshahis and bore the seal of King Fath Ali Shah Qajar.
The Qajar king grants permission to the princes of the districts of Jamzi (Jamshkazak), Babahai Pir Mohammad and Cheshmeh Adineh, to use all the lands situated within their territories and to benefit from them for raising cattle for their summer and winter trips. One of the descendants of Imam Musa ibn Ja’far, Pir Muhammad, we also beg them to uphold his mausoleum (peace be upon him).
The Saraylvand Malikshahi tribe maintained this shrine over many years. The Malikshahi (Jamshkazak) tribe received this order in honor of their help to the Iranian Qajar state in its struggle against the Ottomans. The Malekshahi tribe also must yearly provide the central government fifteen buffaloes, ten lambs, and ten bags of ghee—milk butter. This was only metaphorical.