Ayrums

Ayrums (Azerbaijani: Ayrımlar, in Persian often as Âyromlū) are a Turkic tribe, historically associated with the area nearby the city of Gyumri (in present-day Armenia).[1]

In 1828, after the signing of the Treaty of Turkmenchay, by which Iran lost the khanates (provinces) of Erivan and Nakhchivan, Iranian crown prince Abbas Mirza invited many of the Turkic tribes who would be otherwise subjected to rule by the Russian Empire to move inside Iran's newly established borders.[2] The Ayrumlu were one of those, and they were settled in a district to the west of Maku.[3] They are associated with numerous villages in Iran's West Azerbaijan Province, and are completely sedentary in contemporary times.[4]

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some more migrated to Iran, as well as to Turkey.[5] According to Olson et al., the Ayrums also live in the westernmost reaches of the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan, where they live as a semi-nomadic people.[6] At least six towns in northwestern Azerbaijan and northeastern Armenia have been named after the tribe: Ayrum, Mets Ayrum, Bağanis Ayrum, Quşçu Ayrım, Yuxarı Ayrım, Mollaayrım. According to Olson et al., the Ayrums are nowadays considered as a sub-ethnic group of the Azerbaijanis.[7]

There is no relation between Ayrom's and the Greek Orthodox, Turkic-speaking Urum people. The confusion is rooted from the lack of the Turkic sound "-ı" in Persian and its consequent representation by "-u". The tribe's name does, however, derive from the term "Rûm" - which is an ethnocultural and geographical application for peoples and territories of the former Eastern Roman Empire and the successive Ottoman Empire.