Aghul people

Aghuls

агулар
Total population
45,000
Regions with significant populations
Russia Dagestan 23,314	34,576
Ukraine	108
Latvia	25 or 33
Languages
Aghul, Lezgin, Russian
Religion
predominately Sunni Islam
Related ethnic groups
Other Lezgin sub-ethnic groups

Aghuls (Template:Langx, Template:Langx) are a Lezgin sub-ethnic group native predominantly to Agulsky district of Dagestan, partly on the plain and in cities (Dagestanskiye Ogni, Derbent, Makhachkala, etc.). According to the 2010 census, there were 34,160 Aghuls in Russia (7,000 in 1959). The Aghul language belongs to the Lezgian language family, a group of the Northeast Caucasian family. Ethnically, the Aghuls are close to the Lezgins. There are four groups of the Aghul people, who live in four different gorges: Aguldere, Kurakhdere, Khushandere, and Khpyukdere. Like their neighbors the Kaitags, the Aghuls were converted to Islam at a fairly early date, subsequent to the Arab conquest of the eighth century. Their oral traditions claim Jewish descent.

Culture

As elsewhere in Daghestan, the Aghuls were divided into tukhums (clans), comprising twenty to forty households. Each tukhum had its own cemetery, pastures, and hay fields, and the members were bound by obligations of mutual support and defense.

Each Aghul village had a village council, on which each of the three or four tukhums were represented. The council was headed by an elder. The village mullah and qadi also played an important role in local affairs. In some cases the wealthier tukhums exerted a disproportionate strong influence on village government.

The Aghuls tended to practice endogamy within the tukhum—marriages with outsiders were very rare. In the past the Aghuls lived in extended family households, though not especially large ones (fifteen to twenty members, on average). A senior male, father or eldest brother, functioned as chief, with fairly broad authority over the affairs of the household and its members. Should the extended family split up, sisters—even those who had already married and left the household—received a portion of the land as well as the movable property. They were each apportioned one-half of the land share given to each of their brothers, a practice that was unusually generous by Daghestanian standards.

Further reading

• The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire entry on Aguls