Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pftt2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-05T13:11:22.882Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tribal Order and the State: The Political Organization of Boir Ahmad

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Reinhold Loeffler
Reinhold Loeffler*
Affiliation:
Western Michigan University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Among the tribal peoples of the Middle East, from the Atlas to the Hindukush mountains, the most common type of political organization appears to be some form of segmentary structure in which powerful sociocultural mechanisms function to contain every tendency toward the emergence of permanent centralized power figures. Some tribes of Iran characteristically deviate from this general pattern. The Boir Ahmadi is one of them. Their political organization, as it existed during the nineteenth century and up to 1963, consisted in an intrinsically centralized system, that is, a system in which its political power figures showed a vested interest in maintaining, rather than preventing, centralized leadership. In this paper I describe--as much as is possible within a limited space--the bases and the functioning of this system, trace its emergence and inner evolution, and outline its present transformation. In conclusion, to further highlight some of its features, I compare it with European feudalism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 1-4: State and Society in Iran , 1978 , pp. 145 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

My thanks to the many people in Boir Ahmad who gave me the benefit of their knowledge of the traditional political system; to the University of Chicago and the Wenner Gren Foundation for their generous support; and to E. Abrahamian, G. Beech, G. Garthwaite, R. Hahn, and T. Ricks for much appreciated discussions and information. An earlier version of this paper was read at the 10th Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association in Los Angeles, 1976.

References

Abrahamian, Ervand “European Feudalism and Middle Eastern Despotisms,” Science and Society, 39, 2 (Summer 1975).Google Scholar
Asakawa, K. Franke, O. and Lybyer, A. Articles on “Feudalism,” Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, 6 (1937).Google Scholar
Bāver, M. Kūhgīlūyeh va Īlāt ān. Gachsaran, 1324.Google Scholar
Bloch, Marc Feudal Society. Chicago, 1964.Google Scholar
de Bode, C. A. Travels in Luristan and Arabistan. London, 1845.Google Scholar
Curzon, George N. Persia and the Persian Question. London, 1892. Repr.: New York, 1966.Google Scholar
Fasā'ī, H. H. Tārīkh-i Fārsnāmah-i Nāṣirī. Shiraz, 1314.Google Scholar
Ganshof, F. L. Feudalism. New York, 1964.Google Scholar
Ivanov, M. S. Plemena Farsa. Moskva, 1961.Google Scholar
Layard, A. H. “A Description of the Province of Khuzistan,” Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 16 (1846), pp. 1-105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morier, James “Some Account of the I'liyats, or Wandering Tribes of Persia,” Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 7 (1837), - .Google Scholar
Oberling, Pierre The Qashqā'i Nomads of Fārs. The Hague, 1974.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ranking, J. Report on the Kuhgalu Tribes. Simla, 1911.Google Scholar
Rawlinson, H. C. “Notes on a March from Zohab, at the Foot of the Zagros, along the Mountains of Khuzistan (Susiana) and from thence through the Province of Luristan to Kirmanshah, in the Year 1836,” Journal of the Royal Geographic Society, 9 (1839), pp. 26-116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ullmann, Walter A History of Political Thought: The Middle Ages. Penguin Books, 1965.Google Scholar
Wilson, A. T. Report on Fars. Simla, 1916.Google Scholar