TRIBE

The English word tribe is an ambivalent term that is used indiscriminately to refer to a wide variety of social groupings that range from small, preliterate, and relatively isolated communities in the Amazon jungles of South America to large, powerful confederacies whose chiefs are members of the national political elite such as the case of the Bakhtiyari of southwest Iran. In what follows, the concepts of "tribe"and "tribalism" are discussed in the specific context of the Middle East.

The Arabic term for tribe is qabila ( pl. qaba?il). The word qabila is mentioned in the Qur?an: " O mankind: we have created you from a male and a female and made you into peoples and tribes [qaba?il] that you may know each other" (49:13). In its most common usage, qabila refers to a named group of people who share an ideology of common descent in the male line, claim a common geographical territory, and are politically united under the leadership of a chief, called a shaykh in Arabic, or khan in Persian and Turkish. As such, the concept of "tribe" and "tribalism" is used to simultaneously indicate a personal and group identity, a form of social organization, and a distinct political structure.

As a source of personal and group identity, tribal affiliation can be analogous to ethnicity albeit on a more limited scale; it confers a distinct identity on its members, binding them together in a distinct moral code expressed most commonly in the idiom of honor, courage, and personal autonomy. Tribal identity, based on ties of kinship (real or fictitious), is further reinforced by the common practice of close endogamy that favors the marriage of a man to his father's brother's daughter. Among Arabic speakers, intratribal bonds and group cohesion are expressed in the idiom of ?asabiyya, or group solidarity, based on blood ties and common descent.

Tribal systems of sociopolitical organization are also based on the ideology of common descent from a founding ancestor; some pastoral nomads, like the Bedouins of the Arabian and Syrian deserts, keep elaborate genealogies that serve to organize the different segments of the tribe in a network of mutual rights and responsibilities. Typically, the smallest tribal segment is the household made up of one or more patrilineally related families; a number of such households make up the next ascending segment, or lineage. Among the Bedouins, this level of organization is known as fakhd; members of a fakhd or lineage usually lay claim to a common grazing territory, brand their herds with the same symbol, and are collectively liable to pay blood money in the case of a murder committed by one of their memebrs. A number of related lineages are grouped into the next all-encompassing level of the tribe, or qabila; in some parts of the Arabic-speaking Middle East, this level is also referred to as ?ashira. The tribe is thus the largest named unit of incorporation constructed on a genealogical framework. While today tribes serve mainly as reference groups for related lineages, in the past they played an important role in the political life of the region. Each tribe united behind a paramount chief who acted as a military commander in intertribal warfare. Tribal members typically share a strong sense of common heritage that goes beyond that of common descent. They tend to speak one dialect, dress in a distinctive style, and have their own customs and traditions.

Tribes have a long and complicated history in the Middle East; unlike the case for other parts of the world, tribes did not disappear with the formation of nation-states in the region. In fact, the historical coexistence of state and tribe lends a unique texture to Middle Eastern human geography. Beginning with the Islamic conquest in the seventh century (itself carried out by Arab tribal forces) tribes and tribal confederacies have played a key role in the creation and disintegration of several Islamic imperial dynasties such as the Abbasids, the Ottomans, and the Qajars. Equally significant were the many tribes who managed to maintain their autonomy in defiance of state rule. This was the case with the Bedouin tribes of Arabia, the Kurds of the Zagros mountains, and the large tribal confederacies of Iran like the Bakhtiyari and the Qashqa?i.

In the mountain and desert areas of Kurdistan, the Arabian Peninsula, and Iran, tribally organized confederacies managed to escape the reach of the state and maintain their independence well into the twentieth century. Following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War and the arrival of European colonial powers in the region, the role of tribes in the newly formed nation-states assumed a new significance. In their effort to stem anticolonial and nationalist movements in the region, colonial powers encouraged tribal separatism by promoting tribal identities and reinforcing the authority of tribal leaders. This policy of "divide and rule" came to an end after the Second World War, which marked the end of colonialism in the region. Seeking to promote national unity, the policy of the newly independent governments aimed at integrating the tribes into the nation-state. In cases of pastoral nomadic tribes such as the Bedouins of Arabia and the Qashqa?i of Iran, this took the form of forced sedentarization, taxation, and conscription into the national army.

Today all over the Middle East, tribes have ceased to be important political units capable of challenging the power of the central governments. Tribal leaders have been generally co-opted or were absorbed into the national elite. But while their political role has been generally undermined, tribes and tribalism remain an important component of Middle Eastern cultural landscape. Supplanted by nationalist and Islamist ideologies, tribalism as an ideology has not disappeared. Tribal identity and tribal ties continue to be an important source for self-reference and social organization for many people in the region.

See also?Asabiyya ; Bedouin ; Ethnicity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bates, Daniel G., and Rassam, Amal. Peoples and Cultures of theMiddle East. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 2001.

Khoury, Philip S., and Kostiner, Joseph, eds. Tribes and StateFormation in the Middle East. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990.

Amal Rassam