Cambridge Middle East Studies

Frontier nomads of Iran

Richard Tapper's fascinating book traces the political and social historyof the Shahsevan, one of Iran's major nomadic peoples, living on thesensitive frontiers of Azarbaijan. The story, which is based on ethno-graphic fieldwork and extensive documentary research over more thanthree decades, is both tragic and dramatic. It recounts the mythicalorigins of the tribes in the seventeenth century, their unification as atribal confederacy in the eighteenth century and their eventual declineunder the Pahlavi Shahs when they were systematically stripped of boththeir economic and political influence. Although the confederacy hasnow ceased to exist, several thousand families of Shahsevan nomads stillmigrate near the frontier and thousands of other Iranians still acknowl-edge their identity as Shahsevan.

The book is intended as a contribution to three rather differentdebates. One concerns the riddle of Shahsevan origins, how and whenthe confederation was formed, while another considers how far changesin tribal social and political formations are a function of relations withstates. The third discusses the relation between identity and history, andasks how different constructions of the identity of a particular peoplereflect or determine their view of the past. The author's syntheticapproach to the history and anthropology of the region promises tomake a major contribution to theoretical debates in both disciplines.

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Cambridge Middle East Studies 7

Editorial BoardCharles Tripp (general editor)Shaul Bakhash, Michael C. Hudson, Noah Lucas, Deniz Kandiyoti,Rashid Khalidi, Basim Musallam, Roger Owen

Cambridge Middle East Studies has been established to publishbooks on the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Middle East andNorth Africa. The aim of the series is to provide new and originalinterpretations of aspects of Middle Eastern societies and theirhistories. To achieve disciplinary diversity, books will be solicited fromauthors writing in a wide range of fields including history, sociology,anthropology, political science and political economy. The emphasiswill be on producing books offering an original approach alongtheoretical and empirical lines. The series is intended for students andacademics, but the more accessible and wide-ranging studies will alsoappeal to the interested general reader.

1 Parvin Paidar, Women and the political process in twentieth-century Iran2 Israel Gershoni and James Jankowski, Redefining the Egyptian nation,

1930-19453 Annelies Moors, Women, property and Islam: Palestinian experiences,

1920-19904 Paul Kingston, Britain and the politics of modernization in the Middle

East, 1945-19585 Daniel Brown, Rethinking tradition in modern Islamic thought6 Nathan J. Brown, The rule of law in the Arab world: courts in Egypt and

the Gulf

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Frontier nomads of IranA political and social history of the Shahsevan

Richard TapperSchool of Oriental and African Studies

CAMBRIDGEUNIVERSITY PRESS

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cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City

Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

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© Richard Tapper 1997

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First published 1997

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress cataloguing in publication dataTapper, Richard. Frontier nomads of Iran: a political and social history of the Shahsevan / Richard Tapper. p. cm. – (Cambridge Middle East studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0 521 58336 5 (hardcover)1. Shahsevan (Iranian people) 2. Iran – History – Qajar dynasty, 1794-1925. 3. Iran – History – 20th century. I. Title. II. Series. DS269.S53T34 1997955´.04–dc21 96-47890 CIP

isbn 978-0-521-58336-7 Hardbackisbn 978-0-521-02906-3 Paperback

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Contents

List of illustrations page viiiPreface xAcknowledgments xiiiNote on transliteration xvGlossary xvi

1 Writing tribal history 1Anthropology, history and 'tribes' 1'Tribe' in anthropology and the Middle East 5The tribes of Iran: classifications and comparisons 10Historians and the tribes: the problem of extrapolation 18The Shahsevan 24A note on sources 27

PART I The Safavid state and the origins of the Shahsevan 35

2 'Shahsevani': Safavid tribal policy and practice 39Background: Azarbaijan and the early Safavids 39The Qizilbash tribes 43Shahsevani: Safavid military and tribal policies 47Malcolm's version 51

3 Shahsevan traditions 58The 'noble' tribes: nineteenth-century traditions 58Later 'noble' traditions 62Traditions of the other tribes 67

4 Moghan and Ardabil in Safavid times 72The tribal and nomadic population of the region 73Shahsevan nomads in Moghan 84

PART II The rise of the Shahsevan confederacy 93

5 Badr Khan San-Khan-Beyli 95Ardabil and Moghan under Russian and Ottoman occupation 95Nader Shah in Ardabil and Moghan 103

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vi Contents

6 Nazar ' Ali Khan Shahsevan of Ardabil 111The Khanates of Azarbaijan after Nader Shah 111

Qara-Dagh and Kazem Khan 113Qara-Bagh and Panah Khan 114Qobbeh and Fath 'Ali Khan 115Ardabil, Moghan and the Shahsevan 115Sarab and the Shaqaqi 117

The rise of the Qajars 118Gilan and Hedayatollah Khan 119Agha Mohammad Qajar in Transcaucasia 120The Shaqaqi debacle 123

The successors of Nazar 'Ali Khan Shahsevan 124

7 The Shahsevan tribal confederacy 129Organization of the early Shahsevan 129Formation of the Shahsevan confederacy 137Consolidation and fission of the confederacy 140

PART III The Shahsevan tribes in the Great Game 147

8 The Russian wars and the loss of Moghan 149The Russian conquest of eastern Transcaucasia 149The first Russo-Iranian war 152The second Russo-Iranian war 159The aftermath of the wars 166

9 The Shahsevan nomads in the mid-nineteenth century 169Economic conditions in the region 169Pastoral economy and society 174The Shahsevan chiefs 179Shahsevan tribal organization 186

10 Nomads and commissars in Moghan 190The troubles begin 190An attempt at settlement 195The Russians increase the pressure 204The closure of the frontier 209

PART IV The end of the tribal confederacy 217

11 Pastures new: the effects of the frontier closure 221Azarbaijan at the end of the nineteenth century 221Pastures and production 224Markets 232Settlement 234Changes in Shahsevan tribal organization 237Banditry 242

12 The Shahsevan, the Constitution, the Great War and after 248Azarbaijan and the tribes up to the Constitutional Revolution 248

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Contents vii

The Belasovar affair 252The Tribal Union and the sack of Ardabil 254Yeprem Khan's defeat of the Shahsevan 259Shahsevan versus Cossacks: the 1912 campaign 262The Shahsevan during the Great War 269Inter-tribal relations in the time of the khans 273The rise of Reza Khan: the end of the Shahsevan revolt 278

13 Settlement and detribalization 283Reza Shah and the tribes 283The first years of peace among the Shahsevan 284Compulsory settlement 288After Reza Shah: Soviet occupation and the Democrats, 1941-6 294Developments from 1946 to 1966 298The twilight of the chiefs 302Postscript: 1966-95 309

14 Conclusion: Shahsevan identity and history 315On ethnicity and identity 315The Shahsevan confederacy: contested origins and political change 317

From royalists to bandits 318From tribalism to feudalism 327From patriotism to pastoralism 330

The Shahsevan tribes: cultural identity and historical continuity 334Concluding remarks: tribes and states 343

Appendices1 The Shahsevan of Kharaqan and Khamseh 3492 Lists and histories of Shahsevan tribes 3563 Some Shahsevan voices 375

Bibliography 389Index of topics 412Index of places, peoples, persons, dynasties, parties, companies 417Index of authors quoted or discussed 425Index of tribal names 427

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Illustrations

Plates

Between pages 146 and 147All photographs by the author, unless otherwise stated.1 Women at a ground-loom on the slopes of Mt Savalan (courtesy of

Jonathan Parry)2 Camp of the chief of Geyikli tribe on the lower slopes of Savalan3 A family on migration in Moghan4 Flocks and camel-train on migration in the Salavat hills5 The Safavid shrine in Ardabil6 'Nader's mound' at Aslanduz, Moghan7 Amir Lashkar Tahmaspi and the main Shahsevan chiefs (from

photograph in possession of'Ali Khan Ra'is-e Geyikli of Meshkin-Shahr, reproduced with his permission; whereabouts of originalunknown)

8 Chief men of Geyikli and dependent tribes and their wives (fromphotograph in possession of'AH Khan Ra'is-e Geyikli of Meshkin-Shahr, reproduced with his permission; whereabouts of originalunknown)

9 Memorial to the martyrs of December 1945, Meshkin-Shahr

Figures

1 Yunsur Pasha's sons, their tribes, and the tribes that followedthem, according to Ogranovich page 62

2 Original connections between the tribes, according to Radde 633 Original connections between the tribes, according to Markov 644 Lineage of Nazar 'Ali Khan, according to Dalili 1265 Lineage of Nazar 'Ali Khan, according to Radde 1276 Lineage of Nazarc Ali Khan, according to Markov 1277 Genealogy of Ardabil elbeys 182

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List of illustrations ix

8 Genealogy of Meshkin elbeys 1849 Signatories to the Treaty of Alliance signed on 19 Shawal 1327

(3 November 1909) between the chiefs of the tribes ofShahsevan, Qara-Dagh and Khalkhal 258

10 Signatories to the Telegram from Ardabil to the Russian andBritish Embassies, 14 Jadi 1331 (January 1913) 270

11 Skeleton genealogy of chiefs of the Qoja-Beyli tribe 28012 Lists of Shahsevan tribes, 1843-1986 358

Maps

1 Part of South-West Asia in Safavid times page 402 Northeast Azarbaijan in Safavid times 413 Part of South-West Asia in the eighteenth century 964 North-West Iran in the eighteenth century 975 North-West Iran in the nineteenth century 1506 Moghan, showing approximate location of tribes 1870-1885 2107 Iranian Moghan, showing approximate location of tribes

around 1900 2308 Eastern Azarbaijan in the twentieth century 2819 Khamseh and Kharaqan 350

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Preface

The social order in Iran, like many other Middle Eastern countries, wasmarked until well into the twentieth century by a tension between thecentral government and powerful, semi-independent chiefs of nomadictribes. At the same time, the rulers themselves were either of tribal originsor dependent on tribal support - the Pahlavis (1925-79) were the first fornearly a millennium to be neither. Under the Pahlavi Shahs the majortribal chiefs were systematically stripped of their economic and politicalinfluence, but tribal loyalties and forms of social organization survived inmany parts of the country, and indeed have continued relevance in theIslamic Republic.

In recent decades, the tribes of Iran have attracted the attention of bothanthropologists and historians. Several book-length ethnographies andhistories of individual tribal groups have been published, as have somebroader historical and theoretical analyses of the tribe-state relation.

The present work, the fruit of both extensive documentary researchand intensive fieldwork, attempts a synthesis of anthropological and his-torical approaches. It tells the story of one of the great tribal confedera-cies, the Shahsevan of Azarbaijan. The confederacy had ceased to exist bythe middle of the twentieth century, and the changes that have nowoccurred are probably irreversible, but many thousands of Iranians stillclaim or acknowledge their identity as Shahsevan, many of them continuea pastoral way of life, and the component tribal groups persist. Althoughfew Iranians now mourn the passing of the great confederacies, theirhistory is central to that of the country as a whole. The story of theShahsevan is a dramatic one; there are acts of glory and honour, but thereare also darker scenes, and in the end, as with the other confederacies ofIran, it is a tragedy.

The book addresses three main themes. The first is the riddle ofShahsevan origins. The best-known story is that the Shahsevan were aspecial composite tribe formed in about 1600 by Shah 'Abbas the Greatas a militia loyal only to himself; although it was discredited as historymany decades ago, it has acquired a mythical status and remains the stan-

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Preface xi

dard version. There are, however, two other versions: one tells of theimmigration of Shahsevan ancestors from Anatolia and presents the con-federacy as divided between nobles (descended from the original immi-grant leaders) and commoners; the third declares that the Shahsevanhave always been 'thirty-two tribes', all of equal status. In Parts I and II(Chapters Two to Seven) I examine contemporary evidence from the six-teenth to the eighteenth centuries in an attempt to establish the historicalorigins of the contemporary Shahsevan tribes, and how and when thetribal confederacy was formed.

Secondly, the book is intended as a contribution to current debates on'tribe-state relations' in the Middle East and elsewhere. In Parts III andIV (Chapters Eight to Thirteen) I examine nineteenth and twentieth-century sources on the Shahsevan and their relations with various states,which are detailed and circumstantial enough to permit the reconstruc-tion, informed by fieldwork, of transformations in Shahsevan social andpolitical organization, and to explain how the confederacy broke down.

Thirdly, the book is concerned with the relation between identity andhistory: how different constructions of the identity of a given people mayreflect or determine different understandings of their past. Having,during the course of the book, examined and evaluated each version ofShahsevan origins in detail, in the concluding Chapter Fourteen I showhow each of them not only represents the perspective of a different classof actors (rulers, chiefs, and ordinary nomads), but validates a differentconstruction and interpretation of Shahsevan history and identity.

Although these three themes run through the book, and it is thusintended as a contribution to three rather different debates, I shall be gladif it is read for its methodological interest too, as the work of a professionalanthropologist with some pretensions as a historian. In the Introduction(Chapter One) I discuss some of the problems of writing the history ofpeople without their own written records, and survey the sources used. Ihave tried to keep within the limits of my own competences, in an effort toavoid the criticisms that I level at a number of widely read recent publica-tions which I consider to contain serious flaws. At the same time, I amonly too well aware of many of the remaining real and possible shortcom-ings of this study.

The book has taken a long time to complete. It began life as part of adoctoral thesis, for which the research was done in the 1960s. In thesummers of 1963 and 1964, as an undergraduate student, I visited theShahsevan, both nomad and settled, and collected ethnographic fieldmaterials including taped interviews with older tribespeople on historicalmatters. During the remainder of 1964 and much of 1965, as I preparedfor more extended fieldwork, I began reading published sources on

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xii Preface

Shahsevan history. In Tehran in the autumn of 1965, while awaiting per-mission for field research, I completed a preliminary historical paper(Tapper, 1966).

During fieldwork in 1965-6, although my major research focus was oncontemporary economics, social organization and ritual behaviouramong the nomads, I continued to record legends and personal memo-ries among tribespeople of various classes. I also talked, and in some casesrecorded interviews, with a number of outsiders who had had personaldealings with the Shahsevan, or were able to relay historical accounts theyhad themselves heard earlier.

On returning to London in late 1966 to write up my field material, Isoon decided that further documentary research was necessary in orderto try to establish, first, what could be said of Shahsevan historical origins,secondly, what was the nature of the tribal political organization whichseemed in the 1960s to be in a state of fragmentation, and thirdly, how theShahsevan came to have a system of individuated grazing rights whichseemed unique among pastoral societies. This led me to extensive work inthe archives at the India Office Library and the Public Record Office inLondon, and in Russian and Persian published and manuscript sources.

The thesis was completed in 1970; subsequent field research inAfghanistan (between 1970 and 1972) and Turkey (between 1979 and1984) have limited my publication on the Shahsevan so far to an ethno-graphic monograph, some comparative anthropological papers and anumber of historical papers (parts of the book are revisions of materialpublished elsewhere (especially R. Tapper, 1974, 1983c, 1986, 1988b,1991a, 1991b, 1994)). During 1986 I began the revision that was neces-sary to update the historical part of the thesis in order to make it into abook; in 1992, 1993 and 1995 I was able to make further visits to Iran,during which I collected new materials for the book.

In all this long gestation, I have revised and refined my own thinkingabout the subject, and have attempted to keep abreast of relevant publica-tions that have appeared since my original research in the 1960s.Although I have come across significant further materials, published andunpublished, there are others which time or other limitations have pre-vented me from tackling, and which, as sources for Shahsevan history,await the attentions of another day - and perhaps another researcher.

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Acknowledgments

I list here numerous individuals to whom, collectively, I owe an immensedebt of gratitude for help and support during the long gestation of thisbook, at the inevitable risk of offending some I may have omitted, and inthe sad knowledge that several of those listed are no longer alive. Initialstimulus and continuing encouragement at the early stages were providedby Peter Avery, Abdallah Bujra, Meyer Fortes, Edmund Leach, PeterLienhardt, Lawrence Lockhart, Adrian Mayer, Vladimir Minorsky,Cornelius Op't Land, Jonathan Parry, Brian Spooner and EricSunderland. Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf, Ann Lambton, DavidMorgan, Sandy Morton and Paul Stirling read various early drafts andoffered valuable comments. My researches among the Shahsevan werefacilitated in Iran, initially by Ehsan Naraghi, Nader Afshar-Naderi andPaul Vieille of the Institute of Social Studies and Research, and latterly byAli Ghanbari and Seyed Hasan Nurbakhsh of the Organization forNomadic Affairs. Nancy Lindisfarne-Tapper shared much of thefieldwork in 1965-6 and 1968, and I am deeply indebted to her for helpand support during the initial historical research and the writing of thethesis. My thinking about Shahsevan history benefited much from discus-sions and correspondence with numerous fellow researchers and expertson Iran, particularly Peter Andrews, Hasan Arfa, Peter Avery, MarcelBazin, Lois Beck, Dan Bradburd, David Brooks, Patrick Clawson,Stephanie Cronin, Jean-Pierre Digard, Eckart Ehlers, Willem Floor,Gene Garthwaite, William Irons, Nikki Keddie, Mehdi Mizban, PierreOberling, Mohammad-Hussain Papoli-Yazdi, Fereydoun Safizadeh,Philip Salzman, Giinther Schweitzer, Parichehreh Shahsevand-Baghdadi, Brian Spooner, Georg Stober, Jon Thompson, Martin VanBruinessen and Sue Wright. Iraj Afshar, Jaber Anasseri, F. Ershad, PierreOberling, Hans Roemer and Mehdi Mizban kindly sent books or docu-ments relating to Shahsevan history. Several people helped with transla-tions of tapes or documents at earlier stages of my research: LeslieCollins, Michael Cook, Tourkhan Gandjei, Caroline Humphrey, FarokhEbrahimi, Hasan Javadi, Shery Majd, Sandy Morton, Brian Spooner,

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xiv Acknowledgments

Christine Woodhead. Library staff at SOAS, the Public Record Office,the India Office Library, the British Library, the Organization forNomadic Affairs in Tehran, and elsewhere were unfailingly helpful.Individual Shahsevan who provided information or other assistance areacknowledged at appropriate points in the text or notes. The book hasbeen much improved by Catherine Lawrence's maps. In the final stages,Ziba Mir-Hosseini has given loving and expert assistance, encourage-ment and support. I am indebted to her, Hugh Beattie, Gene Garthwaite,Sandy Morton and Ruard Tapper for reading and commenting on all orpart of the final manuscript.

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A note on transliteration

I have been concerned mainly with ease of reading and some closeness tospoken Azarbaijani Turkish and Persian. The full range of English vowelsis used to convey those in Persian words and names, though long andshort 'a' are not differentiated except in the Glossary below.

For Shahsevan Turkish, I have not attempted an accurate or consistentrepresentation in either proper names or vernacular terms. I use V for theTurkish back vowel (e.g. in 'Qizilbash'), pronounced as in spoken English'the' before consonants, but the upper-case version remains undistin-guished from that of 'i'. Umlauted 'ii' and '6' represent Turkish vowelssimilar to those so written in German; 'a' represents the 'a' as in 'flat'(plain 'a' is rounder, as in 'dark'; not so far back as the Persian 'long a'. Atthe risk of occasional confusion, I have used 'sh' and 'ch' for sounds pro-nounced as in English; 'kh' for the 'ch' in Scottish 'loch'; 'gh' is likeParisian French 'r'; ' j ' as in English 'jug'; the glottal plosive 'q', whenfinal, is usually pronounced as 'kh' or 'gh'. Palatalizations of j > dz, ch >ts, k > ch, g > j , strong in Tabriz and Ardabil, are much weaker among theShahsevan.

Diphthongs:at as in 'high'ei as in 'hay' (except with bey and elbey)oi as in 'boy'ou as in 'owe'au as in 'how'

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Glossary

alachiq - Shahsevan tent; round, felt-covered, with self-supportingwooden frame.

dldfchdr - payment for grazing.anjoman - Constitutional local cell; dnjini> Shahsevan term for a raiding

expedition, derived from anjoman.aq-saqal (P. rish-safid) - grey-beard, elder of tribal section or camp.'dshayer (pi. of Ar. 'ashira/6ashiret) - nomad, tribesman.dshrar (hq) - (time of the) rebels, disorder.bajanaq - relationship between a man and his wife's sister's husband.bey (Jbaig) - chief of taifa (P. big, bik).beyzadd - sons of chiefs; the 'noble' class.bind - herding camp, often herding animals of absentee owner such a

chief.chob-bashi - grazing dues.divdnilmamdlek - state lands.el (P. it; pi. Hat) - tribe, tribal confederacy, people.elbey (elbegi) - paramount chief, chief of el.gholdm - servants, slaves (cf. qollar).gobdk - lineage, often equivalent to tird.hdkem - governor of sub-province, district.hdmpd - non-chiefly, commoner; companion, worker.hokumat (T. hokumdt) - government.ilkhdni - paramount chief, e.g. of Bakhtiari, Qashqa'i, Qajar, Kurds; not

Shahsevan.jamahat (Istanbul T. cemaat, Ar.jamd'ai) - community.kaldntar - chief (not Shahsevan) equivalent to bey.katkhodd - headman of village or tribal section (not Shahsevan).khdleseh, khdsseh - Crown lands.khan - lord, self-declared chief.khankhan(liq) - (time of) independent khans.kumd - smaller Shahsevan tent, felt-covered, barrel-vaulted structure.nasaqchi-bdshi - Qajar police chief (Chapter Eight).

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Glossary xv

nokdr - servant, retainer.obalobeh - camp.oimaq - tribe, section.ojaq - hearth.olka (olga) - tribal territory.ouldd (auldd) - lineage; lit. children, descendents (not Shahsevan).qabila - tribe (not Shahsevan).qanh - feud (from qan, blood).qishlaq - winter pasture, winter camp.qollar- 'slaves'.qorchi (-bdshi) - royal guard, praetorian guard.qoumlqaum - tribe, 'ethnic group', people, family.qrdn - unit of currency, one tenth of a toman; equivalent to present rial.qurultai - general gathering and council.raydt - commoner, farmer, subject.rish-safid (P.) - white-beard, elder of camp or tribal section (not

Shahsevan; cf. aq-saqal.sarparast - supervisor, leader.soltdn - army rank.soyurghdl - land grant, exemption.tabaqeh - class.taifa (tayfa/tayfeh/taifeh/tdyefeh) - tribe.tira (tird> P. tireh, Basseri tira) - tribal section.tiyul (-ddr) - (holder of) land grant, immunity from taxationvaqf- endowment.yailaq,yeilaq - summer quarters, summer pastures.yurt,yort - camp-site, pastoral territory.yiizbashi - captain of one hundred men.zakdt - religious alms.

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