Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Note on transliteration
- Glossary
- 1 Writing tribal history
- PART I The Safavid state and the origins of the Shahsevan
- PART II The rise of the Shahsevan confederacy
- PART III The Shahsevan tribes in the Great Game
- PART IV The end of the tribal confederacy
- 11 Pastures new: the effects of the frontier closure
- 12 The Shahsevan, the Constitution, the Great War and after
- 13 Settlement and detribalization
- 14 Conclusion: Shahsevan identity and history
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index of topics
- Index of places, peoples, persons, dynasties, parties, companies
- Index of authors quoted or discussed
- Index of tribal names
- Plate section
13 - Settlement and detribalization
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Note on transliteration
- Glossary
- 1 Writing tribal history
- PART I The Safavid state and the origins of the Shahsevan
- PART II The rise of the Shahsevan confederacy
- PART III The Shahsevan tribes in the Great Game
- PART IV The end of the tribal confederacy
- 11 Pastures new: the effects of the frontier closure
- 12 The Shahsevan, the Constitution, the Great War and after
- 13 Settlement and detribalization
- 14 Conclusion: Shahsevan identity and history
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index of topics
- Index of places, peoples, persons, dynasties, parties, companies
- Index of authors quoted or discussed
- Index of tribal names
- Plate section
Summary
Reza Shah and the tribes
Reza Khan assumed the premiership in 1923 and became Reza Shah Pahlavi in early 1926, bringing the Qajar dynasty to an end. His aversion to the tribes in Iran is notorious, and he is widely thought to have broken the back of the tribal system. In his programme for unifying Iran and creating a modern, independent, secular, Persian-speaking country, he saw in the nomad tribes symbols of much that he was trying to replace: alien cultures and languages, allegiance to hereditary chiefs, a ‘primitive’ way of life, and a mobility that made them inaccessible to administration and the rule of law. He was also concerned by the extent to which the tribes had been subject to manipulation by foreign powers. Judging the organization and leadership of the tribes a continuing political danger, and their nomadism as anachronistic in a modern state, he eventually determined on the revolutionary step of destroying the tribal system altogether.
Reza Shah's tribal policy had two main aspects, and was implemented in two distinct phases: a campaign of pacification and disarmament, carried out mostly before he became Shah, and a programme of nomad settlement enforced during his last decade. The pacification campaign, often quoted as a successful example of his strong-arm approach, is well documented, but there is little detailed record of the enforced settlement, which by contrast has received considerable – largely justified – notoriety as a brutal and catastrophic failure.
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- Information
- Frontier Nomads of IranA Political and Social History of the Shahsevan, pp. 283 - 314Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997