Agha, Shaikh and State: The Social and Political Structures of Kurdistan.

Abstract

* Preface * Introduction * How this book came to be written * Subject of this study * A note on the written sources * 1. General Information on Kurdistan * Geography * Geopolitical situation * Population * Other economic activities: crafts/industries and trades * Language * Religion * The Kurdish national movement, 1960-85 * Iranian Kurdistan and the Islamic Revolution * The Iran-Iraq war and the Kurds * Saddam Hussein's solution to the Kurdish question * Recent changes in Turkey's attitude * 2. Tribes, Chieftains and Non-tribal Groups * The tribe and its subdivisions * Kurdish terms * Blood feud and other conflicts * Higher than the tribe? * Leadership and conflicts * Leadership: titles and functions * The guest-house * Economic aspects: tribute to the agha * Leadership situation among a number of different tribes * Power as a process: the colonization of the northern Jazira * Subject 'non-tribal' peasantry and their relations with tribal Kurds * The guran and the Guran * Nomads and peasants: one or two peoples? * Conclusion * 3. Tribes and the State * Introduction * The incorporation of Kurdistan into the Ottoman Empire * The political history of some Kurdish emirates * Administrative organization of Ottoman Kurdistan in the sixteenth * century * Internal organization of the Kurdish emirates * Political changes in the nineteenth century * The rise of Bedr Khan Beg and the fall of the emirate of Botan * The new land code and its effects * The establishment of Kurdish tribal militias: the Hamidiye * Mustafa Pasha of the Miran * Ibrahim Pasha of the Milan * Changes in the early twentieth century * Conclusions * 4. Shaikhs: mystics, saints and politicians * Introductory remarks * God incarnate * Dervish and sufi orders * Sufi and dervish orders: organized popular mysticism * The history of the Qadiri order as an example * Qadiri shaikhs in Kurdistan * The Naqshbandi tariqa and the Naqshbandi order * Why did the Naqshbandi order spread so rapidly? * Rituals of the Qadiri order * The Naqshbandi ritual * Shaikh and khalifa: relations with other shaikhs * The shaikh and his followers * Millenarianism * Decline of the shaikhs' influence * Islamic revival: the Nurcu movement * 5. Shaikh Said's Revolt * Introduction * History of Kurdish national consciousness * The end of the Ottoman Empire and the birth of the Republic of Turkey * The first Kurdish political organizations * Shaikh Said's revolt * External and internal support for the revolt * The Naqshbandi order and the revolt * The religious versus the nationalist character of the revolt