As an important passage between Eurasia, Iran has been a necessary place for many nomads to migrate and meet since ancient times. The Turks, Mongols, and Turkmen ruled Iran.
These nomadic tribes, while ruling Iran, retained the tradition of tribal autonomy and gradually assimilated into Iran's civilian culture and authoritarian traditions. The two-way interaction between the invaders and the invaded has laid the foundation for Iran's "pluralistic and integrated" ethnic relations pattern.
Influenced by geographical advantages, political affiliation between hierarchies, tribal chiefship and tribal economy, the tribe adheres to the principle of independence and autonomy and opposes the intervention of the central government, which enables the tribe to be active in the stage of Iranian history for a long time.
Population and geographical distribution of Iranian tribes
In the 18th century, the looting of Afghans in Iran led to heavy losses in Iranian urban population, while tribes suffered relatively small population losses due to their remote rural and mountainous location, far from urban centers. During this period, the tribal population of Iran reached its peak. At a time of a power vacuum in Iran, tribes began operating in Iran's major cities. The population and geographical distribution of Iranian tribes during this period can reflect the political situation in Iran in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Population of Iranian tribes
With the decline of the Safavid dynasty, Iran's population changed due to the unstable political situation. In 1722, the Afghans invaded Iran, looting major cities including Isfahan and Qazvin, and also destroying agricultural production in Khorasan and Sistan, causing substantial wealth and population losses. Nadir Shah repelled the Afshal and established Afshal rule. During his reign, he fought in the South and the North to expand his authority. Frequent military struggles led to a continuous decline in the population.
In 1733, more than 20,000 Persian soldiers were killed in Nadir's war with the Ottoman Empire. In particular, at the end of Nadir's reign, he also implemented an anti-Persian policy, purging the army of Persians, Persians in the enclave, and Persian rebellion. These actions have accelerated population decline. After the collapse of Afshar's rule, the political situation in Iran remained unstable. The Zanders ruled parts of the south centered on Shiraz, while tribes in northern Iran were plundering and strife, and frequent civil wars damaged the political and economic environment, reducing the number of urban and rural populations. The tribes avoided direct damage from war because they were far from town centers, and population losses were relatively small, so much so that there was a brief period of "tribal revival".
According to estimates by European travelers in the early 19th century, the total population of Iran at that time was about 6 million. The known tribal population is about 1.36 million, or about 25% of Iran's total population. Among them, the Turkmen tribes far outnumber the native tribes of Iran, and the Turkmen tribes have more independent branches and fierce competition among different tribes. This may also explain the prominent influence of the Turkmen tribes in the struggle for Persian hegemony in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Bakhtiari and Luri tribes also compete as indigenous tribes of Iran, but this competition is usually local and more of a rebellion against authoritarian rule. Kurds, Arabs and Baloch reinforces their unique position in Persian society because of their geographical location and ethnic identity. These tribes often participate in the struggle for the throne as mercenaries, and the tribes themselves have no ambitions for the throne for self-preservation, but when the central power interferes with their autonomy, they will resist the struggle.
Geographical distribution of Iranian tribes
Due to its location at the crossroads of the Eurasian continent, Iran has historically been a hub for migration, trade and transportation. In the process of interacting with local ethnic groups in Iran, foreign ethnic groups either retained their own ethnic characteristics or were assimilated by Iranian culture in mutual integration, which laid the foundation for the pattern of ethnic relations of "pluralism and integration" in Iran later. In the 19th century, the tribes of Iran can be roughly divided into three categories: one is the Turkmen tribe, one is the native tribe that has been living in Iran, and the other is the tribe that belongs to the cross-border. These three types of tribes have a relatively fixed spatial range of activity.
The Turkmen tribes are numerous and large-scale, and the distribution of tribes is wide and scattered. Among them, the dominant tribal branches are Afshaar, Kaija, Shasevan, Kashkey, Hamsheikh, Yamut, and Gukran. In addition to the Kashkai and Hamsheikh tribes in the southwestern province of Fars, other Turkmen tribes such as Afshaal, Qaja, Yamut and Gukran are distributed in the provinces of Azerbaijan, Mazanderan, Astabad and Khorasan in northern Iran. Influenced by both the natural environment and historical traditions, most of these tribes live nomadic life.
Anthropologist Oliver Garrod considered Kashkey to be a nomadic tribe close to the highest level of nomadic civilization. The Kashkai claim that they came following Genghis Khan's descendant Xu Liehu to conquer. They believe in Shiites and their language is similar to Azerbaijani. Monogamous marriage prevailed within it, which reduced the competition for chiefdom by descendants and achieved some stability in tribal society. At the same time, women have gained relative equality in the family. The Kashkai are good at weaving and riding, and the beautiful fabrics embody the superb weaving techniques of tribal women; Male horsemanship and riding have reached the first-class level of nomadic civilization.
Iran's native tribes, the Bakhtiari and Luri tribes, live mainly in the central region of Iran, including parts of Fars, Khuzestan and Kerman provinces. The Bakhtiari tribe is one of the most resilient hill tribes. They live on nomadism and believe in Shiites.
Bakhtiari has two main branches: Haftran and Chaharlang. In the early years of the Qajar rule, the Bakhtiari tribe had a strong tribal identity, resisting and rejecting any centralization that threatened tribal independence. The Luri tribe belongs to the native tribes of Iran, they mainly speak Persian and believe in Shiites. The Luri tribe has three separate branches: Mamasseni, Kukhgiluye, and Little Lurie. In the early 19th century, the Luri tribe mostly began a sedentary agricultural life.
Arabs, Balochistan, Kurds, and Afghans constitute Iran's cross-border tribes. Most of these tribes live on Iran's borders, where central control is weaker. Arab tribes are concentrated in the southwestern Iranian province of Khuzestan and on the Persian Gulf coast, with the largest concentration of Arabs in the city of Bushehr on the Persian Gulf coast. They are Sunni and speak Arabic. Most Arabs belong to nomadic tribes and live on regular migratory lives.
A small number of Arabs engage in piracy in the Persian Gulf Islands. The Balochistan tribe operates in the province of Sistan-Balochistan and has close contacts with the Baloch people of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Baloch people are Sunni and speak Balochi, which is very similar to Persian. According to Baloch legend, they were followers of Ali, the fourth caliph. After the martyrdom of Ali's son Hussein, the Baloch began their journey of exile eastward to escape and did not actually settle until they followed the establishment of the Mughal Empire.
The Kurdish tribe is the largest tribal organization in Iran after the Turkmen and Persian tribes. The Kurdish tribe is a cross-border ethnic group whose members live mainly in the Kurdistan region and in the Azerbaijani region. Many Kurdish tribes migrated seasonally from Iran to Ottoman-controlled areas. Kurds speak Kurdish, are Sunni and practice monogamous marriage. Kurdish tribes are sedentary and nomadic. Settled Kurdish tribes either farming or doing business; More Kurds live nomadic for their livelihood.
Afghan tribes are active in the provinces of Sistan and Khorasan on the border between Iran and Afghanistan. It can be said that these border tribes are one of the important factors affecting Iran's relations with its neighboring countries. As a result, successive Iranian governments have sought to bring these tribes under their control. In summary, Iran's tribes have developed their own language, beliefs and way of life over the long period of development. With the influence of nationalist ideas, each ethnic group acquired a unique dress, language, historical concept and way of life, and this symbolic symbol became the identity of the members of their own ethnic group and became an integral part of Iran's multinational state.