The problems of Tribalism : The case of nineteenth‐century Iraqi history

Abstract

The scholarly literature on the tribes of Iraq and, for that matter, the Middle East generally assumes that 'tribes' have a distinctive socio-economic structure that sets them apart from and in opposition to settled populations and any form of central authority.1 This notion of the inherent oppositional relations between tribes, towns on the one hand, and central government on the other, is closely related to the mosaic/despotic 'theory' advanced by western Orientalism.2 Within this tradition, 'Islamic' society (of which the Ottoman Empire was a part) is described as a mosaic of isolated, self-contained, self-governing groupings comprising villages, tribes and ethnic communities that were held together by Islam and its scriptures.3 The cellular character of the 'Islamic' society is seen as its major structural weakness because it allowed for the rise of an arbitrary despotism. Rulership is said to be superimposed by force, without the mediation of