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The Qajar Uymaq in the Safavid Period, 1500–1722

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

James J. Reid
James J. Reid*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Extract

The Qajar uymāq provided Iran with a central dynasty from 1795 until 1924. A great deal of attention has been paid to the dynastic aspect of the Qajar uymāq, with emphasis being placed on the founders of the dynasty (Āghā Muḥammad Khān and Fatḥ cAlī Shāh and their successors. The almost total preoccupation with the family that established the dynasty has underestimated the amazing complexity of the organism out of which it developed and the origins of that organism in the even more complex Safavid uymāq system. In order to understand the specific characteristics of the social system(s) of Qajar Iran, it is necessary to study first the development of the uymāq system in Iran and the origins of the Qajar within that newly developing social context.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 1-4: State and Society in Iran , 1978 , pp. 117 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1978

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References

Notes

1. Uymāq is generally translated as tribe, but in the Safavid system, the uymāq was considerably more than just a kinship association. It was an administrative unit as well as an economic institution which controlled the three major forms of economic activity--pastoralism, agriculture, and various craft industries located in the towns and cities.

2. A. K. S. Lambton, “Ḳādjār,” EI (2nd edition), 387 ff.; idem. “The Tribal Resurgence and the Decline of the Bureaucracy in Eighteenth Century Persia,” Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic History, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1977, pp. 108 ff.Google Scholar, the argument here overlooks the fact that the uymāqs were also administrative units, and that the bureaucracy was in league with them at a certain level of society.

3. A full listing of Āq Quyūnlū. uymāqs can be found in John Woods, AQ, pp. 197-214. The most important in terms of Safavid history were the Āq Bayāt, Afshār, Īnāllū, Purnāk, Mauṣillū, and the various Kurdish groups.

4. Iranians who had lived in the Eurasian steppe on the other hand were nearly all pastoralists. This included the Scyths (Saka?), Sarmatians, Ossetes, and Alans.

5. Flannery, Kent V. “The Ecology of Early Food Production in Mesopotamia,” Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East, ed. Sweet, L. Natural History Press, Garden City, 1970, I, 29-52.Google Scholar

6. Vryonis, Speros Jr. The Decline of Medieval Hellenism, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1970Google Scholar gives the best description of the effect of such movements through an area that was organized on an agrocentral basis.

7. Numerous examples may be cited throughout the chronicles of the Safavid era of such compounds. KhT, p. 39, for instance, mentions the network of houses that Pīra Muḥammad Khān Ustājlū maintained around Qazvīn and environs, showing the houses were important centers of commerce and trade. For the Qājār citadel at Ganja see Bournoutian, George Eastern Armenia on the Eve of the Russian Conquest, The Khanate of Erevan under the Governorship of Hoseyn Qoli Khan Qajar, 1807-1827, PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1976Google Scholar; and W. Barthold/J. A. Boyle, “Gandja,” EI (second edition), pp. 975-976.

8. TM, pp. 100-105.

9. KhT, p. 32; IM, p. 233 and numerous other citations.

10. KhT, pp. 90-91 (Mehdī Qulī Sulṭān Shāmlū at Hirāt).

11. DJ, pp. 45-46.

12. IM, p. 500.

13. Amini, p. 80; DJ, p. 43; AT, p. 70 (Ḥasan Āqā Ustājlu, Khizr Āqā Ustājlū)--the term āqā was applied to any chieftain, usually a standard-bearer of the khān, who had no share in the patrimony of the uymāq's chiefly families.

14. ISP, pp. 84-85; Chardin, Voyages, II, 302-303Google Scholar (chef du metier); IM, p. 208 (˓Abd al-Ghānī Beg Ustājlū) and p. 948 (Takhta Beg Ustājlū).

15. IM, p. 416 (Shahvirdi Beg Chulaq Qajar).

16. TG, passim.; Martin, B. G. “Seven Safawi Documents from Azarbayjan,” Documents from Islamic Chanceries, Cassirer, Oxford, 1967, pp. 198-199Google Scholar, Amīra Sīyāvash Khān was a member of the Iranian group subordinant to the Ṭālish.

17. IM, pp. 267 (Muḥammadī Khān Sārū Sūlāgh Ustājlū); 296 (Qāsim, the Tājīk vazīr of Amīr Khān Mauṣillū).

18. TM, pp. 85-100.

19. Chardin, Voyages, II, p. 292Google Scholar, “Le prevôt de la ville.”

20. A. K. S. Lambton, “Ḳādjār,” EI (second edition), pp. 387-389.

21. DK, pp. 28-41 especially commemorates this relationship, while the prologue gives reference to the Kayl tribe, from which the Ottomans were supposedly descended.

22. Mīrkhānd, Tārīkh-i Rawzat al-Safā, Khayyām, Tihrān, 1351/1972, IX, p. 4.Google Scholar

23. A. K. S. Lambton, “Ḳādjār,” EI (second edition), pp. 387-389; AQ, p. 222; Amini, p. 26, note 3.

24. Sulaimān Efendī, Lughāt-x Chaghatāī, Istanbul, 1298, p. 214.

25. AQ, p. 222; AT, pp. 1, 27, 215; TK, p. 261.

26. IM, pp. 804, 1009.

27. AT, pp. 33, 78-79, 93.

28. AT, pp. 72, 75-76; Tahmāsp I Ṣafavī, Tadhkira, Bibliotheca Indica, Calcutta, 1912, p. 21; Sarwar, pp. 54, 83, 86.

29. Bournoutian, Khanate of Erevan, p. 63. The Ayrūmlū was the second most numerous of the Türkmen tribes in the khanate in 1829, testifying to the fact that they had not totally lost power after the debacle of Div Sulṭān. Even so, down through the centuries they clearly maintained only a subordinate position in the region.

30. AT, pp. 143, 144, 169, 175, 180-181; IM, pp. 70, 71, 73, 76, 77, 86, 88, 89, 108, 140; PZP, p. 4.

31. The longevity of the Qajar uymāq may indeed be due partly to the lack of sympathy with any particular subtribe (Turkish or otherwise) in the regions it came to rule.

32. Ibrāhīm Sulṭān: IM, pp. 94, 112, 134, 140; Yūsuf Khalīfa b. Shāhvirdī: AT, p. 206 and IM, pp. 140, 212; Paikar Beg b. Ibrāhīm: AT, p. 206 and IM, pp. 264, 267.

33. Imām Qulī Khān b. Qubād: KhT, p. 27; DJ, pp. 145-146, 154, 198, 202; IM, pp. 233-235, 237, 270, 293. Muḥammad Khān: IM, pp. 385, 416-417.

34. Sulṭān ˓Alī Beg Bayāt belonged to the Āq Bayāt not the Qarā Bayāt, since his family had an interest in Tabrīz long before the Ustājlū came on the scene. Muhammadī Khān Tukhmāq Kirājīya Ustājlū, governor of Tabrāz in 1585, may have been an Āq Bayāt chief who gave his allegiance over to the Ustājlū. Before this, though, the Qarā Bayāt had little connection with affairs in Tabrīz, so it is assumed that Sulṭān ˓Alī an his relatives were Āq Bayāt. DJ, pp. 158-225; the Āq Bayāt patrimony at Hamadān, IM, p. 440.

35. IM, pp. 435, 436, 458, 533, 581, 585, 604, 605, 657-659, 671; KhT, p. 75.

36. IM, pp. 439, 462, 535, 659, 660, 678, 698, 720, 836, 858-859.

37. Mehdī Qulī: IM, p. 638. Chelebī beg: IM, pp. 984, 1064; Abdāl Sulṭān: IM,, p. 497; Āqcha Siqāl ˓Alī: AT, p. 179.

38. Murshid Qulī: IM, p. 893. Laṭīf: IM, pp. 881, 1008. Sharīf: IM, p. 628. Miḥrāb Khān, who was ḥākim of Marv: IM, pp. 490, 525-527, 576, 620-621, 628, 630, 760, 804, 830, 835, 841, 842, 845, 927, 1008.

39. ˓Alī Khalīfa: IM, pp. 140, 203. Ḥusain Qulī and his brother Alpān or Alyān: IM, pp. 492, 499, 737, 804; TG, pp. 152-153. Amīr Gūna Khān: IM, p. 1041 plus numerous citations.

40. IM, pp. 657, 892; Bournoutian, Khanate of Erevan, pp. 59, 63.

41. AT, p. 168; Fasā'i, Ḥasan-e History of Persia under Qajar Rule, Columbia University Press, New York, 1972, pp. 1-2.Google Scholar

42. A. K. S. Lambton, “Ḳādjār,” EI (second edition), pp. 387-389.

43. A different view is put forward in Lambton, A. K. S. “The Tribal Resurgence and the Decline of the Bureaucracy in Eighteenth Century Persia,” Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic History, ed. Naff, Thomas and Owen, Roger Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1977, pp. 108-129.Google Scholar