TURKOMANS BETWEEN TWO EMPIRES: THE ... - Bilkent University

along with many other historians and anthropologists, repeats the same idea: “The
history of the Islamic Middle East can, from its very beginnings, be written to a large
extent in terms of the interaction between the nomads and the sedentary and urban
population.” 155
The formation process of the state and its continuance might well be evaluated in
context of this interaction. Following Ira Lapidus 156 , in the Ottoman case, I am inclined
to analyze the interaction between tribal nomads and sedentary elements within the
context of the state formation process in three phases: 1) the organization of conquest
movements leading to state formation in a stateless region or to the reorganization in
regions that already have a weak state, 2) the transformation of conquest states into
routinized states or imperial governments, and 3) the relation of routinized or
institutionalized empires to the tribal population within or outside their boundaries.
In the first stage, the influx of tribal people into a state region erodes the
established fiscal and administrative system. 157 Military incursions finally lead to the
complete destruction of the existing state, and to the establishment of tribal
confederacy. 158 The conquering rulers, however, sooner realized the necessity of
155 Ernest Gellner, “Introduction: Approaches to Nomadism”, The Desert and the Sown; Nomads in the
Wider Society, Cynthia Nelson, ed., Berkeley, 1973, p.1
156 Ira M. Lapidus, “Tribes and State Formation in Islamic History”, in Philip S. Khoury and Joseph
Kostiner, eds., Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University
of California Press, 1990, p. 28.
157 For further reading on how nomadic tribes threaten established sedentary economy and social order see
Thomas J. Barfield, The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China, Oxford, 1989; Patricia Crone,
‘Tribes and states in the Middle East’, JRAS 3, 1993, pp.353-76; Fredrik Barth,“A General Perspective on
Nomad-Sedentary Relations in the Middle East”, The Desert and the Sown, 1973, 11-21; Bradburd,
Daniel, “The Influence of Pastoral Nomad Populations on the Economy and Society of Post-Safavid Iran”,
Nomads in the Sedentary World, Anatoly M. Khazanov and Andre Wink, eds., Surrey: Curzon Press,
2001.
158 For an succinct analysis of the state formation process from tribal confederacies in Inner Asia and Iran
see Thomas J. Barfield, “Tribe and State Relations: The Inner Asian Perspective”, in Philip S. Khoury and
Joseph Kostiner, eds., Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford:
University of California Press, 1990, pp. 153-182. Also consider Ernest Gellner, “Tribalism and the State
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