Yemen's Tribal Idiom: An Ethno-Historical Survey of Genealogical Models1

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" Yemen's Tribal Idiom: An Ethno-Historical Survey of Genealogical Models1 "
D. M. Varisco

Document Type	:	AL
Language of Document	:	English
Record Number	:	182756
Doc. NO	:	LA39145
Call No	:	‭10.1093/jss/fgw065‬
Main Entry	:	D. M. Varisco
Title & Author	:	Yemen's Tribal Idiom: An Ethno-Historical Survey of Genealogical Models1\ D. M. Varisco
Title of Periodical	:	Journal of Semitic Studies
Date	:	2017
Volume/Isuee Number	:	62/1
Page Number	:	217-241
Abstract	:	The notion of an Arab tribe has been widely debated by anthropologists and historians. Whatever its relevance in specific social and historical contexts, it often serves as idiom of alleged genealogical descent. Arab scholars created a genre of nasab (genealogy) literature, most notably that of Ibn al-Kalbī (d. 819 ce). There is a substantial literature in Arabic discussing the terms used to describe tribal descent groups, but it is difficult to apply the models to what actually occurred on the ground. Yemen is a particularly important locus for Arab genealogy, not only for the continuing significance of a tribal idiom in contemporary Yemeni society, but also because so many of the early migrants in the expansion of Islam traced their ancestry to Yemeni tribes. In this article I examine the models proposed for the tribal idiom in Yemen since the time of the Yemeni scholar al-Hamdānī (d. 945 ce) to nineteenth and twentieth century accounts by Yemeni scholars, Western travellers and anthropologists. The aim of the paper is to compare models recorded in texts with observations of tribal affiliation and identity making. Are these models artificial constructs of early scholars, reserve systems for political mobilization, or reflections of similarities in the dynamics of group formation across the region? To the extent models of tribal genealogy constitute an idiom, what do they express in differing political and ideological contexts?
electronic file name	:	10.1093-jss-fgw065.pdf