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Culture and Conflict in the Middle East
Salzman, Philip Carl
Citation (APA): Salzman, P. C. (1969). Culture and Conflict in the Middle East [Kindle iOS version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com
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This is how balanced opposition in the Middle East works: Everybody is a member of a nested set of kin groups, from very small to very large. These groups are vested with responsibility for the defense of each and every one of its members and responsibility for the harm each and every one of its members do to outsiders. This is called by anthropologists “collective responsibility,” and the actions taken by a group on its own behalf are called “self-help.” If there is a confrontation, small groups face opposing small groups, middle-sized groups face opposing middle-sized groups, or large groups face opposing large groups: family vs. family, lineage vs. lineage, clan vs. clan, tribe vs. tribe, confederacy vs. confederacy, sect vs. sect, the Islamic community (umma) vs. the infidels. This is where the deterrence lies, in the balance between opponents; individuals do not face groups, and small groups do not face large groups. Any potential aggressor knows that his target is not solitary or meager, but is always, in principle, a formidable formation much the same size as his.
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Balanced opposition works to the extent that it does because individual members of groups come to the aid of their fellow group members, even at serious risk of injury or loss of life, or with serious material cost. Why do they do this? For two main reasons: one pragmatic, the other cultural. The pragmatic reason is the strong belief that the only ones who can be counted on for help are members of one’s kinship group. You act to support your fellow members, on the understanding that they will come to your aid when you are in need. This is what anthropologists call “generalized reciprocity,” in which you act now to support group members, in the expectation that, some time later, when needed, they will support you. This is sensible self-interest. The cultural reason is that your honor depends upon your living up to your commitments, in this case as a member of the group. If you are not willing to set aside your short-term personal interest, your comfort, and safety to come to the aid of your fellow members, you lose your honor and standing, earn a bad reputation, are not respected by others, and are avoided as a partner in any enterprise.
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The postcolonial argument set forth in Edward Said’s groundbreaking Orientalism (1978), that people are really more or less the same, and that any distinctions between cultures tures impose a false essentialism aimed at defining certain populations as “other” primarily to demean them and justify imperial and colonial oppression, rashly dismissed culture as of nugatory significance. The assumption that all people are just like “us” is a kind of ethnocentrism that projects our values, our ways of thinking, and our goals onto other peoples. The anthropological study of culture around the world is based on a recognition of cultural differences, on an appreciation tion of the importance of culture in people’s lives, and on respect for other people’s cultures.
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Thus adherence to balanced opposition results in individual and group independence, freedom, responsibility, equality, bellicosity, licosity, and courage. At the same time, however, balanced opposition sition is a frame that limits alternatives, some of which might have proven useful. Balanced opposition emphasizes particular loyalties: my lineage against the other lineage; my tribal section against the other tribal section; my tribe against the other tribe; Muslims against infidels. This particularism of loyalties is not consistent with a universalistic normative frame, for example, a constitution of rules which is inclusive, applying equally to everyone. Balanced opposition is rule by group loyalty, rather than rule by rules. Factionalism is the norm; there is a constant fission into smaller groups in opposition to one another, and fusion into larger groups opposed to one another. This structural tural contingency too is inconsistent with constitutional rule in which rules apply to all and are upheld by all at all times. Particularism ticularism and contingency, so basic to complementary opposition, tion, preclude universalistic constitutional frameworks and thus inhibit social and political integration at broader territorial levels including larger and diverse populations.
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Let us take one more illustration from the heart of Arabia. The Rwala Bedouin in northern Arabia have traditionally specialized cialized in raising camels (Lancaster 1997). This seems natural to the observer; the Rwala live in the desert and the camel is the best desert livestock. But why raise camels, and why live in the desert? The answer, or at least part of the answer, is that for millennia there has been a strong market demand in the Middle East for camels. Camels have traditionally brought a good price and allowed those who raised them a good living. The reason is that camels were required for the caravan trade, which was such a major part of the Middle Eastern economy. Merchants and traders always required a good supply of camels for their caravans. The solitary Bedouin wandering with his camels in the distant desert wastes, seemingly so disconnected nected with swarming cities and crass commerce, had in mind the urban livestock market, which was the destination of many of his animals.
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Each tribesman is part of a series of nested patrilineages, the smallest defined by close ancestors, and the larger defined by more-distant ancestors. Each lineage at every level has the responsibility to assist and defend each member. Lineages also collectively hold important economic resources, such as pasture ture and water. There is thus an institutionalized mutual dependence among all members. As a result, social solidarity and cohesion, asabiyya, is commonly found amongst tribesmen.
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What is evident from considering the resources held collectively tively by tribesmen is that the tribe is much more than the collected lected families of the members. Families are sometimes referred to, by social scientists, as the “basic units” of society, but this characterization is, in important ways, misleading. Families can pursue their activities and goals because they do so within a larger social framework that, in the case of tribal nomads, is defined by the constitution of the tribe. In the Middle East, it is the tribe that provides access to many necessary sary material resources and guarantees security for its members. bers. It is the tribal descent system that defines relationships among individuals and groups. Without the tribal framework, life would be a war of all against all.
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Intensive production in rich environments draws state control trol and extraction of taxes and services. Extensive production in remote, marginal environments can escape state control and draw lovers of independence. For this reason, how people pursue making a living depends partly on the amount and weight of state intrusion. If state oppression becomes too heavy, some peasants may give up everything and escape to the margins, taking up pastoralism if they can. Or if state control breaks down altogether, and peasant cultivators become subject ject to repeated raiding by nomads, the cultivators may abandon their villages and join the attackers, the only route to safety. Abner Cohen (1965: 7) describes this dynamic for Palestine under the Ottomans: This was a society existing on the fringe of the desert. When security prevailed, masses of bedouin tended to settle permanently nently on the land, in the valleys and the plains, living in villages. lages. When conditions in the villages were bad-when taxation ation was heavy and the pressure of bedouin was strong-the the villagers tended to become nomadic. Nomadism had many advantages. Nomads paid no taxes, were not conscripted scripted into the army, were armed (while the peasants were prohibited from keeping arms), could amass wealth in the form of livestock without being haunted by unscrupulous tax collectors, and could even engage in occasional agriculture. ture. They did not have to go far to the desert in order to be nomads, because large tracts of fertile lands in the valleys and on the plains were available. Cohen (1965: 7, note 3) explains further: Nomadism in Palestine, therefore, should be seen, at least in part, as a method, or strategy, whereby the population protected tected itself against excessive conditions of insecurity and exploitation, ploitation, and not mainly as adaptation to ecological factors. Thus production is always influenced by ecology and economics, nomics, but also by political context. Understanding how people make a living in the Middle East requires that we consider sider political factors, such as pressure from state agents and from other population groups, as influences in the production choices made by Middle Easterners.
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Until the end of the Mandatory Period [1948], the basis of livelihood for the villagers was subsistence agriculture. The main concern of the average peasant was to secure the muna. Literally the word meant ‘provisions’ but in the living dialect it was almost synonymous with the word ‘livelihood.’ Securing the muna meant the storing of the basic foodstuffs necessary for the subsistence of the family, and the family’s livestock, for a period of thirteen months … a precaution against late harvest in the next season. [Note 1] The main items were as follows: about 450 pounds of wheat for every member of the family, a smaller quantity of barley and millet, about 100 pounds of olive oil for every member, a quantity of onions, the seeds required for the next season’s farming, and the necessary quantity of food for the livestock, mainly for the horse and oxen. (Cohen 1965: 19)
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Among strategies of security, there are two great branches: the branch of “self-help” and the branch of “authority.” “Self-help” help” is a decentralized strategy in which all individuals take it upon themselves, either individually or collectively, to provide security by directly acting in defense and attack. All men, representing resenting all families, are armed and ready to take coercive action. All men, excepting a few religious figures, regard themselves selves as warriors bound to fight, proud to fight, in defense of their families and groups. “Authority” is a centralized strategy for providing security in which specifically designated individuals uals and groups act on matters of security, defensively and offensively, on behalf of the entire population. Specific bodies of specialists-designated as police, army, judges, and prosecutors-are tors-are given responsibility for order and defense. They hold or monopolize special resources, including funds, weapons, and training, critical for coercive action. In contrast, the population lation in general is not supplied with these special resources, and is often forbidden access to them. The general populace is thus totally dependent upon the specialized agencies to maintain tain order and to defend them and their property. In both branches security is based on established institutions; tions; the difference between the branches is that for “self-help,” help,” all people and all parties are encompassed by and responsible to act through the institution, whereas for “authority,” a small number of designated individuals are responsible to act on behalf of the entire population. There is a corresponding difference in recognition of social standing in the two branches: members of societies based on strategies of “self-help” are equal with one another and share the responsibility bility and prestige; members of societies based on strategies of “authority” are divided, with those in specialized agencies of control and defense having power and prestige, and the bulk of the population in a subservient position to those with power and authority. Strategies of “self-help” thus lend themselves to more egalitarian itarian societies; strategies of “authority” to more hierarchical societies. “Self-help” is characteristic of band and tribal societies; eties; “authority” is characteristic of the state.
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Ibn Khaldun, 1332-1408 CE, who observed and took part in North African political life, described the tribal system and its relations with the state in detail. Ibn Khaldun (1967; see commentaries mentaries in Gellner 1981: ch. 1 and passim, Lindholm 2002: ch. 4) stressed the importance of social solidarity, unity, and mutual support among tribesmen, which is based on what he labels asabiyya, group feeling. It lies behind and is reinforced by blood feud. Group feeling and solidarity give tribesmen the capacity to withstand attack and to conquer. Asabiyya gives tribes the advantage over the premodern state, which is weakened ened by sedentary life, hierarchical stratification, and the suppression pression of aggression.
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What accounts for the continued importance of tribes even in the presence of states? While citizens of contemporary industrial democracies sometimes view the state with a certain ambivalence, on the whole, citizens tend to see the state as the source of security and benefits. But this modern, democratic state was very late coming. Premodern states, characteristic of earlier periods of history and widely present around the world today, are not democratic, and rarely provide security or benefits. The traditional tional state is more accurately understood as a center of power controlled by warlords, robber barons, and their coercive thugs, tax collectors, and priests, the latter supplying some kind of rationalization for the forced extraction from their subjects, who were seen mainly as livestock to be milked and sheared (Gellner 1988: 21-23, 103, 145-46, and passim). The main project of early states was predatory expansion, both for loot and for control over larger populations, the milking and shearing of which would bring greater returns. The peasant subjects of the premodern, despotic state were in an unattractive tive position, subject to abuse, extortion, and expropriation by rulers, tax collectors, and soldiers alike.
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Independent tribesmen see peasants as oppressed, downtrodden, weak, lacking honor, and inferior. In contrast, tribesmen see themselves as independent of any interference, ference, free to follow their own will, as equal to each other and to anyone else, as brave warriors, as honorable men. As a result, tribesmen actively resist conquest by states, resist incorporation into states, and resist domination by agents of states. To do this, tribesmen organize independently, on their own, in order to avoid falling under the power of the state. Tribesmen say that freedom is not paying taxes (Lindholm 2002: 25-26), so keeping independent of states gives them freedom. Given the choice, tribesmen choose autonomy, freedom, equality, strength, and honor, and avoid the weakness, oppression, inequality, and dishonor suffered by the peasant.
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A tribe is conceived of as a huge family descended from a common ancestor, from whom the tribe generally takes its name. Hence its segments can be figured either as a series of political sections or as genealogical branches of a clan. A tribe is divided into several, generally two or three, primary mary divisions, or sub-tribes, … They believe that they are descended from a common ancestor, who is generally a son of the ancestor of the tribe. Primary tribal divisions split into secondary divisions, and secondary divisions into tertiary divisions, and so on. Each of the smaller divisions is a replica of the larger ones… The members of each division also consider that they are descended from a common ancestor who, in his turn, is descended from the ancestor of the larger division of which they form a section. Qabila is the word generally used to denote a tribe or primary mary tribal division. Ailat [singular: ‘aila] are the lineages into which a clan is divided and hence the sections of a tribe of various sizes in which these lineages are found and after which they take their names. Biyut [singular: bait] are small lineages, or extended families, with a depth of five or six generations erations from the present day to their founders.
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It will be found that in any of the main tribes stranger groups, sometimes of client origin, have attached themselves to the clan dominant in the tribal area and through some fiction, tion, myth, or fraud, have grafted their branch of descent on to the genealogical tree of this clan. The Bedouin use the word laf to describe this process and they say that kinship established in this way may become as strong as kinship of blood… [A] lineage … often is … conceived of politically cally as an agnatic group … together with stranger and [other] accretions which occupy its territory and make common cause with it in disputes with other tribes or segments ments of the same tribe. (Evans-Pritchard 1949: 56)
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The Bedu are well aware that [modern] governments are stronger than they, politically, economically and militarily. Any government could crush the tribes in their territory at any time but they don’t, because the tribe’s cause could only too easily be taken up by an unfriendly neighbour with unpredictable results. However weak the practical nature of segmentary solidarity may be in fostering inter-tribal cooperation, operation, it is sufficiently strong for it to be a distinct threat; moreover many armies are made up largely of Bedu. The Rwala play a large part in this game of bluff and counterbluff bluff for they are very numerous and can cross borders freely and legitimately. The inter-state squabbles, which are the norm in the area at the moment, can be exploited by them fairly easily. Thus the affront to the Sha’alan [shaikhs], which affected the tribe as well, when their land was confiscated, was countered by a retreat into Jordan, which was hardly on speaking terms with Syria at the time. From there they waged economic warfare on the Ba’athists in terms of smuggling. This had certain economic effects, for the quantities of U.S. cigarettes smuggled into Syria were so enormous…
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How did this strategy work practically, and why did the Rwala Bedouin find it attractive? Lancaster (1997: 112) explains: The family camped in north-east Jordan and started up smuggling. Tribesmen who had lost their camels in the drought flocked to them and the enterprise was a success. The sheikhs saw smuggling not only as a means of making large sums of money quickly but also, as previously mentioned, tioned, as a form of economic warfare against the Syrian government, ernment, which, they felt, had treated them unfairly. Quite apart from this, the danger involved appealed to them and they (and many others) regarded smuggling as a surrogate for [traditional] raiding. It gave them the opportunity, denied them for some thirty years, of displaying traditional Bedu virtues of bravery and resourcefulness and it provided the money necessary for their casual generosity. The initial capital for this venture, i.e. for buying trucks, goods and arms, came almost entirely from the women, who sold their jewellery. Traditionally jewellery has always been a bank account… Bracelets, necklaces, medallions and headdresses, dresses, mostly of solid gold, were ruthlessly broken up and sold, the proceeds being put at the disposal of husbands, sons and brothers. As well as providing capital, it financed the family until money started to come in. The Jordanian authorities, ideologically opposed to the Ba’ath, tactfully looked the other way and the Syrian authorities were in no wise prepared for a major policing action.
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In the Middle East and North Africa, as in mainland Asia and early Europe, tribes thus were and are part of a complex social, cultural, political, and economic field that also includes states, peasants, and commercial traders. Tribes flourished because tribal life was regarded as more attractive than peasant life by many, because independence, freedom, equality, and honor were seen as tribal characteristics, while oppression, exploitation, servitude, and dishonor were seen to be the condition of peasants. ants. Of course, tribesmen were prepared to trade their independence ence for positions as rulers, which they repeatedly did by conquering quering states and setting up their own dynasties.
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If each individual belongs to many lineages, small and large, when does he act on behalf of one or another, and how does he know? Anthropologists call these lineages “contingent,” gent,” in that they do not operate all of the time, but are called into action according to the circumstances. The circumstance that calls these groups into action is conflict. The principle of affiliation used is “always side with closer kin against more-distant distant kin.” This is expressed in the famous Arab saying, “I against my brothers; my brothers and I against our cousins; my brothers and cousins and I against the world.” By applying the principle of closeness vs. distance, a tribesman always knows with whom he must side, against whom, and when to be neutral. tral. Loyalty and honor requires siding with the closer. When an individual or group is equidistant from the two conflicting parties, neutrality is the correct stance.
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But the situation remained ambiguous and could not be left as it was. It was necessary, now that the trunks had been retrieved, to inquire about the original act of misappropriation and to find out whether a state of hostility existed or did not exist. A neutral intermediary, mardi monjine (in Persian: mianji), a man without membership in either of the conflicting lineages, had to be sent to the Kamil Hanzai to clarify the situation. uation. Had a Dadolzai gone, and the discussion turned nasty, he would have been at the mercy of the Kamil Hanzai. Gemi, son of Pir Dad, of the Mir Alizai brasrend was chosen. It was said that he was a member of neither party and so was not in danger. It was not Gemi’s job to make peace, but only to inquire and then to report the current state of the relationship. Had the report been of hostility, the Dadolzai, according to some opinion, was prepared to go off the next morning in an armed group and fight it out with the Kamil Hanzai.
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This form of tribal organization, balanced opposition, the structure of which is sometimes called a “segmentary lineage system” by anthropologists, is brilliant in a number of respects. First, this is a regional system of order that can encompass hundreds of thousands of individuals, on a totally decentralized, nonhierarchical, egalitarian, and democratic basis. No officials or centralized institutions are required. Thus the autonomy, freedom, equal status, and honor of each individual vidual are enhanced. Second, balanced opposition minimizes the possibility that individuals will have to defend themselves against groups, that small groups will have to defend themselves selves against large ones, that numbers of attackers will overwhelm. whelm. In conflicts, groups tend to face others of the same genealogical level and same magnitude. The very structure of the system builds in a kind of demographic fairness.
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In addition to the constraint arising from deterrence, there is another major and much revered mechanism of social control that militates in favor of peace and stability. This is the neutral mediator, structurally equidistant in kinship from the parties in conflict, and active in resolving the dispute and reinstituting cordial dial relations between the conflicting groups. The mediator always has an evocative symbolic idiom at his disposal, because the conflicting groups are always, at a higher level of genealogy, constituent parts of a larger lineage, and, thus, at that higher level, all of the conflicting parties are kinsmen. Mediators are commonly drawn from the most respected individuals in the community, often from high status groups, and for their troubles, if they are successful, gain the greatest prestige in the society.
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The rights and obligations of individuals as members of lineages were of course spelled out normatively, but were by no means solely normative. Mutual aid, generalized reciprocity, procity, and solidarity among lineage mates were not only nice things to do. Tribesmen saw these also as in their interests, for they believed that their individual destinies were dependent upon the character of their particular lineage and how members bers of other lineages perceived it. Everyone wanted their lineages ages to be seen as solidary, brave, and tough, so that others would avoid any hostile actions. Thus any act by an outsider that could be perceived as deleterious to the interests of the lineage had to be responded to in a decisive fashion, lest others see the lineage as weak and its members as easy targets. The tribesmen believed that each offense against its members not strongly answered would lead to other offenses, and these would lead to yet more. In tribal Baluchistan, the price of security rity is eternal vigilance.
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There can be no doubt about the centrality of balanced opposition sition and tribal organization in the historical Middle East from the rise of Muhammad and the rapid expansion of the Arab Empire. Muhammad’s Arabia was a tribal region, and his constituency was Bedouin tribes who served as the shock troops and colonialists in the Arab invasions of the Levant and North Africa in the west, and Iran, India, and central Asia in the east. Even such major religious splits as that between Shi’a and Sunni were born in balanced opposition between two closely related lineages in Mecca.
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The basic principles of balanced opposition continue to be operative in Middle Eastern towns and cities. To cite just one case, conflict in contemporary Gaza leads to blood feuds between kin groups (Globe and Mail 2006): “They never saw each other as an enemy … Their families were always very close until recently.”-Nasser Khalil, an acquaintance of two Palestinian friends in Gaza, who attended the same school, prayed at the same mosque and played soccer together-yet unwittingly found themselves on opposite ends of a bloody gunfight between two rival factions last week that claimed both their lives. At first, the families of both victims, Mohammed Harazin and Ismail Abu Hair, planned revenge against each other, as is tradition when members of one clan kill another. But fighters from Islamic jihad intervened, fearing that the violence would spiral out of control. Finally, the patriarchs of each family agreed to respect a truce, which they tearfully announced in a shared statement at a Dec. 21 [2006] press conference: “From here this moment we declare our wish for this conflict to end. We are willing to forgive and forget the blood of our sons … We need to stop the blood flowing from our people.”
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In Gaza City (Ottawa Citizen 2006: A12), Violent clashes broke out early today between Hamas fighters and armed members of a powerful family clan in Gaza City, with at least one person killed and one wounded, witnesses said. … Fighting took place in the district where one of Hamas’ top officials in Gaza, Foreign Minister Mahmud Zahar, lives. His home was targeted by the powerful family, two of whose members were killed Wednesday in clashes with Hamas, and the witnesses said several Hamas members were abducted.
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Fourth, Islam firmly maintains the opposition between the Muslim and the infidel. As we shall see, the Muslim is opposed to the infidel, and the dar al-Islam, the land of Islam and peace, to the dar al-harb, the land of the infidels and conflict. Balanced opposition was raised to a higher and more inclusive structural level, and the newly Muslim tribes were unified in the face of the infidel enemy. We can see this manifested among the Bedouin of Cyrenaica, who, while they did not fulfill various ritual obligations with great assiduity, excused themselves by explaining “their enthusiasm for the jihad, holy war against unbelievers.” The Bedouin admitted that they do not pray regularly, ularly, but “‘nasum wa najhad’ ‘we fast and we wage holy war’” (Evans-Pritchard 1949: 63). With Muhammad’s Islamic revolution, tion, balanced opposition came to encompass the world, and to have the authorization of God.
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However, the quest for honor goes beyond simply doing one’s duty and fulfilling one’s obligations. For Middle Easterners, erners, the search for honor and the avoidance of shame becomes a goal in its own right. This appears to be an “unintended tended consequence” of a concept evolved to cement group loyalty. alty. The result is that concerns about honor drive behavior and shape responses. Honor becomes a powerful motivator in social engagement and exchange. Calculations about material interest, and individual and group consequences, never neglect the effects on honor, which often come to outweigh other concerns.
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Among Arabs, all men are in principle equal, or, more precisely, cisely, not unequal by any prescribed ascription. That is, all men are born equal, without higher or lower rank. It is in this sense that we can say that Arab culture is decisively egalitarian. Each man, being in principle equal to all others, is also in principle ciple autonomous, making decisions for himself according to his own lights. Each man, free to act as he chooses, is thus responsible for his own actions. In this sense, we can say that Arab culture decisively encourages freedom of the individual.
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As the Arabic proverb puts it, “He who rules over you, emasculates you” (Kressel 1996: 104).
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So it was during the thirty years, 1960-1990, between the Barabha, Shalalfa, and Trabelsiyya patrilineal kin groups in the Israeli town of Ramla, eighteen kilometers southeast of Tel Aviv. (I draw here at some length from Gideon M. Kressel’s Ascendancy through Aggression: The Anatomy of a Blood Feud among Urbanized Bedouin, 1996.) These patrilineages, with Bedouin origins, were part of an Arab population of 3,800 among 30,000 Jews in the town. The members of these lineages, ages, some of whom had lived in the town for decades, had modern occupations in mechanized agriculture, transport, and wholesale commerce. But these lineages tended to live fairly compactly, located in or around the Bedouin quarter and in public housing provided for them. As well, and more important, tant, they maintained their asabiyya, their lineage solidarity, and each maintained at least one shiqq, a meeting house, for members of the lineage (Kressel 1996: 22-23). This result is not unusual, for, as Kressel (1996: 17) explains, “molding a social landscape of patrilineage quarters … [is] the traditional pattern by which urban society in the Middle East has always been structured.”
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With the advent of serious fighting and major injuries, members of lineages gathered in the shiqq meeting rooms along with members of allied smaller lineages to exhibit solidarity. At the same time, Israeli police intervention was initiated, with the goal of stopping the conflict and reinstituting order. The strategy of the police was to add its weight to the traditional Bedouin mediation process (Kressel 1996: 56), which involves first a preliminary cease-fire agreement, called a wujeh (literally meaning “face,” after the Bedouin notables who agree to act as guarantors of the peace), during which mediators try to work out a formal truce, ‘atwa (literally “gift,” the restraint of the injured party), which, with further mediation and negotiation, would lead to a formal reconciliation, sulh. The reports and presentations of the events by the interested ested parties also develop through phases (Kressel 1996: 59). First, each side in the fight stresses their own great prowess and the severe injuries that they visited on their opponents. Each side also denies that they themselves suffered any serious injuries. In this phase, each side is trying to bolster its honor by claiming superior strength and denying injury. Even if there is an evident winner and loser-and the judge of this is the public, the other lineages-the losing lineage tries to minimize mize its loss, just as the winner tries to maximize its victory. The second phase begins with the (informal) public verdict of victor and vanquished. Then, with mediation and compensation tion looming, the winner asserts its innocence in the conflict, and minimizes the injuries it has caused. The victim now exaggerates gerates its injuries and losses, in order to gain maximum compensation. pensation. But of the result for the allocation of honor, for public standing and for the ranking of the lineages, there is no doubt. He who gives compensation is ruled the victor; he who receives compensation is deemed the loser. The victor gains honor; the vanquished loses honor. The victor ranks higher in the hierarchy of honor than the loser.
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It was no accident that the arrival of new recruits acted as reinforcement for the Shalalfa, and that with larger numbers they defeated the Barabha. It is always expected that the lineage eage with larger numbers will prevail, and that lineage size is equated with power. The larger the size of the lineage, the more warriors, and the lineage with the larger number of warriors riors is regarded as stronger and likely to be the victor. Larger lineages are thus ranked higher than smaller lineages (Kressel 1996: 105). Rivalries and disputes over honor generally arise, as Kressel (1996: 105) indicates, between “two groups of approximately the same size who occupy adjacent positions on the local hierarchical ladder,” each trying to avoid domination tion by the other, and each hoping to rise over the other.
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Even the formal status and genealogical place of tribes can change to reflect fait accompli. Peters (1968: 172-73) argues that a genealogy is less an accurate record of descent, than a rationalization of actual relations between groups and their territorial relations. Thus a strong and victorious Marabtin client group will be incorporated into the genealogy as a free and noble Hurr tribe. Indeed, the noblest lineage in the whole of the land is reputed to be of client origin, and the tribesmen of this lineage, eage, after recounting the circumstances which permitted their client ancestor to appropriate noblemen’s lands, boast their [noble] Sa’adi [genealogical] status. (Peters 1968: 173)
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What conclusions can we draw from the cases examined here? First, that group solidarity, asabiyya, and honor, are closely related. Solidarity is supported by the honor of the individual member, and the honor of the group as a whole requires solidarity. Second, that the solidarity that allows the group to defend itself also makes possible offensive action against other groups. Third, that in either defense or offense, military capacity is the decisive factor. Fourth, the number of male agnates determines military capacity. Fifth, that affronts to honor will lead to confrontations, conflicts, and combat. Sixth, competition for places in the honor ranking of groups can lead to confrontations, conflicts, and combat. Seventh, injuries and compensation received signal the loser, and a loss of honor. Eighth, in competitions for honor, there can only be winners and losers. Victors receive honor; the vanquished are humiliated. Domination is always the objective.
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In competition, whether between individual men, between lineages, or tribes, the type of honor at stake is generally labeled sharaf. Ginat (1997: 129; see also Stewart 1994: ch. 4) defines it this way: “Sharaf is a type of honor that fluctuates according to a man’s behavior. [For example:] If a man looks after the needs of his guests and is seen to be generous erous to those in need, his honor standing is high… This type of honor can be accumulated or lost according to a man’s behavior.”
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The other type of honor that is affected by women’s behavior is called ‘ird. Groat (1997: 129) says “‘ird, on the other hand, is a type of honor that is used ‘only in connection with female chastity and continence’ [Abou Zeid 1965: 256]. A woman cannot by exemplary conduct add to her agnates’ ‘ird, though by misbehaving she can detract from it.” For Stewart (1994: 54, 81-85), ‘ird is a kind of “horizontal honor” that he labels “personal honor”: “Two features … distinguish it from other types: first … that [it] can be lost, and second that in order to retain it one must follow certain rules, or maintain certain standards …”
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An example of this is a story told in a number of Egyptian oral poems: An army sergeant called Mitwalli learns that his sister has become a prostitute. He tracks her down, kills her, chops up the corpse, and throws it from her balcony to the dogs [which are unclean animals for Muslims]. All this is described with unqualified approval by the authors of the poems, as is Mitwalli’s subsequent exoneration in court. The disgraceful behavior of Mitwalli’s sister was a blot on his honor, and that of his family, and could only be erased by her blood. In such cases, it is felt that blood cleans humiliation.
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“Shame is not when someone’s daughter has illicit sexual relations; the shame is when it is public knowledge that she has had illicit sexual relations.” tions.” Families of course do their best to keep misbehavior secret, but in face-to-face communities this is very difficult. Furthermore, as part of sharaf honor competition, each family is watching the others in order to find some advantage for themselves. An indiscretion by a woman of one family can be seen by other families as an opportunity to improve their relative ative positions. As Cohen (quoted in Ginat 1997: 134) puts it, “An adulterous woman, even an unmarried woman having a sexual affair with a man, must be killed by her brothers or her father’s brother’s sons. If she is killed the group not only reasserts its position but also rises in prestige scale. If she is not killed they suffer loss of prestige.” There is thus some interplay between horizontal and vertical honor.