Social organization of the Tajiks of Andarab Valley, Afghanistan

The thesis is a description of the social organization of the Persian-speaking peasantry and part-pastoralists of a highland district in the central Hindu Kush of Afghanistan. Andarab district, with an estimated population of 33,000 souls, constitutes a geographical as well as governmental entity, and, as the people are orthodox Muslims, it is also a small segment of the cosmopolitan Islamic fraternity. The thesis falls into two parts, which are separated by a statement of the methods of fieldwork (Chapter III) employed in the prevailing political and local circumstances. The first part (Chapter II) attempts a comprehensive report of Adarab. After an account of the geographical, ecological and demographic background, it describes the division of the population into individual autocephalous households, either simple or polygynous, and grouped into village communities on the basis of patrilocal domicile. The factors of socio-economic stratification are specified. An examination of the boundaries of the four "electoral wards" into which Andarab is divided, suggests that a system of competitive oppositions is the main theme in political activity. The second part of the thesis presents exploratory material on the local community, the Afghan state, and Islam. Chapter IV suggests that, in the absence of corporate estates and succession by descent, the dynamic of the individual's life-career in his local community derives from the cycle of domestic development and his position vis-a-vis his coparceners as well as other kin relations. The Koranic rules of marriage and inheritance are given, and followed by an examination of their characteristic patterns among clusters of close collateral agnates, which are the only factional groups within the local community. An illustrative case of a matrilateral cross-cousin marriage within one village, shows that competitive opposition comes to a head over questions of marriage bestowal and bridewealth. Chapter V describes the system of local government; and the careers in Andarab of two successive deputy commissioners, with reference to their policies in dealing with the departmental personnel within the district secretariat, and also the circle of native intermediaries through whom the business of administration must be carried on. Chapter VI deals briefly with the rites through which the local community is integrated in to cosmopolitan Islam. The main element in these rites of Muslimhood is the congregational one, and the seclusion of women rigidly excludes them from participation in it. It is suggested that the function of purdah is to define the particularist side of local citizenship, while the communal and universalist side is enjoined on the men by the periodic congregational rites