Bakhtiari Stucture and Leadership

The Haft Lang tribe is the largest group in the Bakhtiari. Going back to the time of Nader Shah they have held the best land and the most power. There are 55 clans. The primary Taifeh or tribes are

• ·         Duraki historically the elite ruling clan.
• ·         Babadi-Bab the second in power behind the Duracki. 150,000 sheep in the 1970s.
• ·         Dinaruni-Bab
• ·         Bakhtiarwand

Chahar Lang or Charlang is the name of the lesser one of the two main branches of the Bakhtiari. The Chahar Lang land is split to the north and south of the Haft Lang land. There are 24 clans. The primary Taifeh or tribes are

• ·         Esteki
• ·         Moogouei/Muguyi   Allied through marriage with the Babadi Bab. They control the important Azmny Shymbar or just Shymbar. This area is called the Valley of Sweet Spring and is the sheltered Karon River valley in the Zagros Mountains
• ·         Kianersi
• ·         Mahmoud Saleh/Mamsaleh/ Mahmudsalih
• ·         Zallaghi/ Ziliqi
• ·         Meyvand/Mamivand

Bakhtiari leaders are called Khan since the time of Nader Shah but not before.  The supreme Khan was called the IL-Khan. These terms are not native to the Bakhtiari who are an ancient Persian tribe. Khans and IL-Khan came down to the present day from the Chinese and then throuh the Mongols and then through the IL-Khanid dynasty which firmly imprinted it in Persian Culture. IL comes from Mongol who used IL and Ulus as political terms. IL meant the people under a Khan as in the Horde. Ulus refers to the land controlled by the Horde. When Hulagu was sent by his brother Mongke Khan he used the title IL-Khan to signify that he was second in rank to Mongke his brother and liege. But with the death on Mongke and the Mongols wars of succession IL-Khan came to mean supreme ruler. It is in the later sense that the Bakhtiari used IL-Khan as heir supreme leader.

Other tribal terms include IL-Begi as a confederation leader under the IL-Khan and Kalantar the senior leader of the Taifeh (also tayifih) or component tribe. Or instance the Kalantar of the Zallaghi would have authority over all Zallaghi but when dealing with the Meyvand he would work through the Meyvand Kalantar. 
The word Bab as in Babadi-Bab equates roughly to IL. I suspect that Bab is a Persian word and predates the Nadir Shah days. It is not a Turko-Mongolic borrow word. There is speculation that the Bakhtiari have their roots in fusion of Kurds and Luri with some Arabs. A closer examination of Linguistics combined with the Human Genome project will tell us more.

The Taifeh is similar to the Aymaqs we see in other tribal confederations. Each Taifeh is made up of Tireh and each Tireh is made up of aligned camping group called an Urdu (The Mongol word for camp)  each group averaging about 5 tents. Groups that are larger the 5 tents tend to fracture and split. Groups of less than 5 tend to suffer from too few workers. In migration the Urdu of the Taifeh group into special camps for the migration called Mal. Each Mal is made up of many Urdu because the migration is so difficult and deadly that they need the resources of many people. Because the Bakhtiari have been the subject of several documentaries showing them in migration some assume the large camp co Mal is normal. It is not practical year round because the more people that there are the more sheep. Large camps mean that shepherds would have to travel much greater distances from the camp for the sheep to find forage.