In practice the Bakhtiyari territory would appear to be considered the property of the khans of each tayefeh; they determined its use. The ilkhan and ilbeg were assigned by the Central Government to collect the annual tax or maliyat, and within the confederation itself they had the final decision in cases involving disputes over the land. Traditionally the tayefeh had rights to certain pastures, in both number and power, or split off a balance was maintained. Farming land within the tribal area was also considered the property of the khans.
When land is bought or sold it must be with the cognizance of the Khans or their agents, as, theoretically speaking all land is considered to belong to the Khans, who alone can buy or sell it. In practice, however, the tenant appears to receive payment for 1 improvement’ in the land made by him and for watercuts, etc., kept in good order.
There were two main types of taxes collected by the ilkhan in the tribal area: the gallehdari or maliyat-e shakhi (flock or horn tax) and the khish or plow tax. The first of these was collected in the spring, and for those tribes using the Bakhtiyari road it was levied at the bridges, and in 1910 it was levied at the rate of 15 querans for every mare, for every 4 donkeys or cows, and for every 20 sheep. Both Sardar Asad and Sarda Zafar in their respective histories state that the maliyat was based on mares. This would reflect the development of these taxes from Safavid, or even earlier, times and reveals the relationship between the assignment of land and the reciprocal obligation of furnishing cavalry forces. Both these khans would disagree with the fixed rate of l0 qerans per mare as recorded in the above British source. Sardar Zafar writes: I have heard that one mare is worth four tomans [for tax purposes] and for others ten, two, or one.
This discrepancy is dependent upon the wealth of the tayefeh. For the richest the value of a mare is less, and for the very wealthy a mare is worth only five qerans. Sardar As’ad agrees with this. The tax rate varied, and the wealthier paid at a lower rate.
This indicates the greater influence of those who were affluent, and who, perhaps, in an earlier period contributed cavalry forces; however, in this late Qajar period the khans were paid by the Government for the use of their savars. A variation of this practice was operative at this time in the Bakhtiyari: those tayefeh who supported the ilkhan w ere assessed at a lower rate. It is said that the Ahmad Khosravi, a large and wealthy tayefeh, paid no taxes because of the military support that they gave Ilkhani. Also, if a wealthy member of the tribe, like Ilkhani or Mohammad Taqi Khan (the latter was supposed to have owned over 10,000 sheep alone) paid at the same rate, he would have paid enormous sums in taxes.
The expense of shepherds, the greater potential for loss of whole herds through disease, and the poorer care given by hired shepherds, all three together with a standard tax rate would perhaps have discouraged the accumulation of wealth in the form of herds and flocks, especially of horses which were needed for the cavalry. This variable tax was an important political device and allowed the khans, especially the ilkhans with the authority of the Central Government, to reward and punish.
The plow tax for sown land was levied at the rate of 1 qeran per khish or plow (the amount of land farmed by a plow) and 20 to 25 mann (3 kilograms) of grain per khish. According to Sardar As’ad this was levied only on cultivated land in the garmsir. It was from these taxes that the annual assessment was paid to Tehran, and in this capacity the ilkhan functioned much like the other provincial governors.
Other taxes, however, were collected from the tribesmen. These included the solusat, or the entertainment tax for the khan or his agents, which amounted to 1 mann of break, 1 load of wood, 1 mann of barley, 1 load of straw, 2 fowl, I/I4. mann of ghi, and 10 eggs; the dar-e qeshlaq, or “the door of the winter camp,” which was 5 qerans per flock of sheep, but it was not regularly levied; and a tax in cash and kind on salt springs. Most Bakhtiyari tribesmen did not pay a grazing tax, unless the seldom levied dar-e qeshlaq is counted. If non-Bakhtiyari tribes grazed on Bakhtiyari land they were charged a small tax for this privilege.
The khans had no regular administration or bureaucracy, but delegated authority on a personal basis to attendants who functioned as agents and were called mamurs. These mamurs collected the taxes.
In the case of the Haft Leng, headmen of subdivisions of tribes appear to be responsible that the proper amount be handed over in due course to the ‘mamur’; headmen of villages are similarly responsible. In the case of the_Chehar Leng south of the Karun, certain minor Chehar Lang Khans . . . are made responsible for the revenue demand to the Ilkhani and Ilbegi, in_addition to which they collect for themselves, and ‘mamurs collect for their respective masters, the rights due to certain Khan (such as Nasir Khan at Mamatain) as owners of the land.
The khans individually owned villages and even whole ; areas in Chahar Mahal and Khuzistan. In this case they functioned as Iranian landlords and received up to 80% of a crop. Gholam Hosain Khan Sardar Mohtesham owned the rich ’Aqili district north of Shuster, and his annual’5 tax to the governor of Khuzistan amounted to 12,000 tomans .It must he remembered that at about the same time the annual maliyat for the Bakhtiyari confederation was lj?,000 tomans. Until the beginning of this century much of the income of the Big; Khans, the Ilkhani and Hajji Ilkhani Khans or the two most important khanal families in the confederation,came from land.
These Ilkhani and Hajji Ilkhani khans began to receive money from non-tribal sources at this time. Now the economic, political, and social gap widened between these Big Khans and the khans of the tayefeh. Upon Ilkhani1s death his heirs inherited vast land holdings, and they also continued to be selected as tribal leaders of the confederation with the authority to collect the maliyat. There continued to be wealthy landholding khans, and even kalantars, at the tayefeh level; they, too, obtained titles and gifts of land from the Central Government, i.e., Eskandar Khan Zaigham ad-Dauleh of the Babadi-ye ‘Akasheh. The daughters of these men were frequently selected by the Big Khans as their second, third, or fourth wives, and helped them acquire a closer relationship with a larger number of tribesmen. But the political and economic superiority of the Big Khans was reinforced by salaries paid to the ilkhan and ilbeg by the Central Government the income from the tolls on the Bakhtiyari road, the guarding allotment from the Oil Company and later the dividends on their 3% shareholdings in the Bakhtiari Oil Company and the First Exploitation Company, the direct subsidy paid to the two families by the British after 1915, and their income as governors and cabinet ministers following the Revolution. In the Iranian tradition these were most lucrative.
Dr. M.Y. Young of the Oil Company, like Preece, was a firm believer in the natural rapacity of the khans, and the following quotation from his memorandum, though later discounted by the Isfahan Consul, indicates the type of “income that could be available to a governor.
Sirdar Zaffar, Governor of Isfahan [August 1912] has ordered every baker in the town to pay him a tax of one toman per day. As there are about 300 bakers in Isfahan, it meant about 300 tomans or roughly about E53 Per day. This would be an income of E1590 per month or at the rate of about 19,080 per annum!
Sardar Ashja’, also a Governor of Isfahan, withheld grain shipments from Chahar Mahal, and when the price shot up during a prolonged shortage he allowed it to enter Isfahan and collected a large profit.
The road tolls were divided equally between the two families. These khans did not collect them directly themselves, but farmed them out. Lynch’s agent wrote:
In May last [May 1909], when discussing the question of loans to the chiefs, we informed Tehran friends that collection tolls on the Bakhtiari road for one year, commencing from February 1909, had been granted to contractors for a return of 180,000 krans [1 toman equals 10 qeran]. In view, however, of the considerable increase to this figure in favour of the contractors, the chiefs obtained a supplementary amount of 20,000 krans, making a total of 200,000 krans as return of the tolls on the Bakhtiari road for Feb. 1909 to Feb. 1910. For the present year, according to what Sultan Mohamed Khan, Sardar Ashja, informs us, an offer has been put forward by the above contractors for an amount of 21,0,000 krans but the chiefs have not agreed to anything below 300,000 krans.
These farmers of the toll collected both the tolls from commercial users of the road and the annual maliyat-e shaki from those sections of the tribe whose migration route crossed the bridges.
After the completion of the pipe-line in 1911, the khans received L3500 as their guarding allotment. Before they received dividends on the shares that they held in the two oil companies, they used them and their road income as collateral for loans.
Bakhtiyari interest in Khuzistan dates at least from the Safavid period when Jahangir Khan was given the rights to collect taxes from certain of its districts. Also, in the period of Mohammad Taqi Khan and Ilkhani, -we have seen how their interest in this province expressed itself in economic and political terms: acquisition of estates and political alignments with governors and tribal leaders against, or in support of, the Central Government. The movement of the khans in a southwesterly direction into Khuzistan was a natural one, both as tribal leaders and as landlords. Unfriendly tribes occupied both the northern and southern borders of the Bakhtiyari and prevented significant movement in either of these two directions. Furthermore, the terrain of these two regions resembles the Bakhtiyari and could best be exploited by pastoralists. There was some expansion in an easterly direction toward Isfahan; the nineteenth century khans significantly increased their holdings in Faridun and Chahar Mahal by purchase, gifts, or harassment.
This latter tactic involved raiding a village periodically at harvest time until the landlord was willing to meet their terms. But further movement here was hindered by the existing landowning pattern, the terrain, and sparse rainfall. Some of the richest farming land on the Iranian plateau, however, is located in this area along the terraces of the Zayendeh Rud as it flows to Isfahan and beyond. This land has commanded a premium price, and its proximity to Isfahan, a major administrative center, prevented harassment and subsequent sale or expropriation. The khans preferred territory which was adjacent to the Bakhtiyari and hence their own authority rather than that of the Central Government. This left only I Khuzistan.
Khuzistan fulfilled all these requirements. The rugged Zagros mountains effectively cut this province off from the remainder of Iran; it was contiguous to the Bakhtiyari; and land and water were available: water in the form of numerous rivers flowing from the Zagros to the Gulf, and land, khaliseh, crown property, that could be purchased or leased, dead lands where cultivation would give the cultivator certain rights, and villages available through regular purchase. Oppressive taxation and levies and governmental neglect contributed to a depressed state of agriculture in Khuzistan under the Qajars. After the opening of the Karun to international commerce in 1888, however, Mrs. Bishop, a perceptive late nineteenth century traveler, reported increased agricultural activity along its banks and in the province.
A great change for the better has taken place in the circumstances of the population, and villages, attracted by trade, are springing up. . . . The land- tax is very light, and the cultivators are receiving every encouragement. Much wheat was exported last year, and there is a brisk demand for river lands on leases of sixty years for the cultivation of cotton, cereals, sugar-cane, and date palms. . . .
One interesting feature connected with these works is the rapidly increased well-being of the Arabs. In less than a year labout at 1 kram a day has put quite a number of them in possession of a pair of donkeys and a plough, and seed-corn wherewith to cultivate Government lands on their own account, besides leaving a small balance in hand on which to live without having to borrow on the coming crop at frightfully usurious rates.
Until now the shaikhs have been able to command labour for little more than the poorest food; and now many of the very poor who depended on them have started as small farmers, and things are rapidly changing.
The Bakhtiyari khans’ land was concentrated in three areas in Khuzistan: the immediate areas adjoining Shustar, Ram Hormoz, and Behbehan’.. (At the end of the period of this study the khans were acquiring land even farther to the south in Liravi.) The ‘Aqili land, near Shushtar, much of it the property of Sardar Mohtesham, has been mentioned.
Ram Hormoz was the winter seat of the Bakhtiyari khans, and one of them was usually its deputy governor under the governor of Khuzistan whose capital was usually Shushtar. According to John G. Lorimer’s Gazeteer of the Persian Gulf, the Bakhtiyari khans owned all of the villages (ca. 27) in the Ram Hormoz (pronounced Ramoz) district. During the first decade of this century the Ilkhani and Hajji Ilkhani khans owned 3,600 khish, the amount of land which one plow could work, in this area, and their share of the crop, 1906-1907, as landlords, amounted to 22,650 Ramoz manns Ramoz mann was equivalent to 106 English pounds). They paid 15,000 tomans per annum tax to the Persian governor of Khuzistan.
The agricultural taxes are generally collected in kind at the rate of one-fourth of the gross produce in the case of wheat, barley, linseed, cotton, beans, and tobacco, and at the rate of one-third in the case of rice and sesame. Unirrigatod crops ordinarily pay revenue in cash at the rate of 33 Qrans per Faddan [khish]. (One good authority, however, states that the annual_payment to the Persian Government is only 10.000 Tumans, and that the tax on agriculture is 1/5 of produce in all cases.) In 190lj._the revenue collections in kind consisted of 2,000 Ramuz Manns of wheat, 12.000 of barley, 100 of beans, 1 , 5 0 0 of linseed, 70 of tobacco, 12,000 of rice, and 1,000 of sesame, and their total value was estimated at 55,000 Tumans: in the same year the area cultivated_by rainfall was 2.000 Faddans and yielded 6,500 Tumans in cash.
The largest landowner in Khuzistan was Shaikh Khaz’al Sardar Arfa, not to be confused with Hajji Khosrou Khan Salar Arfa’ Sardar Zafar, and another large landowner was Nizam os-Saltaneh, a frequent governor of the province. Although the governor was appointed from Tehran, he could not retain his position for any length of time, at least in the first decades of the present century, without the support of both the Bakhtiyaris and the Shaikh of Mohammereh. The latter was practically autonomous; however, the Central Government maintained its suzerainty over him, and he recognized it by paying an annual tax to the governor, though he was frequently in arrears, and it was over this question of unpaid taxes in 1921, that he lost his power. It was seen that Khaz’ali was elected to his position by the shaikhs of the Arab tribejs in Khuzistan, and in a similar manner he could have been deposed. This tribal council met monthly, and in 1908 the Oil Company’s lease for Abadan island was signed by the council as well as the Shaikh.
Thus by greater economic resources, military or coercive power, government support, gifts, better pastures, privileged positions, marriage, and prospects of greater security, the khan is able to assert his authority over other sections of the tribe and form a confederation. A confederation of the entire Bakhtiyari appeared only occasionally before the last quarter of the nineteenth century. A major limiting factor in the maintenance of the confederation was the question of succession of leadership and of holding allegiances in the period of transition. There were no selective principles, other than the ones mentioned above, and there was no administrative machinery to maintain a j transition from one paramount leader to the next.
These processes will be observed as we examine in some detail the “khanships” of two of the most important khans in the nineteenth century–Mohammad Taqi Khan of the Chahar Leng and Hosain Qoli Khan of the Haft Leng, who was the first ilkhan,’ and who is still known as “Ilkhani.”