Abstract
This chapter aims to describe the Baloch as an ethnic group in the Persian Gulf region, and particularly to discuss issues of ethnic, linguistic, and cultural identity. Balochistan and the Baloch1 have during the past few decades attracted international attention in the shadow of political crises in Afghanistan, such as the Soviet invasion in 1979 and the US ouster of the Taliban government in 2001. Balochistan, the land of the Baloch, is a region with disputed borders situated in southeastern Iran, southwestern Pakistan, and southern Afghanistan. On present-day political maps, Balochistan constitutes the largest province (by area) of Pakistan. In Iran, the province of which Balochistan is a part is also the largest province. It comprises the northern area of Sistan as well and carries the official name Sistan and Balochistan Province.
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Notes
Brian Spooner, “Baluchistan, i: Geography, History, and Ethnography,” in Encyclopedia Iranica III (1989), 599.
Abdolhossein Yadegari, “Pluralism and Change in Iranian Balochistan,” in Carina Jahani, Agnes Korn, and Paul Titus, eds., The Baloch and Others: Linguistic, Historical and Socio-Political Perspectives on Pluralism in Balochistan (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2008), 250.
See, for example, Brian Spooner, “The Baloch in Islamic Civilization, Western Ethnography, and World History,” Journal of the Middle East and Africa 4 (2013): 143
Mohammad Hassan Hosseinbor, Iran and its Nationalities: the Case of Baluch Nationalism (Karachi: Pakistani Adab Publications, 2000), 61
Adam Nader Baranzehi, “The Sarawani Dialect of Balochi and Persian Influence on It,” in Carina Jahani and Agnes Korn, eds., The Baloch and Their Neighbours: Ethnic and Linguistic Contact in Balochistan in Historical and Modern Times (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2003), 79
Including Spooner, “Baluchistan,” 599; Hosseinbor, Iran and Its Nationalities, 55–56; and Ugo Fabietti, “Equality versus Hierarchy: Conceptualizing Change in Southern Balochistan,” in Paul Titus, ed., Marginality and Modernity: Ethnicity and change in Post-Colonial Balochistan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 5, who also mentions a “shared system of values” as a uniting factor, the “Balochi honour code” (Bal. balōčmayār).
The Jadgals/Brahuis are bilingual in Jadgali/Brahui and Balochi (or even trilingual adding the national language as well). See, for example, Behrooz Barjasteh Delforooz, “A Sociolinguistic Survey among the Jadgal in Iranian Balochistan,” in Jahani et al., The Baloch and Others, 23–43; Yadegari, “Pluralism and Change in Iranian Balochistan,” 249–50; Taj Mohammad Breseeg, Baloch Nationalism: Its Origin and Development (Karachi: Karachi Royal Book Co., 2004), 126–31
Carina Jahani, “The Balochi Language and Languages in Iranian Balochistan,” Journal of the Middle East and Africa 4 (2013): 163–64.
Selig S. Harrison, In Afghanistan’s Shadow: Baluch Nationalism and Soviet Temptations (New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1981), 177–78, also discusses the dilemma of establishing trustworthy population statistics for the Baloch.
Just Boedeker, “Baloch Identities: A Matter of Descent or Mentality?,” Journal of the Middle East and Africa 4 (2013): 233–34.
For a Balochi dialect map, see Carina Jahani and Agnes Korn, “Balochi,” in Gernot Windfuhr, ed., The Iranian Languages (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), 638.
See Carina Jahani, “State Control and its Impact on Language in Balochistan,” in Annika Rabo and Bo Utas, eds., The Role of the State in West Asia (Stockholm: Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, 2005), 158–60.
Tim Farrell, Basic Balochi (Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1990), as well as several articles by the same author describing Karachi Balochi
Nigel A. Collett, A Grammar, Phrase Book and Vocabulary of Baluchi (as Spoken in the Sultanate of Oman), 2nd ed. (Abingdon, UK: Burgess & Son, 1986). There is also new linguistic research being carried out on the Makran coast in Iran by Maryam Nourzaei (Uppsala University) and Agnes Korn (Frankfurt am Main University), which is awaiting publication.
Josef Elfenbein, “Baluchistan iii: Baluchi Language and Literature,” in Encyclopedia Iranica III (1989), 640.
See, for example, Josef Elfenbein, An Anthology of Classical and Modern Balochi Literature, vol. I (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1990), 275, 287, 289.
Sabir Badalkhan, “The Changing Content of Baloch Women’s Songs in Eastern Makran,” in Charles Melville, ed., Proceedings of the Third European Conference of Iranian Studies, part 2 (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1999), 114.
Nigel A. Collett, “Baluch Service in the Forces of Oman: A Reflection of Makrani Society and an Impetus for Change,” Newsletter of Baluchistan Studies [Naples] 2 (1985): 14.
Ibid., 606; M. Longworth Dames, The Baloch Race: A Historical and Ethnological Sketch (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1904), 26–33
Martin Axmann, Back to the Future: The Khanate of Kalat and the Genesis of Baloch Nationalism 1915–1955 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2008).
George N. Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, vol. 2 (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1892), 255.
Percy M. Sykes, Ten Thousand Miles in Persia or Eight Years in Irán (London: John Murray, 1902), 113–14. Now available online from HathiTrust Digital Library: http://www.hathitrust.org/.
N. A. Baloch, “The Sultanate of Makran,” Pakistan Journal of History and Culture 13/1 (1992): 107–08
cited in Sabir Badalkhan, “Coastal Makran as Corridor to the Indian Ocean World,” Eurasian Studies I/2 (2002): 243.
Willem Floor, The Persian Gulf: A Political and Economic History of Five Port Cities 1500–1730 (Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 2006), 43–44. Further references are included here.
Lawrence G. Potter, “The Consolidation of Iran’s Frontier on the Persian Gulf in the Nineteenth Century,” in War and Peace in Qajar Persia: Implications Past and Present, ed. Roxane Farmanfarmaian (London: Routledge, 2008), 129.
Riccardo Redaelli, The Father’s Bow: The Khanate of Kalāt and British India (19th — 20th Century) (Florence: Manent, 1997), 39.
Badalkhan, “Coastal Makran as Corridor,” 254. See also Behnaz A. Mirzai, “The Slave Trade and the African Diaspora in Iran,” ZIFF Journal 2 (2005): 31. http://www.swahiliweb.net/ziffjournal_2_files/ziff-2005–05.pdf
Beatrice Nicolini, “The 19th Century Slave Trade in the Western Indian Ocean: The Role of the Baloch Mercenaries,” in Jahani et al., The Baloch and Others, 340–41. See also Willem Floor, “The Trade in and Position of Slaves in Southern Iran, 1825–1925,” Studia Iranica 41(2012): 268–73.
Sir Frederic John Goldsmid, Eastern Persia: An Account of the Journeys of the Persian Boundary Commission 1870–71–72, vol. 1 (London: Macmillan, 1876), xlii; see also Hosseinbor, Iran and Its Nationalities, 74.
S. B. Miles, The Countries and Tribes of the Persian Gulf, 2nd ed. (London: Harrison and Sons, 1919; repr. (two vols. in one) Frank Cass & Co., 1966), 252.
J. G. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia, vol. II (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1908), 258.
William Foxton, “Arabic/Baluchi Bilingualism in Oman,” Newsletter of Baluchistan Studies [Naples] 2 (1985): 32.
Abdulaziz Y. Lodhi, “The Baluchi of East Africa: Dynamics of Assimilation and Integration,” Journal of the Middle East and Africa 4 (2013): 130.
The interested reader can refer to a number of works by both Baloch and non-Baloch authors on the subject. See, for example, Inayatullah Baloch, The Problem of “Greater Baluchistan”: A Study of Baluch Nationalism (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1987); Harrison, In Afghanistan’s Shadow; Hosseinbor, Iran and its Nationalities; Breseeg, Baloch Nationalism: Its Origin and Development; and Axmann, Back to the Future.
Stéphane A. Dudoignon, “Zahedan vs. Qom?: Les sunnites d’Iran et l’émergence du Baloutchistan comme foyer de droit hanafite, sous la monarchie Pahlavi,” in Denise Aigle, Isabelle Charleux, Vincent Goossaert and Roberte Hamayon, eds., Miscellanea Asiatica: Mélanges en l’honneur de Franfoise Aubin (Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2010), 277.
Shahrzad Mojab and Amir Hassanpour, “The Politics of Nationality and Ethnic Diversity,” in Saeed Rahnema and Sohrab Behdad, eds., Iran after the Revolution (London: I.B. Tauris, 1995), 231–32.
Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 157.
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Jahani, C. (2014). The Baloch as an Ethnic Group in the Persian Gulf Region. In: Potter, L.G. (eds) The Persian Gulf in Modern Times. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137485779_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137485779_11
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