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E-ISSN: 1548-226X Print ISSN: 1089-201X

Nicolini, Beatrice.
The Baluch Role in the Persian Gulf during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East - Volume 27, Number 2, 2007, pp.
384-396

Duke University Press

Beatrice Nicolini - The Baluch Role in the Persian Gulf during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries -
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 27:2 Comparative Studies of South Asia,
Africa and the Middle East 27.2 (2007) 384-396 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents The Baluch
Role in the Persian Gulf during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Beatrice Nicolini During the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, evidence of the Baluch population could be found in the service of
the Al Ya'rubi of Oman, mainly as mercenary troops. Officers were called jam'dar and soldiers sowar. To
the Arabs of Oman, these Baluch corps constituted their military power (al-shawkah) and their strength
and were an indispensable tool in the conquest and maintaining of Omani tribal power. It was, however,
with the Omani dynasty of the Al Bu Sa'id of Oman -- starting around the first half of the nineteenth
century -- that the Baluch, and the coastal strip of Makran, the main region in south Central Asia of their
origin, became an institutional part of the Omani governmental forces and major political leaders. Baluch
tribes also settled in other Gulf areas beside Oman, and in separate villages, practicing their tribal customs
and speaking their language. Being Baluch is a question of geographical and cultural identity; therefore
their integration in the Arab regions of the Gulf has been always assured and stable when closely related
to their original...

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