Cover -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Syrian tribes: why is it important to know about them? -- Introduction -- The importance of the book and the questions that it seeks to answer -- Geography and population -- Geography -- Population -- Tribal mapping -- Methodology -- Limitations of the study -- Debates over the structure and function of tribes -- Framework for analysis -- Structure of the book -- Bibliography -- 2 Tribes and the state: from the rise of Islam to the French mandate over Syria -- Introduction -- Historical introduction -- Arab tribes, from Islamic conquest to the Mamluks (635-1517) -- Arab tribes and the politics of the state in the early Ottoman period (1516 until 1841) -- Arab tribes and the politics of the state in the late Ottoman period (1840 until 1917) -- Modernisation policies from Tanzimat to Sultan Abdulhamid II -- Subjugating the tribes -- Divide and rule -- Inducement policy -- Settlement policy -- Bureaucratic penetration -- First World War, the Arab Revolt and tribal loyalties -- Arab tribes and the French mandate policies (1919 until 1947) -- The pacification of the tribes -- The mandate management of the tribal regions -- Using the tribes as a counterweight to the nationalist movement -- Tribe-state dynamics throughout history -- Bibliography -- 3 Arab tribes and the rise of the nation-state in Syria from 1946 until 1970 -- Introduction -- Tribes and the independent state 1946-1958 -- Agricultural revolution and Bedouin settlement -- Abdel Nasser crushes the tribes 1958-1962 -- Tribes after the separation from Egypt -- The Ba'th Party and the seizing of power in 1963 -- Tribes and tribalism in Ba'thist ideology -- Land reform and sedentarisation projects -- Abolition of hima (traditional grazing system)