Djamaat
Encyclopedia
A djamaat is a politically organized community in Dagestan
Dagestan
The Republic of Dagestan is a federal subject of Russia, located in the North Caucasus region. Its capital and the largest city is Makhachkala, located at the center of Dagestan on the Caspian Sea...

, usually a village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 or a group of villages with a historical connection.

Overview

The djamaat is a centuries-old political unit, traditionally consisting of up to ten tribal
Tribe
A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term tribal society to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups .Some theorists...

 or ancestral structures known as tuhums, which are broadly extended families
Extended family
The term extended family has several distinct meanings. In modern Western cultures dominated by nuclear family constructs, it has come to be used generically to refer to grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins, whether they live together within the same household or not. However, it may also refer...

. The government of a djamaat traditionally consisted of the elder
Elder
Elder is a surname that means "older than you".* American Indian elder-In religion:* Elder , person valued for his wisdom who accordingly holds a particular position of responsibility in a Christian group** Elder...

s from each of the tuhums. The djamaats were, in turn, governed by the adat. The role of the djamaats in Dagestani history has been compared with that of the poleis in Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

. Although members of the djamaat often spoke the same language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

, ethnicity was not the primary connecting factor.

The role of the djamaats faded after the new 1994 constitution of Dagestan
Dagestan
The Republic of Dagestan is a federal subject of Russia, located in the North Caucasus region. Its capital and the largest city is Makhachkala, located at the center of Dagestan on the Caspian Sea...

, which provided other sources of authority in the republic, but the djamaats re-emerged when the national movement weakened. The Dagestani political life began to be dominated by "ethnoparties", whose key positions were often filled by djamaat members. The Dagestani djamaat, with its transcending kinship and ethnic structures, has been seen as a stabilizing factor in the political life of this ethnically and culturally diverse region.
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