From the Land Without Birds to the Fortress

The book “From the Land Without Birds to the Fortress” contains two texts. It was published by Goosheh Publishing. The first text narrates Mahmoud Zand Moghadam’s first journey to Baluchestan, which can be fascinating for readers. The author was 21 years old at the time and a social affairs expert at the Statistics Center. He was assigned this mission by chance for a joint project between the Central Bank and the Statistics Center about the budget and expenses of rural Baluch households. Back then, no one went to Baluchestan. The year was 1962. Before this mission, Zand Moghadam had traveled to various parts of Iran to complete the geographical dictionary of Iranian villages, such as West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, parts of Kermanshah, Songhor, Ilam, and Arak. Many of these villages were not even on the map, and he mapped them and extracted their terminology. It was a remarkable accomplishment during those frozen years. However, no one had gone to Baluchestan. He said, “I went to a place where goats, camels, donkeys, and people drank water from the same source—rainwater. They also washed their clothes and dishes there.” The atmosphere of the Baluch hosts captivated him; it was like breathing the beginnings of history. Everything fascinated him, including the tribal hierarchies of the Baluch, which were different from the other places he had visited. They did not call the tribe leader “Khan.” The leaders of the Baluch tribes bore the distinguished title “Sardar” because during the Qajar era, tax collectors would visit Baluchestan twice a year and extort heavy taxes. To compensate for this shortfall, the Baluch resorted to looting wherever they could. Only a Sardar could lead an economy based on plunder. They would loot as far as Bam and Kerman and then return. “It was unparalleled in this country. I had been everywhere, but I had never seen anything like it.”