Relations Between the Two Kurdish Houses of Vakil and Ardalan from 1779 to 1803

In the political history of BaniArsalan's Government in Kurdistan, many families were influential in the power structure. According to local sources, some dynasties were so influential that the governor of Ardalan became a puppet after a while and acted as their representative in the government. From 1779 to 1803, the house of Vakils was the most powerful Kurdish family in the region, and they had an increasingly significant control over the political power as well as the social and economic structures in Kurdistan. This led to the weakening of the Ardalan’s power. However, the influence of Vakils came to an end during the reign of Amanollah Khan the Great. In a descriptive-analytical manner, and by means of library sources, the present study deals with the relations between the Vakil and the Ardalan houses during the reign of Amanollah Khan the Great, and it focuses on the causes of tense relations between these two. Findings show that the aspirations of the Vakils to have more power and more influence led to a clash of interest between the two houses, and that the differences between them led to the weakening of the Vakils in a way that they lost ground in the power machinery of Amanollah Khan Ardalan.