The continued use of the term “tribe” to describe groups with segmentary organization in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has long been recognized as problematic, albeit without viable alternative English translations of the local terms: qabīla, ‘ashīra, sha‘b, ‘ilt, and others. Yet the equally problematic but enduring uncritical acceptance of genealogical classification of MENA's tribes leads to fundamental misunderstandings of the basic principles of tribal organization as well as the multiple roles of kinship in the region. This propensity is not only misleading but is loaded with social evolutionary assumptions about presumed “stages of development” that hinder scholarship on tribes and have a negative impact on international policy toward countries like Yemen with significant self-identified tribal populations. Key to this essay is the wide diversity and flexibility in the terminology applied to tribal segments and in the sizes of segments.

长期使用“部落”一词来描述中东和北非 (MENA) 具有分段组织的群体，长期以来一直被认为是有问题的，尽管当地术语没有可行的替代英文翻译：qabīla , 'ashīra , sha' b , '倾斜， 和别的。然而，对 MENA 部落的谱系分类同样有问题但经久不加批判的接受导致了对部落组织的基本原则以及该地区亲属关系的多重作用的根本误解。这种倾向不仅具有误导性，而且充满了关于假定的“发展阶段”的社会进化假设，这些假设阻碍了对部落的研究，并对也门等拥有大量自我认同部落人口的国家的国际政策产生负面影响。本文的关键是应用于部落群体的术语和群体规模的广泛多样性和灵活性。