ADMINISTRATIVE GEOGRAPHYearly Islamic period. The sources speak only of the subdistricts of Ard
Jukha that did continue to be under native notables (dahaqtn).S4 As
the land irrigated by the Tigris, this province also formed a single
jurisdiction for finance officials in early appointments by the caliph
'Umar.
MAHOFKUFA
Immediately to the northeast of Ard Jukha were several districts
which lay geographically in Media (the Jabal) and in the late Sasanian
Quarter of the North, but which were included in the Quarter of the
West in the time of Khusraw Parviz and continued to be associated
with the administration of Iraq as a result of the Islamic conquest.
The district of Hulwan in particular may have been attached fiscally
to the Quarter of the West in the late Sasanian period because of the
practice of the last Sasanian monarchs of spending the summer there
in the mountains above the Iraqi' plain.8s The district of Hulwan was
called Shadh Firuz or Khusraw Shadh Firuz, and it seems reasonable
to' regard the subdistrict called Firuz Qubadh as that of the city of
Hulwan itself.s6 According to Mas'iidi, the kura of Hulwan/Shadh
Firuz was attached to the kura of the Jabal after the shift in the course
of the lower Tigris ruined J ukha. 87
After the conquest, Hulwan became an important frontier post with
the commander initially under the authority of the governor at Mada'in.
After Qa'qil' ibn 'Amr took Hulwan, he settled Persian defectors
(the IJamra') there with their leader, a man named Qubadh from
Khurasan, in charge.8s Under 'Uthman (644-56), this position became
a direct caliphal appointment and 'Utayba ibn an-Nahhas, whom he
put in charge of Hulwan in 655, was still there when the caliph died
in the following year.^89 The strategic importance of Hulwan in this
period is indicated by the posting of sizable garrisons there to guard
the road to the Jabal.
One of the results of the Islamic conquest was the division of several
84 Ibid., II, 770, 903, 932.
85 Mas'iidi, Mum;, II, 184; Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," II(2), 553; Tabar'i, Ta'rtkh,
I, 1041. The sixth-century life of St. Shir'in puts Hulwan in Beth Madaye (Devos, "Sainte
Sirin", p. 102).
86 Ibn Khurradadhbih, Masalik, p. 6; Yaqiit, Buldan, II, 442.
87 Mas'iidi, Tanbth, p. 40.
88 Tabari, Ta'rlkh, I, 2473-74.
89 Ibid., I, 2928, 3058.