ADMINISTRATIVE GEOGRAPHYmilitary outpost at the Euphrates end of the Byzantine border by
Shapiir I (241-72) in the third century. The Arabs called Firuz Shapur
Anbar ("the granary") because of the storehouses there containing
wheat, barley, fodder, and straw, used by the Sasanian monarchs to
provision their supporters.^115
In the early sixth century, Qubadh I created an us tan called Shadh
Qubadh along the course of the Euphrates between the Byzantine
border and Anbar and along the Nahr Rufayl and Sarat canals. It
consisted of the four subdistricts of Shadh Firuz or Firuz Shapur (con-
taining Anbar, Hit, and 'Anat), Baduraya, Maskin, and Qatrabbul,116
There is no way of knowing if this configuration survived during the
Lakhmi ascendency in the later sixth century when 'Amr ibn al-Mun-
dhir administered the territory along the Euphrates from the town of
Baqqa on the Euphrates between Hit and Anbar,J17 although the friends
and proteges of an-Nu'man ibn al-Mundhir (d. ca. 602) got their
provisions from the Persian granaries at Anbar.ll8 After the fall of the
Banii Lakhm, Anbar reverted to direct Persian rule and had a marzban
called Pusfarriikh at the time of the conquest.^119
. The Arabs called the territory of Anbar the Upper Ustan (M.P.lAr.
ustan al-'alt). In the early Islamic period it tended to retain its nature
as a military outpost on the border between Iraq and Syria. Either
Mu'awiya or Yazid I detached the towns of Hit and 'Anat from the
jurisdiction of Anbar and attached them to the J azira, 120 and it was
this truncated Upper Ustan that Mu~'ab ibn az-Zubayr sent Abii Bakr
ibn Mikhnaf to govern in 687.^121 Under al-I:Jajjaj, Ibn ar-Rufayl was
governor of Anbar,122 and the Upper Ustan became a mint for post-
reform dirhams.123
The remaining sub districts lay along the Nahr Rufayl or Dujayl and
Sarat canals between the Euphrates and the Tigris. Maskin was on
the Dujayl just west of the Tigris opposite 'Ukbara below the border
with Ard Mawsil.^124 Qatrabbul seems to have been on the middle
115 Yaqiit, Buldan, I, 368.
116 Dinawari, Akhbar at-tiwal, p. 68; Ibn Khurradadhbih, Masalik, p. 7; Yaqiit,
Buldan, Ill, 227, 592.
117 Abii I-Faraj al-I~fahani, Kitab al-aghant (Bulaq, 1285/1868-69), VIII, 70.
118 BaladhurI, Futu~, p. 246
119 DinawarI, Akhbar at-tiwal, p. 122.
120 Ibid., p. 68; Yaqiit, Buldan, Ill, 929.
121 Tabarl, Ta'rtkh, 11, 757.
122 Baladhurl, Futu~, p. 333.
123 Walker, Arab-Sassanian Coins, pp. cxl-cxli.
124 Ibn Rustah, A 'laq, p. 104; Mas'iidl, Tanblh, p. 38; Tabari, Ta'rtkh, 11, 916, 1099.