ADMINISTRATIONmediate effects were disastrous flooding below Kaskar and the spread
of swamps. Flooding occurred again in the time of Qubadh I (488-
96, 499-531).190 Mas'iidI claims that the cumulative result of the
change in the course of the lower Tigris was to reduce the number of
kuwar in the Sawad from twelve to ten and the number of tasiiStj from
sixty to forty-eight.^191 The long-term effects were a decline in impor-
tance of the region along the former course of the lower Tigris and
the use of the redirected water for extensive irrigation and agricultural
development (especially the spread of rice cultivation) around Kaskar
in the late Sasanian and early Islamic periods.
The work of reclamation and development was begun under Khus-
raw Aniishirvan, one of whose sons restored some of the flooded land
to cultivation when he was governor of Kaskar.192 According to Dina-
wari, Kaskar was a small kura when Khusraw Aniishirwan enlarged
it by adding territory to it from the kuwar of Behrasir, Hurmizd
Khurrah, and Maysan and divided it into the tassuj of Jundisabur and
the tassuj of Zandaward.^193 The formation of the enlarged province
of Kaskar is also reflected in the Armenian Geography, which describes
Kaskar as a province recently created by the Persians between the
Tigris and the Euphrates.^194
Although Yaqiit's description of the kura of Kaskar as extending
from the east side of the lower Nahrawan canal to the mouth of the
Tigris estuary and including the sub districts of Madhar, Maysan, and
Dast-i Maysan makes it equivalent to the old Maysan,195 the late
Sasanian province of Kaskar appears to have occupied only the north-
western half of that region. Kaskar was effectively bounded to the
south by the swamps but appears to have extended west halfway across
the Sawad to the province of.veh-Kavat.
The significance of the westward extension of Kaskar to include the
region bounded more or less by Warka, Niffar, and Zawabi in the
190 Baladhuri, Fueu/J, p. 291.
191 Mas'iidI, Tanbih, p. 40.
192 BaladhurI, Fueu/J, p. 291.
193 Dlnawari, Akhbiir a,-,iwiil, p. 75. Since Jundisabur is obviously out of place here,
al-'All ("Minfaqat Wasif," pp. 153-54) has suggested that it ought to be Khusraw
Sabur, which is said to have been the name of the kura of Kaskar before al-l;Iajjaj built
Wasit. Although Yaqiit (Buldiin, 11, 442) identifies Khusraw Sabur as a village five
fariisikh from Wasit, it seems more likely that Khusraw Sabur was the new name of
the enlarged province and that the ~ssuj called Ustan (Ibn Khurradadhbih, Masiilik,
p. 7) was probably the subdistrict around Kaskar itself.
194 Hewsen, "Armenian Historical Geography," p. 289.
19S Yaqiit, Buldiin, IV, 274-75.