PEOPLEthe Arabic rendering of a place name such as Beth Garme by Bajarma
(pronounced Bagarma) very close to spoken Aramaic.
Otherwise, Aramaic place names were rendered in Arabic according
to the normal rules of conversion between these two languages. Cor-
responding to the shift from sh in Aramaic to 5 in Arabic, Kashkar
was rendered as Kaskar, Shenna dhe Beth Ramman as Sinn Barimma,
and Mayshan as Maysan. According to the shift from p to (, Pellughta,
Nippur, and perath were rendered as Falluja, Niffar, and Furat, re-
spectively. The replacement of th by t in Furat, Hit (Syr. Hith), and
Takrit (Syr. Taghrith), however, merely reflected spoken Aramaic.
Place names also reflect the continuing involvement of the Aramaic
population in the preservation and restoration of irrigation systems
in early Islamic Iraq. One indication of this kind of continuity lies in
a run-off channel called Bazza dh-Nahrawatha (literally "the plun-
dering of the canals"},SO which collected excess water from the middle
Euphrates system near Niffar and which was certainly in existence in
the late Sasanian period.sl Not only was this place name Arabized as
Bizz al-Anhar,s2 but a knowledge of its purpose survived in Arabic
tradition (and presumably in irrigating practice as well). Baladhuri
speaks of a canal, old in his time, called Bazzaq near Wasit, and
explains that in Aramaic the name means that the canal cuts off water
from other canals downstream and takes it to itself, in this case taking
excess water from the reed thickets of Sib and from the Euphrates
river.S3 Another indication of the continuing activity of native Ara-
maeans in the operation of the irrigation system is the sluice gate called
Bathq Hiri located about three miles from Ba~ra but named after an
Aramaean from Hira who was a mawla of Ziyad.s4 The best example
of all, however, is I;Iassan an-NabatI who reclaimed land by draining
the swamps of lower Iraq for al-I;Iajjaj in the reign of al-WalId I and
for Hisham in the early eighth century.'%
so J. Payne Smith, Syriac Dictionary (Oxford, 1903), p. 40.
51 Gregory of Kaskar built his monastery near Bazza dh' Nahrawatha in about 612
(Guidi, Chronica Minora I, I, 18; 11, 17).
52 Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," 11(2), 512-13.
53 Baladhuri, Futu!J, p. 291.
54 Ibid., pp. 357, 358.
ss Ibid., p. 293, 367; Ibn 'Abd Rabbihi, 'Iqd, IV, 18; Jahshiyari, Wuzarii', p. 29a;
Mas'iidi, Muriij, I, 121; Qudama, Khariij, p. 240. He was a mawla of the Arab clan
of BanG Qabba at Basra. He was employed in the dfwiin of Iraq and only converted
.from Christianity to Islam in the time of Hisham. He owned the estate of Nahr Sulayman,
a place called Hawd Hassan in Basra, a watchtower called Manara Hassan and a