PEOPLEibn 'Ubayd at Behrasir, who ordered them to supply the force of
Ma'qil ibn Qays in 663.182 'Abdullah ibn 'Awf ibn al-A~mar at Kufa
had a ghulam called Rashld, in 671, who was one of the youths from
Isfahan.^183 Chilman identified during the second civil war were either
more recent captives or second-generation mawalt.^184 In general, such
youths were employed as camp servants and messengers, and were
sent to fetch water, letters, horses, and people.185 Chilman at Wasit
in 750 carried the baggage, saddled the mounts, and served Yiisuf ibn
'Umar at his audience.^186 The employment of ghilman in such menial
tasks seems to reflect a social status based more on their youth than
on their social or ethnic origin; youths of Arab descent are described
in the same terms.1S? Thus, just as with the dahaqtn, by the time the
Persian military units had been disbanded, their techniques and tra-
ditions had been adopted by Muslim Arab armies.
CONCLUSION
The overall effect of the events of the seventh century on the dis-
tribution of the Persian population in Iraq was relocation. The gar-
risons along the southwestern frontier were removed, and much of
the population from east of the Tigris behind Mada'in was reconcen-
trated in the form of captives, mawalt, and defectors in the new gar-
rison cities of Basra and Kufa. The landed notables who came to terms
with the Muslims continued to live as absentee landlords in the cities
throughout Iraq or on their village-estates in the countryside. In spite
of the elimination of the highest ranks of the Persian social structure
and the temporary suppression of the clothing code, individual mem-
bers of the high aristocracy, and probably even of the Sasanian royal
family, maintained some status by converting to Islam ~nd becoming
part of the new ruling class. Others preserved their status and their
lands by taking positions of leadership in the Nestorian Church.
181 Tabari, Ta'rzkh, n, 45.
183 Ibid., n, 119.
18' In 680 a ghuliim named Rustam who belonged to Shamir ibn Dhi I-Jiishn was in
the force that massacred al-I:Iusayn and his party at Karbala (ibid., II, 346). The ghuliim
named Zirbiyya employed by al-Mukhtar at Kufa in 685 was a mawla of the Bajila
(Dinawari, Akhbiir at-tiwal, p. 308; Tabari, Ta'rfkh, n, 599). Another Rustam is men-
tioned in 696 as the ghulam of Suwayd ibn'Abd ar-Ral).man the Khariji (Tabari, Ta'rzkh,
n, 990).
18' Dinawari, Akhbiir at-tiwiil, pp. 179,241,313; Ibn 'Abd Rabbihi, 'lqd, V, 51.
186 Dinawari, Akhbiir at-tiwiil, pp. 369-70.
1'7 Ibid., p. 253.