ARABS: NATIVESThe Sasanians reacted to this penetration by crushing the Iyad, who
were massacred, taken captive, or forced to flee to Byzantine territory.
Shapiir 11 forcibly settled some of the survivors at a place called Haffa.
Under Shapiir III (383-88), however, the remnant of Iyad who had
taken refuge with the Byzantines returned to Iraq, joined the tribe of
Rabi'a, and dominated the Sawad. Elements of Iyad held estates near
Hira and occupied territory north of Hira. Some of them were settled
at Takrit by Khusraw Aniishirvan in the sixth century, and Takrit
became a market town for the Arab pastoralists in the region to its
west.?
The last major pre-Islamic movement of Arab pastoralists towards
Iraq occurred in the late fifth and early sixth centuries. This movement
was associated with the northward migration of the Banu Taghlib,
Namir, and elements of the Bakr ibn Wa'il tribal groups from the
Yamama and Najd^8 and produced the distribution of Arab tribal groups
in and near Iraq at the time of the Islamic conquest. Drought and the
expansion of the Kinda in central Arabia drove the first groups of
Taghlib into the pasturelands north of the Euphrates, where they
occupied the region from Sinjar to Nasibin in the late fifth century.
They were followed in the middle of the sixth century by other groups
of T aghlib who migrated from central Arabia to the region southwest
of the Euphrates, which was also occupied by the Namir by that time.^9
The Bakr ibn Wa'il tribes were the most important group in the Kinda
confederation, and the expansion of the Kinda under al-J:larith ibn
'Amr (d. 528) brought subgroups of the Bakr such as the Tha'laba,
'Ijl, and Dhuhl northwards from the Yamama and Bahrayn to the
border of Iraq.lO
By the end of the Sasanian period, Arab pastoralists were found in
a wide arc to the west and south of Iraq, from the banks of the upper
Tigris to the shores of the Gulf. In the northwest region bounded by
the Euphrates, Khabur, and Tigris rivers, the summer pastures between
the Tur Abdin and the Jabal Sinjar in ArabistanlBeth 'Arbhaye and
the winter pastures south of Sinjar as far as the outskirts of Maskin
7 Mas'iidi, Muruj, I, 296, 302; Tha'alibi, Ghurar, pp. 517·18; Trimingham, Chris·
tianity, pp. 153, 177-78; Ya'qiibi, Ta'rzkh, I, 258; Yaqiit, Buldiin, IV, 978. Al·'Ali,
in "Mintaqat Wasit (1)," p. 258, locates Haffa below Wasit.
8 The relationship among these groups was systematized by recognizing their common
descent from Qasit (Ibn Qutayba, Ma'iirif, p. 95).
9 Chabot, Synodicon, pp. 526-27, 532-33; Trimingham, Christianity, pp. 151, 172-
76,272; Wright, Joshua the Stylite, pp. 14-15.
10 Trimingham, Christianity, pp. 173,270-73,283.