PEOPLEand Qatrabbul and the Euphrates above Anbar were occupied by the
Taghlib, together with elements of the Rabi'a, Quc;la'a, Bakr ibn
Wa'il, 'Amr ibn Qasi!, Iyad, and Namir and their camels, sheep and
goats.ll The region to the southwest of the Euphrates and west of
'Ayn Tamr was occupied by camel-herding groups of Taghlib, Namir,
and Iyad, with an encampment of Taghlib and Namir at SiffinY East
of 'Ayn Tamr along the Euphrates from Anbar to Hira were the
Taniikh with their camels and goats,I3 and the Asad.^14 Arabs were on
the outskirts of Hira and the region between Hira and Kaskar, while
members of the 'Ijl and Taymallat subgroups of Bakr and the Dubay'a
subgroup of Rabi'a could be found in the vicinity of Ullays.15 The
Yashkur subgroup of Bakr, the Bahila, and the Banii 'Anbar were
along the edge of the swamps at the southeastern end of this arc in
territory that had been connected to Maysan before the floods created
the swamps.16 The Kulayb subgroup of Wa'il occupied uncultivated
land between Maysan and Khuzistan in the vicinity of Manadhir and
Nahr TiraP Beyond this band of Arab groups, but with political and
economic importance for the Iraqi borderlands, were the nearest groups
of camel nomads in northern Arabia: the Kalb at Dumat Hira; 18
the Bakr who spent the summer at the oasis of Dhu Qar,19 especially
their subgroups of Shayban, Tha'laba, and Dhuhl; the Tayyi'; the
r;>abba; and the Yarbii' and Sa'd subgroups of Tamim in the desert
south of Hira.^20
The economic relationship of these pastoral Arab groups to the
sedentary population of Iraq was complex and ambivalent. These
pastoral groups along the border of Iraq tended to be transhumant or
11 Baladhurl, Futu~, pp. 246, 248-49; Dillemann, "Haute Mesopotamie," pp. 74-
75; Ibn Qutayba, Ma'iirif, p. 95; Tabarl, Ta'rlkh, I, 839, 2203, 2207, 2474-75; Tri-
mingham, Christianity, pp. 174-75.
12 Dlnawarl, Akhbiir at-[iwiil, p. 118; Tabari, Ta'rlkh, I, 2074, 2206; Trimingham,
Christianity, p. 176-78.
13 Tabarl, Ta'rlkh, I, 822.
14 Ibid., I, 2350.
15 Ibid., I, 2030, 2032-33.
16Ibn Rustah, A'liiq, p. 95. The Bahila belonged to Qays ibn 'Aylan; see U. R.
Ka~~alah, Mu/am qabii'il al-'Arab al-qadfma wa-l-~adftha (Beirut, 1968-75), I, 60.
The Banii 'Anbar were a subgroup of either Bakr (Ibn Qutayba, Ma'iirif, p. 96) or
Tamim (Ka~~ala, Qabii'il, 11, 845).
17 Tabari, Ta'rlkh, I, 2534-35.
18 Baladhuri, Futu~. p. 63.
19 Tabarl, Ta'rfkh, I, 1030.
20 Horovitz, "'Adi Ibn Zeyd," p. 40. For the identification and location of all of these
groups, see F. Donner, Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton, 1980), pp. 18,49,220.