ARAB S: NATIVESsemisedentary, kept mixed herds of camels, goats and sheep, and en-
gaged in agriculture in their seasonal settlements.^21 The mutual ex-
change of pastoral for agricultural products with local peasants tended
to be offset by the fact that the same animals were raised by fully
sedentary villagers. At the outskirts of towns and villages, both pop-
ulations tended to compete for the same pastures. Such conditions are
reflected in the legend of 'Abd al-Masi~, which describes how the
boys of Sinjar tended the flocks of sheep belonging to the people of
that town.^22 Although Arabs further out in the north Arabian desert
relied more on camels than on other animals, giving them greater
mobility, military power, and political independence, in Iraq itself
camel raising was not an Arab monopoly. Nor were Arabs the only
pastoralists in Iraq, since Kurdish shepherds inhabited areas east of
the upper Tigris.
Pastoral Arabs also contributed to the caravan trade and held local
markets. They controlled the routes along which caravans had to pass
and provided pack animals, guards, and guides. The Sulaym and Ha-
wazin convoyed caravans of merchants from Hira across the Najd to
the fair at Ukaz in the Hijaz for the Lakhmi kings.^23 At the time of
the conquest, a caravan of Syrians guarded by Arabs of the Taghlib
was captured near Siffin.24 The Tayyi' attended the annual market at
Hira;25 Ghassan and Kalb held an annual spring market at Dumat
Jandal;26 and the Kalb, Bakr ibn Wa'il, and parts of Quc;ia'a attended
the market at Khanafis above Anbar.27 But destructive Arab raids
disrupted the economy. Sometimes they were conducted under the
cover of warfare between the Byzantines and Persians, as when Beli-
sarios sent his Ghassani Arab auxiliaries to raid and plunder east of
the Tigris in Assyria in 541.2^8
In the sixth century, the Sasanians controlled southwestern Iraq and
exercised a degree of indirect control over Arab pastoralists through
their ally and satellite, the state of the Banii Lakhm at Hira, stiffened
by Persian garrisons. The Banii Lakhm, at their height under Nu'man
III (580-602), dominated the entire desert frontier from Anbar to
21 Donner, Conquests, pp. 49-51; Trimingham, Christianity, p. 145.
22 Peeters, "'Abd al-Masih," pp. 295-96.
23 Kister, "al-I;IIra," p. 154.
24 TabarI, Ta'rlkh, I, 2206-7.
2S IsfahanI, Aghiini, XVI, 99.
26 Ya'qiibI, Ta'rlkh, I, 313.
27 Baladhurl, Futu!J, p. 246; Tabari, Ta'rikh, I, 2203.
28 Prokopios, Wars, n. xix. 11-18.