PEOPLESasanian Iraq is evident in many ways. They were often bilingual or
even trilingual and could speak Aramaic and Persian. They were fac
miliar with Sasanian monarchic, military, and administrative institu-
tions. The royal court of the Banu Lakhm at Hira was modeled after
the court at Mada'in, and Iraqi Arabs were employed by the Sasanians
as soldiers, governors, and bureaucrats. Just as with the Aramaeans,
Arabs who participated in the ruling group tended to resemble the
Persian upper class, and Abu Yusuf calls the Arab leader who defended
'Ayn Tamr against Khiilid at the time of the conquest an Arab dihqan.^43
Most sedentary Arabs had become Nestorian Christians, although
by the end of the sixth century pastoral Arabs had become converts
to Monophysite Christianity. Some of the Arabs at 'Ayn Tamr seem
to have been Jewish. Thus the position of local Arabs as representatives
of Iraqi culture after the conquest was merely a continuation of their
pre-Islamic involvement. The cultural syncretism of pre-Islamic Hira
prefigures that of early Islamic Iraq.
However, in spite of a degree of cultural assimilation that made it
difficult to distinguish sedentary Arabs from Aramaeans (since both
could be called Nabat), total assimilation was prevented by the pres-
ervation of an Arabic identity, language, and tribal social organiza-
tion-the main aspects of Arab distinctiveness-among sedentary Ar-
abs in late Sasanian Iraq. By the sixth century, the Arabic language
was being written in the Kufic script at Anbar, Hira, and elsewhere,
thus serving as a vehicle of cultural expression and providing evidence
of a self-conscious Arab identity.44 Consequently, sedentary Arabs
were beginning to transform the ethnic character of the border region
in the late Sasanian period. This contrasted with earlier Arab pene-
tration and settlement in the Hellenistic period, when Arabs had lost
their identity and never wrote their own language. It is also significant
to note that the Nestorian Christian Arabs of Hira, who were of diverse
tribal origin, were not identified tribally but were all called 'Ibiid. But
even totally assimilated individuals who entered Nestorian monasteries
were still identified as Arabs by other monks.^45
So by the end of the Sas ani an period, pastoral Arabs could be found
43 Abii Yiisuf, KharJ;, p. 226.
44 Abbott, North-Arabic Script, pp. 2-7; BaladhurI, Futu~, pp. 471-74; C. Rabin,
"'Arabiyya," E1(2), I, 564-65; TabarI, Ta'rtkh, I, 2059-61; Trimingham, Christianity,
pp. 227-28.
45 Chabot, "Chastete," p. 236; Thomas of Margha, Governors, I, 29; lI, 54; Scher,
"Histoire nestorienne," lI(2), 446.