PEOPLEEven so, there were still many more single Muslim Arab men than
women in Iraq at first, with the predictable result of intermarriage
and concubinage with local women by the men in the army. One of
the most candid expressions of this state of affairs and of its conse-
quences is the account given by Shuways ibn Jabbash, who had par-
ticipated in the raids on Maysan in the time of 'Umar, where, as he
said:
I took a slave-girl captive and had intercourse with her for a while
until we received the letter of 'Umar, "Consider the captives of
Maysan which you have and release them." So I sent [her] back
among those who returned and I do not know whether I sent her
back pregnant or not. Indeed, I fear that there are men and women
in Maysan descended from me.13Since Muslim Arab men outnumbered women at Qadisiyya, the
soldiers married local non-Muslim women. When they finally settled
down, some of the men divorced them, but others kept their wives.^14
This situation seems to have contributed to a feeling among some of
them that marriage with non-Muslims ought to be discouraged. One
ac"count, which purports to go back to a mawla of I:Iudhayfa ibn al-
Yam an named Muslim, says that the men from Madina married Jewish
and Christian women in the Sawad but did not consider such marriages
lawful if the woman was a slave. IS One of the most specific objections
to such intermarriage is provided by another account, which claims
that I:Iudhayfa, as 'Umar's governor at Mada'in, had married a non-
Muslim woman at a time when Muslim women had become numerous.
'Umar ordered I:Iudhayfa to divorce her, saying that although foreign
women are charming, paying attention to them would give them su-
premacy over Muslim women.I6 This kind of resistance to intermar-
riage is also indicated by the case of Marjana, the Persian princess in
Basra who was the mother of 'Ubaydullah, the son of Ziyad. In spite
of the fact that she was an umm walad, Ziyad married her to Shiroe
the Uswari after the Asawira settled in BasraY This attitude is also
expressed by 'AIi's reputed refusal to allow his sons to marry two
women of the high Persian aristocracy (Ar. min abna' il-muLUk) who
I3 Ibn Sa'd, Tabaqiit, VII(l), 92.
14 TabarI, Ta'r'ikh, I, 2375.
15 Ibid., I, 2374.
16 Ibid.
17 Baladhuri, Futu~, p. 359.