PEOPLEthe conquest and, in 685, a force of one thousand men was raised in
their district in Kufa.^40 By 660, Christian Arabs of the tribe of 'Ijl
were living in the district of the Bakr at Kufa.^41 During the reign of
Yazid I (680-83), the Murad were able to muster four thousand cav-
alry and eight thousand infantry. They had their own cemetery in Kufa
by 685.^42
The pattern which emerges at Kufa is that of a city divided into
separate tribal districts (Ar. sg. na~iya or ma~alla), each with its own
masjid for daily worship and tribal assemblies, its own cemetery, and
with gates to close off the streets going through each district. Within
each district, the members of the respective tribes seem to have settled
by clan along lanes or alleys adjacent to the main street of the district.
From a purely descriptive point of view, it is possible to identify most
of the tribal districts in seventh-century Kufa. One of the problems
arising with respect to the organization of this city is how to reconcile
such a description with the districts that are listed in more or less
"official" catalogues. Ya'qiibi, for instance, lists the tribal cemeteries
as those of 'Azram, Bishr, Azd, Salim, Murad, Kinda, the Sa'idiyyin,
'Uthayr, Banii Yashkur, and Banii 'Amir.43 This list appears to reflect
conditions during the 680s, since the districts of Kufa are identified
in the events of 685 as being those of Bishr, Kinda, Salim, al?-Sa'idiyyin,
and Murad.^44 Part of the explanation for this discrepancy may be
found in the changes in the original settlement pattern at Kufa brought
about by later immigrants (Ar. rawadif) who crowded into the districts
established by their relatives. Those groups with fewer original than
later settlers moved to the outskirts and established new districts.
Those in which the original settlers outnumbered the latecomers re-
mained in their original districts, took over the spaces of those who
had moved to the outskirts, or doubled Up.45 It also seems that as time
Nik, pp. 26-27) that the Hamdiin settled around the masjid of the 'Abd al-Qays in
Kufa is not supported by the passage he cites (Tabari, Ta'rikh, H, 657).
40 Dinawari, Akhbiir at-tiwiil, p. 305.
41 Tabari, Ta'rlkh, I, 3460.
42 Dinawari, Akhbiir at-tiwiil, p. 306; Mas'iidi, Muruj, tr. de Meynard and CourteiIle,
(Paris, 1861-77), V, 140.
43 Ya'qiibi, Les pays, pp. 144--45. The cemetery of Siilim was named after Siilim ibn
'Ammiir of the Bakr ibn Hawiizin (Ibn al-Faqih, Buldiin, p. 183).
44 Tabari, Ta'rikh, H, 614.
45 Donner, Arab Tribes, pp. 148-50; Tabari, Ta'rlkh, I, 2490. Tabari cites a schematic
division of Kufa into four quarters oriented to the points of the compass, among the
accounts of its foundation and settlement transmitted by Sayf. This account describes
the tribes of Sulaym, Thaqif, BajTIa, Taymalliit, and Taghlib as settled along streets
extending from the north side of the courtyard (Ar. §af?n). Asad, Nakha', Kinda, and
Azd were located on the south side. On the west side, Bajiila and Bajla shared a street,