Iraq after the Muslim Conquest - Michael G. Morony

ARABS: IMMIGRANTS

Khurasan as part of the garrison and reorganized the army at Kufa,

making four quarters of roughly equal size out of the original seven

by recombining the various tribal units. Local officials (Ar. sg. 'ar'f

or naqw) were put in charge of the new fourths of the army, corre-

sponding to the chiefs of the sevenths under the previous system. The

four quarters of the Kufan army created by Ziyad consisted of the Ahl

al-Madina (Quraysh and An~ar); Tamim and Hamdan; Madhl).ij and

Asad; and Rabi'a and Kinda.^56 These divisions were still in use in 680

and 685.^57

At one level, it is clear that the arrival of large numbers of Arab

immigrants in Iraq during and shortly after the conquest was decisive

in terms of the tribal organization of a city such as Kufa and of its

army. At this level, one of the most obvious immediate consequences

of the conquest was the spread of Arabian forms of social and urban

organization. However, it would also seem that the nature of the

settlement itself, close together in a garrison city where tribal labels

were used as a basis for organization, served to intensify tribal iden-

tities, especially among groups that previously had only vague and

distant, even fictive, ties of kinship. It also increased the opportunity

for confliCt along tribal lines. Kufa was a city with a high percentage

of adult males and was settled by an incredibly diverse immigrant

population consisting of the fragments of an unusually large number

of tribal groups from every corner of Arabia and from every conceiv-

able background-urbanized merchants and artisans, oasis farmers,

and pastoralists. The very diversity of this population was a factor in

the extreme social fragmentation of early Kufa.

PATTERNS· OF URBAN SETTLEMENT: BASRA

The settlement patterns and early organization of Basra were similar
to that of Kufa, although Basra's population was not quite as diverse.
The foundation of Basra is represented as a strategic move intended
to prevent or to forestall the possibility of a Persian counterattack
against Iraq from the direction of Fars, Khuzistan, and Maysan for
the relief of Mada'in.^58 The Persians had garrisoned seven frontier
posts (M.P. dasiikir) at the site where Basra was founded, but they
had been evacuated during Khalid's raid and were in ruins by 635.
The earliest settlement at Basra was made towards the end of 635

56 Tabari, Ta'rikh, 11, 131,664,701.

57 Dinawari, Akhbiir a!-pwiil, p. 252; Tabari, Ta'rikh, 11, 664, 701.

58 Baliidhuri, FutUl}, p. 341; Tabari, Ta'rikh, I, 2377-78.