ARAB S: IMMIGRANTScentury is suggested by the presence of two villages, both called A'rab;
one was between Sura and Kutha and the other between Was it and
Khuzistan.1^14
However, it should be sufficiently clear that the main demographic
consequence of the conquest was a new concentration of population
in cities in southern Iraq and that most of the Muslim Arabs who
settled in Iraq contributed to this change. By the end of the seventh
century, Kufa and Basra had become cities of over two hundred thou-
sand people (by a conservative estimate). By their very size, these cities
constituted new mass markets for food, products, and services that
reoriented the regional economy and spurred the development of ag-
riculture and craft manufacturing.
114 al-'Ali, "Min~aqat Wasi~ (2)," p. 170.