PEOPLEin the south to Margha in the north, where they mixed with Persians
and Aramaeans. In 656 the governor of Hulwan suppressed Kurds
who were devastating the subdistrict of Dinawar. In 696 Kurds and
other local people in the vicinity of Hulwan joined the KharijI revolt
of Suwayd ibn 'Abd ar-RaI.tman and occupied the pass of Hulwan.^3
There were also Kurds in the regions of Beth Begash and Beth Karte-
waye above Irbil in Adiabene, where they lived a partly sedentary life
and raised sheep and cattle. 'Utba ibn Farqad had taken all the forts
of the Kurds when he conquered Adiabene in 641. Kurds were still
settled in the sub districts of Ard Hazza in the Islamic period, and many
groups of Kurds called Dasiniyya inhabited the mountainous subdis-
trict of Dasin above Margha.^4
Developments in seventh-century Iraq also affected the Kurds. Some-
time after the conquest, they located themselves within the Arab tribal
genealogical system by claiming descent from RabI'a or Mudar of the
Nizar group. By doing so they identified themselves with the pastoral
Arabs closest to them in northern Iraq. Even the Shuhjan tribe around
Dinawar and Hamadan regarded themselves as descendents of RabI'a.
Kharijism also survived among the Kurds as late as the tenth century,
and some of the Kurdish tribes in the mountains above Margha were
Christian.^5
SYRIANS AND GREEKS
The largest group of truly foreign origin in late Sasanian Iraq prob-
ably consisted of the Greek and Syrian captives deported from By-
zantine territory and resettled by the Sasanians as captive laborers.
The first to do this on a large scale was Shapiir 11, who resettled captives
from upper Mesopotamia and eastern Syria in Khuzistan.^6 When Amid
fell to Qubadh I in 503 the survivors, including the notables, were
carried off as slaves. But, according to Prokopios, they were released
and allowed to return shortly afterwards.? In about 540 Khusraw
3 Baladhuri, Ansiib, V, 45; idem, Futu~, p. 326; Tabari, Ta'r"ikh, II, 989.
4 Baladhuri, Futu~, p. 332; Budge, Rabban Hormfzd, I, 173, 11, 263; Fiey, Assyrie
chretienne, I, 217; Ibn l:Iawqal, Surat ai-an/., p. 217; Thomas of Margha, Governors,
I, 98-99, 294, 320; I1, 224-25, 524, 563, 649; Yaqut, Ta'rlkh, I1, 538, 957.
5 Mas'udi, Muruj, II, 249, 251.
6 Ibid., I, 300-301; Tha'alibi, Ghurar, pp. 529-30.
7 Prokopios, Wars, Lvii, 32-35. Tradition claimed much later that the captives from
Amid were settled at Abarqubadh (Dinawari, Akhbiir at·tiwiil, p. 68) or at Seleucia
(Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," I1l1], 133).