OTHER ETHNIC GROUPSphthalites in the army of Qubadh I that attacked Amid in 503 and
there were Huns in the Persian army that attacked Edessa in 544.17
According to Hisham al-Kalbi, Khusraw Parviz settled some eight
thousand "Turks" from the vicinity of Herat led by Nariman at Qa-
disiyya as a buffer against the Arabs. Four thousand of them are
supposed to have chained themselves together and perished fighting
on the Persian side under the son of Nariman at the Battle of Qadisiyya.
Afterwards, the grandchildren of Nariman returned to Khurasan.^28
Basran forces operating in eastern Iran in the second half of the
seventh century brought Central Asian captives back to Iraq with them.
'Ubaydullah ibn Ziyad is said to have taken four thousand Bukharans
as his own prisoners 'at the towns of Paykand and Ramitin when he
raided the Bukhara oasis in 673-74. They were settled in Basra as a
military unit of archers attached to the clan of the Banii Sulaym and
lived in their own district along the street of the Bukharans. In 683
they formed part of the force commanded by 'Abd al-Malik ibn 'Ab-
dullah ibn 'Amir ibn Kurayz together with his armed mawalf. AI-
f:lajjaj settled many of them at Wasit.^29
INDIANS
Several groups of Indian origin living in late Sasanian Iran made
their way to Iraq after the conquest. The largest, most typical group
were the Zun. They had been brought from India to the Gulf coast
of Iran in the reign of Bahram V (420-38), where they settled into a
migratory pattern, following the pasture for their water buffaloes.
There they became associated with an east Indian group called Sayabija
which also lived along the Gulf coast. In the same period Bahram V
is said to have imported some four thousand Indian musicians to Iran.
They were called black Liiris and dispersed throughout the provinces
as entertainers playing the flute and lute.^30
27 Prokopios, Wars, Lvii. 8; viii. 13; ILxxvi. 5-11. The eight hundred Hephthalites
in Qubiidh's vanguard in 503 were almost all killed by the Byzantines.
28 Qazwini, Athar al-bilad, p. 159; Yiiqiit, Buldan, IV, 8-9. Hishiim calls these people
Khazars, but since they came from Herat they are more likely to have been Hephthalites.
If the legend that Qadisiyya was named after a dihqan of Herat called Qiidis is to be
believed, these people might have been Qadishiiye.
29 Baladhuri, Futub, pp. 376, 410-11; Ibn al-Faqih, Buidiin, p. 191; Narshakhi,
Tiirlkhl Bukhiirii, tr. R. Frye (Cambridge, 1954), p. 37; Tabari, Ta'rlkh, 11, 170,464;
Ya'qiibi, Ta'rlkh, 11, 237; Yaqiit, Buldiin, I, 522. The Bukharans are more likely to
have been Soghdians than Turks.
30 Baladhuri, Futub, p. 373; Tha'iilibi, Ghurar, p. 567. For the Sumatran origin of
the Sayabija, see G. Ferraud, "Sayiibiga," EI(I), IV, 208-9.
"'71