ADMINISTRATIONwere needed. Before the sixth century, the state distributed food to
subjects to be prepared for the soldiers who were quartered in their
houses.1^16 By the late Sasanian period, garrisons seem to have been
segregated in citadels or frontier fortresses separate from urban pop-
ulations and were supplied with rations by the garrison commander
or by the commanding general on campaigns. An annual food supply
was kept in the storehouses of Nasibin in the sixth century;117 but the
most famous of the depots was at Anbar (Ar., "the granary"), from
which the friends and supporters of their Arab protege, an-Nu'man
ibn al-Mundhir, were supplied during the ascendency of the Banii
Lakhm.^118 Persian armies also took provisions on campaign. The army
that invaded Lazica in 549 imported a large quantity of flour in linen
bags loaded on mules along with cash.11^9 The armies that defended
Iraq during the Islamic conquest were similarly supplied, and after the
Battle of Buwayb in 634 the provisions of the Persian general Mihran,
consisting of sheep, cattle, and flour, were carried off by the Mus-
lims.120
During the early attacks on Iraq, Muslim armies usually provided
for themselves by raiding, but before the Battle of Qadisiyya in 637
they were supplied with sheep and camels sent from Madina.l2l Af-
terwards, the establishment of a warehouse for provisions (Ar. diir ar-
rizq) at Basra and Kufa and the distribution of monthly rations com-
pleted the Muslims' adaptation of the institutions of Sasanian military
administration. The earliest references again concern Basra, where the
depot was set up at Zabuqa, one of the abandoned Sasanian fortresses
at the site where Basra was founded. It had a courtyard, was also
called a "village of provisions" (Ar. qaryat al-arziiq), and is first men-
tioned in relation to the events of 656, preceding the Battle of the
Camel.^122 It is natural to suppose that Ziyad had been instrumental
in setting it up but, in any case, after he became governor in 665 he
rebuilt it and his son 'Ubaydullah enlarged it in a monumental fashion
116 J. Newman, The Agricultural Life of the Jews in Babylonia between the Years
200 C.E. and 500 C.E. (London, 1932), p. 184.
117 Prokopios, Wars, H. xix. 20.
118 Baladhuri, Futu~, p. 246; Yaqiit, Kitab mu 'jam al-huldan (Leipzig, 1866), I, 368.
For the Banii Lakhm at Hira see part H, chapter 6, "Arabs: Natives."
119 Prokopios, Wars, H. xxx. 19,44-46.
120 Tabari, Ta'rlkh, I, 2197.
121 Baladhuri, Futu~, p. 256.
122Tabari, Ta'rlkh, 1,2378,3123,3127,3129. Rizq comes from Middle Persian
rozik, "daily" rations.