ADMINISTRATIVE GEOGRAPHYThese campaigns essentially created the Muslim province of Ard Mawsil,
which may have been preceded by a similar administrative configu-
ration in the late Sasanian period. Although 'Utba is generally re-
garded as the first real governor of Ard Mawsil, Harthama ibn 'Arfaja
al-Bariqi is also said to have founded Mawsil as a provincial capital
(Ar. mi~r) in 641 and settled Arabs there, after which he conquered
Haditha.^47
Mawsil was really only a military outpost of Kufa immediately after
the conquest4^8 and the detachment of its administration from that of
Iraq began in the caliphate of 'Uthman (644-56) with the appointment
of the governor of Mawsil by the caliph instead of by the governor
of Kufa. In 654 'Uthman appointed J:Iakim ibn Salama al-J:Iizami
governor there.^49 Before the Battle of Siffin, 'All appointed Malik al-
Ashtar governor of a wide band of territory that formed his north-
western frontier with Mu'awiya: Mawsil, Nasibin, Dara, Sinjar, Amid,
Mayyafariqin, Hit, 'Anat, and neigh boring Syrian territory. Malik's
authority over this region was only potential, however, because he
first had to contest Mu'awiya's governor of this territory, aQ-QaQQak
ibn Qays al-Fihri, for it. They clashed between Raqqa and Harran
and Malik was driven back to Mawsi1.^50 In 671-72 'Abd ar-RaQman
ibn 'Abdullah ibn 'Uthman ath-Thaqafi was the 'amil of Mawsil for
Mu'awiya,51 and the Kufan MUQammad ibn al-Ash'ath ibn Qays,
who was governor of Mawsil in 685, had been appointed by Ibn az-
Zubayr in Madina.^52 The revolt of al-Mukhtar temporarily subordi-
nated the province of Mawsil to Kufa again. In 685 al-Mukhtar ap-
pointed 'Abd ar-RaQman ibn Sa'id ibn Qays al-Hamdani as his 'amil
of Mawsil,s3 and in 686 made Ibrahim ibn Malik al-Ashtar governor
of Mawsil and neigh boring regions.
The three-way struggle among the Marwanis, al-Mukhtar, and
Mu~'ab ibn az-Zubayr to control upper Mesopotamia during the
47 Ibid.; Yaqiit, Buldan, n, 222-23. This account was transmitted by Ibn al-KalbI.
48 According to Ya'qiibi (Ta'rlkh, n, 176), Mawsil was a jund (Syr., wing of an army,
used in Arabic for a military settlement) in the time of 'Umar while Kufa and Basra
were amsar (Ar., pI. for mi~r).
49 Tabari, Ta'rlkh, I, 2928.
50 Dinawari, Akhbar at-tiwal, p. 164.
51 Tabari, Ta'rlkh, 11, 128; Ya'qiibi, Ta'rlkh, n, 275. Ya'qiibi calls him 'Abd ar-
Ral)man ibn Umm al-l:Iakam.
52 Tabari, Ta'rlkh, n, 635.
53 Dinawari, Akhbar at-tiwal, p. 300; Tabari, Ta'rlkh, n, 635; Ya'qiibi, Ta'rlkh, n,
308.