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80-641: In the Middle Ages it was also known as the Sawad and al-Jazira al-sflia ("Lower Jazira"), which strictly speaking designated only the southern alluvial plain, and Arab Iraq , as opposed to Persian Iraq , the Jibal . Lower Mesopotamia was home to Sumer and Babylonia . The medieval Arab geographers placed the northern border between Iraq and Upper Mesopotamia (the Jazirah ) in a line running from Anbar on

160-490: A detailed book on agronomy called Kitab al-filaha al-Nabatiyya , or The Nabataean Agriculture , which documents many of the agricultural practices of the Sawad in the 3rd century AH. The techniques used by farmers in the medieval Sawad were mostly the same as those used by twentieth-century Iraqi farmers. Buzjani and Ibn Wahshiyya both wrote extensively on such practices. Several different ploughs were in use, including

240-416: A fiercely fought siege. When Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 656–661) passed through the city, he was warmly welcomed by ninety-thousand Jews who then lived there, and he "received them with great friendliness." The Arabs retained the name ( Fīrūz Shābūr ) for the surrounding district, but the town itself became known as Anbar ( Middle Persian word for "granary" or "storehouse") from the granaries in its citadel,

320-399: A kind of alcoholic beverage was prepared from a mixture of barley and millet. According to Ibn Wahshiyya, six different kinds of wheat were grown in the Sawad. The most important wheat-growing areas were located around Kashkar and Anbar , although both districts experienced a steep decline in wheat production by the end of the 3rd century AH. Perhaps due to its greater resilience to

400-622: A long period of decline in population and in cultivated area over the centuries until the Mongol conquest. The destruction accompanying the Mongol conquest was the dramatic final blow to the patterns of settlements in Iraq. From as early as the late fourth millennium BCE , southern Mesopotamia was home to an urban civilization built upon irrigation agriculture. This enabled the security, stability, population density, and complex social organization that characterized this urban setting. Warfare with

480-448: A movement of popular nostalgia emerged, "glorifying indigenous 'Nabataean' achievements, especially those connected with the spread of civilization and the improvement of agriculture. Even as actual conditions were deteriorating intolerably, exhaustively detailed compendiums were appearing with elaborate botanical nomenclature and careful specifications of all the procedures and requirements of good husbandry." The intentional breaching of

560-491: A mushrooming population and the rise of many new cities. The vast, complex systems that emerged during the Sassanid period ultimately made local self-sufficiency impossible. Lack of maintenance on canals could have a strong adverse effect on faraway regions. This made state supervision of the infrastructure absolutely necessary to maintain this degree of settlement and cultivation. Settlement in Iraq reached its apex during

640-407: A name that had appeared already during the 6th century. According to Baladhuri , the third mosque to be built in Iraq was erected in the city by Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas . Ibn Abi Waqqas initially considered Anbar as a candidate for the location of one of the first Muslim garrison towns, but the fever and fleas endemic in the area persuaded him otherwise. According to medieval Arabic sources, most of

720-428: A raised platform at the same height as the spillway. In front of the abutments were two guide banks: the one on the right, as with the abutment on that side, helped serve as a closing wall, and the one on the left ended in a tower. The closing walls served to prevent wave action from eroding the sides of the pool to a point where the water could spill around the weir on the other side. Finally, 140 meters upstream from

800-548: A role in the Roman–Persian Wars of the 3rd–4th centuries, and briefly became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate before the founding of Baghdad in 762. It remained a moderately prosperous town through the 10th century, but quickly declined thereafter. As a local administrative centre, it survived until the 14th century, but was later abandoned. Its ruins are near modern Fallujah . The city gives its name to

880-418: A well- cemented mixture of lime, pebbles, limestone cherts , and small pieces of brick, all built on top of a stepped brick platform. Two abutments were built in front of the spillway, one on each side, to contain the water even during a flood. The right abutment was built more solidly than the left, and it also served as a closing wall for the pool. It was buttressed with a tower at each end and built on

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960-465: Is a hot wind and is strong during the day but dissipates at night. Winter lasts from November until April, and the northwest winds are weaker and often interrupted by depressions coming from the Mediterranean . The southeast winds (called Sharqi ) are accompanied by cold temperatures, cloudy skies, and rain. Average winter rainfall is about 5 inches. Frost may occur anywhere in Iraq during

1040-587: Is listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see of the Chaldean Catholic Church , established as titular bishopric in 1980. It has had the following incumbents: It is now entirely deserted, occupied only by mounds of ruins, whose great number indicate the city's former importance. Its ruins are 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) northwest of Fallujah, with a circumference of some 6 kilometres (3.7 mi). The remains include traces of

1120-470: Is permanent marsh, but some parts dry out in early winter, and other parts become marshland only in years of great flood. Because the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates above their confluence are heavily silt -laden, irrigation and fairly frequent flooding deposit large quantities of silty loam in much of the delta area. Windborne silt contributes to the total deposit of sediments. It has been estimated that

1200-794: The Al-Anbar Governorate . The city is located on the left bank of the Middle Euphrates , at the junction with the Nahr Isa canal, the first of the navigable canals that link the Euphrates to the River Tigris to the east. The origins of the city are unknown, but ancient, perhaps dating to the Babylonian era and even earlier: the local artificial mound of Tell Aswad dates to c.  3000 BC . The town

1280-743: The Roman Empire sometimes threatened the security of the region, particularly the areas to the west of the Tigris . There was widespread destruction of major urban centers as well as rural agricultural infrastructure that was necessary for recovery. For example, even the area of the Nahr al-Malik, deep within Sassanid territory, was devastated by the Roman emperor Julian 's invasion of Mesopotamia. The Persians destroyed dikes, which caused extensive flooding, while simultaneously damming up major waterways to prevent

1360-537: The Sarsar canal. Finally, the bakra was a simple animal-powered device used to transport water taken from wells. The government ministry responsible for the construction and maintenance of irrigation projects was the Diwan al-Kharaj , which was based in the capital and had branches in the provinces. It employed land surveyors and civil engineers for both construction of new projects and their maintenance. Maintaining

1440-405: The dūlāb , was another type of waterwheel; it was powered by animals (typically horses or oxen , although in the area of Anbar they were powered by camels ) instead of water thrust. These were commonly used around Baghdad and Anbar. The third was the daliya ; it was a waterwheel powered by human labor. The fourth, the shādūf , was a bucket operated by four people; it was in use in the area of

1520-435: The sikkah , or iron coulter . An instrument called the mijrad was used to level a field after it had been ploughed. Grafting was practiced extensively: most fruit trees were grown this way rather than from seeds. Ibn Wahshiyya wrote a detailed description of the practice. Layering was done with vines if there was enough space for it. Ibn Wahshiyya described two general types of manure used to fertilize crops in

1600-420: The 1500s. On the other hand, Stephen Hemsley Longrigg described the shift as taking place in the period between 1500 and 1650. In Sasanian times, the Euphrates likely entered the swamps close to the site of the modern town of Shinafiya . The Batihah (plural: Bata'ih ) or great swamp was the medieval name for the vast marshlands of southern Iraq, along the lower courses of the Tigris and Euphrates. In

1680-566: The Abbasid-era ash-Shadhirwan al-Asfal weir in 1957–58, which al-Khatib al-Baghdadi mentioned as serving the Nahrawan canal and which serves as a model for our understanding of how weirs were built during that period. It served to raise the water level in front of it (i.e. upstream) to a height 3 meters above the area downstream, and it supplied 11 branch canals. It consisted of a spillway , 37.56 meters wide and 30 meters deep, and made of

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1760-538: The Euphrates to Tikrit on the Tigris , although later it was shifted to a line running due west from Tikrit, thus including several towns on the Euphrates past Anbar into Iraq. An alluvial plain begins north of Tikrit Near Hamrin Mountains and extends to the Persian Gulf . Here the Tigris and Euphrates lie above the level of the plain in many places, and the whole area is a river delta interlaced by

1840-523: The Euphrates: during the winter growing season, when the Tigris was less prone to intense flooding, Tigris water was brought in, and then its headworks closed off and protected as much as possible, while now the greatly enlarged Euphrates was used to support irrigation efforts. This massive reshaping of the natural relationship between these rivers, which reached its peak during the Sasanian period, led to

1920-784: The Greeks and Romans. The city was fortified by a double wall, possibly through the use of Roman prisoner labour; it was sacked and burned after an agreement with its garrison in March 363 by the Roman emperor Julian during his invasion of the Sasanian Empire . It was rebuilt by Shapur II . By 420, it is attested as a bishopric, both for the Church of the East and for the Syriac Orthodox Church . The town's garrison

2000-527: The Ilkhanid minister Shams al-Din Juvayni had a canal dug from the city to Najaf , and the city was surrounded by a wall of sun-dried bricks. Anbar used to host an Assyrian community from the fifth century: the town was the seat of a bishopric of the Church of the East . The names of fourteen of its bishops of the period 486–1074 are known, three of whom became Chaldean Patriarchs of Babylon . Anbar

2080-518: The Nahr Isa, but it is more likely that it is to be identified with the pre-Islamic Nahr al-Rufayl. It continued to be a place of much importance throughout the Abbasid period. Caliph Harun al-Rashid ( r.  786–809 ) stayed at the town in 799 and in 803. The town's prosperity was founded on agricultural activities, but also on trade between Iraq and Syria. The town was still prosperous in

2160-593: The Nahrawan canal by Ibn Ra'iq in 937 led to a severe water shortage in the region, leading to widespread emigration. The repercussions were felt heavily in Baghdad, since there was a desperate lack of grain leading to starvation. The lands of the Sawad were among the most fertile in the Islamic world, but this productivity was almost totally dependent on artificial irrigation: dry farming requires 200 mm of rainfall per year, an amount reached in almost nowhere in

2240-629: The Parthian era. This indicates that the growing population in large cities consisted of people who originally had come from the medium-sized towns, rather than rural population moving to large urban centers. Under the Sassanids, the area in cultivation in the Diyala basin reached an extent that had never been attained before, and never would be again. During this time, almost 8,000 square kilometers were brought into cultivation, almost totally covering

2320-493: The Romans from being able to use them for transport. The Romans, meanwhile, burned small towns and villages in the countryside while also destroying farms and killing livestock. Since the destruction largely occurred west of the Tigris, the Sassanid emperors focused on developing the region of Ctesiphon and its hinterlands east of the Tigris, while investing less in the regions on the west bank. Thus, settlement retracted west of

2400-630: The Sawad had to be elevated slightly above the ground. This came with significant risk: if there was a breach in the canal's banks, the water would flood surrounding fields. The most detailed account of Islamic canals is that of Suhrāb, or Ibn Serapion . A canal could become the center of urban activity: for example, Bilal ibn Burda lined both sides of his canal with shops and moved the local suq there. Fishing may have been done in some canals, with at least two canals being named after types of fish that lived in them. Canals could also be used to power mills or for fulling cloth. Construction of canals

2480-407: The Sawad of Baghdad , of Basra , of Kufa , of Wasit , of Samarra , or of Anbar . This usage was exclusive to Iraq. The enormous economic potential of the Sawad is reflected in early Abbasid revenue lists: the Sawad produced four times as much tax revenue as the second-highest-producing province, Egypt , and five times as much as Syria and Palestine combined. During the medieval period,

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2560-461: The Sawad was crisscrossed by many canals. In the Islamic period, most canals ran west to east, from the Euphrates to the Tigris , since water level in the Tigris was lower than that of the Euphrates. As Ya'qubi observed, the Tigris watered the area to the east of the river, whereas the area to the west of the Tigris was irrigated with waters from the Euphrates. Due to gravity, the canals of

2640-497: The Sawad. Basra, for instance, has 60 mm of rainfall per year. Without irrigation, agriculture here would fail. The amount of water used in irrigation was crucial: excessive irrigation would cause a dangerous rise in the water table , as well as enabling capillary action to bring saline water up to the surface. Too little irrigation, on the other hand, left no extra water to leach the salts that had been deposited from previous irrigation. Robert M. Adams suggested that, after

2720-452: The Sawad. The first was "natural" manure, which consisted of either dried plant matter, feces (both animal and human), or ash and cinders. Ibn Wahshiyya preferred this kind. The second kind was "composite" manure, which consisted of a mixture of several types of "natural" manure along with earth and water, and was left to decompose after mixing. Different crops called for different kinds of manure, and some needed no fertilization at all. Manure

2800-735: The Sawad. There were two growing seasons for rice in the Sawad: a summer season, which was entirely dependent on irrigation, and a winter season, which was supported by rainfall. Summer rice was planted during the second half of July ( Tammuz ) and harvested in December ( Kanun al-Awwal ). Winter rice, meanwhile, was planted at the beginning of January ( Kanun al-Akhir ) and harvested in May ( Ayyar and June ( Haziran ). Rice farming required meticulous preparation, fertilization, irrigation, and labor for harvesting and threshing. Rice, and particularly rice bread,

2880-588: The Tigris from its peak during Parthian rule. In the Diyala valley east of the Tigris, however, settlement reached its peak, with over twice as many settlements and over twice the built-up area as during the Parthian period. In this region, human settlement was as much as 35 times denser and more extensive than it had been under the Achaemenid kings. During this period, both large cities and small villages increased in number and in size, while medium-sized towns decreased in percentage of all settlements compared to

2960-403: The Tigris's banks were so deep that canals had to be extended far down the backslope of the protective levees built along the river in order to keep a high enough water level. Yet these labor-intensive canal offtakes were directly exposed to the floods and could be suddenly buried under a deep layer of silt. Later on, however, a vast canal system came to use the flow of the Tigris to supplement

3040-465: The Zagros mountains lead to highly destructive floods. The most destructive flood on the Tigris in modern times was in 1954, when there was a flow of 16,000 cumecs , whereas the worst flood on the Euphrates was in 1929 with only 5,200 cumecs. The Euphrates was therefore more manageable, while settlements along the Tigris had to be built away from the river to avoid being destroyed by flooding. Additionally,

3120-454: The actual amount of land set aside for grains would have been twice that.) Wheat and barley were grown in every district of the Sawad. In most of these districts, the kharaj tax was paid mostly in the form of those two grains. Tabari described the four districts surrounding Baghdad as extremely productive, which is partly why the caliph al-Mansur chose Baghdad for the site of his new capital. Breads made from wheat and barley formed

3200-403: The agrarian economy diminished to the vanishing point." Contemporary sources report this as a time of administrative and economic collapse, with many villages destroyed, communications disrupted, robbery and brigandry were rampant, and cultivation was made practically impossible. By the early 10th century, 62% of settlements in the area around Baghdad had become abandoned. Yet at the same time,

3280-478: The channels of the two rivers and by qanat . Intermittent lakes , fed by the rivers in flood, also characterize southeastern Iraq. A fairly large area (15,000 km or 5,800 sq mi) just above the confluence of the two rivers at al Qurnah and extending east of the Tigris beyond the Iranian border is marshland, known as Lake Hammar , the result of centuries of flooding and inadequate drainage. Much of it

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3360-424: The delta plains are built up at the rate of nearly twenty centimeters in a century. In some areas, major floods lead to the deposit in temporary lakes of as much as thirty centimeters of mud. The Tigris and Euphrates also carry large quantities of salts . These, too, are spread on the land by sometimes excessive irrigation and flooding. A high water table and poor surface and subsurface drainage tend to concentrate

3440-484: The early 9th century, but the decline of Abbasid authority during the later 9th century exposed it to Bedouin attacks in 882 and 899. In 927, the Qarmatians under Abu Tahir al-Jannabi sacked the city during their invasion of Iraq , and the devastation was compounded by another Bedouin attack two years later. The town's decline accelerated after that: while the early 10th-century geographer Istakhri still calls

3520-558: The head of the Dijlah al-`Awra', or "one-eyed Tigris". The hydrography of the Bata'ih was not static. Ibn Rustah described the Bata'ih as covered by reed beds crossed by water channels, where enormous amounts of fish where caught, then salted and exported to neighboring provinces. The water level was too shallow for most river boats to pass through, and only special pole-propelled vessels called mashhuf could be used for transport. Most of

3600-436: The increasing soil salinity, barley was a more common crop than wheat in the medieval Sawad. Ibn Hawqal notes the region surrounding Wasit in particular as an important barley producer. Rice was grown in the parts of the Sawad that were warm and humid – two conditions necessary for it to thrive. Qudama noted that four districts paid taxes in barley and rice instead of the usual barley and wheat, indicating that rice

3680-433: The inhabitants of the town migrated north to found the city of Hdatta south of Mosul . The famous governor al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf cleared the canals of the city. Abu'l-Abbas as-Saffah ( r.  749–754 ), the founder of the Abbasid Caliphate , made it his capital in 752, constructing a new town half a farsakh ( c.  2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) ) to the north for his Khurasani troops. There he died and

3760-456: The late Sasanian dynasty, the Iraqi countryside would have been under "virtually continuous cultivation", supporting a much larger population than in previous periods. During the time of the caliphs Harun al-Rashid and al-Ma'mun , the total winter acreage for cereal crops has been estimated at 3 million hectares in cultivation during a single winter. (Since land was fallowed every other year,

3840-437: The late Sasanian period, the irrigation system of the Sawad must have diverted virtually the entire flow of both the Tigris and Euphrates to agricultural purposes. Regarding the Euphrates, Robert M. Adams wrote that, "with a whole series of massive diversions upstream, it is not unlikely that in Sasanian times the Euphrates entered the swamps [at its lower end]... with very little if any residual flow." Throughout its history,

3920-534: The late Sassanid period. The tumult surrounding the Islamic conquest led to a sudden, steep decline. Fairly quickly, however, the Muslims were able to restore much of the Sassanid establishment. However, from the mid-800s onward, political instability in the Abbasid Caliphate led to a neglect of the rural economy and more corrupt exploitation of the peasantry in search of short-term profits. This led to

4000-486: The lower Tigris followed a different course than it does today. It had shifted further west due to the floods of the early 7th century (before this, its course was the same as it is today). It passed the city of Wasit and entered the Batihah at the town of Qatr . According to Donald Hill , after about 1200, the Tigris and Euphrates started to gradually shift toward their present courses, which they finally reached during

4080-543: The main food for most Iraqis, especially in major urban areas such as Baghdad, Wasit, Basra, and Kufa. An especially popular dish was al-tharīd , which consisted of pieces of bread with either vegetable soup or a combination of olive oil and vinegar . Dishes such as burghul , habbīya , and disheesh were made from boiled and peeled wheat. Other dishes consisted of a paste made from mashed meat and pearl wheat. Most Iraqi peasants ate more barley-based breads, which were often made with millet and beans mixed in. Additionally,

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4160-481: The marshes were covered by water, but there were some areas with good soil, where people formed settlements, grew crops, and dug canals for irrigation. In Iraq, there are two very distinct seasons: summer and winter. Spring and autumn are very short. Summer, which lasts from May through October, is intensely hot and dry, with the sky mostly cloudless and rain extremely rare. The prevailing northwest wind (the Shamal )

4240-431: The mid-9th century and Ali ibn Isa in 915: in many formerly prosperous districts, a drop by 90% or more took place "in this period of less than a single human life span." In the intervening years, there had been several decades of rural unrest and conflict, provoked by years of increasing tax burdens and abuses by state officials, as well as outright looting by Turkish mercenaries. The single greatest precipitating event

4320-544: The mountains lead to high water in April. The Euphrates, on the other hand, mostly consists of water from the Anatolian highlands, and melting snow reaches lower Mesopotamia later, in early May. This is too late to help with growing crops for the May and June harvest season. The timing of the flooding in the Euphrates was less helpful than the Tigris. The Tigris, however, is prone to flooding, since winter and spring storms in

4400-456: The north. As a generic term in Arabic , sawād ( سواد ) was used to denote the irrigated and cultivated areas in any district. Unmodified, it always referred to southern Iraq, the sawād of Baghdad . It replaced the earlier and more narrow term Rādhān . The term sawad eventually came to refer to the rural district around a particular city; thus, contemporary geographers made references to

4480-634: The northwest, it stretched almost up to Kufa and Nippur , while in the northeast it began at al-Qatr , downstream from Wasit on the Tigris. Suhrab lists four great lagoons ( Ḥawr ) in the Batihah: Bahassa, Bakhmasa, Basriyatha, and finally al-Muhammadiyah, which was the largest. Below the Hawr al-Muhammadiyah, the channel called the Nahr Abi'l-As'ad finally carried the waters of the Batihah to

4560-401: The occurrence of the sandstorms that now sweep all over the country." The main crop-growing season in this region comes during the winter, and irrigation is needed at least monthly. However, neither the Tigris nor the Euphrates reaches its high water mark during the winter when farmers need water the most: the Tigris is fed by several tributaries in the Zagros mountains, and melting snows in

4640-477: The opening of the Katul al-Kisrawi made water readily available to farmers in the lower Nahrawan region, over-irrigation caused the water table to rise dramatically. Today, much of this region's soil is too saline for irrigated agriculture, and the area is largely abandoned. A similar phenomenon occurred in the Sawad of Basra . Insufficient gradient in local irrigation systems resulted in poor drainage of salts from

4720-425: The reconstruction of dykes and was able to reclaim part of the flooded land. Under Khusraw II , however, the Tigris continued to rise even higher. He spent huge sums of money to finance the restoration of the systems, but in vain. In the final years of the Sasanian empire, these projects were abandoned due to war, and local dihqans couldn't finance such major undertakings. Archaeological evidence indicates that there

4800-455: The region with farmland. A two-field crop rotation system was likely employed during this period, just as it was in Islamic times. The Bata'ih first formed during the Sasanian era. According to al-Baladhuri , during the reign of Kubadh (r. 488–531), the Tigris overflowed its banks and flooded large areas of productive farmland. Kubadh was unable to do anything about it, but after his son Khusraw I Anushirvan succeeded him, he ordered

4880-497: The salts near the surface of the soil. In general, the salinity of the soil increases from Baghdad south to the Persian Gulf and severely limits productivity in the region south of Amarah . The salinity is reflected in the large lake in central Iraq, southwest of Baghdad, known as Lake Milh . There are two other major lakes in the country to the north of Lake Milh: Lake Tharthar and Lake Habbaniyah . Sawad Sawad

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4960-541: The sluice needed to be partially or fully closed. Buzjani outlined five main mechanical devices used for irrigation purposes in the Sawad. The first, the nā'ūr , was a waterwheel powered by the flow of the stream itself. They were used extensively in the area of the Nahrawan Canal , in the region of Anbar on the Euphrates , and in the western part of the Baduraya district, west of Baghdad . The second,

5040-522: The soil. To counter this, laborers, including the Zanj, were tasked with removing the salty topsoil and piling it up by the sides of the canals. As many as 45 million tons of soil were moved in this manner, but even this was insufficient. After Basra itself was sacked by the Zanj and then again by the Qarmatians, much of the fields were abandoned and never brought into cultivation again. At its apex under

5120-420: The spillway, there were two regulators , designed to relieve the weir during floods. The regulators were made of brick and date from the 9th century, although the arch on the right bank appears older and was probably built by the 8th century at the latest. Both regulators have vertical lines of holes, which were designed so that wooden beams could be inserted into them to hold the structures' planks in place when

5200-458: The town modest but populous, with the ruins of the buildings of as-Saffah still visible, Ibn Hawqal and al-Maqdisi , who wrote a generation later, attest to its decline, and the diminution of its population. The town was sacked again in 1262 by the Mongols under Kerboka . The Ilkhanids retained Anbar as an administrative centre, a role it retained until the first half of the 14th century;

5280-487: The vast irrigation systems of Iraq required a large number of workers. In addition to the surveyors and engineers mentioned above, there were also qaīyāsun , who supervised water levels, flow, and capacity of rivers and canals; naqqālūn , who disposed of unneeded waste; razzāmūn , who bound reeds for use in building dams; haffārūn , who dredged canals; and workers (no name given) who carried loads of soil to reinforce structures such as dams and weirs. Ibn Wahshiyya wrote

5360-915: The western gate to central Mesopotamia, it was fortified by the Sasanian ruler Shapur I ( r.  241–272 ) to shield his capital, Ctesiphon , from the Roman Empire . After his decisive victory over the Roman emperor Gordian III at the Battle of Misiche in 244, Shapur renamed the town to Peroz-Shapur ( Pērōz-Šāpūr or Pērōz-Šābuhr , from Middle Persian : 𐭯𐭥𐭩𐭥𐭦𐭱𐭧𐭯𐭥𐭧𐭥𐭩 , meaning "victorious Shapur"; in Parthian : 𐭐𐭓𐭂𐭅𐭆𐭔𐭇𐭐𐭅𐭇𐭓 , romanized:  prgwzšhypwhr ; in Imperial Aramaic : פירוז שבור ). It became known as Pirisapora or Bersabora ( Ancient Greek : Βηρσαβῶρα ) to

5440-406: The winter, except for the southernmost parts, and they come in the wake of the depressions, after the rain. Snow sometimes lays on the ground for several days. According to Husam Qawam El-Samarraie , the climate of Iraq during the Abbasid era was probably similar to today, although the greater abundance of date palm orchards then "may have mitigated the violence of the winter winds and prevented

5520-419: Was "a precipitate retreat from a vast central area of the Sawad" during this period, only reversing itself in modern times. After the golden age of the Abbasid Caliphate during the reign of Harun al-Rashid from 786 to 809, imperial revenues from the Sawad plummeted from 100 million dirhams to only 20 million by the early 10th century. The sharpest decline took place between the records of Ibn Khurdadhbeh in

5600-590: Was Persian, but it also contained sizeable Arab and Jewish populations. Anbar was adjacent or identical to the Babylonian Jewish center of Nehardea ( Imperial Aramaic : נהרדעא ), and lies a short distance from the present-day town of Fallujah , formerly the Babylonian Jewish center of Pumbedita ( Imperial Aramaic : פומבדיתא ). The city fell to the Rashidun Caliphate in July 633, after

5680-496: Was a dietary staple in southern Iraq, especially in the Bata'ih and Basra regions. Rice was often served with fish and/or vegetables. Various recipes called for rice to be cooked with milk , butter , oil , or fat , and seasoned with salt . Rice-based pastries were also eaten, and a type of rice wine called nabīdh was produced in many districts, including Abdasi , Badaraya , Bakusaya , and Junhula . Rice bread, like barley,

5760-413: Was a particularly widespread crop there. These districts were Sura and Barbisama, Furat Badaqla, Nistar, and Kashkar . The rice plantations around Jamida , as described by Qadi Tanukhi , constituted some of the richest rice-producing areas in the Sawad, which enticed government officials to compete for the control of the region. Ibn Wahshiyya wrote a detailed description of the cultivation of rice in

5840-426: Was buried at the palace he had built. His successor, al-Mansur ( r.  754–775 ), remained in the city until the founding of Baghdad in 762. The Abbasids also dug the great Nahr Isa canal to the south of the city, which carried water and commerce east to Baghdad. The Nahr al-Saqlawiyya or Nahr al-Qarma canal, which branches off from the Euphrates to the west of the city, is sometimes erroneously held to be

5920-435: Was cheaper than wheat bread, which resulted in it gaining a reputation as being food for poor people. Nonetheless, rice remained the single most important food for many people, especially the poor, in southern Iraq due to its low price. Described as a summer crop by Ibn Wahshiyya, sorghum ( dhura ) was grown in large quantities throughout Iraq. Bread made from sorghum flour, especially when mixed with wheat and barley flour,

6000-468: Was originally known as Misiche ( Greek : Μισιχή ), Mesiche ( Μεσιχή ), or Massice ( Middle Persian : 𐭬𐭱‎𐭩‎𐭪‎‎‎‎ mšyk; Parthian : 𐭌‎𐭔‎𐭉‎𐭊‎ mšyk). As a major crossing point of the Euphrates, and occupying the northernmost point of the complex irrigation network of the Sawad , the town was of considerable strategic significance. As

6080-404: Was regarded more highly by Southern Iraqis than rice bread. Sorghum was also grown for use as fodder ; Ibn Wahshiyya considered it the ideal fodder for livestock, especially cows and goats . Anbar (town) Anbar ( Arabic : الأنبار , romanized :  al-Anbār , Syriac : ܐܢܒܐܪ , romanized :  Anbar ) was an ancient and medieval town in central Iraq . It played

6160-552: Was the Abbasid civil war and siege of Baghdad in 865, which "wiped out any notion that the government's reciprocal function of protection could be honoured". The Zanj rebellion lasted for 15 years before finally being quelled in 883, and the Qaramita movement that followed it was even larger and longer-lasting, leading to the area under state control shrinking dramatically and "prospects for any constructive, long-term approach to

6240-592: Was the name used in early Islamic times (7th–12th centuries) for southern Iraq . It means "black land" or "arable land" and refers to the stark contrast between the alluvial plain of Mesopotamia and the Arabian Desert . Under the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates , it was an official political term for a province encompassing most of modern Iraq except for the Syrian Desert and Upper Mesopotamia in

6320-407: Was traded and sold locally, according to several sources, including Ibn Wahshiyya, Ibn Bassam , and Yaqut al-Hamawi . The Abbasid government played a role in supervising cultivation. It would sometimes loan money to farmers to help them buy seed and livestock. Some poorer farmers were directly given seeds. The government expected repayment in full after the harvest. At the maximum extent under

6400-431: Was very expensive. It was often financed by private investors who expected to turn a profit out of the deal. Usually, all the governor did was provide land for irrigation projects. The 3rd-century AH author al-Khatib al-Baghdadi listed some 30 weirs in Iraq, although most of them were no longer extant or operational at the time he wrote. The most extensive archaeological work done on one of those weirs has been done on

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