"العراق والخليج الفارسي" [ظ‎‎٢‎٥‎٩] (٨٦٢/٥٢١)

ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC LIFE
394
three official members and four others elected by the qadha and
municipal councils. The council meets regularly and passes resolu
tions on matters referred to it by the mutasarrif. The qaimmaqam is
the chief executive officer of the qadha and carries out the instructions
of the mutasarrif to whom he reports. He presides over the qadha
administrative council, consisting of three official and four non
official members. The mudir is the executive officer in his own nahiya
and carries out the instructions of the qaimmaqam and mutasarrif.
Municipalities (p. 395) are under the general control of the mutasarrif.
Mutasarrifs are appointed by the Council of Ministers; qaimmaqams
and mudirs by the Prime Minister on the recommendation of the
Minister of the Interior.
Provincial Areas
The provinces are generally considerably smaller than the former
Turkish sanjaqs which they superseded. In northern Iraq they cor
respond well to geographical features. Mosul, Erbil, and Kirkuk pro
vinces consist of the three divisions of the Assyrian plains and most
of the mountain basins of the Great and Little Zabs, which form
the provincial boundaries within the plains, and the basin of the
Adhaim. Sulaimaniya consists of the mountain basin of the Diyala
and also of the left-bank tributaries of the upper Little Zab. One
political effect of this arrangement is to divide the mountain Kurds
into four political but not artificial compartments. In southern Iraq
some of the divisions seem geographically rather arbitrary, but tribal
factors have influenced the provincial arrangements. The former
Baghdad vilayet (fig. 73) has been divided into seven liwas in the
place of the three Turkish sanjaqs. The subdivision of the Middle
Euphrates zone into three provinces (Hilla, Diwaniya, Karbala) and
the virtual limitation of Karbala province to the territory of the
Holy Cities are of special interest. The Upper Euphrates province of
Dulaim is both a natural and a tribal unit, except for the artificial
division of the Jazira, the grazing-ground of beduin and shepherd
nomads, between Dulaim and Mosul provinces. Baghdad, Diyala,
and Kut provinces are reasonable subdivisions of the agricultural
zones of these rivers and their canals together with a desert hinterland,
though the inclusion in Baghdad of a desert zone eastwards to the
Iraqi border seems to serve no purpose, except to isolate administra
tively Diyala and Kut provinces.
The three southern provinces, Amara, Muntafiq, and Basra, cor