'Gazetteer of Arabia Vol. II' [‎1544] (623/688)

EABIAH
round them during the last 200 years a number of detached sections of tribes outside
the Rabi ah and those formed a fifth group which, if not in origin homogeneous
were all fellahm on the Bait Saba lands and under the control of Bait Saba' Shaikhs'
This group has been temporarily dissolved by the war. The Bait Saba' family suffered
severely at the hands of the Turks after the fall of Kut. The eldest branch of "Ihe house
was wiped out, many members of the family were exiled and many have sought refuse
with us and are living at 'Amarah. s xeiuge
Bani Rabi 'ah shaikhly houses are found in authority over tribes not included in +v a
confederation. The Shaikh, of Dair Madinah, Naahwah and ShLw nlr the
junetKm of the Euphrates and Tigris, together with many of their followers' SnB to
Si "i"! r 1 ' h .l A S ,arah ' tlie Sl "' jkh 0f S,Iwaib "Pring. from the Maiyah The
A1 bu Adhar house of the Sarraj provides the Shaikhs not only of the Sarrai "but also of
the A1 bu Darraj (a tribe said to be an offshoot of the Sarraj, though now independents
and of the Bam Salah in the Hawizah. These last, though they now inhabit the
Attai- 1 of th^SaiTa^ 8 ^ 8 C0Untry ' 0We ultimate allegiance to Shaikh Qassab ibn
^mamA.-The Amarah are the leading division of the Bani Rabi'ah; their pa-a-
R ^ J \ ru} . iamn ;; i \ (l S '" lhud 18 known as the Amir and is regarded as the Head
of the Rabi ah tribe. They occupy the lands on both sides of the Tigiis from Husaini-
ya ten miles below Bughailah to Kut. They are divided into the Bani Amir and the
Quraish, both of whom follow the Amir in war but are distributed among the muqata 'ahs
of various Shaikhs. (The situation of the bulk of each section is given in the tables
m all cases as it was before the war.) The whole tribe are settled The Jilukh and
Shuwawish sections provide the Hoshiyah of the Amir and number in all 250 horse
men. Ihe Bam Amir are said to number 1,000 men and the Quraish 1 200 • these
figures are possibly below the mark since Colonel Leachman puts the fighting strength
of the Amarah at 1,000 horse and 2,000 foot. & & engin
Maiyahr—k tribe of cultivators settled mainly on the west bank of the Gharraf
5 ^ ' als0 partly 0n the east bank and on the Shatt al 'Ama
Tol t ?u K V^ i r Unt Shaikh is Muhammad Al Yasin. He has a hoshiyah
of 200 men of the Dahbat section. The estimate here given brings the men of the
tribe up to a little over 3,000 ; this may be too high a figure but the tribe is a large one.
Colonel Leachman reckons its fighting strength at 500 horse and 800 foot
Maqasis. —Right bank of the Tigris from Kut to opposite Sannaiyat. 'There is no
paramount Shaikh ; the tribe s divided into two main sections, the Bait 'Aziz and the
Bait Ibrahim al Aziz and his brother Kamar are the principal Shaikhs of the
first, while Zamair ibn Salman, Nasir ibn 'Isa and 'Aziz ibn Jadu' are the leading
men of the second. Zamair, who was a staunch ally of he British Government, is now
a prisoner in the hands of the Turks. The Bait 'Aziz is said to number some 300 men
and the Bait Daghir about oOO. This is perhaps a narrow estimate for Colonel
Leachman puts the fighting strength of the Maqasis at 200 horse an 500 foot.
$arr<y.—The Sarraj or Sarrai, to give the dialect form of the name, are partly settled
fellah Arabic for ‘peasant’. It was used by British officials to refer to agricultural workers or to members of a social class employed primarily in agricultural labour. n and partly nomadic breeders of sheep. The settled sect ons cultivate the east
bankof the Gharraf and the area east of the Gharraf. The paramount Shaikh is
Qassab ibn Attar (or al Baqqal) who is bitterly anti-British. They are divided into a
number of sections varying in size from 50 to 100 men. Many of these are dircc ly
- der 4 rr b - ^ fnnn ? . lya n 0 ? 50 1 horse and 18 said to command in tribal levies
300-400 horse and 1,000 foot. Colonel Leachman's estimate of 200 horse and 800
fobably nearer the truth, but if Qassab has any real authority over the Bam
Salah of Hawizah he may on occasion draw fighting men from them. They are said
to number 1,000 men. Tayih ibn Zamzir of the Bait Khalati, a younger branch cf
Qassab s family, has come in to us. Qassab's relations with the large sections of the
1 * lore difficult to determine. Their paramount
Shaikh is Abdul Kanm ibn Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. , the representative of a younger branch of Qassab's
nZ l. ^ d ™ ated from the parent stock for several generations Thev
Zi r 0 V u w d 0f the A1 bu Muh^m^, Sawa 'ad, Sudan and
State oT' a Z In I n0n - t " ba] farmers - Thus the cultivators of the non-tribal
authority of 'A . mainI y ^om the Bahadil section. The
authority of Abdul Kanm ibn Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. is probably little more than nominal and the
tribesmen of these sections would usually come under the Shaikh whose land they