'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎244r] (492/862)

DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION 363
The Dhafir pasture in the Dahana sands of Arabia in winter and
move north-east in summer along the Batin depression towards the
neighbourhood of the Lower Euphrates between Nasiriya and Zubair;
though a camel tribe, the purity of their beduin descent is in dispute
and also they have not the independence of the Amarat, being closely
associated with the shepherd tribe of Zaiyad (p. 365). They have
been much weakened by internal strife between the two chief shaikhly
families (Ibn Suwait and Aba Dhra), by the secession of sections to
Saudi Arabia or to Anaiza protection, and by the Akhwan raids of
1922—1925 (p. 318), so that by 193° they could only muster some
700 tents.
The Shammar Jarba of the Jazira may in some seasons move
through the dira of the Amarat to the Hajara and Nafud. In the Jazira
their dira is bounded by the Jabal Sinjar on the north, the Syrian
Khabur on the west, and the Tigris and Jabal Hamrin on the east,
though in times of bad pasture they may reach the Diyala. They used
to try to exact khua or dues from all the shepherd tribes within this
zone. Their market towns are Balad Sinjar, Tel Afar, Qala Sharqat,
and Mosul. The Shammar Jarba number over 8,000 tents in three
major tribal sections which recognize the authority of the Bait Mo
hammed family; the prestige of Ajil al Jauer, the present paramount
shaikh, is greater than that of the paramount shaikh of the Syrian or
West Shammar. Their relations with the Saudi Shammar are now
excellent, and in 1935 two Anaiza tribes of Syria, the Feddan and
Sba, tried to attach themselves to the Shammar Jarba rather than to
their Amarat kinsmen.
In southern Iraq another group of Shammar, the Tuman Shammar,
are limited to the region between the Jal al Baten ridge and the
Euphrates below Najaf, within the dira of the Amarat, when they are
not with their kinsmen, the Shammar Jarba, or the Shammar of
Saudi Arabia.
Shepherd and Settled Tribes of the Upper Euphrates (figs. 30, 66, 67).
The Dulaim, who number over 19,000 tents in ten large sections, are
the great tribe of the Euphrates between Al Qaim and Falluja. There
are both nomadic and settled sections. The nomads range either side
of the Euphrates between Ana and Falluja, north-east towards Tikrit,
and west along the Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. Hauran and towards the depression of Jumat
al Qaara. The Albu Nimr and Jaghaifa are the chief nomad sec
tions ; but there is no absolute distinction of the sections in this res
pect, and the nomads have no social or political superiority. Many
sections are mainly agricultural, and there is a constant tendency to