'Military Report on Mesopotamia (Iraq)' [‎7v] (19/226)

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the meteoric kingdom of Palmyra. In a.d. 633 the
devotees of Islam swung north from the barren steppes of
Arabia and, except in a few secluded Christian com
munities, imposed upon the people of Northern Jazirah
the religion of Muhammad, and gave its population the
predominant Arab character which exists at the present
day. The interesting features of the Arab invasion are
that its effects have been permanent, and that, while the
first three Semitic irruptions were immigrations of
sedentary peoples, the last was nomadic herdsmen,
hardened by hunger, unamenable to settled government
and opposed to political restraint. The effects of the
latter Seljuk invasion of the Middle Ages were transitory^
and the only evidence of their conquests in these regions
is a small Turcoman population in Tel Afar, now hardly
to be differentiated from the neighbouring Arab tribes.
In 1534 the district became part of the Ottoman Empire,
but the Turks, until 1914, were never able to exercise
more than a nominal control over the nomad tribes.
Modern .—It is advisable to consider under this heading
events of a more parochial nature, and especially those
which have necessitated military intervention. During
the last three hundred years the event most fraught with
political and military consequences was the arrival of the
Shammar Jarba in the Jazirah. About the middle of the
seventeenth century this great offshoot of the Shammar
of Jabal Shammar began to migrate north from Najd
into the Syrian desert, and, after a brief struggle,
defeated the Muwali, then the most powerful tribe in
those regions, and drove them northwards towards
Aleppo. In the nineteenth century the Anizah, who had
followed their hereditary enemies, the Shammar, from
Arabia, forced them after a protracted struggle into the
Jazirah, which, except for the Jabal Siniar, they
gradually occupied by ousting the Jubur, Baggarah,
TIadidiyin, and lesser tribes from their habitats. Until
the present time, the Jazirah has practically been the
habitat of nomad tribes, engaged in bitter internecine
strife and allowing the settled villages to cultivate their
lands only on sufferance. The chief thorn in the side of
the Turks has been the Shammar Jarba. Traditional
rebels against the Ottoman government, the Shammar
slipped between the fingers of the Mutassarif of Dair al
Zor and the Wall of Mosul, paying taxes to neither.
They exacted dues from caravans on all roads in the
Northern Jazirah and frequently held up traffic op both