'Reports of administration for 1918 of divisions and districts of the occupied territories in Mesopotamia. Volume I' [‎95v] (195/470)

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Administration Report of the Hindiyah District.
1. Political and Tribal. — General Description. —The Hindiyah District consists
roughly of the lands watered by the two new canals, the Bani Hasan and the
Jorjiyah, which, taking off from just above Willcocks’s Barrage on the right and
left banks respectively of Shatt al Hindiyah, run parallel to the river for a distance
of 38 miles. The first 5 miles of the Jorjiyah run through the land of the Yasar
tribe, and as the greater part of this tribe resides within the limits of Hillah District,
it was found more convenient to include this portion of the land within the adminis
trative boundaries of the latter district.
Area .—The length of the district is 38 miles, the greatest breadth 14 miles
and the approximate area 265 square miles.
Boundaries. — The boundaries follow those of the old Turkish qadha,
except on the east, where the tribal boundary of the Fatlah forms the natural
division between the Hillah and the Hindiyah districts. To the North and West
is the Karbala district; to the West, the desert; to the South, the Shamiyah district;
and to the East, the Hillah district. Only on the West does the desert form a
clearly marked boundary; elsewhere the land is sometimes defined by an arqub
or old canal bank, sometimes by a channel; but often merely follows the ill-defined
field boundaries of neighbouring cultivators. From a tribal point of view the
boundaries are satisfactory, save on the North-West, where the sections of the Mas‘ud
are included within the Hindiyah limits. This boundary will eventually require
to be revised, the object being to make the district boundaries to coincide so far
as possible with the tribal and irrigation boundaries. Until, however, the Irriga
tion Department have bad time to work out their water distribution schemes, it
would be premature to make any change. On the East the village of Tahmasiyah
has been included in the Hindiyah district, but this is outside the Fatlah limits and
it will now be transferred to the Hillah district, to which it properly belongs.
Administrative Boundaries. —The district is divided into four shu‘bahs—
(a) Jadwal al Gharbi, with headquarters in Tuwairij; (b) Umm Ruwaiyah, with
headquarters on the right bank of the Shatt al Hindiyah some 6 miles below
Tuwairij; (c) Kifl, with headquarters at Kifl; and (d) Abu Gharaq, with head
quarters in the interior of the shu‘bah some 3 miles from the left bank of the river.
Each shubah is in charge of a mamur, assisted by two katibs and seven or eight
qolchis. The Umm Ruwaiyah shu‘bah was created during the past year out of
Jadwal al Gharbi shu‘bah, which was of an unwieldy size.
Physical Features .—The district possesses certain features which differentiate
it from its neighbours on the Shatt al Hillah. The latter are irrigated by canals,
which take off from the main river at a slight angle and run more or less parallel
to the main river, gradually edging away into the interior. Generally speaking
no palms or other trees are found, except along the banks of the main river.
Hindiyah, on the other hand, was irrigated by channels, some of them having the
size of small rivers, which take off from the main river at right angles, and run East
and West, carrying the flood water of the river into the big depressions which, on
the West, run from the neighbourhood of Karbala along the margin of the desert
for the whole length of the district, and on the East formed a vast swamp to the North
and West of Birs Nimrud. All of these canals are fringed with date-trees, while the
larger of them have a continuous stretch of gardens along their margin. The drought
of the years since the completion of the Barrage has killed a number of fruit trees,
but it requires no gift of prophecy to foresee the day in the no distant future when
Hindiyah will be a garden district.
Tribal Organisation .—The district is almost entirely tribal: of between
30,000 and 40,000 inhabitants, only some 6,000 are townspeople. With the exception
of Tahmasiyah, there is only one combination of huts in the whole district which
can be called a village; far the greater bulk of the inhabitants live scattered about the
district; a few have mud houses, but far the larger proportion live in reed huts
or tents. The geographical position of the district is largely responsible for the
strong tribal organisation. Every year large numbers of the Beduin of the desert
come in with their flocks and herds to pasture in Hindiyah district, and nothing
but close confederacy can enable the tribes of Hindiyah to meet the hordes of the