Note 306 — Chapter XVIII · BATTLE OF JALOLA—REDUCTION OF MESOPOTAMIA—KUFA AND BUSSORA FOUNDED. A.H. XVI. A.D. 637.

In Kûfa the southern tribes, with the Beni Morâd at their head, greatly outnumbered the northern, which latter belonged to the Beni Nizâr. The two nationalities inhabited separate divisions of the city, and prayed each in its own Mosque. Bussorah, on the contrary, was almost entirely peopled from the north; and the five chief clans—Azd, Temîm, Bekr, Abd al Cays, and the Natives of Medîna (Ansâr)—occupied each a separate quarter of its own.

In the time of Ziâd (A.H. 50), Belâdzori tells us that in Bussorah the register (Dewân or civil list) numbered 80,000 warriors, and their wives and children 120,000, all drawing pensions from the State. Kûfa is rated at 60,000 fighting men on the roll, with families numbering 80,000 souls. The proportion of families to fighting men must surely have been much greater, as the harems of all of them swarmed with children; and the Arab population of each city was probably considerably greater than I have ventured (on the authority of Belâdzori) to note in the text. There also must have been a great multitude other than Arabs—dependants, clients, slaves, &c., Moslem and non-Moslem; so that, as the cities grew, it is not improbable that they numbered, of all classes, over 300,000 each. The population would fluctuate according to the numbers engaged in the field.