A Note on the Marsh Arabs of Lower Iraq

SOME FOUR YEARS AGO, while serving in the Revenue Department of the Iraq Government, I had occasion to spend six months in the marsh lands south of ancient Babylon. In the great series of swamps and shallow lakes (the best known being the Hammar Lake) that have for centuries covered many hundred square miles of once fertile land, are harboured a number of tribes who are for the sake of convenience called Marsh Arabs by us, though the Bedawin Arabs, and even town Arabs, refuse to recognise them as fellow Arabs and cognate with themselves. They call them Maddhn, which is a name applied to all keepers of water-buffalo, and regard them as of very inferior stock to themselves. This attitude of the Arab is no new one, for the Arab historian has very rarely consented even to mention their name, considering them beneath the attention of serious-minded men. They live for the most part in reed huts on patches of land that just peep up above the surface of the water, and, as may be imagined, in flood time they are generally compelled to move camp and re-erect their reed huts wherever they can find any land. Their livelihood is exceedingly meagre. Any money they make is derived from the making of reed mats, and from a little cultivation of wheat, barley, rice, etc. Generally they live on rice (which is their staple), on fish, buffalo-milk, and occasional water-fowl which they trap or shoot. It is not without reason that their neighbours look upon them with scorn not unmixed with fear. Apart from their outlandish manner of life they are hardened thieves and cut-throats. In the days of the Turks their main business was piracy, holding up for blackmail any ships that were going up-stream with merchandise or passengers. Pilgrims to the Holy Cities of Nejaf and Kerbelah were treated with as little respect as government officials. Sir William Willcocks tells in one of his books how he was held up on his way to survey the site for the great dam near Hillah, that he was to build for the Turkish government. During the last war they looted indiscriminately from Turkish and British camps, and sat on the fence for a long time to see which side would win before

Ancient history · Biology · Geography · Marsh · Wetland · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Ecology · History · Islamic Studies and History