This is a list of governors of the Umayyad province of Iraq.
Contents
Overview
In medieval history, Iraq (Arabic: العراق al-‘Irāq) was the area comprising the lower parts of Mesopotamia, being roughly equivalent in size and shape to the ancient region of Babylonia. It was bounded to the northwest by al-Jazira, to the north by Adharbayjan (the Sassanid Aturpatakan), to the northeast by al-Jibal, to the east by al-Ahwaz, to the southeast by the Sea of Fars (the Persian Gulf), and to the southwest by the desert of Arabia.
In the administrative structure of the Umayyad Caliphate, Iraq was at first not a unified province; rather, it was divided between the governors of the important garrison towns of al-Basrah and al-Kufah. The two towns were united for the first time in 670 AD, when the caliph Mu'awiyah ibn Abi Sufyan gave control of both to Ziyad ibn Abihi. After Ziyad's death the two towns were again separately administered, but subsequent caliphs were to repeat the combination and from the reign of 'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan on, Iraq was usually in the hands of a single governor.
The governor of Iraq was an extremely powerful individual within the administrative hierarchy of the Umayyad government. In addition to Iraq itself, he was frequently granted the responsibility for the provinces of the empire that had originally been conquered with Basran or Kufan troops, including al-Ahwaz, al-Jibal, Fars, Kerman, Khurasan, Sijistan, Makran, al-Sind, and Jurjan. He was furthermore given authority over the provinces of eastern Arabia, namely al-Bahrayn, al-Yamamah and Oman. In total, these provinces constituted almost half of the entire empire and produced a substantial amount of the revenues collected by the central government in Damascus. The governor had the power to appoint and dismiss sub-governors to each of these provinces, and each of his sub-governors reported directly to him, rather than to the caliph.
Governors who were appointed to Iraq all took up residence within the province during their tenure of office; the specific seat of government, however, tended to change over time. Under Ziyad ibn Abihi, al-Basrah and al-Kufah served as twin capitals and he stayed at both towns during each year of his governorship. Al-Basrah subsequently edged out al-Kufah as the chief town of the province, and served as the seat of the governors for the remainder of the seventh century. The famous governor al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf al-Thaqafi ordered the construction of a third garrison town, that of Wasit, which he then used as his residence for the remainder of his life. Thereafter, Wasit was often used by the governors as their primary residence, although they continued to sporadically move to other towns, such as al-Kufah and al-Hirah.
Iraq remained as an Umayyad province until the year 749/750, when an Abbasid army besieged Wasit and forced the last governor of Iraq, Yazid ibn Umar al-Fazari, to surrender. Following their victory over the Umayyads, the Abbasids abolished the governorship of Iraq and resumed the practice of appointing separate governors to the individual districts of the region.
List of governors
Only governors that were in control of both al-Basrah and al-Kufah at the same time appear in this list.