'The lands of the Eastern Caliphate Mesopotamia, Persia, and Central Asia from the Moslem conquest to the time of Timur' [‎24] (53/586)

CHAPTER 11.
'IRAK.
The division of Mesopotamia, Northern and Southern. 'Irak or Babylonia.
Change in the courses of the Euphrates and Tigris. The great irrigation
canals. Baghdad. Madain and the cities on the Tigris thence down to
Fam-as-Silh.
The great plain of Mesopotamia, through which the Euphrates
and the Tigris take their course, is divided by nature into two
parts. The northern half (the ancient kingdom of Assyria) con
sists mostly of pasture lands covering a stony plain; the southern
half (the ancient Babylonia) is a rich alluvial country, where the
date palm flourishes and the land is watered artificially by irri
gation channels, and this for its exceeding fertility was accounted,
throughout the East, as one of the four earthly paradises. The
Arabs called the northern half of Mesopotamia Al-Jazirah, 'the
Island,' the southern half was known as Al-Trak, meaning c the
Cliff' or ' Shore,' but it is doubtful how this term came originally
to be applied; possibly it represents an older name, now lost, or it
was used originally in a different sense. The alluvial plain was also
commonly known to the Arabs under the name of As-Sawad, c the
Black Ground,' and by extension As-Sawad is frequently used as
synonymous with Al-Trak, thus coming to mean the whole province
of Babylonia \
The frontier between 'Irak and Jazirah varied at different
epochs. By the earlier Arab geographers the limit generally
1 In its secondary sense Sawdd means * the District' round a city, hence we
have the Sawad of Baghdad, of Kufah, and of Basrah frequently employed to
designate respectively the environs of these cities.