the Bata'ih (Great Swamp)

al-Bata'ih: a wide, salty, watery marsh in the lower part of Iraq. al-Baladhuri reports that it came into being after the Hijra, when great breaches burst out that Kisra Abarwiz could not block, and the rivers overflowed. ¹

It expanded in the days when the Muslims fought the Persians, because no one took care to dam the breaches. ¹ Abd Allah ibn Darraj extracted from it for Mu'awiya lands whose yield reached five million, and Hassan the Nabataean extracted lands from it for al-Hajjaj and for Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik. ¹

Before it came into being there was, at Kaskar, the river al-Jabb and the postal road to Maysan. When it spread out, the thicket that was cut through by the postal road was named "the thickets of the post", and the other cut was named "the thickets of Aghmar Bathi". ¹

Muhammad ibn al-Qasim presented al-Hajjaj with an elephant from Sind, and it was taken across al-Bata'ih in a boat, so it was called "the landing of the elephant" and "the ferry of the elephant". ¹

al-Baladhuri reports that al-Hajjaj drowned some of it when breaches burst that he had not cared to dam, and that this was a harm to the landowners because he accused them of colluding with Ibn al-Ash'ath. This is a reason that al-Baladhuri relays. ¹