The Basra Bathhouse Permissions

إذن الحمامات بالبصرة

Muslim ibn Abi Bakra drew a thousand dirhams and much food daily from his bathhouse; sick, he willed it to his brother Abd al-Rahman and told him the yield — who disclosed it and asked the Sultan's leave to build his own, baths being built at Basra only by the governors' permission. Leave followed for Ubaydallah ibn Abi Bakra, al-Hakam ibn Abi al-As, Siyah al-Uswari, al-Husayn ibn Abi al-Hurr al-Anbari, Rayta bint Ziyad, Lababa bint Awfa al-Jarashi for two, and al-Munjab ibn Rashid; Muslim recovered to find his yield ruined and kept saying 'may God cut his mercy'.

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Digging of the Ubulla Canal

Dijlat al-Awra's tidal rain-channel ran a farsakh, its Basra-side basin called al-Ijana; Umar ordered Abu Musa to dig the Basrans a canal — he began at al-Ijana, led it three farsakhs to Basra, making the Ubulla canal four — then the reach toward al-Hayri silted up. Ziyad, on the diwan under Abdallah ibn Amir, urged completing the dig and was stalled till Ibn Amir left for Khurasan; he resumed Abu Musa's channel to Basra with Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakra in charge, who opened the water racing his horse as it nearly outran him. Ibn Amir returned angry — 'you meant to carry off the canal's fame' — and the estrangement held between their houses for life; before the canal, folk drank from Dayr Qawus on the Tigris, a spot the spirits haunted.

The Basra Bathhouse Permissions

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Digging of the Ubulla Canal