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Digging of Nahr Ibn Umar

حفر نهر ابن عمر

Basra

Abdallah ibn Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, Yazid ibn al-Walid's governor, received the Basrans with two flasks — Basra water and batiha water — and saw the difference: 'dig us a canal and we drink this sweet'. He wrote Yazid, who answered 'if the canal's cost reaches Iraq's kharaj, spend what we hold on it'; Nahr Ibn Umar was dug, and when a man guessed the cost at three hundred thousand, Ibn Umar said 'were it Iraq's whole kharaj, I would spend it'.

Depth

At a glance

Era
The Umayyad Period
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In space

Basra

Map: Natural Earth, public domain · places and route from the graph

Overview

Al-Baladhuri reports that Abd Allah ibn Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, the governor of Yazid ibn al-Walid, was complained to by the people of Basra about the brackishness of their water, so the canal known as the Canal of Ibn Umar was dug. 1

The complaint and the permission

The people of Basra brought him two flasks, in one of which was Basra's water and in the other the water of al-Bataiha, and he saw a difference between them. They said that if he dug them a canal they would drink fresh water. He wrote to Yazid, who replied that if the cost of the canal reached the land tax of Iraq he should spend it on it. 1

The cost

A man said in the assembly of Ibn Umar that he reckoned the cost would reach three hundred thousand or more. Ibn Umar said that even if it reached the land tax of Iraq, he would spend it. 1

Connections

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Occurred at
Basra

People and things also explored

Great Mosque of Basra· Qasr Qubadh / the Hajjaj palace at Basra· The Asawira's Settlement at Basra· The Basra Bathhouse Permissions· The Basrans' Cry to Abdallah ibn Ali· Building of al-Mughitha· The Bukharans' Settlement at Basra· The Basra Dar al-Imara Saga

Sources

  1. Futuh al-Buldan — al-Baladhuri (Mu'assasat al-Ma'arif edition)
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Digging of Nahr Ibn Umar”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/event/digging-of-nahr-ibn-umar/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Accessed 2026-10-17.

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Great Mosque of Basra

Basra's congregational mosque; Utba ibn Ghazwan built it of reeds in 14 AH — its layout claimed for himself, Nafi' ibn al-Adhra' al-Bahzi, Nafi' ibn al-Harith, and al-Aswad ibn Sari' who first judged in it — Abu Musa rebuilt it in mud-brick with mushab roofing, then Ziyad enlarged and rebuilt it in fired brick and gypsum with teak roofing, a stone minaret, the first maqsura, and columns hauled from Ahwaz's mountain by al-Hajjaj ibn Utayk and his son; he had pebbles strewn lest hand-dusting pass for sunnah, and the enforcers' harshness bred the saying 'lovely the governorship, even over stones'. Al-Mahdi bought the houses of Nafi' ibn al-Harith, Ubaydallah ibn Abi Bakra and Rabi'a ibn Kallada into it, and the governor's palace was taken in under al-Rashid.