Digging of the Ma'qil Canal

حفر نهر معقل

Umar ordered Abu Musa to dig the second canal run by Ma'qil ibn Yasar al-Muzani — so it bore his name; others say al-Mundhir ibn al-Jarud asked Mu'awiya for the Tharr canal, he wrote Ziyad, who dug and ran it through Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakra or another — and when it was done he sent Ma'qil to open it for baraka as a Companion, so the people called it Ma'qil's canal. Ziyad gave a man a thousand dirhams: 'go down the Tigris and ask who owns this canal — if anyone says Ziyad's, the thousand is yours'; he returned — 'not one I asked said anything but Ma'qil's canal'.

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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.

Digging of the Ma'qil Canal

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Digging of the Ubulla Canal