Al-Jazira (caliphal province)

Al-Jazira
Province of the Rashidun, Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates (639–940s)
Capital	Raqqa, Harran, Mosul
Historical era	Early Islamic period
• Established	639/40
• Muslim conquest and incorporation into Jund Hims	639/40
• Administrative separation with Jund Qinnasrin from Jund Hims	661–683
• Independent province, separated from Jund Qinnasrin	692
• Decline of Abbasids after assassination of al-Mutawakkil	861
• End of Caliphate's rule under al-Qahir and al-Radi	940s
• Takeover by Fatimids and others new dynasties	970s

Al-Jazira (Arabic: الجزيرة), also known as Jazirat Aqur or Iqlim Aqur, was a province of the Rashidun, Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, spanning at minimum most of Upper Mesopotamia (al-Jazira proper), divided between the districts of Diyar Bakr, Diyar Rabi'a and Diyar Mudar, and at times including Mosul, Arminiya and Adharbayjan as sub-provinces. Following its conquest by the Muslim Arabs in 639/40, it became an administrative unit attached to the larger district of Jund Hims. It was separated from Hims during the reigns of caliphs Mu'awiya I or Yazid I and came under the jurisdiction of Jund Qinnasrin. It was made its own province in 692 by Caliph Abd al-Malik. After 702, it frequently came to span the key districts of Arminiya and Adharbayjan along the Caliphate's northern frontier, making it a super-province. The predominance of Arabs from the Qays/Mudar and Rabi'a groups made it a major recruitment pool of tribesmen for the Umayyad armies and the troops of the Jazira played a key military role under the Umayyad caliphs in the 8th century, peaking under the last Umayyad caliph, Marwan II (r. 744–750), until the toppling of the Umayyads by the Abbasids in 750.