Marsh Arabs in Iraq

The Mesopotamian marshes between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in southern Iraq were once the largest wetland system on the planet. They are home to the Marsh Arabs. They are also a cradle of western, urban civilizations and cultures. They were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016 after a long and tortuous process. Wilfred Thesiger, Gavin Maxwell and Gavin Young visited the Marshes from the 1950s to 1970s and wrote first-hand accounts of them and the Marsh Arabs. Thesiger and Maxwell took photographs of them, as John Henry Haynes had in 1888 and Nik Wheeler did in the 1970s. Jennifer Pournelle and Edward Ochsenschlager, especially Pournelle’s pioneering work foregrounding the role of the marshlands as a cradle of western, urban civilizations and cultures, contributed to the appreciation of these wetlands and people. In the 1990s, the authoritarian regime of Saddam Hussein drained large sections of the Marshes and dispossessed the Marsh Arabs. Recent efforts are dedicated to rehabilitating these marshes and restoring the life-ways of the Marsh Arabs. Jassim Al-Asadi, an irrigation engineer, was jailed and tortured under the regime of Saddam Hussein. He subsequently dedicated his life to the reflooding and restoration of the Marshes.