The name ‘Ukhaiḍir’ is not mentioned by historians or geographers. Like so many of the place-names now current in the desert it is in all probability comparatively modern. Mshattâ, Qṣair ‘Amrah, Kharâneh, are not known to history under those titles; even the word ‘Ḥamâd’, which is applied universally to the high and barren steppes of the northern Syrian desert, is not used by any mediaeval writer. But the root from which ‘Ukhaiḍir’ is derived, signifying primarily to be green and therefore easily applicable to any spot where there is water or verdure, is found in other place-names. The palace or ḥîrah of the Umayyads in Damascus was called ‘al-Khaḍrâ’,[430] and Balâdhuri mentions another Khaḍrâ, in or near Kûfah, in his description of that city.[431] It would, however, be vain to attempt to identify the Khaḍrâ of Kûfah with Ukhaiḍir, though some at least of the place-names given in Balâdhuri’s catalogue denote sites well without the limits of Kûfah itself, and even at considerable distances from the town. Khawarnaq, for example, comes into the list, and a building or village called Qaṣr al-Muqâtil, which is stated by Yâqût to be either between ‘Ain al-Tamr and Damascus, or near al-Quṭquṭâneh and Sulâm.[432] Quṭquṭâneh we know to be the modern Ṭuqṭuqâneh, and Sulâm I must connect with the well of the same name, of which I heard as lying under the Ṭâr east of Ukhaiḍir a little to the south of my path to Mudjḍah and ‘Aṭshân.[433] Qaṣr al-Muqâtil is said by Ṭabari, by Balâdhuri, and by Yâqût to have been called after a certain Muqâtil ibn Ḥasân ibn Tha’labah ibn Aus ibn Ibrâhîm ibn Ayyûb ibn Madjrûf ibn ‘Âmir ibn ‘Uṣayyah ibn Imra’al-Qais ibn Zaid Manât ibn Tamîm, who would seem to have lived during the Days of Ignorance, and in fact the Qaṣr of the Banû Muqâtil is mentioned by Ibn al-Athîr in his account of the movements of Persian and Mohammadan leaders which preceded the battle of Qâdisiyyeh.[434] From a further passage in Ibn al-Athîr it would appear to have [Illustration: FIG. 35. Ukhaiḍir, graffito in room 44.] lain near Quṭquṭâneh, on the road from Kûfah to Anbâr.[435] Yâqût states that ‘Isâ ibn ‘Ali ibn ‘Abdallâh (who was great-uncle to the khalif Manṣûr) demolished and subsequently rebuilt Qaṣr al-Muqâtil, and that it belonged to him: he goes on to quote a couplet of Ibn Takhmâ al-Asadi: ‘Methinks there is not in the Qaṣr, the Qaṣr of Muqâtil, or in Zûrah, any pleasant shade or a friend;’ from which I infer that the Qaṣr was not a walled palm garden, like the modern quṣûr in the vicinity of the Baḥr Nedjef, and therefore that it may well have been an isolated castle in the desert. I do not wish to suggest that there can be any certainty in identifying Ukhaiḍir with the Qaṣr al-Muqâtil, but I would nevertheless call attention to the following points: