Diyar Bakr in the context of "Arzanene"

The Marwanid dynasty, also known as the Dustakids, (983/990-1085, Kurdish: میرنشینی مەڕوانی/ میرنشینی دۆستەکی) were a Kurdish Sunni Muslim dynasty in the Diyar Bakr region of Upper Mesopotamia (present day northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey), centered on the city of Mayyafariqin.

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.

The Aq Qoyunlu or the White Sheep Turkomans (Azerbaijani: Ağqoyunlular, آغ‌قویونلولار; Persian: آق‌ قویونلو) was a culturally Persianate, Sunni Turkoman tribal confederation. Founded in the Diyarbakir region by Qara Yuluk Uthman Beg, they ruled parts of present-day eastern Turkey from 1378 to 1508, and in their last decades also ruled Armenia, Azerbaijan, much of Iran, Iraq, and Oman where the ruler of Hormuz recognised Aq Qoyunlu suzerainty. The Aq Qoyunlu empire reached its zenith under Uzun Hasan.

The Maqāmāt al-Ḥarīrī (Arabic: مقامات الحريري) is a collection of fifty tales or maqāmāt written at the end of the 11th or the beginning of the 12th century by al-Ḥarīrī of Basra (1054–1122), a poet and government official of the Seljuk Empire. The text presents a series of tales regarding the adventures of the fictional character Abū Zayd of Saruj who travels and deceives those around him with his skill in the Arabic language to earn rewards. Although probably less creative than the work of its precursor, Maqāmāt al-Hamadhānī (whose author lived 968–1008 CE), the Maqāmāt al-Ḥarīrī became extremely popular, with reports of seven hundred copies authorized by al-Ḥarīrī during his lifetime.

The first known manuscripts date from the 13th century, with eight illustrated manuscripts known from this period. The most famous manuscripts include one from 1237 in Baghdad (now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France) and one from 1334 in Egypt or Syria (now in the National Library of Austria).

Ibn Athīr is the family name of three brothers, all famous in Arabic literature, born at Jazīrat ibn Umar (today's Cizre nowadays in south-eastern Turkey) in upper Mesopotamia. The ibn al-Athir brothers belonged to the Shayban lineage of the large and influential Arab tribe Banu Bakr, who lived across upper Mesopotamia, and gave their name to the city of Diyar Bakr.

Diyar Rabi'a (Arabic: دِيَارُ رَبِيعَةَ, romanized: Diyār Rabīʿa, lit. 'abode of Rabi'a') is the medieval Arabic name of the easternmost and largest of the three provinces of the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia), the other two being Diyar Bakr and Diyar Mudar. According to the medieval geographer al-Baladhuri, all three provinces were named after the main Arab tribes that were settled there by Mu'awiya in the course of the Muslim conquests of the 7th century. The Diyar Rabi'a was settled by the Rabi'a tribe.

Diyar Mudar (Arabic: دِيَارُ مُضَرَ, romanized: Diyār Muḍar, lit. 'abode of Mudar') is the medieval Arabic name of the westernmost of the three provinces of al-Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia), the other two being Diyar Bakr and Diyar Rabi'a. According to the medieval geographer al-Baladhuri, all three provinces were named after the main Arab tribes that settled there during the course of the early Muslim conquests of the 7th century. The Diyar Mudar was settled by the Mudar tribe.

Diyar Mudar encompasses the region on both banks of the middle course of the river Euphrates, from the area of Samosata to the town of Anah, and includes the area of the Balikh River and the lower reaches of the river Khabur. Its main cities were Raqqa in the south and Edessa (al-Ruha in Arabic) in the north, and other major cities included Harran, and Saruj (now Suruç).