Upper Mesopotamia is the name used for the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. This region (together with northeastern Iraq) is approximately correspondent with what was Assyria from the 25th century BC through to the mid-7th century AD. After the Arab Islamic conquest of the mid-7th century AD the region has been known by the traditional Arabic name of al-Jazira (Arabic: الجزيرة‎‎ "the island"), also transliterated Djazirah, Djezirah, Jazirah, which derives from the earlier Syriac (Aramaic ) variant Gazerṯo (ܓܙܪܬܐ). The Euphrates and Tigris rivers transform Mesopotamia into almost an island, as they are joined together at the Shatt al-Arab in the Basra Governorate of Iraq, and their sources in east