The Marsh Arabs (or Ma'dan) are the inhabitants of the lowlands of southern Iraq, the former Mesopotamia, whose families have lived in the area for thousands of years. Marsh Arabs participated in a rebellion against Saddam Hussein immediately following the Persian Gulf War. The marshlands had for some time been considered a refuge for elements distrusted by the Hussein government.

After the First Gulf War (1991) Saddam Hussein aggressively revived a program to divert the flow of the Tigris River and the Euphrates River away from the marshes, to harness their waters for irrigation. The plan also systematically converted the wetlands to desert, forcing the Ma'dan out of their settlements in the region. Less than 5% of the marshes remain today.

The marshes are showing signs of re-vivification, as water is restored to the former desert, but the restoration of the ecosystem may take longer to build again than it took to destroy it. Only a few thousand of the nearly half million original inhabitants remain. Most of the rest that can be accounted for are refugees living in other Shi'a areas in Iraq, or have migrated to Iran.

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