Edited sentence: By the patriarchal election of 1222 the guardianship of the vacant patriarchal throne, the traditional privilege of the bishop of Kashkar, had passed to the metropolitans of `Ilam.Eliya's list helps to confirm the impression given by the literary sources, that the East Syrian communities in Beth Aramaye were at their most prosperous in the tenth century.However, East Syrian communities may also have persisted in districts which no longer had bishops: a manuscript of 1276 was copied by a monk named Giwargis at the monastery of Mar Yonan ‘on the Euphrates, near Piroz Shabur which is Anbar’, nearly a century and a half after the last mention of a bishop of Anbar.In the eleventh century decline began to set in.Only three dioceses are known to have been still in existence at the end of the thirteenth century: Beth Waziq and Shenna, Beth Daron (Ba Daron), and (perhaps due to its sheltered position between the Tigris and the Jabal ˘amrin) irhan.The diocese of Zabe and Nil is last mentioned during the reign of Yahballaha II (1190–1222), and the diocese of `Ukbara in 1222.The diocese of irta (al-ira) came to an end, and four other dioceses were combined into two:  Nifr and al-Nil with Zabe (al-Zawabi and al-Nu`maniya), and Beth Waziq (al-Buwazikh) with Shenna d’Beth Ramman (al-Sin).The dioceses of Piroz Shabur (al-Anbar) and Qar and Nahrawan are last mentioned in 1111, and Kashkar itself in 1134.The trend of decline continued in the thirteenth century.Three more dioceses ceased to exist in the twelfth century