Sistan

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Sistan (Sakastan) at the time of the Sassanids
Sistan (Sesjistan) in the east of the Persian Empire on a map from the 18th century

Sistan ( Persian سيستان, DMG Sīstān ) or Sidschistan ( Arabic سجستان Sidschistān , DMG Siǧistān ) is a historical region in today's southwestern Afghanistan and southeastern Iran , which was under the reign of the Saffarids from the 9th to the 11th centuries. Today the region is part of the Iranian province of Sistan and Balochistan and the Afghan provinces of Nimrus and Helmand .

etymology

Sistan derives its name from Sakastan ("the land of the Saka"). The Saks were a Scythian tribe who lived from the 2nd century BC. Until the 1st century they migrated to the regions of today's Afghanistan and the Indus Valley, where they established themselves as the Indo-Scythian dynasty . In Bundahishn , a Zoroastrian script written in Pahlavi, the province is called "Seyansih". After the Arab conquest of Iran, the province became known as Sidschistan or Sistan.

background

The arid and windy climate of the region only allowed permanent settlement with arable farming temporarily, as shifting dunes often forced the residents to give up settlements again. The early Jiroft culture is believed to have existed as early as the 3rd millennium BC. BC, settlements are in the periods between 1100 and 800 BC. By Zoroastrians , as well as in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. Proven during the time of Hellenism . The region received the name Sakastan from the settlement by the Scythian tribe of the Sakas ( Saks ) in the 1st to 3rd centuries AD. The region received the name Sijistan / Sedschestan / Segestan or Sistan after the conquest in the course of Islamic expansion .

The name "Sīstān" is derived from the Middle Persian Sakastan (also Sagastān ), "Land of the Saka ", a Scythian people. The ancient Greek historians called the area Drangiana , from the middle of the 1st century AD also Sarangian (Zarangiane). On Sassanid coins the term Sakastan appears from the 4th century and Sarang from the end of the 5th century . The Arabic name in early Islamic times was Sidschistan . In Iranian mythology , the area of ​​Sistan - the homeland of the mythical hero Sām - is probably largely identical to Nimrus .

A neighboring region that partly overlapped in terms of terminology was Zabulistan .

colonization

Sistan's heyday fell between the 8th and 15th centuries. So-called Maliks were the regional rulers who alternately submitted to the surrounding powers or as sub-kings exercised autonomously or even sovereignly.

Shortly after the Islamic conquest of the region by the Sassanids around 650, the inner-Islamic conflict broke out, which the Sistani used for an uprising, but were subjected to. The local rulers Sistans brought forth in the 9th century the dynasty of Saffarids that were so powerful that they order 873 with the conquest of Khorasan started until around 900 of the Samanids were stopped. The caliph in Baghdad then awarded the Samanids the areas of the Saffarids, which until the 11th century remained exclusively in Sistan.

The capital and center of the area was the city of Shahr-e Gholghola in present-day Afghanistan until it was destroyed by the Mongols in the 13th century . Other places that now only exist as ruined cities were Kundar, Ramrod (today's Iran) and Tarakun, Saru Tara, Godar-i-Schah, Chigini and Peschawarun (today's Afghanistan).

Agriculture was made possible by the construction of canals with a connection to the Hilmend and is said to have established a garden of Asia here. This only changed in the period of the self-accelerating decline. Dried out canals that released sand favored the formation of the shifting dunes that were typical for the region. According to archaeological finds, the historical heyday in the region coincided with less intense migratory movements. The former settlement centers are now ruined cities.

In 1747 Ahmad Shah Durrani invaded Sistan, which belonged to Afsharid Persia. After more than a hundred years of dispute over the area, Afghan and Persian rulers brought in the British Empire as a neutral arbitrator in 1872 , which enabled the British to survey the country. With the British-Afghan peace treaty of 1905, the inhospitable desert region of Sistan was divided between the emirate of Afghanistan , British India and Persia ; today between Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.

Today the Pashtun tribe of the Sakzai (literally "sons of the Saka") populate the Farah (province) , Nimrus and Helmand (province) region , which corresponds to the former area of ​​Sistan. In fact, their origin can be traced back to the Scythians who settled in Sistan.

literature

  • CE Bosworth: Sīstān. In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Vol. 9, pp. 681b-685a.
  • Kurt Maier: The geography of the medieval Iranian province Sīstān in early Islamic sources . Ergon-Verlag, Würzburg, 2009.

References and comments

  1. ↑ a b c d e Uwe Siemon-Netto: Sistan. The city of screams. In: GEO , June 1982 edition, pp. 98–110.
  2. ↑ The sound shift from middle person. sagistān or sagastān to neupers. sīstān can be traced back to a “reading error” in the Middle Persian variant of the Aramaic alphabet , which did not distinguish between the sounds d, g and y, so that g was read as a half-vowel y in the Arabic- New Persian alphabet : From sagistān ( transliterated : SGST'N ) became sayistān = sīstān (translit .: SYST'N).
  3. ^ CE Bosworth : Sistan and Its Local Histories. In: Iranian Studies , Volume 33, No. 1/2, Winter – Spring 2000, pp. 31–43, here: p. 31.
  4. ↑ Jürgen Ehlers (ed. And trans.): Abū'l-Qāsem Ferdausi: Rostam - The legends from the Šāhnāme . Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 2002, p. 369 and 371 f.
  5. ↑ Werner Heiduczek : The most beautiful sagas from Firdausi's book of kings retold (based on Görres, Rückert and Schack). Der Kinderbuchverlag, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-7684-5525-4 , new print (Werner Daustein) Hanau undated, pp. 31–47 ( Second book: Destan Zal ... ), here: p. 31 (“In Seistan, which is also called Midday Land, lived Sam. He was ... loyal to Manotschihr, the wise ruler of Iran ")
  6. ^ Johann August Vullers : Mirchond 's history of the Seljuks GF Heyer, Gießen 1837. ISBN 978-3-11-155182-1 .
  7. ↑ David Durand-GUEDY: Pre-Mongol Khurasan. In: Greater Khorasan. History, Geography, Archeology and Material Culture . Walter de Gruyter Berlin, Munich, Boston 2015. ISBN 978-3-11-033170-7 .
  8. ↑ Globe and Mail - The Taliban - GRAEME SMITH - November 27, 2006 [1]
  9. ^ Mark Kaufman: Afghan poor sell daughters as brides . MSNBC. February 23, 2003. Retrieved November 30, 2008.