Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T17:42:26.497Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Arabistan or Khuzistan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Svat Soucek
Svat Soucek*
Affiliation:
New York Public Library
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The region between the lower course of the Tigris and its joint estuary with the Euphrates on the west, the head of the Persian Gulf on the south, and the Zagros Mountains on the east and north was known in classical Islamic sources as Khuzistan. The tenth-century geographer Ibn Ḥawqal described the province in a separate chapter of his Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ and included a map--“Ṣūrat Khūzistān.” In the thirteenth century, Yaqut reserved a detailed entry for “Khuzistan” in his compendium Muᶜjam al-buldān.

In Safavid times, however, the province began to be called Arabistan, and the older name became obsolete. The term Khuzistan reappeared in the 1920s, but Arabistan has continued to be used by some scholars and politicians. Both names were a matter of controversy in the early stage of the present war between Iraq and Iran. The purpose of this article is to examine the history of these two names and the reasons for their existence or disappearance.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 2-3 , Spring Summer 1984 , pp. 195 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

General Notes

Barthold, W. An Historical Geography of Iran. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. (Pp. 183–194.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le Strange, G. The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate. Cambridge, 1905. (In particular Chapter XVI: Khuzistan.)Google Scholar
Schwarz, Paul. Iran im Mittelalter nach den arabischen Geographen. Leipzig, 1929. (Pp. 289–445: Huzistan.)Google Scholar
Savory, R. M. “Khuzistan,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., V: 80–81; as well as a number of other articles by this or other scholars in either of the two editions.Google Scholar
al-Ḥulw, ᶜAlī Niᶜma. Bilād al-Ahwāz: “ᶜArabistān,” dirāsat muwassaᶜa li-jughrāfiya wa-ta'rīkh jughrāfiyat al-iqlīm. Bagdad, n.d.Google Scholar
[Idem]. Ta'rīkh Imārat Kaᶜb al-ᶜArabīya fi ‘l-Qabbān (or Qūbān?) wa ‘l-Dawraq al-Falāḥīya. Najaf, 1968.Google Scholar
Kasravī, Aḥmad. Ta'rīkh-i pānṣad-sāla-yi Khūzistān. Tehran, 1312/1934.Google Scholar
Miryān, ᶜAbbās. Jughrāfiya-yi ta'rīkhī-yi sarzamīn-i Khūzistān. Tehran, 1352/1953.Google Scholar
al-Najjār, Muṣṭafā ᶜAbd al-Qādir. al-Ta'rīkh al-siyāsī li-imārat ᶜArabistān al-ᶜarabīya, 1897-1925. Cairo, 1971. (This book is, to my knowledge, the most thorough treatment of the crucial period of Shaykh Khazᶜal's rule; it includes a number of documents such as Khazᶜal's correspondence, and bibliography on pp. 343-75 covers among other things also the contemporary Arab press.)Google Scholar
[idem]. al-Ta'rīkh al-siyāsī li-mushkilat al-ḥudūd al-sharqīya li-l-waṭan al-ᶜarabī fī Shaṭṭ al-ᶜArab; dirāsa wathā'iqīya. Basra, 1974.Google Scholar
Rāzmārā, ᶜAlī. Farhang-i jughrāfya-yi Īrān. Tehran, 1325-32/1949-53. Volume VI-Ustān 6, including Khūzistān.Google Scholar
al-Tamīmī, Khalīl. al-Kifāḥ al-ᶜarabī fī ᶜArabistān. Damascus: al-Jabha al-Qawmīya li-Taḥrīr ᶜArabistān, 1966.Google Scholar
Shushtarī, Muḥammad ᶜAlī (“Imām Shushtarī”). Ta'rīkh va jughrāfiya-yi Khūzistān. Tehran, 1331/1952.Google Scholar
Yāqūt. Muᶜjam al-buldān. Various headings, including “Khūzistān.”Google Scholar