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Asōristān
Province of theSasanian Empire
226–637
Map of Asoristan and its surrounding provinces
Capital	Ctesiphon
Historical era	Late Antiquity
• Sasanian conquest	226
• First Muslim campaign	633
• Second Muslim campaign	637
Preceded by Succeeded by Parthian Empire Rashidun Caliphate
Today part of	Iraq

Asoristan (Middle Persian:𐭠𐭮𐭥𐭥𐭮𐭲𐭭,Asōristān,Āsūristān), also known asSuristan,^[1][2][3] was the name of theSasanian province ofAssyria andBabylonia from 226 to 637 CE.^[1][4][5]

TheParthian nameAsōristān (𐭀𐭎𐭅𐭓𐭎𐭕𐭍; also spelledAsoristan,Asuristan,Asurestan,Assuristan) is known fromShapur I's inscription on theKa'ba-ye Zartosht, and from the inscription ofNarseh atPaikuli. The region was also called several other names, mostly relating to itsindigenousAssyrian inhabitants:Assyria,Athura,Bēṯ Nahren (Classical Syriac:ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪܝܢlit. 'between the two rivers'),Bābēl/Bābil, andEreḫ/Erāq. After the mid-6th century, it was also calledKhwārwarān inNew Persian. Although it is difficult to determine the true meaning of the renaming of southern Mesopotamia to "Assyria", it is possible that due to the Assyrian kingdom ofAdiabene being in the north, it excluded the Assyrians further south and therefore the Persians named it accordingly to include the few million Semitic Mesopotamian people who were descendants of the ancient Assyrians south of Adiabene, contrary to the Greeks renaming Assyrians "Syrians", an Indo-European corruption of "Assyrians". At the very least, names associated with Assyria continued to be used and were not obsolete.^[6]

The name Asōristān is acompound ofAsōr "Assyria" and the Iranian suffix-stan "land of".^[1] The name Assyria, in the formAsōristān, was shifted to include what had been ancientBabylonia by the Parthians, and this continued under the Sasanians, the Babylonians being ethnolinguistically the same people as the Assyrians.^[7] During theParthian Empire, much of historical Athura lay to the north of Asoristan in the Assyrian inhabited independent frontier provinces ofUpper Mesopotamia (in modern Northern Iraq, Southeast Turkey and Northeast Syria):Beth Nuhadra,Beth Garmai,Adiabene,Osroene,Hatra,Tyareh andAssur. when the Sassanid Empire conquered these in the mid-3rd century, they were reincorporated into Asoristan.^[8]

During theAchaemenid (550–330 BCE) andParthian Empires (150 BCE – 225 CE),Achaemenid Assyria had been known by theOld Persian nameAthura. Asōristān,Middle Persian "land ofAssyria",^[1] was the capital province of theSasanian Empire and was calledDil-īĒrānshahr, meaning "Heart of Iran".^[5] The city ofCtesiphon served as the capital of both theParthian and Sasanian Empire, and was for some time the largest city in the world.^[9]

The main language spoken by theAssyrian people wasEastern Aramaic, which still survives among the Assyrians, with the localSyriac language becoming an important vehicle forSyriac Christianity. TheAssyrian Church of the East was founded in Asōristān and it was an important centre of theSyriac Orthodox Church.^[10]

Asōristān was largely identical withancient Mesopotamia.^[4] The northern border is somewhat uncertain but probably went along a line from Anta^[where?] toTakrīt.Ḥīra was probably the southernmost point, north ofArabia, the border then following the northern part of the swamps ofWasit.

The Parthians had exercised only loose control at times, allowing for a number of Assyrian kingdoms to flourish inUpper Mesopotamia in the form of independentOsroene,Adiabene,Beth Nuhadra,Beth Garmai and the Arab-Assyrian state ofHatra. Assyriologists such asGeorges Roux andSimo Parpola opine that ancientAssur itself may have been independent during this time.

The Sasanian Empire conquered Assyria and Mesopotamia from the Parthians during the 220s, and by 260 AD had abolished these independent Assyriancity-states and kingdoms, with the 3000-year-old city of Assur being sacked in 256 AD. Some regions appear to have remained partly autonomous as late as the latter part of the fourth century, with anAssyrian king namedSinharib reputedly ruling a part of Assyria in the 370s AD.

Between 633 and 638, the region was invaded by theArabs during theMuslim conquest of Persia; together withMeshan, it became the province ofal-ʿIrāq. Asōristān was dissolved by 639 AD, bringing an end to over 3000 years of Assyria as a geopolitical entity, although it remained an ecclesiastical province withinSyriac Christianity, and Medieval Arabs continued to refer to the indigenous people asAshuriyun. A century later, the area became the capital province of theAbbasid Caliphate and the center of theIslamic Golden Age for five hundred years, from the 8th to the 13th centuries.

After the Muslim conquest, Asōristān saw a gradual but large influx ofMuslim peoples; at first Arabs arriving in the south, but later also includingIranian (Kurdish) andTurkic peoples during the mid to lateMiddle Ages.

The Assyrian people continued to endure, rejectingArabization,Turkification andIslamization, and continued to form the majority population of the north as late as the14th century, until the massacres ofTimur drastically reduced their numbers and led to the city ofAssur being finally abandoned. After this period, the indigenous Assyrians became the ethnic, linguistic and religious minority in their homeland that they are to this day.

The population of Asorestan was a mixed one, however its naming indicates that there was a large population of Assyrians in southern Mesopotamia, in the region that was once Babylonia.^[11] TheAssyrians lived in the northern half while their ethnically indistinguishable brethren formerly known as Babylonians lived in the south, including the still extantMandaeans who, like the Assyrians, are indigenous to Mesopotamia.Nabateans andArameans dwelt in the far southwestern deserts, and minorities ofPersians,Armenians andJews lived throughout Mesopotamia. The smallGreek element in the southern cities, still strong in theParthian period, was absorbed by theAssyrians in Sasanian times. The majority of the population was Assyrian, Jewish, and Mandaean, speakingAkkadian-influencedEastern Aramaic languages, some of which still survive asNortheastern Neo-Aramaic among the Assyrians and Mandeans. As the breadbasket of the Sasanian Empire, most of the population was engaged inagriculture or worked as soldiers, traders, and merchants. The Persians lived in various parts of the province; Persian garrison soldiers lived along the outer fringe of southern and western Asoristan; Persian noble families lived in the major cities, while some Persian peasants lived in the villages in Lower Mesopotamia.^[12] The native Assyrians played a very active role in the province and were found in the administrative class of society as army officers, civil servants, and feudal lords.

At least three dialects ofEastern Middle Aramaic were in spoken and liturgical use, many of which are descended from theImperial Aramaic introduced byTiglath-Pileser III as thelingua franca of theNeo-Assyrian Empire in the8th century BC:Classical Syriac, mainly in the north and amongSyriac Christians throughout the region;Classical Mandaic by theMandaeans, andJewish Babylonian Aramaic by theJews. Other colloquial but unnamed or unrecorded Eastern Middle Aramaic dialects were also spoken. Some Eastern Aramaic languages survive as the NENA languages andTuroyo, with estimates ranging from 577,000 to 1,000,000 fluent speakers, with a far smaller number of speakers ofNeo-Mandaic still extant.

Aside from the liturgical scriptures of these religions which exist today, archaeological examples of all three of these dialects can be found in the collections of thousands of Aramaicincantation bowls—ceramic artifacts dated to this era—discovered inIraq, northeastSyria and southeastTurkey. While the Jewish Aramaic script calledKtav Ashuri retained the original "square" or "block" style used to write Imperial Aramaic, theSyriac alphabet and theMandaic alphabet developed when cursive styles began to appear. The Mandaic alphabet likely evolved fromInscriptional Parthian.

The religious demography of Mesopotamia was very diverse during Late Antiquity. From the 1st and 2nd centuriesSyriac Christianity became the primary religion, while other groups practicedMandaeism,Judaism,Manichaeism,Zoroastrianism, and the ancientAssyro-BabylonianMesopotamian religion.^[13] Assyrian Christians of theSyriac Orthodox Church andAssyrian Church of the East were probably the most numerous group in the province.^[13]

Ancient Mesopotamian religion remained strong in places, particularly in Upper Mesopotamia. Temples were still being dedicated toAshur,Shamash,Ishtar,Sin,Hadad,Dumuzid,Nergal,Bel andNinurta inAssur,Arbela,Edessa,Amid,Nohadra,Kirkuk,Sinjar,Nineveh Plains, andHarran among other places, during the3rd and4th centuries, and traces would survive into the 10th century in remote parts of Mesopotamia.^[14]

Asorestan, and particularly Assyria proper, were the centers for theChurch of the East (now split into theAssyrian Church of the East, theAncient Church of the East and theChaldean Catholic Church), which at one time extended far beyond the confines of the by then defunct Sasanian empire and was the most widespreadChristian church in the world, reaching well intoCentral Asia,China,MongoliaTibet andIndia as well as theAegean. It sees as its founders the apostle Thomas (Mar Toma), and Saint Thaddeus (Mar Addai), and used the distinctlySyriac version of Eastern Aramaic for its scriptures and liturgy. TheHoly Qurbana of Addai and Mari is one of the oldestEucharistic prayers in Christianity, composed around the year 200 AD. The Church of the East was consolidated in 410 at theCouncil of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, held at the Sasanian capital,Selucia-Ctesiphon, which remained the seat of thePatriarchate of the Church of the East for over 600 years.^{[citation needed]}

TheMandaeans, who are according to their traditions the original followers ofJohn the Baptist, are the last survivingGnostics from antiquity.^[15] According to most scholars,Mandaeism originated sometime in the first three centuries CE, in either southwestern Mesopotamia or Syria (the southeastern Levant especially).^[16] However, some scholars take the view that Mandaeism is older and dates from pre-Christian times.^[17] Mandaeans assert that their religion predates Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as a monotheistic faith.^[18] Their language and script isMandaic, a form of Aramaic. Two of their important religious texts, written between the 1st and 3rd centuries, are theGinza Rabba and theMandaean Book of John (preserving original traditions aboutJohn the Baptist). The Mandaean population numbers between 60,000 and 100,000 today.^[19] Mandaeism flourished in theParthian and earlySassanid period in the region.^[20]

The religion ofManichaeism, founded byMani (216–276), originated in 3rd century Asorestan, and spread across a vast geographical area. In some instances, Manichaeism even surpassed the Assyrian Church of the East in its reach, as it was for a time also widespread in theRoman Empire. While none of the six originalSyriac scriptures of the Manichaeans have survived in their entirety, a long Syriac section of one of their works detailing key beliefs was preserved byTheodore Bar Konai (a Church of the East author fromBeth Garmaï), in his bookKetba Deskolion written in about 792. Like the Church of the East, the traditional center of the Manichaean church was inSeleucia-Ctesiphon.^[21] Mani dedicated his onlyMiddle Persian writing, theShāpuragān, toShapur I.

TheJewish community of Babylonia came to prominence in the 3rd century CE as a center of Jewish scholarship owing to the decline of theJewish population in theLand of Israel. TheJewish–Roman wars, theCrisis of the Third Century, and Rome's conversion to Christianity all led to an increase in Jewish immigration to Asoristan, and the region became the main center of Judaism in Late Antiquity. This set the stage for the composition of the major book definingRabbinic Judaism, theBabylonian Talmud, which was written inJewish Babylonian Aramaic in Asoristan between the 3rd and 5th centuries. TheBabylonian Talmudic academies were all established relatively near to Seleucia-Ctesiphon. The first Talmudic academy was founded inSura byRav (175–247) in about 220. One of the most influential Talmudic teachers,Rava (270–350), who was influenced by both Manichaean polemic and Zoroastrian theology, studied in another Talmudic academy atPumbedita.

The Sasanian state religion,Zoroastrianism, was largely confined to the Iranian administrative class, and did not filter down to the Assyrian-Babylonian population.^[13]

• Morony, Michael G. (2005) [1984].Iraq After The Muslim Conquest. Gorgias Press LLC.ISBN 978-1-59333-315-7.
• Sakly, Mondher & Darley-Doran, R. (2002)."Wāsiṭ". InBearman, P. J.;Bianquis, Th.;Bosworth, C. E.;van Donzel, E. &Heinrichs, W. P. (eds.).The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition.Volume XI: W–Z. Leiden: E. J. Brill.doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_1343.ISBN 978-90-04-12756-2.
• Schaeder, H. H. (1997)."Sawād". InBosworth, C. E.;van Donzel, E.;Heinrichs, W. P. &Lecomte, G. (eds.).The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition.Volume IX: San–Sze. Leiden: E. J. Brill.doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_6666.ISBN 978-90-04-10422-8.

• Rezakhani, Khodādād (2018)."Mesopotamia, Persian". In Nicholson, Oliver (ed.).The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8.
• Frye, Richard (Oct 27–31, 2000)."Mapping Assyria"(PDF).Ideologies as Intercultural Phenomena. Proceedings of the Third Annual Symposium of the Assyrian and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project. Chicago, USA: Mimesis Edizioni. pp. 75–8.

• States and territories established in the 220s
• States and territories disestablished in the 7th century
• Provinces of the Sasanian Empire
• Ancient Upper Mesopotamia
• States and territories established in the 3rd century
• Ctesiphon

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