Ostikan

Ostikan is the title of various oriental provincial governors. The title was used by the Arab Caliphate and the Armenians. The title is similar to the Byzantine theme and Persian satrap.

Armenia

Arab caliphate

After the prophet Mohammed and his testator heir and successor Abu Bakr (+634) established the theocratic rule of Islam on the mostly of the sparsely populated Arabian peninsula, the armies of the next caliphs victoriously planted the green banner of the new religion in the vast territories conquered from the neighboring giaur (infidel) empires of Persia and Byzantium. Extinguishing the Zoroastrian -dualist pagan- Sassanid Empire. The Byzantine Christian remnant which still considered itself to be the continuation of the Roman Empire, was thus reduced in Asia to Anatolia and completely swept out of Northern Africa, it would continue to lose European territories mainly to Germanic and Slavonic invaders.

Just like the conquering Romans had been culturally converted to the Greco-oriental Hellenism, the simple tribal Arabs were seduced by the far more sophisticated civilization of those old, rich empires. One feature they adopted immediately was the introduction of a 'provincial' level of administration, corresponding to the Byzantine theme and the Persian satrapy. The governors of these first permanent Muslim provinces were entitled ostikan, sometimes also styled Emir a generic Arabic term for leader, at the time mainly applied to generals, as they were primarily required to keep up the military potential. Both for defense and holy war against infidels while maintaining order internally. Some provinces were in or just around the former Sassanid Persia Empire, often continuing older satrapies. Some still survive today as modern provinces.

In the caliph's new home region things would be similar. Syria, Egypt (including eastern Libya; both only recently lost by Byzantium to the Sassanids), Iraq and Mesopotamia (both Arabized, around ancient Ctesiphon and modern Baghdad respectively around ancient Nineveh and modern Mosul), Khuzestan around ancient Susa, still partly Arabic), Armenia, Iberia (i.e. Trans-Caucasian Georgia), Arran-Schirwan (east of it) all three of the northern front, Azerbaijan (Iranian tribes) and the ethnic heart of Iran (Fars which is the eponymous home province, Djibal -the ancient Media-, Gilan, Tabaristan and Djurdjan (all three on the Caspian Sea coast), Kerman, Sistan and Khorasan (including Herat in present Afghanistan); under the Omayyad dynasty (661-750) the caliphate expanded further east, adding Sindh (now southern Pakistan), Zabulistan (including Kabul and Ghazna, later the eponymous seat of a mighty break-away Ghaznavid dynasty) and in Central Asia Tocharistan (around Balkh) and Transoxania (Sogdia, Fergana and Mawara An-Nahr, with Samarkand).

In Northern Africa, west of Egypt (hence the Arabic word maghreb 'the west', also adopted in western languages via the French colonizer) the provinces included Tripolis and Barka (in present Libya) and Ifriqiya (i.e. former Africa : the heartland of the Byzantinian Exarchate of Carthage, with its new capitals Kairouan and Tunis, hence the modern name Tunisia) in the former Byzantinian coastal region, and further conquests west and south, in the ancient homeland of the Berbers known as Barbary, mainly the new province named Maghrib (still the Arabic name of the modern sherifian kingdom of Morocco, but including the east of modern Algeria).

Iran

In his modern, as much western as Islamic empire of Iran, the autocratic Pahlevi-shah did not reintroduce the Satrap of his ancient Achaemenid model (as continued by Alexander and his Hellenistic diadochs, Seleucids as well as the Lagid 'Ptolemies' in Egypt; and by the Parthians and by the Sassanids), but *

Sources and references

• Encyclopædia Britannica
• (Armenian) Ter-Ghevondyan, Aram. "Դիտողություններ «ոստիկան» բառի մասին" [Observations on the word "ostikan"]. Patma-Banasirakan Handes. 4 (1962), pp. 243–48.
• Westermann Grosser Atlas zur Weltgeschichte