Asōristān...ancient Assyria

Asōristān

In 226, Assyria was largely taken over by the Sasanian Empire. After driving out the Romans and Parthians, the Sassanid rulers set about annexing the independent states within Assyria during the mid to late 3rd century. After the Roman Empire conquered the region of Assyria in the 200s Christianity spread, and many of the ethnically Assyrian churches that exist today are among the oldest in the world. For example, the Syriac Orthodox Church is purported to be founded by St Peter himself in 67 AD.

Nevertheless

Nevertheless, although predominantly Christian, a minority of Assyrians still held onto their ancient Mesopotamian religion until as late as the 10th or 11th century AD. The Assyrians lived in a province known as Asuristan, and the region was on the frontier of the Byzantine and Sassanian empires.

The land was known as Asōristān

The land was known as Asōristān (the Sassanid Persian name meaning "Land of the Assyrians") during this period, and became the birthplace of the distinct Church of the East (now split into the Assyrian Church of the East, Ancient Church of the East and Chaldean Catholic Church) and a centre of the Syriac Orthodox Church, with a flourishing Syriac (Assyrian) Christian culture which exists there to this day. Temples were still being dedicated to the national god Ashur (as well as other Mesopotamian gods) in his home city, in Harran and elsewhere during the 4th and 5th centuries AD, indicating the ancient pre-Christian Assyrian identity was still extant to some degree.

During the Sasanian period

During the Sasanian period, much of what had once been Babylonia in southern Mesopotamia was incorporated into Assyria, and in effect, the whole of Mesopotamia came to be known as Asōristān. Parts of Assyria appear to have been semi-independent as late as the latter part of the 4th century AD, with a king named Sennacherib II reputedly ruling the northern reaches in the 370s AD.

Centuries of constant warfare 

Centuries of constant warfare between the Byzantine Empire and Sassanid Empire left both empires exhausted, depleted, and battle-fatigued, which meant that when the Muslim Arabs came to invade the region during the 600s from the Arabian peninsula- The empires could do little to resist it. Therefore, after the early Islamic conquests in the seventh century, Assyria was dissolved as a political entity, although the native population still regarded the region as Assyria. Under Arab rule, Mesopotamia as a whole underwent a gradual process of Arabisation and Islamification, and the region saw a large influx of non-indigenous Arabs, Kurds, Iranian, and Turkic peoples.

However, the indigenous Assyrian population of northern Mesopotamia resisted this process, retaining their language, religion, culture, and identity.

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