Investigating the Visage of Sistan in the Mirror of the Ancient Geographical and Mythical Books

Sistan is a city in the southeast of Iran and it is stretched in an area of land presently in this section. The Persian geographical and mythical books provide us with some information regarding this ideal city. The present article uses a descriptive-analytical method to explore the Persian geographical and mythical books written about Sistan so as to compare the obtained information. In the old geographical books, Sistan has been a large city and region, prosperous and with temperate weather and a lot of precipitations; it has also had a booming economy. In mythical books, Sistan is the eleventh city created by Ahura Mazda and its name has always been mentioned with good characteristics. In these books, the founder of Sistan has been intended more than anything else. Except Hodud Al-Aalam and Mamalek and Masalek the information of which are based on geographical knowledge, there are mythical and religious books offering information based on religious and mythical sacrosanctity; therefore, Sistan’s desert is most often missing from the descriptions.