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.