THE RUTBILS: POST-SASSANID ELAMITE-ASSYRIAN ORIGIN RULERS OF THE SAKAS
Elamite-Assyrian and Jiroft Culture influences in ancient Sistan-Zabulistan appear to have been underestimated
The subject of the snake is one of the central pieces among a whole host of intriguing characters and overlooked evidentiary fragments which we find in the folklore and all over the history of South Eastern Iran (Greater Sistan). Now an interesting study seems to confirm my long held suspicions in this regard. The snake legend under study in the document below seems certainly to be that of “Zahak Azhdaha” which is immortalised in the Sistan-based “Shahnama” folklore, having originated among the ancient Assyrian-Elamite origin Tajik communities which dominated Sistan and were rooted in the even more ancient Jiroft Culture….such as the Suris/Shansabanis/Ghoris who claimed descent from the “Arab serpent” or “Zahak Tazi”. The Aryans who arrived later obviously regarded the earlier resident Elamo-Assyrians as “Arabs”! This description is incidentally not entirely inaccurate either. It is a strange and perplexing fact which still figures prominently in the history of the Swatis, Shalmanis and other eastern Dehgans, “indigenous Afghan Arabs” and several categories of local Iranic notables with ancient pre-Aryan roots, with most experts ignoring it and other such evidence as pieces of ancient nonsense!
The Rutbils whom tradition presumes to be the ancestors of the Swatis — or at least of their royal Jahangiri clan — were the rulers of Sistan and allies of the Kabulshahi Kings of Gandhara-Kabulistan. They are a historical enigma, yet appear profusely in contemporary Arab chronicles. They are the force which retarded the expansion of Islam and Arab power in Sistan for at least 200 years. The Rutbils ruled Sistan at a crucial transitory phase in that area’s history — from 670 AD which was about 20 years after the conquest of Sassanian Persia by the Rashidun Caliphate of Umar…till 873, when the first Iranian Muslim ruler Yaqub-e Laith of the Saffarid (Coppersmith) Dynasty is said to have killed the ninth and the last Rutbil, and expelled his clan northwards to Balkh (Bactria) where soon afterwards they encountered the Samanids, who sent them flying towards lower Badakhshan in the area now known as Kunar in the 10th Century, which had probably once been a dependency of the Chaghaniyan Principality. There the remnants of the Rutbils are said to have re-emerged on the scene as the leaders of a new confederacy of relict tribes known as Sawadis (now called Swatis). These consisted of two main opposing factions: Gabari (Zoroastrian) and Mitravi (Mithraic). These terms still survive, and denote the two most dominant from among the four major Swati tribal divisions. Practicing a mixture of Zoroastrianism and Assyrian beliefs, cobbled with a top layer of outward Hindu pretensions (to please their Kabulshahi patrons) — the Sawadis are said to have converted to Islam in the Ghaznavid era in the 11th Century. Finally, under the auspices of the Indian conquests of the Ghoris, the Sultanate of Sawad-Gabr (now called Swat) was established in about 1190 CE.
The genetics, and presence of terms such as Sawadi, Dehgan, Shalmani, Arab and traditions such as those regarding Zahak, etc all point to Mesopotamian cultural influences, the nearest entrepot of which was the extremely ancient Jiroft Civilisation area in the west of Greater Sistan. The genetics shows that the Swatis were an extremely ancient, pre-Aryan and strongly persistent social influence in this whole area for about seven thousand years. These were then incorporated into Achaemenid Persia and that is also reflected in Swati tradition. Other key symbols and elements such as the Winged Bull/Lion, the Simurgh and the Zoroastrian Farawar now regarded as Persian “staples” were in fact all Assyrian in origin, as was the Aramaic language, one of the Achaemenid state languages (as was the Elamite language). It was as if the Aryan tribes had taken over and extended an Assyrian order to the new dispensation they created. Cyrus the Great was known for his eclecticism, which was widely appreciated among his diverse subjects. It seems that throughout the millennium of imperial Persian ascendancy from 550 BCE to 651 CE, these old pre-Persian memories persisted strongly in their home ground of South Eastern Iran, now known as Afghanistan. But till now, amid the suffocation of ignorance and the shrill pitch of jingoism, they have been disregarded and misunderstood at best. It is also highly likely that this Elamite-Assyrian basis is responsible for at least part of the “Hebrew origins” legends Pashtun tribes now have, regarding their own origins…they may be referring to something belonging to another forgotten local context, being entirely different yet vaguely similar, and now obscured by the mists of time.
Although the use of the name Sistan dates to much later times and originates with the arrival here of the Sakas (subsequently amalgamated with the Parthians), and the princely ruling house of this region was known to be the House of Suren before Islam — it is believed that the Suris of Ghor might be a namesake if not a splinter remnant of this house. It has been proposed that the legends of the Parthian Pahlawans Zal, Rustam and Sohrab were associated with the Surens. It has variously been proposed that the Swatis too sprang from this source — which would then imply that the Rutbils were Surens, and hence the Surens were not Parthians as commonly believed but something else and more local. Whereas I am not inclined ascribe Rutbil ancestry to the House of Suren, it has to be noted that the Swati political closeness and affinity with the Ghorids can definitely be explained on the basis of earlier and far more ancient linkages dating to the times of Jiroft, perhaps the latter’s use of the title “Suri” (derived from Suren) may be more of an honorific rather than a biological linkage, a fact that is common in Persian culture. It could conversely be said that the famous Pahlawans of Shahnama were also not Surens, but there is nothing to confirm or deny the fact. Certainly the Ghorid ancestral legend of descent from Zahak goes against their being Surens, unless the Surens were not Parthians.
The Rutbils were alternatively known by the term “Zunbil” which seems to have been their original Iranian title, whereas Rutbil seems to have been a Turkified version of that name used by their Hunnic Kabulshahi allies. Whatever the case, “Zunbil” or Zanbil speaks for itself, as it is the name of the site of a world famous ancient Elamite temple complex in Iran — called Chogha Zanbil.
Coming back to the Rutbils — their being rulers of the Sakas and yet not Saka themselves, seems to explain the reason behind the eventual and rapid onset of the “Pashtunisation” tendency displayed by ancient non-Pashtun/Saka social elites, especially in the era of Islam.
The URL for the paper mentioned above: https://jaha.org.ro/index.php/JAHA/article/view/311?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0IDNgO71MSu6wbr9Fv7c50c6VjH47H_Swh7eNHiiObiS_eor-lMnZURhQ_aem_AWYqP9wSgV3yvPQgVBLzmILVjOjTB9ANUoJm-PfS16nUCEojTrRf-qIeVLl99S6tDooS0jFlagBM_vy-4VEezshQ