Bistam (Name)

Bistam (transliteration: Bisṭām, Arabic: بسطام) is an Arabic name for boys that is the Arabized form of the Persian name Gestahm, which was the name of a maternal uncle of Khosrow II, the last king of the Sassanian Empire who reigned from 590 to 628 CE. ¹ It is possible that the name is derived from the Pahlavi words bas tahm, meaning “extremely heroic”, “great champion”.² Bistam is also the name of a city in the Greater Khorasan region of eastern Iran, also called Bustam and Bastam.³⁴

Bistam is also spelled Bistaam.

There is one Companion of the Prophet Muhammad named Bistam:

• Bistam al-Kufi بِسطام الكوفي

Below is the name Bistam written in Arabic naskh script:

Below is the name Bistam written in Arabic kufi script:

Below is the name Bistam written in Persian nastaliq script:

1. Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda, Dehkhoda Dictionary, 1931-present, بسطام.
2. Ibid.
3. Yaqūt al-Ḥamawī, via Ibid.
4. Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Ibn Ḵallikān, Ibn Khallikan’s Biographical Dictionary, ed. William MacGuckin de Slane, Paris, 1843, vol. 2, p. 53.