Syr Darya

The Syr Darya (Persian: سيردريا‎; Tajik: Сирдарё; Kazakh: Сырдария ; Arabic: سيحون‎; Uzbek: Sirdaryo), also transliterated Syrdarya or Sirdaryo, is a river in Central Asia, sometimes known as the Jaxartes or Yaxartes from its Ancient Greek name Ἰαξάρτης. The Greek name is derived from Old Persian, Yakhsha Arta ("Great Pearly"), a reference to the color of the river's water. In medieval Islamic writings, the river is uniformly known as Sayhoun (سيحون) - and is considered one of the four rivers whose common source lies in Paradise (the other three being Amu Darya/Jayhoun, the Nile, and the Euphrates).