Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World

Elia Nhaisi was a Tripolitanian photo-journalist and reporter for the Italian Jewish periodicals La Settimane Israelitica and Israel . In 1912, he established the first Zionist organization in Tripoli, Ora ve-Simḥa (Heb. Light and Joy), which was short-lived due to apathy, lack of support, personal rivalries, and fear of Italian government opposition. Rabbi Dario Disegni from Verona, who visited Tripoli in March 1914, supported Nhaisi and suggested that he focus on educational activities in order to promote Zionism. In June 1914, Nhaisi establishe…

Nicolas de Nicolay was born in Dauphiné in 1517 and was educated in Lyons. He traveled extensively, served as a soldier and a spy, and excelled as a cartographer. In 1551, he joined the second expedition sent by King Henry II of France to the Ottoman Empire, headed by Gabriel d’Aramon. On his return from the Levant he was appointed “Géographe et valet de chambre du roi.” In 1565 he was charged by Catherine de’ Medici, Henry’s widow, to prepare a description of the provinces of the French kingdom. He died in Paris in 1585.Nicolay’s Quatres premiers livres des navigations (only the first volume…

Niebla (Ar. Labla) is a city in the Spanish province of Huelva situated to the west of Seville. Conquered by Arabs in 712 or 713, it was the seat of the military district of Ḥimṣ and later the administrative center of a kūra (administrative district) of the Gharb al-Andalus under the Umayyads. Niebla became an independent state in 1022 during the disintegration of the caliphate. Its first ruler was Aḥmad ibn Yaḥya al-Yaḥsubī. In 1053–54 this little kingdom, which also included the city of Gibraleón or Jabal al-ʿUyūn, was annexed to the powerful kingdom of Seville by al-Muʿtaḍid.There is no …

Carsten Niebuhr (1733–1815) was a Danish orientalist. A fearless traveler, he journeyed extensively in the Muslim world. His famous account of his travels, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und Andern umliegenden Laendern (2 vols.) was published between 1774 and 1778 (abridged Eng. trans. Edinburgh, 1792); his Reisen durch Syrien und Palaestina was published in 1837.Born in 1733, the son of a peasant farmer in Lüdingworth in the Electorate of Hanover,  Niebuhr had little formal education. He had, however, a keen interest in mathematics and survey…

Joseph Niégo (1863–1945) was an important Jewish figure toward the end of the Ottoman Empire and in the early decades of the Turkish Republic. During the course of his variegated career, he worked as an agronomist in Palestine, was an inspector of agricultural settlements, founded the Istanbul B’nai B’rith lodge, managed a loan fund, and was a communal leader and teacher.Born in Edirne to Ezra Niégo and the sister of Rabbi Raphael Bekemoharar (1837–1899), the city’s religious leader, Joseph Niégo was orphaned at an early age. His uncle, the last member of the famed…

Al-Nijma ( L’Étoile) was a two- to four-page weekly newspaper that appeared in Sousse, Tunisia, from June 23, 1920 to August 1, 1961. Subtitled “Weekly Organ of Israelite Information,” al-Nijma provided regional information in Judeo-Arabic and French. The journal was managed and edited by Maklouf Nadjar (Makhlūf Najjār), businessman and owner of the Sahel (or Najar) printing house in Sousse and of La Dépêche Soussienne (May 1, 1944 to July 19, 1960). al-Nijma began as L’Étoile du Sahel and was authorized to publish a fourth page in French in 1921. It closed down in 1922 …

Nikopol(Turk. Niğbolu) is a port city on the southern bank of the Danube River in present-day Bulgaria. A Jewish community of Romaniots and Ashkenazim lived there before the Ottoman conquest in 1389. Sephardi Jews arrived in the city after the expulsion from Spain in 1492. As a regional administrative and commercial center, Nikopol attracted Jewish settlers and became a major Jewish center in sixteenth-century Bulgaria.Nikopol’s Jewish population numbered 206 between 1520 and 1535, 492 in the mid-sixteenth century, and 1,017 in 1580. Importing salt from Wallachia, tax farming, cu…

Nissi (also Nīsī) ben Berekhiah al-Nahrāwanī was a scholar and liturgical poet in the late ninth and early tenth centuries. His name suggests a family origin either in the Persian town of Nahravan or in the town of al-Nahrawān in eastern Iraq. Nissi was one of the Jewish notables of Baghdad. His successful mediation of a dispute in 922 between the exilarch David ben Zakkay and the Pumbeditan gaon Mevasser ben Qimoy led Nathan the Babylonian (see Nathan ha-Bavlī) to describe him as a “miracle-worker,” clearly a pun on his given name. In 928, Ben Zakkay offered the gaonate to Nissi, who had been res…

Nissi (Nissim) ben Noah was a Karaite scholar and writer. Since there is no certain information about his life, the questions of where and when he lived have been widely disputed. Some scholars have dated him to the eighth century (Pinsker and  Graetz), others between the tenth and eleventh centuries (Steinschneider, Harkavy, Nemoy), or even between the mid-twelfth and the late thirteenth century (Ankori). Yet, taking into account that Nissi made use of David ben Abraham al-Fāsī’s dictionary, an…

Born in Baghdad on December 11, 1895, Yitzhak Nissim moved with his parents to Jerusalem in 1906, but returned to Baghdad in 1914 to study under Iraqi masters of Torah such as Simeon Agassi. After World War I he combined commercial, scholarly, and communal activities. He married in November 1919 and with his wife moved to Jerusalem in 1924. He held no rabbinic post but was deeply involved in rabbinic scholarship and had intellectual and spiritual contacts with the leading rabbis of his time, Sephardic and Ashkenazic, pro- and anti-Zionist. In 1955 he was elected Sephardic chief rabbi ( rishon…

Nistarot shel Rabbi Shimʿon Bar Yoḥay (Secrets of Rabbi Simeon Bar Yoḥay) is a mid-eighth-century Palestinian apocalypse in Hebrew which purports to recount future historical events from the beginning of Muslim rule until the coming of the Messiahs, the Last Judgment, and the End of Days. In the short frame story, the second-century tanna Simeon Bar Yoḥay prays in the cave where he has miraculously lived during the twelve years of the Hadrianic persecution, asking about the End. The Throne Angel Metatron informs him that the Ishmaelites will save Israel from the evil Kingd…

Niẓām al-Yahūd is the name of an (originally untitled) document from Yemen, donated to the Hebrew University Library (now the National Library of Israel) by a member of the Ḥabshūsh family (Tov) in 1946, cataloged JER NLI Ar. 120 (formerly Ms. Ar. 120). It was written by a professional scribe, sealed in Sanʿa by the personal office of Imām Yaḥyā Ḥamīd al-Dīn (1869–1948), and dated Rabīʿ al-Awwal 28, 1323 Hijra/June 2, 1905. The document combines three different textual genres: an introduction, a letter of protection or dhimma contract, and a section detailing a power of attorney …

Maurice Nizard was born in the Tunis suburb of La Goulette on March 31, 1914. He studied law and became an attorney and a member of the Tunis bar. In November 1934, he left for France, where he joined the French Communist Party in 1936. He was the propaganda secretary and editor-in-chief of the official  information agency of the Spanish Republic in Paris from 1937 to 1938. When he returned to Tunisia in 1939, he reapplied to the Tunis bar but his request was denied. He then joined the underground leadership of the Tunisian Communist Party.Most of the party’s leaders were arrested in Nov…

Nasrid dynasty, Malaga rule of Granada, Granada naṣṣ (uninterrupted transmission of innate spiritual authority through specific designation), Shiʽa and the Jews, Shiʽa and the JewsNasser, Gamal Abdel, Anti-Judaism/Antisemitism/Anti-Zionism, Egypt, Zionism Among Sephardi/Mizraḥi Jewry, Politi, Elie antisemitism of, Anti-Judaism/Antisemitism/Anti-ZionismNāsṭūnā seeBustanayNataf, Elie, Casablanca, Journalism, Alliance Judéo-Musulmane (Comité de l’Union judéo-musulmane), Nataf, Elie, L’Union Marocaine (Casablanca)Nataf, Félix, Toledano, MeyerNataf, Vi…

Ne’ot Midbar (Pastures of the Wilderness, Raphael Aaron (I) Monsonego), Monsonego Family Ne’ot Ya‘aqov (Jacob’s Pastures, Yom Ṭov Algazi), Algazi, Yom Ṭov ben Israel Jacobnepotism, acceptance of, Saʿd al-Dawla Ner ha-Ma‘aravi (The Western Light, Jacob Malka), Monsonego Family Ner Miṣva (The Commandment Is a Lamp, Joseph Mesas), Mesas (Meshash), Joseph Nés à Bagdad (Born in Baghdad, poetry collection, Jabani and Someck), Someck, Ronny ​ nesi’im (Jewish community leaders), Yeshiva of Palestine, Court Jews dynasties of, Exilarch and Exilarchate  see also nasi titleNesry, Carlo…

Nikopol Synagogue (Istanbul), BulgariaNīkrūz, Manūchihr, Majlis (Iran), Jews inNile river, canal, Abū ʾl-Munajjā Solomon ibn ShaʿyaNili spy ring (Palestine), Anti-Judaism/Antisemitism/Anti-Zionism, Zionism Among Sephardi/Mizraḥi JewryNi‘mat Allāh Nūr al-Dīn ibn ‘Abd Allāh Walī, Shāh, Judeo-Persian LiteratureNi‘mat-allāhiyya Ṣūfī order, Judeo-Persian Literature, Mysticism/Sufism (Iran)al-Nimhī, Muḥammad, Saʿda Nimo Dalāle (folktale), Kurdish (Neo-Aramaic) LiteratureNineveh seeMosul niqāb (mask for facial covering), Clothing, Jewelry and Make-upNirengi …

N. Izidor Barouh’un Anılarından Türkiye’de Reklamcılıǧın Doǧuşu (The Birth of Advertising in Turkey from the Memories of N. Izidor Barouh, Şendilmen), Barouh, N. Izidor Na’ava Tehilla (Praise Is Comely, Jacob ben Joseph ha-Rofe), Jacob ben Joseph ha-RofehNabeth family, GuelmaNabeul (Tunisia)  Jewish community in, Nabeul  elites, Nabeul  founded by Jews from Jerba, Jerba  leadership of, Nabeul  pilgrimage to, Nabeul  size of, Tunisia ​Nablus (Shechem)  economic activities in, Palestine Green Mosque in, Samaritans under Muslim Rule Jewish community in, in Ottoman…