(a.) “vulture”, one of the five deities said to date from the time of Noah and to have been adored by the people then (Ḳurʾān, LXXI, 23). Ibn al-Kalbī, Aṣnām , our sole source regarding this, makes it the idol of the Ḥimyarites, who worshipped it at Balk̲h̲aʿ in the land of Sabaʾ ( TA, iii, 572, at the end, cites al-D̲j̲awharī, who says that Nasr was the idol of D̲h̲u ’l-Kilāʿ of the Ḥimyarite country). It was Maʿdī-Karib, of the sub-group of D̲h̲ū Ruʿayn, who received it from ʿAmr b. Luḥayy, the first known reformer of the cult in Arabia; he disco…

(a.) masculine noun (pl. ansur , nusūr , nisār ) denoting the vulture irrespective of species; the term is cognate with Akkadian nas̲h̲ru which is also encountered in the Hebrew nes̲h̲er (Turkish akbaba , Persian dāl , Berber tamādda ). From the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, in the lands of Islam eight species of vulture are known, almost all of them resident and localised in mountainous regions and at the desert fringes. Four of these species are common there, and they are: (a) The Egyptian vulture ( Neophron percnopterus ); this is the oripelargus of Pliny which was formerly known as Catharte …

[see al-fārābī ].

, Abu ’l-Faḍl al-Minḳarī al-Tamīmī, early S̲h̲īʿī historian (though probably not, as Sezgin rightly observes, the first one) and traditionist; his date of birth is uncertain, but he died in 212/827. He lived originally in Kūfa but later moved to Bag̲h̲dād; amongst those from whom he heard traditions was Sufyān al-T̲h̲awrī [ q.v.]. His own reputation as an ak̲h̲bāri and muḥaddit̲h̲ was, however, weak, and he was regarded by some Sunnī authors as a fervent ( g̲h̲ālī ) S̲h̲īʿī. He is best known for his Kitāb Waḳʿat Ṣiffīn (this has been reconstructed, from the p…

al-Ḥulwānī , Abu ’l-Muḳātil, a blind S̲h̲īʿi poet of the 3rd/9th century who owes the fact of his not having fallen into total obscurity to a maḳṣūra [ q.v.] (of which there are two verses given in al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , § 3462) and a nūniyya , both composed in praise of the dāʿī Muḥammad b. Zayd (d. 287/900 [ q.v.]). Thirty-six verses of this last ḳaṣīda (metre ramal , rhyme -ānī ) have been preserved, solely by al-Masʿūdī, it appears ( Murūd̲j̲, § 3518), whilst the maṭlaʿ ( lā taḳul bus̲h̲rā ... al-mihrad̲j̲ānī ): Do not say “One piece of good news”, but “two pieces of good news”: the face of someone …

[see al-k̲h̲ubzaʾaruzzī ].

(“the rock of the vulture”), a fortress founded by the last Idrīsids [ q.v.] in a natural mountainous retreat, placed by Ibn K̲h̲aldūn among the dependencies of the town of al-Baṣra [ q.v.]. Its site has now been identified in the territory occupied by the small tribe of the Sumatra, east-north-east of the Moroccan town of al-Ḳaṣr al-Kabīr (Alcazarquivir). It is reported to have been known also by the name of Ḥad̲j̲ar al-S̲h̲urafāʾ. In 317/929-30 the Banū Muḥammad, expelled from Fās after the assassination of their prince, the…

al-Layt̲h̲ī al-Kinānī , the last ¶ governor of K̲h̲urāsān under the Umayyads, d. 131/748. Naṣr’s whole career seems to have been spent in K̲h̲urāsān and the East. In 86/705 he campaigned in the upper Oxus region under Ṣāliḥ, brother of the governor of K̲h̲urāsān Ḳutayba b. Muslim [ q.v.], and received a village there as reward. Then in 106/724 he was campaigning in Farg̲h̲āna under Muslim b. Saʿīd al-Kilābī, and served as governor of Balk̲h̲ for some years. Hence on the death of the governor of the East Asad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḳasrī [ q.v.], the caliph His̲h̲ām was advised to appoint as hi…

al-ʿUḳaylī , the leader of a rebellion of the North Arab or Ḳaysī tribesmen in al-D̲j̲azīra against the central authority of the ʿAbbāsids during the caliphates of al-Amīn and al-Maʾmūn. We find him mentioned in 196/811-12 as the head of zawāḳīl , lawless bands of Arabs, mainly Ḳaysīs, who had taken advantage of the breakdown of rule during the civil war (see on the term zawāḳīl, D. Ayalon, The military reforms of caliph al-Muʿtaṣim , their background and consequences, unpubl. paper presented to the Internat. Congress of Orientalists, New Delhi 1964, xerox Jerusalem 1963,…

b. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, Niẓām al-Dīn Abu ’l-Maʿālī, also known as Naṣr Allāh Muns̲h̲ī, a Persian author and statesman who was born at G̲h̲azna in a family which came from S̲h̲īrāz. He served as a secretary in the dīwān of the G̲h̲aznawids. Under K̲h̲usraw Malik (555-82/1160-86) he rose to the rank of a vizier but he fell into disgrace with this sultan and was executed while in prison (cf. ʿAwfī, Lubāb , i, 92 ff.). Naṣr Allāh Muns̲h̲ī’s fame rests on his version ( Tard̲j̲uma ) of the Indian mirror for princes Kalīla wa Dimna [ q.v.] into Persian prose, which was based on the Arabic of ʿAbd Allā…

, Abū Naṣr Aḥmad b. Marwān , third and most important prince of the Marwānid dynasty [ q.v.] of Diyār Bakr. He succeeded to the provincial sovereignty on the death of his elder brother, Mumahhid al-Dawla Abū Manṣūr Saʿīd, in 401/1010-11, after a struggle with the latter’s murderer, and was in the same year formally recognised by the ʿAbbāsid al-Ḳādir [ q.v.], from whom at the same time he received his laḳab , and by the Būyid amīr , Sulṭān al-Dawla. Though now established in the capital Mayyāfāriḳīn [ q.v.], he was unable to obtain effective control of Amid, the next most considerab…

(modern Turkish: Nasreddin Hoca) is the label of the most prominent protagonist of humorous pro se narratives in the whole sphere of Turkish-Islamic influence, ranging from the Balkan area to the Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia. Naṣr al-Dīn is a legendary character whose historical existence none of the various theories regarding his alleged lifetime has succeeded to prove beyond doubt. The character from the 10th/16th century onwards increasingly served as a point of crystallisation for…

, Sāmānid amīr of Transoxania and K̲h̲urāsān (301-31/914-43), given after his death the honorific of al-Amīr al-Saʿīd (“the Fortunate”). Naṣr was raised to the throne at the age of eight on the murder of his father by the Turkish g̲h̲ulāms of the army, with a regency of the vizier Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad D̲j̲ayhānī [see al-d̲j̲ayhānī in Suppl.]. The early years of his reign were seriously disturbed by rebellions at Samarḳand, at Nīs̲h̲āpūr and in Farg̲h̲āna by various discontented members of the Sāmānid family, and the amīrate was not at peac…

[see abu ’l-layt̲h̲ ].

(?520-70/?1126-75), prominent physician and mathematician who lived and practiced among the notables of Syria, ʿIrāḳ, Kurdistān and Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān. Born and raised as a Jew, he gives an account of his conversion to Islam, including a brief autobiography, in an appendix attached to the second edition of his anti-Jewish polemic, Ifḥām al-yahūd (“Silencing the Jews”). His father, Yehūdah Ibn Abūn, was a rabbi and poet from Fās whose family came from al-Andalus. Also known as Abu ’l-Baḳāʾ Yaḥyā b. ʿAbbās al-Mag̲h̲ribī, the f…

Ḵh̲ārs̲h̲ād̲h̲ b. ʿAḍud al-Dawla Fanā-Ḵh̲usraw , Būyid supreme amīr , who ruled in ʿIrāḳ and then in southern Persia also from 379/989 to 403/1012) after 381/992 with the further honorific, granted by the caliph al-Ḳādir, of G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Umma, and towards the end of his life, those of Ḳiwām al-Dawla and Ṣafī Amīr al-Muʾminīn). He was the third son, after Ṣamṣām al-Dawla Marzubān and S̲h̲araf al-Dawla S̲h̲īrzīl, of the great amīr ʿAḍud al-Dawla [ q.v.], who had built up the Būyid confederation into the mightiest empire of its time in the Islamic east. On ʿAḍud al-Dawla’s death in S̲h̲…

, apparently the grandson of the last Umayyad governor of K̲h̲urāsān Naṣr b. Sayyār [ q.v.] and rebel against the ʿAbbāsid caliphate in the opening years of the 9th century A.D. In 190/806 Rāfiʿ led a rising in Samarḳand which turned into a general rebellion throughout Transoxania against the harsh rule and financial exploitation of the caliphal governor of K̲h̲urāsān. ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā b. Māhān [see ibn māhān ]. As well as receiving support from the local Iranian population, Rāfiʿ secured help ¶ from the Turks of the Inner Asian steppes, the Tog̲h̲uz-Og̲h̲uz [see g̲h̲uzz ] and Ḳarluḳ [ q.v.]. Hār…

, Persian historian and geographer, born about 680/1281-2 at Ḳazwīn, d. after 740/1339-40. He came of a S̲h̲īʿī family which had provided a series of governors of Ḳazwīn in the 3rd/9th and 4th/10th centuries. His great-grandfather had been the Auditor-General of ʿIrāḳ and the family had since then borne the appellation Mustawfī. Ḥamd Allāh was appointed financial director of his home town and of several neighbouring districts by the well-known minister and historian Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn [ q.v.], who also inspired his historical studies. About 720/1320 he began with a Ẓafar-nāma …

[see naṣr b. muzāḥim ].

[see naṣr b. muzāḥim ].