Table of Contents

• NABIL-AL-DAWLA

  Guity Etemad

  Iranian diplomat and translator of Bahai scriptures.

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• NABIL-E AKBAR

  Minou Foadi

  title of Āqā Moḥammad Qāʾeni, a prominent Bahai author and apologist (1829-92).

• NĀDER SHAH

  Ernest Tucker

  ruler of Iran, 1736-47. He rose from obscurity to control an empire that briefly stretched across Iran, northern India, and parts of Central Asia, with a reputation as a skilled military commander and with  success in battle against numerous opponents, including the Ottomans and the Mughals.

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• NAFAR

  Pierre Oberling

  a tribe of Fārs and the Tehran region. Although of Turkic origin, the Nafar of Fārs have become a mixture of Turkic, Arab, and Lor elements.

• NAJM-AL-SALṬANA

  Mansoureh Ettehadieh

  a Qajar princess whose life spanned the late Qajar and early Pahlavi eras (b. 1231-32 Š./1853; d. 1311 Š./1932).

• NAJM-E ṮĀNI

  Michel M. Mazzaoui

  (d. 918/1512), the third holder of the office of wakil-e nafs-e nafis-e Homāyun under Shah Esmāʿil Ṣafawi, the representative of the Shah both in his religious and in his political capacity.

• NAḴJAVĀNI, ḤĀJJ MOḤAMMAD

  Hushang Ettehad and EIr

  (1880-1962), businessman, scholar, and collector of manuscripts.

• NAḴL

  Peter Chelkowski

  one of the principal objects related to the mourning rituals commemorating the suffering and martyrdom of Imam Ḥosayn b. ʿAli.

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• NAḴŠABI, ŻIĀʾ-AL-DIN

  Mohammad Karimi Zanjani Asl

  14th-century Češti mystic and author. Though originally from Naḵšab (or Nasaf, in Transoxiana), his family emigrated to India at the time of Mongol incursions.

• NALÎ

  Keith Hitchins

  (1797 or 1800-1855 or 1856), Kurdish poet who contributed immensely to making Sorani the literary language of southern Kurdistan, that is, most of present-day Iraq and the neighboring districts in Iran.

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• NĀMA-YE BĀNOVĀN

  Nassereddin Parvin

  (Women’s journal), a biweekly paper published in Tehran between 1 Mordād 1299 and 24 Khordād 1300 Š. (23 July 1920-14 June 1921).

• NĀMA-YE BANOVAN-E IRĀN

  Nassereddin Parvin

  (The journal of the women of Iran), a weekly paper published in Tehran from Farvard in 1317 until Tir 1319 Š. (March 1938-June 1940).

• NAQŠ-E ROSTAM

  Hubertus von Gall

  a perpendicular cliff wall in Fārs, about 6 km northwest of Persepolis, a site unusually rich in Achaemenid and Sasanian monuments.

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• NASAFI, ʿAZIZ

  Hermann Landolt

   b. Moḥammad, 7th/13th-century mystical thinker and scholar from Nasaf (Naḵšab) in Transoxania (present Qarshi or Karshi in Uzbekistan), author of many works in Persian.

• NASIM-e ŠEMĀL

  Nassereddin Parvin

  (in popular parlance, Nasim-e šomāl; Breeze of the North), one of the best-known and most popular periodicals in the history of Iranian journalism.

• NAṢR (I) B. AḤMAD (I) B. ESMĀʿIL

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  ruler of the Samanid dynasty (q.v.) in Transoxiana and Khorasan between 301/914 and 331/943.

• NATEL-KHANLARI, Parviz

  CROSS-REFERENCE

  See KHANLARI, Parviz.

• NAXARAR

  N. Garsoian

  term given to the para-feudal, social pattern that early Armenia apparently shared with Parthian Iran, although it was preserved into the Sasanian period and beyond.

• NAẒIRI NIŠĀPURI

  Paul Losensky

  Indo-Persian poet of the late 16th and early 17th centuries (b. Nishapur, ca. 1560; d. Ahmadnagar, between 1612 and 1614).

• NEDĀY-E ESLĀM

  Nassereddin Parvin

  (The voice of Islam), a pro-constitutional newspaper lithographed and published in Shiraz, 1907.

• NÉMETH, Gyula

  András Bodrogligeti

  (1876-1976), Hungarian Turcologist.

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• NEMRUD DAĞI

  Bruno Jacobs

  mountain (elev. 2,150 m) in the Anti-Taurus range, Adıyaman province, Turkey, and site of the tomb sanctuary of King Antiochus I of Commagene (ca. 69-36 BCE).

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• NEOLITHIC AGE IN IRAN

  Frank Hole

  Originally the term “Neolithic” referred to the final Stone Age before the ages of metals.Today “Neolithic” usually refers to the period of the origins and early development of agricultural economies.

• NEY-DĀWUD, Morteżā

  Morteżā Ḥoseyni Dehkordi

  (1900-1990), celebrated composer of music and performer and instructor of the tār (a plucked, long-necked lute).

• NĒZAK

  Frantz Grenet

  dynastic name appearing on a long series of silver coins issued by a local dynasty in Kāpisā (in the region of Kabul; Sk. Kāpiśī) ca. late 7th century C.E.

• NEẒĀM-AL-SALṬANA MĀFI, Ḥosaynqoli Khan

  Mansoureh Ettehadieh

  (1832-1908), governor, minister, and prime minister of the Nāṣeri and Moẓaffarid era. 

• NEẒĀMI QUNAVI

  Osman G. Özgüdenlı

  (Neẓāmi of Konya; d. 1469-73?), poet in Persian, Arabic, and Turkish.

• NIETZSCHE AND PERSIA

  Daryoush Ashouri

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), the great German thinker, is best known as a philosopher of culture. His insightful critique of Western civilization in its different stages, classical, medieval, and modern, bears witness to his vast erudition and profound concern regarding the historical development of human culture, particularly in relation to ethical norms. But his spirit of enquiry goes well beyond European borders and in many instances and contexts he refers to the great Asiatic cultures of China, India, and Persia.

• NIGHTINGALE

  Cross-Reference

  See BOLBOL.

• NĪRANGDĪN CEREMONY

  Firoze M. Kotwal and Philip G. Kreyenbroek

  a Zoroastrian ritual to consecrate gōmēz, or bull’s urine; the consecrated liquid is known as nīrang or nīrangdīn.

• NISA

  Antonio Invernizzi

  an Arsacid city and ceremonial center in Parthia.

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• NISĀBURI, ḤASAN

  David Pingree

   b. Moḥammad al-Aʿraj, Neẓām-al-Din Qommi, astronomer; d. after 1311.

• NISĀYA

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  the Old Iranian name of several Iranian regions and places, which cannot easily be distinguished from one another.

• NISHAPUR i. Historical Geography and History to the Beginning of the 20th Century

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  Nishapur (Nišāpur) was, with Balḵ, Marv and Herat, one of the four great cities of the province of Khorasan.  It flourished in Sasanid and early Islamic times, but after the devastations of the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, subsided into a more modest role until it revived in the 20th century.

• NISIBIS

  Samuel Lieu

  city in northern Mesopotamia, a major focus of military confrontations between the Roman and Sasanian empires and a renowned center of theological studies for the Church of the East.

• NÖLDEKE, THEODOR

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  As a pupil of Heinrich Ewald (1803-1875), Theodor Nöldeke had the benefit of a sound training in Oriental philology, linguistics, and history, all of which contributed to his becoming the most renowned Oriental scholar in the second German Reich.

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• NOMADISM

  Eckart Ehlers

  a way of life and human existence that is connected with permanent and more or less regular movements of people between different locations. The migrational movements of nomads are connected with clearly defined routes and destinations where the nomads spend equally clearly defined periods of time with the ultimate goal of pursuing economic activities and ensuring their livelihood.
  

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• NOQṬAT AL-KĀF

  Kavian S. Milani

  (Point of the letter Kāf), the earliest general history of the Bābi religion spanning the years 1260/1844 to 1268/1851-52 with a theological preamble.

• NOṢAYRIS

  Meir M. Bar-Asher

  followers of Nusayrism, a syncretistic religion with close affinity to Shiʿism, whose adherents live mostly in Syria and southeastern Turkey.

• NOWBAḴTI, ḤASAN

  David Pingree

  b. Musā Abu Moḥammad, 4th/10th century theologian and philosopher in Baghdad, d. between 300/912-3 and 310/922-3.

• NOWRUZ

  Multiple Authors

  Nowruz, “New Day”, is a traditional ancient festival which celebrates the starts of the Persian New Year. It is the holiest and most joyful festival of the Zoroastrian year and is also its focal point, to which all other high holy days relate. Its celebration has two strands, the religious and the secular, both of which have plainly evolved considerably over many centuries, the one with extension of observances, the other with accumulation of charming and poetic customs, most of them special to it.

• NOWRUZ i. In the Pre-Islamic Period

  Mary Boyce

• NOWRUZ ii. In the Islamic Period

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

• NOWRUZ iii. In the Iranian Calendar

  Simone Cristoforetti

• NOZHAT AL-MAJĀLES

  Moḥammad Amin Riāḥi

  an anthology of over 4,000 quatrains (robāʾi) by some 300 poets of the 5th to 7th/11th-13th centuries, compiled around the middle of the 7th/13th century.

• NUḤ (II) B. MANṢUR (I)

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  , ABU’L-QĀSEM, Samanid Amir (r. 365-87/976-97), initially in both Transoxania and Khorasan, latterly in Transoxania only.

• NURESTÂNI LANGUAGES

  Richard F. Strand

  five languages constituting the Nurestâni (Pers. “Nurestāni,” Engl. “Nuristani”) subgroup of the Indo-Iranian language family.  The approximately 130,000 speakers of these languages inhabit Nurestān Province in northeastern Afghanistan and a few adjacent valleys in Pakistan's Chitral District.

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• NURISTAN

  Max Klimburg

  (Nurestān), the “Land of Light,” a region to the northeast of Afghanistan, imbedded in the Hindu Kush valleys to the south of its main ridge.

• NUTS

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀJĪL.

• NYBERG, Henrik Samuel

  Carlo G. Cereti

  (1889-1974),  Swedish scholar of extremely broad interests, competent in a number of different fields, in both Semitic and Iranian studies.