Table of Contents

• 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.
  

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• 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.

• NAWBAḴTI, 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.

• NOWRUZ i. In the Pre-Islamic Period

  Mary Boyce

  Nowruz, “New Day”, is the holiest and most joyful festival of the Zoroastrian year. It is also its focal point, to which all other high holy days relate.

• NOWRUZ ii. In the Islamic Period

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  Nowruz survived while less significant festivals were eclipsed by their Islamic rivals and gradually became abandoned by indifferent Mongol and Turkish rulers or hostile clerical authorities.

• NOWRUZ iii. In the Iranian Calendar

  Simone Cristoforetti

  The day Hormoz (the first day of any Persian month) of the month of Farvardin is the New Year day in the Persian calendar; at present it coincides with the day of the vernal equinox.

• 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.