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NAWBAḴTI FAMILY, a notable Shiʿite family of Persian descent, many of whose members, like their eponymous ancestor Nawbaḵt and his son Abu Sahl Fażl, ranked among the local illuminati of Baghdad, served as advisors and administrators for the ʿAbbasid court, and gained fame as Shiʿite theologians and locum tenants of…

NAWBAḴTI, ḤASAN b. Musā Abu Moḥammad, 4th/10th century theologian and philosopher in Baghdad, d. between 300/912-3 and 310/922-3. The son of a sister of Abu Sahl Esmāʿil b. ʿAli b. Nawbaḵt (b. 235/849-50, d. 311/923-4), who was a leader of the Shiʿites and a government official, Ḥasan’s father according to…

NAWM-NĀMA, the dream journal of Šehāb-al-Din Fażl-Allāh Astarābādi (b. Astarābād 740/1339-40; d. Nakhjavan, 1 Ḏu’l-qaʿda 796/28 August 1394), the founder of the Ḥorufi movement (see ḤORUFISM). Although the title Nawm-nāma is broadly used in the contemporary scholarship on the Ḥorufis, it seems that the short descriptions of dreams noted in…

NAWWĀB ŠIRĀZI, ʿALI-AKBAR b. Āqā ʿAli Naqib b. Esmāʿil (b. Shiraz, 1187/1773; d. Shiraz, 1263/1847, FIGURE 1), nicknamed Ṣadr; a scholar, author, and poet with mystical inclinations and the pen-name Besmel (Nawwāb, pp. 707-8; Modarres, I, pp. 267-68; Rastegār, 2006, pp. 265-68). Born into an eminent wealthy family, Nawwāb Širāzi…

NAWʿI, MOḤAMMAD-REŻĀ ḴABUŠĀNI (b. Ḵabušān ca. 970/1563; d. Borhānpur, 1019/1610),  Persian poet, who moved from his hometown Qučān  (Ḵabušān) in Khorasan to India and enjoyed the patronage of the Mughals.  He was descended from the mystic Shaikh Ḥāji Moḥammad Ḵabušāni.  Modern scholars have questioned the statement in some taḏkeras that…

NAXARAR, 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. The earliest stages of this system cannot be ascertained with precision given the scantiness of the surviving sources. However, its decentralized character and the…

NAẒIRI NIŠĀPURI, Moḥammad Ḥosayn, Indo-Persian poet of the late 16th and early 17th centuries (b. Nishapur, ca. 1560–d. Ahmadabad in Gujarat, between 1612 and 1614). Naẓiri left his native city of Nishapur as a young man after the death of his father. Though he traveled to western Persia as a merchant,…

NEDĀY-E ESLĀM (The voice of Islam), a pro-constitutional newspaper lithographed and published in Shiraz (twice weekly at first and later weekly) in nasḵ script by Sayyed Żiāʾ-al-Din Ṭabāṭabāʾi (1890-1969), who was also its chief editor. Altogether 36 issues were published between 20 Moḥarram/7 March (not 11 Ṣafar/26 March as in…

NEGAHBAN, EZAT O. (ʿEzzat-Allāh Negahbān; b. Ahvāz, 1 March 1926; d. Philadelphia, 2 February 2009; Figure 1), eminent Iranian archaeologist. Negahban was born in the city of Ahvāz to ʿAbd-al-Amir Negahbān and Roḡia Didebān. When he was two years old, his father was elected to the Iranian parliament (majles), and…

NEHĀVAND, a town in western Iran, situated in the northern Zagros region (lat 34˚11′ N, long 48˚22′ E, elev. 1,786 m/5,860 ft.).  It lies some 90 km/50 miles south of Hamadan, from which it is separated by the massif of the Alvand Kuh, which rises to 3,572 m/11,716 feet, and…

NÉMETH, Gyula (Julius Németh, b. Karcag, Hungary, 2 November 1890; d. 14 December 1976), Hungarian Turcologist (FIGURE 1).  He is believed to have been Cumanian by origin (Kakuk, 1977, p. 8; 1978, p. 208), although the name Németh (‘German’) in local practice was often assigned to people who were supporters of…

NEMRUD DAĞI, 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). The sanctuary was discovered in 1881 by Karl Sester, a German road-building engineer.  With some interruptions, investigations at the site have continued…

NEOLITHIC AGE IN IRAN. Originally the term “Neolithic” referred to the final Stone Age before the ages of metals, that is: the Chalcolithic (copper), Bronze, and Iron Ages. Today “Neolithic” usually refers to the period of the origins and early development of agricultural economies. The oldest evidence for agriculture comes…