Nasir
Nasir (al-Nasir). Regnal title of five Mameluke sultans.
Nasir, al- see Nasir
Nasir, al- see Nasir
Nasir, Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Nasir, Abu ‘Abd Allah al- (Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Nasir). Sovereign of the dynasty of the Almohads (r. 1199-1213). In 1211, he sent an expedition against Spain which ended in disaster for the Muslim troops at Las Navas de Tolosa.
Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Nasir see Nasir, Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Nasir, Abu ‘Abd Allah al- (Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Nasir). Sovereign of the dynasty of the Almohads (r. 1199-1213). In 1211, he sent an expedition against Spain which ended in disaster for the Muslim troops at Las Navas de Tolosa.
Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Nasir see Nasir, Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Nasir al-Dawla, Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-
Nasir al-Dawla, Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al- (Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Nasir al-Dawla). Ruler of the Mosul branch of the Hamdanids (r.920-968). He profitted by the rapid decline in the power of the ‘Abbasid caliphs, but came into conflict with the Buyid of Iraq Mu‘izz al-Dawla. His rule was disastrous because of his exactions and tyrannical seizures of lands.
Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Nasir al-Dawla see Nasir al-Dawla, Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-
Dawla, Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Nasir al- see Nasir al-Dawla, Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-
Nasir al-Dawla, Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al- (Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Nasir al-Dawla). Ruler of the Mosul branch of the Hamdanids (r.920-968). He profitted by the rapid decline in the power of the ‘Abbasid caliphs, but came into conflict with the Buyid of Iraq Mu‘izz al-Dawla. His rule was disastrous because of his exactions and tyrannical seizures of lands.
Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Nasir al-Dawla see Nasir al-Dawla, Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-
Dawla, Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Nasir al- see Nasir al-Dawla, Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-
Nasir al-Din Shah
Nasir al-Din Shah (Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar) (Nāṣira’d-Dīn Shāh Qājār) (Nāṣer al-Dīn Shāh) (b. July 16, 1831 – d. May 1, 1896). Ruler of the Qajar dynasty (r. 1848-1896). The first phase of his reign (1848-1858) was characterized by a prolonged struggle to assert monarchical authority against the Prime Minister, the Qajar nobility, the European powers and popular and religious dissent. The second phase (1858-1871) was marked by the abolition of the office of Prime Minister and the appointment of ministers to the newly created ministries, with the shah acting as his own Prime Minister. The third phase (1871-1886) saw the rise of the celebrated reformer Mirza Husayn Khan Mushir al-Dawla and the royal tours to Ottoman Iraq and to Europe. The last phase of the long reign was marked by the shah’s personal disillusionment and growing popular discontent.
Nāṣer al-Dīn Shāh was the Qājār shah of Iran who began his reign as a reformer but became increasingly conservative, failing to understand the accelerating need for change or for a response to the pressures brought by contact with the Western nations.
Although a younger son of Moḥammad Shāh, Nāṣer al-Dīn was named heir apparent through the influence of his mother. Serious disturbances broke out when he succeeded to the throne on his father’s death in 1848, but these were quelled through the efforts of his chief minister, Mīrzā Taqī Khān. Under Taqī Khān’s influence, Nāṣer al-Dīn began his rule by instituting a series of needed reforms. Taqī Khān, however, was later forced from power by his enemies, who included Nāṣer al-Dīn’s mother, and was disgraced, imprisoned, and finally murdered. In 1852 an attempt was made on Nāṣer al-Dīn’s life by two Bābīs (members of a religious sect considered heretical); he responded with a fierce, cruel, and prolonged persecution of the sect.
Unable to regain territory lost to Russia in the early 19th century, Nāṣer al-Dīn sought compensation by seizing Herāt, Afghanistan, in 1856. Great Britain regarded the move as a threat to British India and declared war on Iran, forcing the return of Herāt as well as Iranian recognition of the kingdom of Afghanistan.
Nāṣer al-Dīn was effective in certain areas. He curbed the secular power of the clergy, introduced telegraph and postal services, built roads, opened the first school offering education along Western lines, and launched Iran’s first newspaper. He visited Europe in 1873, 1878, and 1889 and was impressed with the technology he saw there. In the later years of his rule, however, he steadfastly refused to deal with the growing pressures for reforms. He also granted a series of concessionary rights to foreigners in return for large payments that went into his own pockets. In 1872, popular pressure forced him to withdraw one concession involving permission to construct such complexes as railways and irrigation works throughout Iran. In 1890, he made an even greater error in granting a 50-year concession on the purchase, sale, and processing of all tobacco in the country, which led to a national boycott of tobacco and the withdrawal of the concession. This last incident is considered by many authorities to be the origin of modern Iranian nationalism. Increasingly unpopular among various Iranian factions, Nāṣer al-Dīn was assassinated in Tehrān by a follower of Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī.
Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar see Nasir al-Din Shah
Nāṣira’d-Dīn Shāh Qājār see Nasir al-Din Shah
Nāṣer al-Dīn Shāh see Nasir al-Din Shah
Nasir al-Din Shah (Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar) (Nāṣira’d-Dīn Shāh Qājār) (Nāṣer al-Dīn Shāh) (b. July 16, 1831 – d. May 1, 1896). Ruler of the Qajar dynasty (r. 1848-1896). The first phase of his reign (1848-1858) was characterized by a prolonged struggle to assert monarchical authority against the Prime Minister, the Qajar nobility, the European powers and popular and religious dissent. The second phase (1858-1871) was marked by the abolition of the office of Prime Minister and the appointment of ministers to the newly created ministries, with the shah acting as his own Prime Minister. The third phase (1871-1886) saw the rise of the celebrated reformer Mirza Husayn Khan Mushir al-Dawla and the royal tours to Ottoman Iraq and to Europe. The last phase of the long reign was marked by the shah’s personal disillusionment and growing popular discontent.
Nāṣer al-Dīn Shāh was the Qājār shah of Iran who began his reign as a reformer but became increasingly conservative, failing to understand the accelerating need for change or for a response to the pressures brought by contact with the Western nations.
Although a younger son of Moḥammad Shāh, Nāṣer al-Dīn was named heir apparent through the influence of his mother. Serious disturbances broke out when he succeeded to the throne on his father’s death in 1848, but these were quelled through the efforts of his chief minister, Mīrzā Taqī Khān. Under Taqī Khān’s influence, Nāṣer al-Dīn began his rule by instituting a series of needed reforms. Taqī Khān, however, was later forced from power by his enemies, who included Nāṣer al-Dīn’s mother, and was disgraced, imprisoned, and finally murdered. In 1852 an attempt was made on Nāṣer al-Dīn’s life by two Bābīs (members of a religious sect considered heretical); he responded with a fierce, cruel, and prolonged persecution of the sect.
Unable to regain territory lost to Russia in the early 19th century, Nāṣer al-Dīn sought compensation by seizing Herāt, Afghanistan, in 1856. Great Britain regarded the move as a threat to British India and declared war on Iran, forcing the return of Herāt as well as Iranian recognition of the kingdom of Afghanistan.
Nāṣer al-Dīn was effective in certain areas. He curbed the secular power of the clergy, introduced telegraph and postal services, built roads, opened the first school offering education along Western lines, and launched Iran’s first newspaper. He visited Europe in 1873, 1878, and 1889 and was impressed with the technology he saw there. In the later years of his rule, however, he steadfastly refused to deal with the growing pressures for reforms. He also granted a series of concessionary rights to foreigners in return for large payments that went into his own pockets. In 1872, popular pressure forced him to withdraw one concession involving permission to construct such complexes as railways and irrigation works throughout Iran. In 1890, he made an even greater error in granting a 50-year concession on the purchase, sale, and processing of all tobacco in the country, which led to a national boycott of tobacco and the withdrawal of the concession. This last incident is considered by many authorities to be the origin of modern Iranian nationalism. Increasingly unpopular among various Iranian factions, Nāṣer al-Dīn was assassinated in Tehrān by a follower of Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī.
Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar see Nasir al-Din Shah
Nāṣira’d-Dīn Shāh Qājār see Nasir al-Din Shah
Nāṣer al-Dīn Shāh see Nasir al-Din Shah
Nasir ‘Ali Sirhindi
Nasir ‘Ali Sirhindi (d. 1697). One of the best of the Persian poets of India. His principal work is a version of the love story of Madhumalat and Manuhar, originally written in Hindi.
Sirhindi, Nasir 'Ali see Nasir ‘Ali Sirhindi
Nasir ‘Ali Sirhindi (d. 1697). One of the best of the Persian poets of India. His principal work is a version of the love story of Madhumalat and Manuhar, originally written in Hindi.
Sirhindi, Nasir 'Ali see Nasir ‘Ali Sirhindi
Nasir al-Salawi, Shihab al-Din al-
Nasir al-Salawi, Shihab al-Din al- (Shihab al-Din al-Nasir al-Salawi) (1835-1897). Moroccan historian. He wrote a general history of Morocco which became a much consulted document.
Shihab al-Din al-Nasir al-Salawi see Nasir al-Salawi, Shihab al-Din al-
Salawi, Shihab al-Din al-Nasir al- see Nasir al-Salawi, Shihab al-Din al-
Nasir al-Salawi, Shihab al-Din al- (Shihab al-Din al-Nasir al-Salawi) (1835-1897). Moroccan historian. He wrote a general history of Morocco which became a much consulted document.
Shihab al-Din al-Nasir al-Salawi see Nasir al-Salawi, Shihab al-Din al-
Salawi, Shihab al-Din al-Nasir al- see Nasir al-Salawi, Shihab al-Din al-
Nasir, Gamal ‘Abd al-
Nasir, Gamal ‘Abd al- (Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasir). See Nasser, Gamal Abdel.
Nasir, Gamal ‘Abd al- (Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasir). See Nasser, Gamal Abdel.
Nasir ibn ‘Alennas, al-
Nasir ibn ‘Alennas, al- (An-Nasir ibn Hammad ibn `Alanna) (d. 1088 ) . Ruler of the Hammadid dynasty (r.1062- 1088). His reign marks the apogee of the little Berber kingdom founded by Hammad. He founded the town of Bijaya (Bougie), where he built the splendid Palace of the Pearl.
An-Nasir ibn Hammad ibn `Alanna see Nasir ibn ‘Alennas, al-
Nasir ibn Hammad ibn `Alanna, An- see Nasir ibn ‘Alennas, al-
Nasir ibn ‘Alennas, al- (An-Nasir ibn Hammad ibn `Alanna) (d. 1088 ) . Ruler of the Hammadid dynasty (r.1062- 1088). His reign marks the apogee of the little Berber kingdom founded by Hammad. He founded the town of Bijaya (Bougie), where he built the splendid Palace of the Pearl.
An-Nasir ibn Hammad ibn `Alanna see Nasir ibn ‘Alennas, al-
Nasir ibn Hammad ibn `Alanna, An- see Nasir ibn ‘Alennas, al-
Nasir-i Khusraw
Nasir-i Khusraw (Abu Mo’in Hamid ad-Din Nasir ibn Khusraw al-Qubadiani) (Nāsir Khusraw Qubādiyānī) (Nasir Khusrow) (Naser Khosrow) (1004 - 1075/1088). Persian poet and prose writer, a noted traveller, and an Isma‘ili philosopher and missionary. His travel account relates his journeys to Mecca by way of Nishapur, Tabriz, Aleppo and Jerusalem. From Mecca, he went to Cairo where he became familiar with the tradition of Isma‘ili learning. His Isma‘ili writings are the only contributions in Persian by a major Fatimid missionary.
Nasir Khusraw was a Persian poet, philosopher, Isma'ili scholar and a traveler. He was born in Qubadyan, a village in middle-age Bactria in modern Tajikistan and died in Yamagan, a village in Badakhshan province of Afghanistan.
He is considered as one of the great poets and writers in Persian literature, the Safarnama, an account of his travels, being his most famous work.
Nasir Khusraw was born in Qubadiyan (Kobadiyan in Balkh a province of Afghanistan), then Greater Khorasan. He was well versed in all the branches of natural science, in medicine, mathematics, astronomy and astrology, in Greek philosophy and the writings of al-Kindi, al-Farabi and Ibn Sina; and the interpretation of the Qur'an. He studied Arabic, Turkish, Greek, the vernacular languages of India and Sindh, and perhaps even Hebrew. He visited Multan and Lahore, and the splendid Ghaznavid court under Sultan Mahmud, Firdousi's patron. Later on he chose Merv for his residence, and was the owner of a house and garden there.
Until 1046, he worked as financial secretary and revenue collector for the Seljuk sultan Toghrul Beg, or rather of his brother Jaghir Beg, the emir of Khorasan, who had conquered Merv in 1037. About this time, inspired by a heavenly voice in a dream, he abjured all the luxuries of life, and resolved upon a pilgrimage to the holy shrines of Mecca and Medina, hoping to find there the solution to his spiritual crisis.
The graphic description of this journey is contained in the Safarnama, which possesses a special value among books of travel, since it contains the most authentic account of the state of the Muslim world in the middle of the 11th century. The minute sketches of Jerusalem and its environs are even today of practical value.
During the seven years of his 19,000-kilometer journey (1046-1052), Nasir visited Mecca four times, and performed all the rites and observances of a zealous pilgrim; but he was far more attracted to Cairo, the capital of Egypt, and the residence of the Fatimid caliph-imam Ma'ad al-Mustansir Billah, the Imam of the Ismaili Shi'a Muslims, which was just then waging a deadly war against the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad, and Toghrul Beg the Seljuk, the great defender of the Sunni creed. At the very time of Nasir's visit to Cairo, the power of the Egyptian Fatimids was in its zenith. Syria, the Hejaz, Africa, and Sicily obeyed al-Mustanir's sway, and the utmost order, security and prosperity reigned in Egypt.
At Cairo, Nasir learned mainly under the Fatimid dā‘ī ("missionary") Mu'ayyad fid-Din al-Shirazi, and became thoroughly imbued with the Shi'a Isma'ili doctrines of the Fatimids, and their introduction into his native country was thereafter the sole object of his life. He was raised to the position of dā‘ī "missionary" and appointed as the Hujjat-i Khorasan, though the hostility he encountered in the propagation of these new religious ideas after his return to Greater Khorasan in 1052 and Sunnite fanaticism compelled him at last to flee. After many wanderings he found a refuge in Yamgan (about 1060) in the mountains of Badakhshan, where he spent as a hermit the last decades of his life, and gathered round him a considerable number of devoted adherents, who handed down his doctrines to succeeding generations.
Nāṣir-i Khusraw’s poetry is of a didactic and devotional character and consists mainly of long odes that are considered to be of high literary quality. His philosophical poetry includes the Rawshana’ināme (Book of Lights). Nāṣir’s most celebrated prose work is the Safarnāme (Diary of a Journey Through Syria and Palestine), a diary describing his seven-year journey. It is a valuable record of the scenes and events that he witnessed. He also wrote more than a dozen treatises expounding the doctrines of the Ismāʿīlīs, among them the Jāmiʿ al-ḥikmatayn (“Union of the Two Wisdoms”), in which he attempted to harmonize Ismāʿīlī theology and Greek philosophy. Nāṣir’s literary style is straightforward and vigorous. In his verse he displays great technical virtuosity, while his prose is remarkable for the richness of its philosophical vocabulary.
Nasir-i Khusraw see Nasir-i Khusraw
Khusraw, Nasir-i see Nasir-i Khusraw
Abu Mo’in Hamid ad-Din Nasir ibn Khusraw al-Qubadiani see Nasir-i Khusraw
Nāsir Khusraw Qubādiyānī see Nasir-i Khusraw
Nasir Khusrow see Nasir-i Khusraw
Naser Khosrow see Nasir-i Khusraw
Nasir-i Khusraw (Abu Mo’in Hamid ad-Din Nasir ibn Khusraw al-Qubadiani) (Nāsir Khusraw Qubādiyānī) (Nasir Khusrow) (Naser Khosrow) (1004 - 1075/1088). Persian poet and prose writer, a noted traveller, and an Isma‘ili philosopher and missionary. His travel account relates his journeys to Mecca by way of Nishapur, Tabriz, Aleppo and Jerusalem. From Mecca, he went to Cairo where he became familiar with the tradition of Isma‘ili learning. His Isma‘ili writings are the only contributions in Persian by a major Fatimid missionary.
Nasir Khusraw was a Persian poet, philosopher, Isma'ili scholar and a traveler. He was born in Qubadyan, a village in middle-age Bactria in modern Tajikistan and died in Yamagan, a village in Badakhshan province of Afghanistan.
He is considered as one of the great poets and writers in Persian literature, the Safarnama, an account of his travels, being his most famous work.
Nasir Khusraw was born in Qubadiyan (Kobadiyan in Balkh a province of Afghanistan), then Greater Khorasan. He was well versed in all the branches of natural science, in medicine, mathematics, astronomy and astrology, in Greek philosophy and the writings of al-Kindi, al-Farabi and Ibn Sina; and the interpretation of the Qur'an. He studied Arabic, Turkish, Greek, the vernacular languages of India and Sindh, and perhaps even Hebrew. He visited Multan and Lahore, and the splendid Ghaznavid court under Sultan Mahmud, Firdousi's patron. Later on he chose Merv for his residence, and was the owner of a house and garden there.
Until 1046, he worked as financial secretary and revenue collector for the Seljuk sultan Toghrul Beg, or rather of his brother Jaghir Beg, the emir of Khorasan, who had conquered Merv in 1037. About this time, inspired by a heavenly voice in a dream, he abjured all the luxuries of life, and resolved upon a pilgrimage to the holy shrines of Mecca and Medina, hoping to find there the solution to his spiritual crisis.
The graphic description of this journey is contained in the Safarnama, which possesses a special value among books of travel, since it contains the most authentic account of the state of the Muslim world in the middle of the 11th century. The minute sketches of Jerusalem and its environs are even today of practical value.
During the seven years of his 19,000-kilometer journey (1046-1052), Nasir visited Mecca four times, and performed all the rites and observances of a zealous pilgrim; but he was far more attracted to Cairo, the capital of Egypt, and the residence of the Fatimid caliph-imam Ma'ad al-Mustansir Billah, the Imam of the Ismaili Shi'a Muslims, which was just then waging a deadly war against the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad, and Toghrul Beg the Seljuk, the great defender of the Sunni creed. At the very time of Nasir's visit to Cairo, the power of the Egyptian Fatimids was in its zenith. Syria, the Hejaz, Africa, and Sicily obeyed al-Mustanir's sway, and the utmost order, security and prosperity reigned in Egypt.
At Cairo, Nasir learned mainly under the Fatimid dā‘ī ("missionary") Mu'ayyad fid-Din al-Shirazi, and became thoroughly imbued with the Shi'a Isma'ili doctrines of the Fatimids, and their introduction into his native country was thereafter the sole object of his life. He was raised to the position of dā‘ī "missionary" and appointed as the Hujjat-i Khorasan, though the hostility he encountered in the propagation of these new religious ideas after his return to Greater Khorasan in 1052 and Sunnite fanaticism compelled him at last to flee. After many wanderings he found a refuge in Yamgan (about 1060) in the mountains of Badakhshan, where he spent as a hermit the last decades of his life, and gathered round him a considerable number of devoted adherents, who handed down his doctrines to succeeding generations.
Nāṣir-i Khusraw’s poetry is of a didactic and devotional character and consists mainly of long odes that are considered to be of high literary quality. His philosophical poetry includes the Rawshana’ināme (Book of Lights). Nāṣir’s most celebrated prose work is the Safarnāme (Diary of a Journey Through Syria and Palestine), a diary describing his seven-year journey. It is a valuable record of the scenes and events that he witnessed. He also wrote more than a dozen treatises expounding the doctrines of the Ismāʿīlīs, among them the Jāmiʿ al-ḥikmatayn (“Union of the Two Wisdoms”), in which he attempted to harmonize Ismāʿīlī theology and Greek philosophy. Nāṣir’s literary style is straightforward and vigorous. In his verse he displays great technical virtuosity, while his prose is remarkable for the richness of its philosophical vocabulary.
Nasir-i Khusraw see Nasir-i Khusraw
Khusraw, Nasir-i see Nasir-i Khusraw
Abu Mo’in Hamid ad-Din Nasir ibn Khusraw al-Qubadiani see Nasir-i Khusraw
Nāsir Khusraw Qubādiyānī see Nasir-i Khusraw
Nasir Khusrow see Nasir-i Khusraw
Naser Khosrow see Nasir-i Khusraw
Nasir li-Din Allah, Abu’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-
Nasir li-Din Allah, Abu’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al- (Abu’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Nasir li-Din Allah) (b. 1158). ‘Abbasid caliph (r.1180-1225). After the secular power of the ‘Abbasid caliphate had disappeared because of the dominance of the Buyids and the Saljuqs, al-Nasir succeeded in restoring ‘Abbasid sovereignty and the former prestige of the caliphate. He tried to achieve a rapprochement of the different opposite dogmatic trends in Islam, and a policy of alliances with Qatada, the Sharif of Mecca, the Zaydi Imams of Yemen and the Ayyubids of Egypt. In the end, he was unable to prevent the impending fall of the ‘Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad in 1258.
Abu’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Nasir li-Din Allah see Nasir li-Din Allah, Abu’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-
Nasir li-Din Allah, Abu’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al- (Abu’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Nasir li-Din Allah) (b. 1158). ‘Abbasid caliph (r.1180-1225). After the secular power of the ‘Abbasid caliphate had disappeared because of the dominance of the Buyids and the Saljuqs, al-Nasir succeeded in restoring ‘Abbasid sovereignty and the former prestige of the caliphate. He tried to achieve a rapprochement of the different opposite dogmatic trends in Islam, and a policy of alliances with Qatada, the Sharif of Mecca, the Zaydi Imams of Yemen and the Ayyubids of Egypt. In the end, he was unable to prevent the impending fall of the ‘Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad in 1258.
Abu’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Nasir li-Din Allah see Nasir li-Din Allah, Abu’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-
Nasir li-Din Allah, Ahmad Abu’l-Hasan al-
Nasir li-Din Allah, Ahmad Abu’l-Hasan al- (Ahmad Abu’l-Hasan al-Nasir li-Din Allah) (d. 927). Third incumbent of the Rassi Zaydi imamate in northern Yemen. He defeated the aggressive followers of the Isma‘ili Fatimid missionaries, whose unity and influence were shattered.
Ahmad Abu’l-Hasan al-Nasir li-Din Allah see Nasir li-Din Allah, Ahmad Abu’l-Hasan al-
Nasir li-Din Allah, Ahmad Abu’l-Hasan al- (Ahmad Abu’l-Hasan al-Nasir li-Din Allah) (d. 927). Third incumbent of the Rassi Zaydi imamate in northern Yemen. He defeated the aggressive followers of the Isma‘ili Fatimid missionaries, whose unity and influence were shattered.
Ahmad Abu’l-Hasan al-Nasir li-Din Allah see Nasir li-Din Allah, Ahmad Abu’l-Hasan al-
Nasiruddin Shah
Nasiruddin Shah (Nasr-ed-Din) (Nasr ud-Din Shah). See Nasir al-Din Shah.
Nasiruddin Shah (Nasr-ed-Din) (Nasr ud-Din Shah). See Nasir al-Din Shah.
Nasiruddin Tusi
Nasiruddin Tusi (Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī) (Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī) (b. February 18, 1201, Ṭūs, Khorāsān [now Iran] — d. June 26, 1274, Baghdad, Iraq). Outstanding Persian philosopher, scientist, astronomer and mathematician.
Educated first in Ṭūs, where his father was a jurist in the Twelfth Imam school, the main sect of Shīʾite Muslims, al-Ṭūsī finished his education in Neyshābūr, about 75 kilometers (50 miles) to the west. This was no doubt a prudent move as Genghis Khan (d. 1227), having conquered Beijing in 1215, turned his attention to the Islamic world and reached the region around Ṭūs by 1220. In about 1227 the Ismāʿīlīte governor Nāṣir al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm offered al-Ṭūsī sanctuary in his mountain fortresses in Khorāsān. Al-Ṭūsī in turn dedicated his most famous work, Akhlāq-i nāṣirī (1232; Nasirean Ethics), to the governor before being invited to stay in the capital at Alamūt, where he espoused the Ismāʿīlīte faith under the new imam, Alauddin Muḥammad (r. 1227–1255). (This Ismāʿīlīte state began in 1090 with the conquest of Alamūt by Ḥasan-e Ṣabbāḥ and ended with the fall of the city to the Mongols in 1256.) During this period, al-Ṭūsī wrote on Ismāʿīlīte theology (Taṣawwurāt; “Notions”), logic (Asās al-iqtibās; “Foundations of Inference”), and mathematics (Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī; “Commentary on the Almagest”).
With the fall in 1256 of Alamūt to Hülegü Khan (c. 1217–1265), grandson of Genghis Khan, al-Ṭūsī immediately accepted a position with the Mongols as a scientific adviser. (The alacrity with which he went to work for them fueled accusations that his conversion to the Ismāʿīlīte faith was feigned, as well as rumors that he betrayed the city’s defenses.) Al-Ṭūsī married a Mongol and was then put in charge of the ministry of religious bequests. The topic of whether al-Ṭūsī accompanied the Mongol capture of Baghdad in 1258 remains controversial, although he certainly visited nearby Shīʾite centers soon afterward. Profiting from Hülegü’s belief in astrology, al-Ṭūsī obtained support in 1259 to build a fine observatory (completed in 1262) adjacent to Hülegü’s capital in Marāgheh (now in Azerbaijan). More than an observatory, Hülegü obtained a first-rate library and staffed his institution with notable Islamic and Chinese scholars. Funded by an endowment, research continued at the institution for at least 25 years after al-Ṭūsī’s death, and some of its astronomical instruments inspired later designs in Samarkand (now in Uzbekistan).
Al-Ṭūsī was a man of exceptionally wide erudition. He wrote approximately 150 books in Arabic and Persian and edited the definitive Arabic versions of the works of Euclid, Archimedes, Ptolemy, Autolycus, and Theodosius. He also made original contributions to mathematics and astronomy. His Zīj-i Ilkhānī (1271; “Ilkhan Tables”), based on research at the Marāgheh observatory, is a splendidly accurate table of planetary movements. Al-Ṭūsī’s most influential book in the West may have been Tadhkirah fi ʿilm al-hayʿa (“Treasury of astronomy”), which describes a geometric construction, now known as the al-Ṭūsī couple, for producing rectilinear motion from a point on one circle rolling inside another. By means of this construction, al-Ṭūsī succeeded in reforming the Ptolemaic planetary models, producing a system in which all orbits are described by uniform circular motion. Most historians of Islamic astronomy believe that the planetary models developed at Marāgheh found their way to Europe (perhaps via Byzantium) and provided Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) with inspiration for his astronomical models.
The Arabian scholar Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) considered Tusi to be the greatest of the later Persian scholars. A 60-kilometer diameter lunar crater located on the southern hemisphere of the moon is named after him as "Nasireddin". A minor planet 10269 Tusi discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1979 is also named after him. The K. N. Toosi University of Technology in Iran and Observatory of Shamakhy in the Republic of Azerbaijan are also named after him.
Today al-Ṭūsī’s Tajrīd (“Catharsis”) is a highly esteemed treatise on Shīʾite theology. He made important contributions to many branches of Islamic learning, and under his direction Marāgheh sparked a revival of Islamic mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, and theology. In the East, al-Ṭūsī is an example par excellence of the ḥakīm, or wise man.
Tusi, Nasiruddin see Nasiruddin Tusi
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi see Nasiruddin Tusi
Tusi, Nasir al-Din al- see Nasiruddin Tusi
Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Tusi see Nasiruddin Tusi
Tusi, Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al- see Nasiruddin Tusi
Nasiruddin Tusi (Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī) (Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī) (b. February 18, 1201, Ṭūs, Khorāsān [now Iran] — d. June 26, 1274, Baghdad, Iraq). Outstanding Persian philosopher, scientist, astronomer and mathematician.
Educated first in Ṭūs, where his father was a jurist in the Twelfth Imam school, the main sect of Shīʾite Muslims, al-Ṭūsī finished his education in Neyshābūr, about 75 kilometers (50 miles) to the west. This was no doubt a prudent move as Genghis Khan (d. 1227), having conquered Beijing in 1215, turned his attention to the Islamic world and reached the region around Ṭūs by 1220. In about 1227 the Ismāʿīlīte governor Nāṣir al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm offered al-Ṭūsī sanctuary in his mountain fortresses in Khorāsān. Al-Ṭūsī in turn dedicated his most famous work, Akhlāq-i nāṣirī (1232; Nasirean Ethics), to the governor before being invited to stay in the capital at Alamūt, where he espoused the Ismāʿīlīte faith under the new imam, Alauddin Muḥammad (r. 1227–1255). (This Ismāʿīlīte state began in 1090 with the conquest of Alamūt by Ḥasan-e Ṣabbāḥ and ended with the fall of the city to the Mongols in 1256.) During this period, al-Ṭūsī wrote on Ismāʿīlīte theology (Taṣawwurāt; “Notions”), logic (Asās al-iqtibās; “Foundations of Inference”), and mathematics (Taḥrīr al-Majisṭī; “Commentary on the Almagest”).
With the fall in 1256 of Alamūt to Hülegü Khan (c. 1217–1265), grandson of Genghis Khan, al-Ṭūsī immediately accepted a position with the Mongols as a scientific adviser. (The alacrity with which he went to work for them fueled accusations that his conversion to the Ismāʿīlīte faith was feigned, as well as rumors that he betrayed the city’s defenses.) Al-Ṭūsī married a Mongol and was then put in charge of the ministry of religious bequests. The topic of whether al-Ṭūsī accompanied the Mongol capture of Baghdad in 1258 remains controversial, although he certainly visited nearby Shīʾite centers soon afterward. Profiting from Hülegü’s belief in astrology, al-Ṭūsī obtained support in 1259 to build a fine observatory (completed in 1262) adjacent to Hülegü’s capital in Marāgheh (now in Azerbaijan). More than an observatory, Hülegü obtained a first-rate library and staffed his institution with notable Islamic and Chinese scholars. Funded by an endowment, research continued at the institution for at least 25 years after al-Ṭūsī’s death, and some of its astronomical instruments inspired later designs in Samarkand (now in Uzbekistan).
Al-Ṭūsī was a man of exceptionally wide erudition. He wrote approximately 150 books in Arabic and Persian and edited the definitive Arabic versions of the works of Euclid, Archimedes, Ptolemy, Autolycus, and Theodosius. He also made original contributions to mathematics and astronomy. His Zīj-i Ilkhānī (1271; “Ilkhan Tables”), based on research at the Marāgheh observatory, is a splendidly accurate table of planetary movements. Al-Ṭūsī’s most influential book in the West may have been Tadhkirah fi ʿilm al-hayʿa (“Treasury of astronomy”), which describes a geometric construction, now known as the al-Ṭūsī couple, for producing rectilinear motion from a point on one circle rolling inside another. By means of this construction, al-Ṭūsī succeeded in reforming the Ptolemaic planetary models, producing a system in which all orbits are described by uniform circular motion. Most historians of Islamic astronomy believe that the planetary models developed at Marāgheh found their way to Europe (perhaps via Byzantium) and provided Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) with inspiration for his astronomical models.
The Arabian scholar Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) considered Tusi to be the greatest of the later Persian scholars. A 60-kilometer diameter lunar crater located on the southern hemisphere of the moon is named after him as "Nasireddin". A minor planet 10269 Tusi discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1979 is also named after him. The K. N. Toosi University of Technology in Iran and Observatory of Shamakhy in the Republic of Azerbaijan are also named after him.
Today al-Ṭūsī’s Tajrīd (“Catharsis”) is a highly esteemed treatise on Shīʾite theology. He made important contributions to many branches of Islamic learning, and under his direction Marāgheh sparked a revival of Islamic mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, and theology. In the East, al-Ṭūsī is an example par excellence of the ḥakīm, or wise man.
Tusi, Nasiruddin see Nasiruddin Tusi
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi see Nasiruddin Tusi
Tusi, Nasir al-Din al- see Nasiruddin Tusi
Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Tusi see Nasiruddin Tusi
Tusi, Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al- see Nasiruddin Tusi
Nasr al-Dawla, Abu Nasr Ahmad
Nasr al-Dawla, Abu Nasr Ahmad (Abu Nasr Ahmad Nasr al-Dawla). Prince of the Marwanid dynasty of Diyarbakr (r. 1011-1061). The ruler of Diyarbakr was regarded as a principal guardian of the frontier of Islam in eastern Anatolia, but Nasr al-Dawla’s relations with the Byzantine Emperor were for the most part amicable. His reign, under which Diyarbakr prospered, saw the rise of the Saljuqs from some obscurity to the empire of Persia and Iraq.
Abu Nasr Ahmad Nasr al-Dawla see Nasr al-Dawla, Abu Nasr Ahmad
Dawla, Abu Nasr Ahmad Nasr al- see Nasr al-Dawla, Abu Nasr Ahmad
Nasr al-Dawla, Abu Nasr Ahmad (Abu Nasr Ahmad Nasr al-Dawla). Prince of the Marwanid dynasty of Diyarbakr (r. 1011-1061). The ruler of Diyarbakr was regarded as a principal guardian of the frontier of Islam in eastern Anatolia, but Nasr al-Dawla’s relations with the Byzantine Emperor were for the most part amicable. His reign, under which Diyarbakr prospered, saw the rise of the Saljuqs from some obscurity to the empire of Persia and Iraq.
Abu Nasr Ahmad Nasr al-Dawla see Nasr al-Dawla, Abu Nasr Ahmad
Dawla, Abu Nasr Ahmad Nasr al- see Nasr al-Dawla, Abu Nasr Ahmad
Nasr Allah ibn Muhammad
Nasr Allah ibn Muhammad (Nasr Allah Munshi). Persian author and statesman during the twelfth century. His fame rests on his version of the famous Indian Kalila wa-Dimna into Persian prose.
Nasr Allah Munshi see Nasr Allah ibn Muhammad
Munshi, Nasr Allah see Nasr Allah ibn Muhammad
Ibn Muhammad, Nasr Allah see Nasr Allah ibn Muhammad
Nasr Allah ibn Muhammad (Nasr Allah Munshi). Persian author and statesman during the twelfth century. His fame rests on his version of the famous Indian Kalila wa-Dimna into Persian prose.
Nasr Allah Munshi see Nasr Allah ibn Muhammad
Munshi, Nasr Allah see Nasr Allah ibn Muhammad
Ibn Muhammad, Nasr Allah see Nasr Allah ibn Muhammad
Nasreddin Hoca
Nasreddin Hoca (Nasr al-Din Khoja) (Nasrettin Hoca) (Hoja Nasretdin>/I>) (Ependi) . Name given the most prominent protagonist of humorous prose narratives in the whole sphere of Turkish-Islamic influence. He is a legendary character whose historical existence none of the various theories regarding his alleged lifetime has succeeded in proving beyond doubt. The earliest anecdotes about Nasreddin are quoted in a work dating from the sixteenth century.
Nasreddin is a legendary satirical Sufi figure who is believed to have existed during the Middle Ages (around the 13th century of the Christian calendar), in Akşehir, and later in Konya, under the Seljuq rule. Nasreddin was a populist philosopher and wise man, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes.
Many nations of the Near, Middle East and Central Asia claim Nasreddin as their own, but if Nasreddin did truly exist, it is most likely that he was Turkish. His name is spelled differently in various cultures—and often preceded or followed by titles "Hodja", "Mullah", or "Effendi".
1996–1997 was declared International Nasreddin Year by UNESCO.
Nasreddin lived in Anatolia, Turkey; he was born in Hortu Village in Sivrihisar, Eskişehir in the 13th century, then settled in Akşehir, and later in Konya, where he died (probably born around 1209 and died in 1275/6 or 1285/6).
As generations went by, new stories were added, others were modified, and the character and his tales spread to other regions. The themes in the tales have become part of the folklore of a number of nations and express the national imaginations of a variety of cultures. Although most of them depict Nasreddin in an early small-village setting, the tales (like Aesop's fables) deal with concepts that have a certain timelessness. They purvey a pithy folk wisdom that triumphs over all trials and tribulations. The oldest manuscript of Nasreddin was found in 1571.
Today, Nasreddin stories are told in a wide variety of regions, and have been translated into many languages. Some regions independently developed a character similar to Nasreddin, and the stories have become part of a larger whole. In many regions, Nasreddin is a major part of the culture, and is quoted or alluded to frequently in daily life. Since there are thousands of different Nasreddin stories, one can be found to fit almost any occasion. Nasreddin often appears as a whimsical character of a large Albanian, Arab, Armenian, Azeri, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Greek, Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Italian, Pashto, Persian, Romanian, Serbian, Turkish and Urdu folk tradition of vignettes, not entirely different from zen koans. He is also very popular in Greece for his wisdom and his judgment. He is known in Bulgaria, although in a different role. Nasreddin has been very popular in China for many years, and still appears in a variety of movies, cartoons, and novels.
The "International Nasreddin Hodja Festival" is held annually in Akşehir between July 5–10.
The Nasreddin stories are known throughout the Middle East and have touched cultures around the world. Superficially, most of the Nasreddin stories may be told as jokes or humorous anecdotes. They are told and retold endlessly in the teahouses and caravanserais of Asia and can be heard in homes and on the radio. But it is inherent in a Nasreddin story that it may be understood at many levels. There is the joke, followed by a moral — and usually the little extra which brings the consciousness of the potential mystic a little further on the way to realization.
Hoca, Nasreddin see Nasreddin Hoca
Nasr al-Din Khoja see Nasreddin Hoca
Khoja, Nasr al-Din see Nasreddin Hoca
Nasrettin Hoca see Nasreddin Hoca
Hoja Nasretdin see Nasreddin Hoca
Ependi see Nasreddin Hoca
Nasreddin Hoca (Nasr al-Din Khoja) (Nasrettin Hoca) (Hoja Nasretdin>/I>) (Ependi) . Name given the most prominent protagonist of humorous prose narratives in the whole sphere of Turkish-Islamic influence. He is a legendary character whose historical existence none of the various theories regarding his alleged lifetime has succeeded in proving beyond doubt. The earliest anecdotes about Nasreddin are quoted in a work dating from the sixteenth century.
Nasreddin is a legendary satirical Sufi figure who is believed to have existed during the Middle Ages (around the 13th century of the Christian calendar), in Akşehir, and later in Konya, under the Seljuq rule. Nasreddin was a populist philosopher and wise man, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes.
Many nations of the Near, Middle East and Central Asia claim Nasreddin as their own, but if Nasreddin did truly exist, it is most likely that he was Turkish. His name is spelled differently in various cultures—and often preceded or followed by titles "Hodja", "Mullah", or "Effendi".
1996–1997 was declared International Nasreddin Year by UNESCO.
Nasreddin lived in Anatolia, Turkey; he was born in Hortu Village in Sivrihisar, Eskişehir in the 13th century, then settled in Akşehir, and later in Konya, where he died (probably born around 1209 and died in 1275/6 or 1285/6).
As generations went by, new stories were added, others were modified, and the character and his tales spread to other regions. The themes in the tales have become part of the folklore of a number of nations and express the national imaginations of a variety of cultures. Although most of them depict Nasreddin in an early small-village setting, the tales (like Aesop's fables) deal with concepts that have a certain timelessness. They purvey a pithy folk wisdom that triumphs over all trials and tribulations. The oldest manuscript of Nasreddin was found in 1571.
Today, Nasreddin stories are told in a wide variety of regions, and have been translated into many languages. Some regions independently developed a character similar to Nasreddin, and the stories have become part of a larger whole. In many regions, Nasreddin is a major part of the culture, and is quoted or alluded to frequently in daily life. Since there are thousands of different Nasreddin stories, one can be found to fit almost any occasion. Nasreddin often appears as a whimsical character of a large Albanian, Arab, Armenian, Azeri, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Greek, Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Italian, Pashto, Persian, Romanian, Serbian, Turkish and Urdu folk tradition of vignettes, not entirely different from zen koans. He is also very popular in Greece for his wisdom and his judgment. He is known in Bulgaria, although in a different role. Nasreddin has been very popular in China for many years, and still appears in a variety of movies, cartoons, and novels.
The "International Nasreddin Hodja Festival" is held annually in Akşehir between July 5–10.
The Nasreddin stories are known throughout the Middle East and have touched cultures around the world. Superficially, most of the Nasreddin stories may be told as jokes or humorous anecdotes. They are told and retold endlessly in the teahouses and caravanserais of Asia and can be heard in homes and on the radio. But it is inherent in a Nasreddin story that it may be understood at many levels. There is the joke, followed by a moral — and usually the little extra which brings the consciousness of the potential mystic a little further on the way to realization.
Hoca, Nasreddin see Nasreddin Hoca
Nasr al-Din Khoja see Nasreddin Hoca
Khoja, Nasr al-Din see Nasreddin Hoca
Nasrettin Hoca see Nasreddin Hoca
Hoja Nasretdin see Nasreddin Hoca
Ependi see Nasreddin Hoca
Nasrids
Nasrids. Last Islamic dynasty in Spain (al-Andalus) (r.1232-1492). Their main capital was Granada. The Nasrids were of the Banu Nasr or the Banu I-Ahmar, Khazraji tribe, Hispano-Arabs in the area to the north of Jaen. Taking advantage of the fall from power of the Almohads in Spain, in 1232 Muhammad ibn Nasr (Ibn al-Ahmar) (Muhammad I ibn Yusuf al-Ghalib) (r. 1232-1273) proclaimed himself Sultan Muhammad I in Arjona after Ferdinand III of Castile and Leon had conquered Cordoba (in 1236). Muhammad ibn Nasr subsequently conquered vast territories in southern Spain (in 1238 Granada and Malaga). He and his son, Muhammad II (1273-1302), consolidated their rule, acknowledging the formal sovereignty of Castile, and were able to maintain their position using a skillful policy of changing alliances with the Merinids of Morocco and the Christian kings of Spain.
The cultural zenith of Granada as the refuge of Muslims in Andalusia was achieved in the reign of Yusuf I (r. 1333-1354) and Muhammad V (r. 1354-1359 and 1362-1391). Nasrid art and architecture, having inherited and adapted Almohad artistic forms, reached its apogee in the fourteenth century, when classically monumental architecture was created and decoration reached its greatest richness. The Alhambra, begun under Muhammad I, owes much to Muhammad V (r. 1354-1359, 1362-1391).
After 1408 there was a period of rapid political decline, due to the warring between different pretenders and family branches, and dependence on Castile. A final political consolidation came under Mulai Hasan (1464-1482 and 1483-1485) and his brother, al-Zaghal. Hasan’s son, Muhammad XII, known as Boabdil (r. 1482-1483 and 1485-1492), could no longer withstand the advancing forces of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, and was forced to cede the beleaguered Granada in January 1492. In January1492, Granada fell to the Christians and the last Nasrids fled to Morocco.
The list of the Nasrid Sultans of Granada include:
* Muhammed I ibn Nasr (1238-1272)
* Muhammed II al-Faqih (1273-1302)
* Muhammed III (1302-1309)
* Nasr (1309-1314)
* Ismail I (1314-1325)
* Muhammed IV (1325-1333)
* Yusuf I (1333-1354)
* Muhammed V (1354-1359, 1362-1391)
* Ismail II (1359-1360)
* Muhammed VI (1360-1362)
* Yusuf II (1391-1392)
* Muhammed VII (1392-1408)
* Yusuf III (1408-1417)
* Muhammed VIII (1417-1419, 1427-1429)
* Muhammed IX (1419-1427, 1430-1431, 1432-1445, 1448-1453)
* Yusuf IV (1432)
* Yusuf V (1445-1446, 1462)
* Muhammed X (1446-1448)
* Muhammed XI (1453-1454)
* Said (1454-1464)
* Abu l-Hasan Ali, known as Muley Hacén (1464-1482, 1483-1485)
* Abu 'abd Allah Muhammed XII, known as Boabdil (1482-1483, 1486-1492)
* Abū `Abd Allāh Muhammed XIII, known as El Zagal (1485-1486)
Nasrids. Last Islamic dynasty in Spain (al-Andalus) (r.1232-1492). Their main capital was Granada. The Nasrids were of the Banu Nasr or the Banu I-Ahmar, Khazraji tribe, Hispano-Arabs in the area to the north of Jaen. Taking advantage of the fall from power of the Almohads in Spain, in 1232 Muhammad ibn Nasr (Ibn al-Ahmar) (Muhammad I ibn Yusuf al-Ghalib) (r. 1232-1273) proclaimed himself Sultan Muhammad I in Arjona after Ferdinand III of Castile and Leon had conquered Cordoba (in 1236). Muhammad ibn Nasr subsequently conquered vast territories in southern Spain (in 1238 Granada and Malaga). He and his son, Muhammad II (1273-1302), consolidated their rule, acknowledging the formal sovereignty of Castile, and were able to maintain their position using a skillful policy of changing alliances with the Merinids of Morocco and the Christian kings of Spain.
The cultural zenith of Granada as the refuge of Muslims in Andalusia was achieved in the reign of Yusuf I (r. 1333-1354) and Muhammad V (r. 1354-1359 and 1362-1391). Nasrid art and architecture, having inherited and adapted Almohad artistic forms, reached its apogee in the fourteenth century, when classically monumental architecture was created and decoration reached its greatest richness. The Alhambra, begun under Muhammad I, owes much to Muhammad V (r. 1354-1359, 1362-1391).
After 1408 there was a period of rapid political decline, due to the warring between different pretenders and family branches, and dependence on Castile. A final political consolidation came under Mulai Hasan (1464-1482 and 1483-1485) and his brother, al-Zaghal. Hasan’s son, Muhammad XII, known as Boabdil (r. 1482-1483 and 1485-1492), could no longer withstand the advancing forces of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, and was forced to cede the beleaguered Granada in January 1492. In January1492, Granada fell to the Christians and the last Nasrids fled to Morocco.
The list of the Nasrid Sultans of Granada include:
* Muhammed I ibn Nasr (1238-1272)
* Muhammed II al-Faqih (1273-1302)
* Muhammed III (1302-1309)
* Nasr (1309-1314)
* Ismail I (1314-1325)
* Muhammed IV (1325-1333)
* Yusuf I (1333-1354)
* Muhammed V (1354-1359, 1362-1391)
* Ismail II (1359-1360)
* Muhammed VI (1360-1362)
* Yusuf II (1391-1392)
* Muhammed VII (1392-1408)
* Yusuf III (1408-1417)
* Muhammed VIII (1417-1419, 1427-1429)
* Muhammed IX (1419-1427, 1430-1431, 1432-1445, 1448-1453)
* Yusuf IV (1432)
* Yusuf V (1445-1446, 1462)
* Muhammed X (1446-1448)
* Muhammed XI (1453-1454)
* Said (1454-1464)
* Abu l-Hasan Ali, known as Muley Hacén (1464-1482, 1483-1485)
* Abu 'abd Allah Muhammed XII, known as Boabdil (1482-1483, 1486-1492)
* Abū `Abd Allāh Muhammed XIII, known as El Zagal (1485-1486)
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (Seyyed Hossein Nasr) (b. April 7, 1933 in Tehran). Iranian philosopher, philosopher of science, theologian, and traditionalist. A prolific writer, Seyyed Hossein Nasr was one of the most visible exponents in the West of an understanding of traditional Islam. He was born in Tehran on April 7, 1933. His father was a physician and educator. Nasr went to the United States for his higher education, receiving his bachelor of science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1954 and going on to Harvard to work in geology and physics. His longstanding interest in the traditional disciplines, however, led him to change his field to philosophy and the history of science. He received his doctorate in 1958. Nasr’s broad classical education spans Eastern and Western history, philosophy and social science, Muslim and Christian historical and contemporary theological materials, and the development of Islamic mysticism, spirtituality, art, and culture.
In 1958, Nasr returned to Iran to teach at Tehran University, continuing his own education with some of Iran’s foremost religious authorities. At the time of the Iranian revolution in 1979, he was director of the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy. After leaving the country at the fall of shah, he remained an advocate of Safavid Islam as representing the real essence of Islamic, and particularly Shi‘a, thought. In the 1990s, he was University Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University in Washington, D. C.
The underlying theme of Nasr’s recent work was the perception that persons in the contemporary world, especially in the West, could no longer understand and appreciate the sacred -- that they have lost sight of what is essential and eternal. His Gifford Lectures, given in 1981 and published as Knowledge and the Sacred, reveal his hope of reviving what he calls the sacred quality of knowledge as opposed to secularized reason. He was an articulate opponent of such contemporary ideologies as modernism, rationalism, secularism, and materialism, and advocates instead the immutable principles best illustrated in traditional Islam. His writings clearly show his related aims of interpreting Islamic civilization to a skeptical Western audience and attacking the secularizing forces that have alienated Westerners from their faith and are threatening to do the same to Muslims.
Always concerned for the integration of science, philosophy, and art, Nasr was devoted to an explication of the essential unity of all things as reflecting the unity of God. He saw the secularization of the natural sciences and the destruction of the earth’s equilibrium evident in today’s ecological crisis as illustrations of the essential disruption of the relationship between human and divine. This he compared with the scientia sacra of traditionalist Islam, in which there is a sacred relationship of the terrestrial and the celestial, and of human and sacred history.
A student of, and advocate for, the classical schools of Islamic mysticism, Nasr has recently focused on spiritual disciplines as expressed in the arts of architecture, music, and poetry, and on the particular role of Shi‘ism within Islamic history and thought. He tried to show that some Muslims posed falsely as traditionalists, suggesting that they were really duplicating some of the mistakes made by the modern West rather than learning from them. He saw Western individualism as the opposite of the true freedom expressed in Islamic philosophy and Sufism -- a freedom consisting not in action but in understanding one’s essential relationship to God.
Nasr is the author of over fifty books and five hundred articles (a number of which can be found in the journal, Studies in Comparative Religion) on topics such as traditional metaphysics, Islamic science, religion and the environment, Sufism, and Islamic philosophy. Listed below are some of Dr. Nasr's works in English (in no particular order), including translations, and edited volumes:
* Islam and the Plight of Modern Man
* Ideals and Realities of Islam
* An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines
* Knowledge and the Sacred online
* Islamic Life and Thought
* Islamic Art and Spirituality
* Sufi Essays
* Sadr al-Din Shirazi and His Transcendent Theosophy, 2nd edition
* A Young Muslim's Guide to the Modern World
* The Need for a Sacred Science
* Traditional Islam in the Modern World
* Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis in Modern Man
* The Islamic Intellectual Tradition in Persia, edited by Mehdi Aminrazavi
* The Garden of Truth: The Vision and Promise of Sufism, Islam's Mystical Tradition
* Three Muslim Sages
* Science and Civilization in Islam
* Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study
* Religion and the Order of Nature
* Muhammad: Man of God
* Islamic Studies: Essays on Law and Society, the Sciences, and Philosophy and Sufism
* The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity
* Islamic Philosophy from its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy
* Poems of the Way
* The Pilgrimage of Life and the Wisdom of Rumi
* Islam: Religion, History, and Civilization
* Islam, Science, Muslims, and Technology: Seyyed Hossein Nasr in Conversation with Muzaffar Iqbal
* The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr, edited by William Chittick
* The Essential Frithjof Schuon
* Religion of the Heart: Essays Presented to Frithjof Schuon on his Eightieth Birthday, edited with William Stoddart
* The Philosophy of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, edited by L.E. Hahn, R. Auxier, and L.W. Stone
* History of Islamic Philosophy, edited with Oliver Leaman
* The Essential Sophia, editd with Katherine O'Brien
* An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, edited with Mehdi Aminrazavi (5 vols.)
* Islamic Spirituality, edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Vol. 1: Foundations; Vol. 2: Manifestations)
* In Quest of the Sacred: The Modern World in the Light of Tradition, edited with Katherine O'Brien
* An Annotated Bibliography of Islamic Science, edited with William Chittick and Peter Zirnis (3 vols.)
* Isma'ili Contributions to Islamic Culture, edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
* Mecca the Blessed, Madina the Radiant, photographs by Ali Kazuyo Nomachi; essay by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
* The Works of Seyyed Hossein Nasr Through His Fortieth Birthday, edited by William Chittick
* Knowledge is Light: Essays in Honor of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, edited by Zailan Moris
* Beacon of Knowledge - Essays in Honor of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, edited by Mohammad Faghfoory
* Shi'ite Islam by Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i, translated by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Seyyed Hossein Nasr see Nasr, Seyyed Hossein
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (Seyyed Hossein Nasr) (b. April 7, 1933 in Tehran). Iranian philosopher, philosopher of science, theologian, and traditionalist. A prolific writer, Seyyed Hossein Nasr was one of the most visible exponents in the West of an understanding of traditional Islam. He was born in Tehran on April 7, 1933. His father was a physician and educator. Nasr went to the United States for his higher education, receiving his bachelor of science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1954 and going on to Harvard to work in geology and physics. His longstanding interest in the traditional disciplines, however, led him to change his field to philosophy and the history of science. He received his doctorate in 1958. Nasr’s broad classical education spans Eastern and Western history, philosophy and social science, Muslim and Christian historical and contemporary theological materials, and the development of Islamic mysticism, spirtituality, art, and culture.
In 1958, Nasr returned to Iran to teach at Tehran University, continuing his own education with some of Iran’s foremost religious authorities. At the time of the Iranian revolution in 1979, he was director of the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy. After leaving the country at the fall of shah, he remained an advocate of Safavid Islam as representing the real essence of Islamic, and particularly Shi‘a, thought. In the 1990s, he was University Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University in Washington, D. C.
The underlying theme of Nasr’s recent work was the perception that persons in the contemporary world, especially in the West, could no longer understand and appreciate the sacred -- that they have lost sight of what is essential and eternal. His Gifford Lectures, given in 1981 and published as Knowledge and the Sacred, reveal his hope of reviving what he calls the sacred quality of knowledge as opposed to secularized reason. He was an articulate opponent of such contemporary ideologies as modernism, rationalism, secularism, and materialism, and advocates instead the immutable principles best illustrated in traditional Islam. His writings clearly show his related aims of interpreting Islamic civilization to a skeptical Western audience and attacking the secularizing forces that have alienated Westerners from their faith and are threatening to do the same to Muslims.
Always concerned for the integration of science, philosophy, and art, Nasr was devoted to an explication of the essential unity of all things as reflecting the unity of God. He saw the secularization of the natural sciences and the destruction of the earth’s equilibrium evident in today’s ecological crisis as illustrations of the essential disruption of the relationship between human and divine. This he compared with the scientia sacra of traditionalist Islam, in which there is a sacred relationship of the terrestrial and the celestial, and of human and sacred history.
A student of, and advocate for, the classical schools of Islamic mysticism, Nasr has recently focused on spiritual disciplines as expressed in the arts of architecture, music, and poetry, and on the particular role of Shi‘ism within Islamic history and thought. He tried to show that some Muslims posed falsely as traditionalists, suggesting that they were really duplicating some of the mistakes made by the modern West rather than learning from them. He saw Western individualism as the opposite of the true freedom expressed in Islamic philosophy and Sufism -- a freedom consisting not in action but in understanding one’s essential relationship to God.
Nasr is the author of over fifty books and five hundred articles (a number of which can be found in the journal, Studies in Comparative Religion) on topics such as traditional metaphysics, Islamic science, religion and the environment, Sufism, and Islamic philosophy. Listed below are some of Dr. Nasr's works in English (in no particular order), including translations, and edited volumes:
* Islam and the Plight of Modern Man
* Ideals and Realities of Islam
* An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines
* Knowledge and the Sacred online
* Islamic Life and Thought
* Islamic Art and Spirituality
* Sufi Essays
* Sadr al-Din Shirazi and His Transcendent Theosophy, 2nd edition
* A Young Muslim's Guide to the Modern World
* The Need for a Sacred Science
* Traditional Islam in the Modern World
* Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis in Modern Man
* The Islamic Intellectual Tradition in Persia, edited by Mehdi Aminrazavi
* The Garden of Truth: The Vision and Promise of Sufism, Islam's Mystical Tradition
* Three Muslim Sages
* Science and Civilization in Islam
* Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study
* Religion and the Order of Nature
* Muhammad: Man of God
* Islamic Studies: Essays on Law and Society, the Sciences, and Philosophy and Sufism
* The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity
* Islamic Philosophy from its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy
* Poems of the Way
* The Pilgrimage of Life and the Wisdom of Rumi
* Islam: Religion, History, and Civilization
* Islam, Science, Muslims, and Technology: Seyyed Hossein Nasr in Conversation with Muzaffar Iqbal
* The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr, edited by William Chittick
* The Essential Frithjof Schuon
* Religion of the Heart: Essays Presented to Frithjof Schuon on his Eightieth Birthday, edited with William Stoddart
* The Philosophy of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, edited by L.E. Hahn, R. Auxier, and L.W. Stone
* History of Islamic Philosophy, edited with Oliver Leaman
* The Essential Sophia, editd with Katherine O'Brien
* An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, edited with Mehdi Aminrazavi (5 vols.)
* Islamic Spirituality, edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Vol. 1: Foundations; Vol. 2: Manifestations)
* In Quest of the Sacred: The Modern World in the Light of Tradition, edited with Katherine O'Brien
* An Annotated Bibliography of Islamic Science, edited with William Chittick and Peter Zirnis (3 vols.)
* Isma'ili Contributions to Islamic Culture, edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
* Mecca the Blessed, Madina the Radiant, photographs by Ali Kazuyo Nomachi; essay by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
* The Works of Seyyed Hossein Nasr Through His Fortieth Birthday, edited by William Chittick
* Knowledge is Light: Essays in Honor of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, edited by Zailan Moris
* Beacon of Knowledge - Essays in Honor of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, edited by Mohammad Faghfoory
* Shi'ite Islam by Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i, translated by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Seyyed Hossein Nasr see Nasr, Seyyed Hossein
Nasser, Gamal Abdel
Nasser, Gamal Abdel (Gamal Abdel Nasser) (Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasir) (Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasir) (b. January 15, 1918, Alexandria, Egypt — d. September 28, 1970, Cairo), Egyptian army officer, prime minister (1954–56), and then president (1956–70) of Egypt, who became a controversial leader of the Arab world, creating the short-lived United Arab Republic (1958–61), twice fighting wars with Israel (1956, 1967), and engaging in such inter-Arab policies as mediating the Jordanian civil war (1970).
Nasser was born in a mud-brick house on an unpaved street in the Bacos section of Alexandria, where his father was in charge of the local post office. In an effort to cultivate a more earthy image of the president as a member of the class of rural agrarians (fellahin), Egyptian government publications for years gave his birthplace as Banī Murr, the primitive Upper Egypt village of his ancestors. From Alexandria, Nasser’s father was transferred to Al-Khaṭāṭibah, a squalid delta village, where the boy got his first schooling. Then he went to live in Cairo with an uncle who had just been released from a British prison and had rooms in a building occupied by nine Jewish families.
Constantly in trouble with schoolteachers, some of them British, Nasser took part in many anti-British street demonstrations. In one, he received a blow on the forehead that left a lifelong scar. After secondary school he went to a law college for several months and then entered the Royal Military Academy, graduating as a second lieutenant.
While serving in the Egyptian army in the Sudan, Nasser met three fellow officers — Zakariyyā Muḥyi al-Dīn (Zakaria Mohieddine), later vice president of the United Arab Republic; ʿAbd al-Ḥakīm ʿĀmir, later field marshal; and Anwar el-Sādāt, who would succeed Nasser as president. Together, they planned a secret revolutionary organization, the Free Officers, whose composition would be known only to Nasser. Their aim was to oust the British and the Egyptian royal family.
In the 1948 Arab war against the newly created State of Israel, Nasser was an officer in one of three battalions surrounded for weeks by the Israelis in a group of Arab villages called the Faluja Pocket.
On July 23, 1952, Nasser and 89 other Free Officers staged an almost bloodless coup d’état, ousting the monarchy. Sādāt favored the immediate public execution of King Fārūq I and some members of the establishment, but Nasser vetoed the idea and permitted Fārūq and others to go into exile. The country was taken over by a Revolutionary Command Council of 11 officers controlled by Nasser, with Major General Muḥammad Naguib as the puppet head of state. For more than a year Nasser kept his real role so well hidden that astute foreign correspondents were unaware of his existence. However, in the spring of 1954, in a complicated series of intrigues, Naguib was deposed and placed under house arrest. Nasser emerged from the shadows and named himself prime minister. That same year an Egyptian fanatic allegedly tried to assassinate Nasser at a mass meeting in Alexandria. When the gunman confessed that he had been given the assignment by the Muslim Brotherhood, Nasser cracked down on the extremist Muslim religious organization.
In January 1956, Nasser announced the promulgation of a constitution under which Egypt became a socialist Arab state with a one-party political system and with Islam as the official religion. In June, 99.948 percent of the five million Egyptians voting marked their ballots for Nasser, the only candidate, for president. The constitution was approved by 99.8 percent.
As Nasser took titular as well as actual control, Egypt’s prospects looked bright. A secret contract had been signed with Czechoslovakia for war matériel, and Great Britain and the United States had agreed to put up $270 million to finance the first stage of the Aswān High Dam project. But on July 20, 1956, the United States secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, canceled the United States offer. The next day, Britain followed suit. Five days later, addressing a mass meeting in Alexandria, Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal, promising that the tolls Egypt collected in five years would build the dam. Both Britain and France had interests in the canal and conspired with Israel—whose relations with Egypt had grown even more tense after the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948–49—to best Nasser and regain control of the canal. According to their plan, on October 29, 1956, Israeli forces invaded the Sinai Peninsula. Two days later, French and British planes attacked Egyptian airfields. Although the Israelis occupied the Sinai Peninsula to Sharm al-Shaykh and the Egyptian air force was virtually destroyed, Nasser emerged from the brief war with undiminished prestige throughout the Arab world.
In Philosophy of the Revolution, which he wrote in 1954, Nasser told of “heroic and glorious roles which never found heroes to perform them” and outlined his aspiration to be the leader of the 55 million Arabs, then of the 224 million Africans, then of the 420 million followers of Islam. In 1958, Syria and Egypt formed the United Arab Republic, which Nasser hoped would someday include the entire Arab world. Syria withdrew in 1961, but Egypt continued to be known as the United Arab Republic until 1971. That was as close as Nasser ever came to realizing his tripartite dream.
However, there were other accomplishments by Nasser. The Aswān High Dam, built with the help of the Soviet Union, began operating in 1968; 20th-century life was introduced into many villages; industrialization was accelerated; land reforms broke up Egypt’s large private estates; a partially successful campaign was conducted against corruption; and women were accorded more rights than they had ever had, including the right to vote. A new middle class began to occupy the political and economic positions once held in Egypt by Italians, Greeks,the French, Britons, and other foreigners, whom Nasser now encouraged—sometimes not gently—to leave the country. Nasser’s outstanding accomplishment was his survival for 18 years as Egypt’s political leader, despite the strength of his opponents: communists, Copts, Jews, Muslim extremists, old political parties, rival military cliques, dispossessed landowners, supporters of Naguib, and what was left of the foreign colony.
On the negative side, Nasser made Egypt a police state, in which mail was opened, the communications media were strictly censored, the chief newspapers were nationalized, telephones were tapped, and visitors’ rooms were searched. Political democracy in the Western sense was non-existent. One-party candidates for office were handpicked by Nasser and his close associates. Political enemies were herded into concentration camps in the desert. Life was little changed for most fellahin. The birth rate remained so high as to defeat attempts to increase the living standard.
In foreign affairs Nasser joined Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia and Jawaharlal Nehru of India as an advocate of non-alignment, or “positive neutrality.” At the Bandung Conference of Asian and African nations in 1955, he emerged as a world figure. His refusal to recognize Israel and Egypt’s defeat by Israel in 1956 led him to divert vast sums into military channels that might have gone to implement his social revolution.
Egyptian troops supported the Republican Army in Yemen’s civil war starting in 1962. But they were withdrawn in 1967 when war broke out again between Egypt and Israel in June after Nasser had requested that the United Nations remove its peacekeeping troops from the Gaza Strip and Sharm al-Shaykh and then closed the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping. The conflict came to be known as the Six-Day (or June) War. After the Egyptian air force was destroyed on the ground and the Egyptian army was forced to retreat across the Suez, Nasser attempted to resign, but massive street demonstrations and a vote of confidence by the National Assembly induced him to remain in office. The Soviet Union immediately began replacing all the destroyed war equipment and installed surface-to-air missiles along the Suez as a cover for Egypt’s artillery emplacements. Nasser had tentatively accepted a United States plan leading to peace negotiations with Israel when he died, in 1970, from a heart attack.
Although complex and revolutionary in his public life, privately Nasser was conservative and simple. No other Arab leader in modern times has succeeded in winning the sometimes hysterical support of Arab masses throughout the Middle East as did Nasser during the last 15 years of his life. Even the loss of two wars, with disastrous results for Egypt, did not dim the popularity of this charismatic, almost mythogenic, army officer who became the first true Egyptian to rule the country in several millennia, giving his people the dignity denied them under foreign rule. Nevertheless, he failed in his ambition to create a unified Arab world, and before his death he was forced to sacrifice some of Egypt’s political independence for the military support of the Soviet Union.
Gamal Abdel Nasser see Nasser, Gamal Abdel
Gamal 'Abd al-Nasir see Nasser, Gamal Abdel
Nasir, Gamal 'Abd al- see Nasser, Gamal Abdel
Jamal 'Abd al-Nasir see Nasser, Gamal Abdel
Nasir, Jamal 'Abd al see Nasser, Gamal Abdel
Nasser, Gamal Abdel (Gamal Abdel Nasser) (Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasir) (Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasir) (b. January 15, 1918, Alexandria, Egypt — d. September 28, 1970, Cairo), Egyptian army officer, prime minister (1954–56), and then president (1956–70) of Egypt, who became a controversial leader of the Arab world, creating the short-lived United Arab Republic (1958–61), twice fighting wars with Israel (1956, 1967), and engaging in such inter-Arab policies as mediating the Jordanian civil war (1970).
Nasser was born in a mud-brick house on an unpaved street in the Bacos section of Alexandria, where his father was in charge of the local post office. In an effort to cultivate a more earthy image of the president as a member of the class of rural agrarians (fellahin), Egyptian government publications for years gave his birthplace as Banī Murr, the primitive Upper Egypt village of his ancestors. From Alexandria, Nasser’s father was transferred to Al-Khaṭāṭibah, a squalid delta village, where the boy got his first schooling. Then he went to live in Cairo with an uncle who had just been released from a British prison and had rooms in a building occupied by nine Jewish families.
Constantly in trouble with schoolteachers, some of them British, Nasser took part in many anti-British street demonstrations. In one, he received a blow on the forehead that left a lifelong scar. After secondary school he went to a law college for several months and then entered the Royal Military Academy, graduating as a second lieutenant.
While serving in the Egyptian army in the Sudan, Nasser met three fellow officers — Zakariyyā Muḥyi al-Dīn (Zakaria Mohieddine), later vice president of the United Arab Republic; ʿAbd al-Ḥakīm ʿĀmir, later field marshal; and Anwar el-Sādāt, who would succeed Nasser as president. Together, they planned a secret revolutionary organization, the Free Officers, whose composition would be known only to Nasser. Their aim was to oust the British and the Egyptian royal family.
In the 1948 Arab war against the newly created State of Israel, Nasser was an officer in one of three battalions surrounded for weeks by the Israelis in a group of Arab villages called the Faluja Pocket.
On July 23, 1952, Nasser and 89 other Free Officers staged an almost bloodless coup d’état, ousting the monarchy. Sādāt favored the immediate public execution of King Fārūq I and some members of the establishment, but Nasser vetoed the idea and permitted Fārūq and others to go into exile. The country was taken over by a Revolutionary Command Council of 11 officers controlled by Nasser, with Major General Muḥammad Naguib as the puppet head of state. For more than a year Nasser kept his real role so well hidden that astute foreign correspondents were unaware of his existence. However, in the spring of 1954, in a complicated series of intrigues, Naguib was deposed and placed under house arrest. Nasser emerged from the shadows and named himself prime minister. That same year an Egyptian fanatic allegedly tried to assassinate Nasser at a mass meeting in Alexandria. When the gunman confessed that he had been given the assignment by the Muslim Brotherhood, Nasser cracked down on the extremist Muslim religious organization.
In January 1956, Nasser announced the promulgation of a constitution under which Egypt became a socialist Arab state with a one-party political system and with Islam as the official religion. In June, 99.948 percent of the five million Egyptians voting marked their ballots for Nasser, the only candidate, for president. The constitution was approved by 99.8 percent.
As Nasser took titular as well as actual control, Egypt’s prospects looked bright. A secret contract had been signed with Czechoslovakia for war matériel, and Great Britain and the United States had agreed to put up $270 million to finance the first stage of the Aswān High Dam project. But on July 20, 1956, the United States secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, canceled the United States offer. The next day, Britain followed suit. Five days later, addressing a mass meeting in Alexandria, Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal, promising that the tolls Egypt collected in five years would build the dam. Both Britain and France had interests in the canal and conspired with Israel—whose relations with Egypt had grown even more tense after the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948–49—to best Nasser and regain control of the canal. According to their plan, on October 29, 1956, Israeli forces invaded the Sinai Peninsula. Two days later, French and British planes attacked Egyptian airfields. Although the Israelis occupied the Sinai Peninsula to Sharm al-Shaykh and the Egyptian air force was virtually destroyed, Nasser emerged from the brief war with undiminished prestige throughout the Arab world.
In Philosophy of the Revolution, which he wrote in 1954, Nasser told of “heroic and glorious roles which never found heroes to perform them” and outlined his aspiration to be the leader of the 55 million Arabs, then of the 224 million Africans, then of the 420 million followers of Islam. In 1958, Syria and Egypt formed the United Arab Republic, which Nasser hoped would someday include the entire Arab world. Syria withdrew in 1961, but Egypt continued to be known as the United Arab Republic until 1971. That was as close as Nasser ever came to realizing his tripartite dream.
However, there were other accomplishments by Nasser. The Aswān High Dam, built with the help of the Soviet Union, began operating in 1968; 20th-century life was introduced into many villages; industrialization was accelerated; land reforms broke up Egypt’s large private estates; a partially successful campaign was conducted against corruption; and women were accorded more rights than they had ever had, including the right to vote. A new middle class began to occupy the political and economic positions once held in Egypt by Italians, Greeks,the French, Britons, and other foreigners, whom Nasser now encouraged—sometimes not gently—to leave the country. Nasser’s outstanding accomplishment was his survival for 18 years as Egypt’s political leader, despite the strength of his opponents: communists, Copts, Jews, Muslim extremists, old political parties, rival military cliques, dispossessed landowners, supporters of Naguib, and what was left of the foreign colony.
On the negative side, Nasser made Egypt a police state, in which mail was opened, the communications media were strictly censored, the chief newspapers were nationalized, telephones were tapped, and visitors’ rooms were searched. Political democracy in the Western sense was non-existent. One-party candidates for office were handpicked by Nasser and his close associates. Political enemies were herded into concentration camps in the desert. Life was little changed for most fellahin. The birth rate remained so high as to defeat attempts to increase the living standard.
In foreign affairs Nasser joined Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia and Jawaharlal Nehru of India as an advocate of non-alignment, or “positive neutrality.” At the Bandung Conference of Asian and African nations in 1955, he emerged as a world figure. His refusal to recognize Israel and Egypt’s defeat by Israel in 1956 led him to divert vast sums into military channels that might have gone to implement his social revolution.
Egyptian troops supported the Republican Army in Yemen’s civil war starting in 1962. But they were withdrawn in 1967 when war broke out again between Egypt and Israel in June after Nasser had requested that the United Nations remove its peacekeeping troops from the Gaza Strip and Sharm al-Shaykh and then closed the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping. The conflict came to be known as the Six-Day (or June) War. After the Egyptian air force was destroyed on the ground and the Egyptian army was forced to retreat across the Suez, Nasser attempted to resign, but massive street demonstrations and a vote of confidence by the National Assembly induced him to remain in office. The Soviet Union immediately began replacing all the destroyed war equipment and installed surface-to-air missiles along the Suez as a cover for Egypt’s artillery emplacements. Nasser had tentatively accepted a United States plan leading to peace negotiations with Israel when he died, in 1970, from a heart attack.
Although complex and revolutionary in his public life, privately Nasser was conservative and simple. No other Arab leader in modern times has succeeded in winning the sometimes hysterical support of Arab masses throughout the Middle East as did Nasser during the last 15 years of his life. Even the loss of two wars, with disastrous results for Egypt, did not dim the popularity of this charismatic, almost mythogenic, army officer who became the first true Egyptian to rule the country in several millennia, giving his people the dignity denied them under foreign rule. Nevertheless, he failed in his ambition to create a unified Arab world, and before his death he was forced to sacrifice some of Egypt’s political independence for the military support of the Soviet Union.
Gamal Abdel Nasser see Nasser, Gamal Abdel
Gamal 'Abd al-Nasir see Nasser, Gamal Abdel
Nasir, Gamal 'Abd al- see Nasser, Gamal Abdel
Jamal 'Abd al-Nasir see Nasser, Gamal Abdel
Nasir, Jamal 'Abd al see Nasser, Gamal Abdel
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