Nasr (
Arabic: نسر "Vulture") was apparently a
pre-Islamic Arabian deity of the
Himyarites.[1] Reliefs depicting vultures have been found in
Himyar, including at
Maṣna'at Māriya and Haddat Gulays,[2] and Nasr appears in theophoric names.[3][4] Nasr has been identified by some scholars with Maren-
Shamash,[3][5] who is often flanked by vultures in depictions at
Hatra.[6]Hisham ibn Al-Kalbi's Book of Idols describes a temple to Nasr at
Balkha, an otherwise unknown location.[7] Some sources attribute the deity to "the dhū-l-Khila tribe of Himyar".[8][9][10][11]Himyaritic inscriptions were thought to describe "the vulture of the east" and "the vulture of the west", which
Augustus Henry Keane interpreted as solstitial worship;[12] however these are now thought to read "eastward" and "westward" with n-s-r as a preposition.[1][a] J. Spencer Trimingham believed Nasr was "a symbol of the sun".[15]
Nasr is mentioned in the
Qur'an (71:23) as an idol at the time of the
Noah:
"وقالوا لا تذرن آلهتكم ولا تذرن ودا ولا سواعا ولا يغوث ويعوق ونسرا And they say: Forsake not your gods, nor forsake
Wadd, nor
Suwāʿ, nor
Yaghūth and
Yaʿūq and Nasr."[
Quran71:23
Who is this
Nebo, an idol made which ye worship, and
Bel, which ye honor?[e] Behold, there are those among you who adore Bath Nical, as the inhabitants of Harran your neighbours, and
Atargatis, as the people of
Manbij, and Nishra,[f] as the Arabians; also the sun and the moon, as the rest of the inhabitants of Harran, who are as yourselves.[20][3]
A further mention is found in
Jacob of Serugh's On the Fall of the Idols, wherein the
Persians are said to have been led by the devil to construct and worship N-s-r.[3][1]
Notes
^In a separate challenge to the theory of solstitial worship,
Ḥisda relays that
Ḥanan b. Rava interpreted
Abba b. Aybo's claim that the temple was permanent (v.i.) to mean "constantly worshipped for the entire year."[13] This is accepted by
Shlomo b. Yiṣḥaq, who notes, "permanent -- all year, for every day of the year would their worshippers make a festival and bring sacrifices".[14]
^Printings and some MSS read כורסי Kursi, a
scatological quip (Kursi resembles both the
Aramaic בורסי\ף Borsippa and the
Biblical Hebrew קורס squat). Borsippa's name is the butt of several Talmudic jokes; it is also called Bolsippa (as in, Balal S'fas jumbled the language of)[16] and Bor Shapi Empty Pit.[17]
^Aramaic: צריפא (
hapax). The reading Serapis is supported by:
Bochart argues for the emendation Aphrodite Urania based on Herodotus' identification of the Ashkelon temple in his
Histories (1:105), some 750 years prior. See
Venus Castina.
^Paul Yule,
Late Ḥimyarite Vulture Reliefs, in: eds. W. Arnold, M. Jursa, W. Müller, S. Procházka, Philologisches und Historisches zwischen Anatolien und Sokotra, Analecta Semitica In Memorium Alexander Sima (Wiesbaden 2009), 447–455,
ISBN978-3-447-06104-9