Nasr (deity)

According to the Quran, Nasr (Arabic: نسر) was a pre-Islamic Arabian deity 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."^{[Quran 71:23]}

Hisham ibn Al-Kalbi's Book of Idols describes a temple to Nasr at Balkha, an otherwise unknown location.^[1]

Reliefs depicting vultures (nasr) have been found in Himyar, including at Maṣna'at Māriya and Haddat Gulays,^[2] and Nasr appears in theophoric names.^[3][4] Some sources attribute the deity to "the dhū-l-Khila tribe of Himyar".^[5][6][7][8] 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;^[9] however these are now thought to read "eastward" and "westward" with n-s-r as a preposition.^[10][a] J. Spencer Trimingham believed Nasr was "a symbol of the sun".^[13]

Nasr has been identified by some scholars with Maren-Shamash,^[3][14] who is often flanked by vultures in depictions at Hatra.^[15] Coins depicting vultures were also found at Hatra.^[16]

Many scholars suggest that Nasr should be identified with Nishra (Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: נשרא, romanized: nishra, lit. 'vulture'), an idol mentioned by Aramaic texts.

An "Arabian" vulture-god is mentioned by the Babylonian Talmud and the Doctrine of Addai. This "Arabia" may be Arbayistan.^[17] The Talmud, Avodah Zarah 11b, reads:

Ḥanan b. Ḥisda says that Abba b. Aybo says, and some say it was Ḥanan b. Rava who said that Abba b. Aybo says, "There are five permanent idolatrous temples: the temple of Bel in Babylon, the temple of Nebo in Borsippa^[b], the temple of Atargatis in Manbij, the temple of Serapis^[c] in Ashkelon, and the temple of Nishra^[d] in Arabia".^[20]

A similar mention appears in the Doctrine of Addai:

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.^[22][3]

In the Acts of Mar Mari, which derives from the Doctrine, Mari Mari is told to "Convert the city of Kashkar, where a demon in the likeness of a nishra is worshipped and [where] a standard stands, on which there is an idol named Nishar^[g]".^[23][17]

A Mandaean magical text reads "Bel is turned from Babylon, Nebo turned from Borsippa, Nishra^[h] turned from Kashkar"; E. S. Dower says that "Nishra is obviously a corruption",^[24] and Walter Baumgartner agreed,^[25] but Jonas C. Greenfield and Yakir Paz identify it with Nasr.^[3][17]

A further mention is found in one manuscript of 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 Nishra.^{[3][10][26][27]} However, Abbé Martin prefers the reading of another manuscript, "Nisroch".^[28]