"وقالوا لا تذرن آلهتكم ولا تذرن ودا ولا سواعا ولا يغوث ويعوق ونسرا And they say: Forsake not your gods, nor forsakeWadd, norSuwāʿ, norYaghūth andYaʿūq and Nasr."[Quran71:23]
Reliefs depicting vultures (nasr) have been found inHimyar, including atMaṣna'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", whichAugustus Henry Keane interpreted as solstitial worship;[9] however these are now thought to read "eastward" and "westward" withn-s-r as a preposition.[10][a] J. Spencer Trimingham believed Nasr was "a symbol of the sun".[13]
Vulture relief on thereverse of a coin found at Hatra
Nasr has been identified by some scholars with Maren-Shamash,[3][14] who is often flanked by vultures in depictions atHatra.[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.
A similar mention appears in the Doctrine of Addai:
Who is thisNebo, an idol made which ye worship, andBel, which ye honor?[e] Behold, there are those among you who adore Bath Nical, as the inhabitants of Harran your neighbours, andAtargatis, as the people ofManbij, 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 theActs of Mar Mari, which derives from theDoctrine, Mari Mari is told to "Convert the city ofKashkar, where a demon in the likeness of anishra is worshipped and [where] a standard stands, on which there is an idol named Nishar[g]".[23][17]
A further mention is found in one manuscript ofJacob of Serugh'sOn the Fall of the Idols, wherein thePersians 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]
^In a separate challenge to the theory of solstitial worship,Ḥisda relays thatḤanan b. Rava interpretedAbba b. Aybo's claim that the temple was permanent (v.i.) to mean "constantly worshipped for the entire year."[11] This is accepted byShlomo b. Yiṣḥaq, who notes, "permanent -- all year, for every day of the year would their worshippers make a festival and bring sacrifices".[12]
Bochart argues for the emendationAphrodite Urania based on Herodotus' identification of the Ashkelon temple in hisHistories (1:105), some 750 years prior. SeeVenus 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
