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AL-NUKKAR — NUKTAWIYYA 53B, 56B; E. Masqueray, Chronique D

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AL-NUKKAR — NUKTAWIYYA 53B, 56B; E. Masqueray, Chronique D 114 AL-NUKKAR — NUKTAWIYYA 53b, 56b; E. Masqueray, Chronique d'Abou Zakaria, their Kashf al-ghitd^ and, more recently, by H.M. Algiers 1878, 53-80, 226-51, 268, 270-8, 289, 290; Balyuzi. While this conspiracy theory is clearly Abu '1-Rabi* Sulayman b. cAbd al-Sallam al- unfounded, internal evidence suggests that the history Wisyanl, Tariff, ms. no. 277 in the library of the was not written by Mirza DjanI. Recent conjectures Islamic Institute of the university of Lwow, fols. 27, favour authorship by his son or nephew, possibly in 28, 30, 31, 33-8, 46, 73, 102, 125, 128, 129, 145, collaboration with a brother, using notes prepared by 189; an anonymous IbadI chronicle contained in the him. Some version of the Nuktat al-kdf served as the same ms., fols. 218, 221, 249, 257, 265, 275, 276; basis for the later Baha°I Tdnkh-i Djadid and its recen- Abu 'l-cAbbas Ahmad b. Sacld al-DardjInl, Kitdb sions. In spite of the controversy, there can be no Tabakdt al-mashd^ikh, ms. no. 275 of the Islamic doubt that the Nuktat al-kdf remains one of the most Institute of Lwow, fols. 16a-20a, 35a-37b, 77b, important sources for the early history of Babism. 144a-b; Abu '1-Fadl al-Barradi, Kitdb al-Djawdhir al- A full discussion of the problems of authorship, muntakdt, Cairo 1302, 171-2, 174; Abu 'l-cAbbas provenance, and dating may be found in MacEoin, Ahmad al-Shammakhl, Kitdb al-Siyar, Cairo 1301, together with a list of the twelve or so manuscripts 104-5, 109-10, 119-20, 145-54, 280-2, 338, 345, now known to be in existence (Appendix 8). 358, 359, 368, 370, 376, 381, 395, 416, 432, 458, Bibliography: H.M. Balyuzi, Edward Granville 480, 502-4, 530, 557, 590; A. de C. Motylinski, Browne and the Bahd^i faith, London 1970, ch. VII; Chronique d'Ibn Saghir, in Actes du XIV™* congres inter- E.G. Browne (ed.), Kitdb-i Nuqtatu 'l-Kdf, being the national des orientalistes, Algiers 1905, 16-20, 72-7; earliest history of the Bdbis, compiled by Hdjji Mirzd Jdni Ibn al-Athlr, Annales du Maghrib, tr. E. Fagnan, of Kdshdn between the years A.D. 1850 and 1852, Algiers 1901, 325, 338, 345, 367; Ibn cldhari, al- Leyden and London 1910, Gibb Memorial Series, Baydn al-mughrib, tr. Fagnan, Algiers 1901, i, 277, vol. XV; idem (ed. and tr.), The New History 311, 314-16; TidjanI, Rihla, tr. A. Rousseau, inJA, (Tdrikh-i-Jadid) of Mirzd ^Ali Muhammed, the Bab, ser. 4, vol. xx (1852), 112, 167, 171, ser. 5, vol. i Cambridge 1903, repr. Amsterdam 1975; Mirza (1853) 123; Ibn Khaldun, Histoire des Berberes, tr. de Abu '1-Fadl Gulpaygam and Sayyid Mahdl Slane, Algiers 1852-6, i, 232, 277, 285, ii, 530, 531, GulpayganI, Kashf al-ghitd* can hiyal al-a^dd*. 537, iii, 201-12, 278, 286, 291, 301; Fournel, Les Tashkent n.d. [1919?]; D. MacEoin, The sources for Berbers, ii, 225; Motylinski, in the Bulletin de Cor- early Bdbi doctrine and history: a survey, Leiden 1992, respondance Africaine, iii, 16, no. 2; idem, Le Djebel chs. 6 and 7, Appendix 8; Muhit Tabataba0!, Kitdbt Nefousa, Paris 1898-9, 69, 114; Dozy, Supplement aux bT ndm bd ndmi tdza, in Gawhar, Year 2, parts 11-12 dictionnaires arabes2, Leiden-Paris 1927, ii, 722; M. (1353/1974), 952-61; idem, Tdnkh-i kadtm wa djadid, Vonderheyden, La Berberie orientale, Paris 1927, 48; 2 parts, in Gawhar, Year 3, parts 5-6 (1354/1975), R. Strothmann, Berber und Ibdditen, in hi., xvii 343-8, 426-31. (D. MACEOIN) (1928), 274, n. 4, 275. (T. LEWICKI) NUKTAWIYYA, an offshoot of the Hurufiyya AL-NUKRA, a plain west of the Djabal sect [q.v.] that after an incubation lasting a century Hawran on the border of Trachonitis in Trans- emerged as a significant movement of politico- jordan. The name al-Nukra ("the cavity") is quite religious opposition in $afawid Persia and, in India, modern. It is applied to an area which includes the played some role in the origination of Akbar's Dm-i two districts of al-Bathaniyya (with its chief town Ildhi [q.v.}. Given its similarities not only with Adhricat) and Hawran (west of the hills of the same Hurufism but also with Nizarl Ismacilism, it may be name), i.e. the whole northern half of modern Jordan. regarded as one more link in the long chain of Persian In the wider sense, al-Nukra includes all the country heresies. from al-Ladja°, Djaydur and al-Balka° to the foot of The designation Nuktawiyya is said to be taken the Djabal Hawran, in the narrower sense only the from the doctrine that earth is the starting point southern part of this; in any case it stretches from al- (nuktd) of all things, the remaining three elements Sanamayn to the Djabal al-Duruz (Hawran). To al- being derived from it; the term may also refer, how- Nukra belong Mucatbln or Muctabln, Tubna (now ever, to the use of two, three, or four dots, variously Tibne), al-Mahadjdja, Obtac, cOlma, al-Musayfira arranged, as cryptic abbreviations in the writings of and al-Faddayn already mentioned in Syriac texts of the sect. The designation Mahmudiyya is also the pre-Muslim period. encountered, this being derived from the name of the Bibliography: Noldeke, in ZDMG, xxix, 431, n. founder, Mahmud Paslkhanl. Born at the village of 1; F. Buhl, Geographie des alien Paldstina, Freiburg i. Paslkhan near Fuman in Gflan, Mahmud followed B. and Leipzig 1896, 15, 43-4, 84; R. Dussaud, Fadl Allah Astarabadi (d. 796/1384), the founder of Topographie de la Syrie, Paris 1927, 323. Hurufism, until he was expelled from the movement (E. HONIGMANN) for alleged arrogance (hence the epithets Mahmud-i NUKTAT AL-KAF, an early work on the BabI mardud "Mahmud the rejected" and Mahmud-i matrud [q. v. ] movement. "Mahmud the banished"). He is said to have pro- In 1910, E.G. Browne published a work entitled claimed himself the Mahdl and the bringer of a new Kitdb-i Nuqtatu 'l-Kdf, a Persian history of the early dispensation in 800/1397, i.e. at the beginning of the BabI movement, based on a "unique" manuscript 9th Islamic century. Virtually nothing is known of his (Suppl. persan 1071) in the Bibliotheque Nationale. life other than that he was still residing in Astarabad This manuscript had been bought by the library in in 818/1415 when he finished the writing of one of his 1884, in a sale of books belonging to the late Comte books, Djawdzal-sd^inn. He died in 831/1427-28, sup- de Gobineau. Authorship of the history was ascribed posedly a suicide, having cast himself into the waters by the BabI leader Subh-i Azal [q. v. ] to HadjdjI Mirza of the Aras, but this is dismissed as a calumny by the DjanI, a KashanI merchant killed in 1852. Nuktawls themselves. Browne's text soon became the centre of a con- Mahmud Paslkhanl is said to have written sixteen troversy that still continues. The Baha°I leader, books and 1,001 treatises (nuskhd) in exposition of his cAbbas Effendi cAbd al-Baha5, maintained that the doctrines; none of these has ever been published in work was a forgery produced by the Azall Babls. This full (for extracts from his principal work, Mizdn, see, thesis was developed by the Baha°I scholar Mirza Abu however, Rahlm Rida-zada Malik's notes to his edi- '1-Fadl GulpayganI and his nephew Sayyid Mahdl in tion of Kaykhusraw Isfandiyar, Dabistdn-imadhahib, ii, NUKTAWIYYA 115 233-6, and §adik Kiya, Nuktawiydn yd PasTkhdniydn, It was during the reign of Shah Ismacfl I that the Tehran 1320 $.71941, 73-132). NuktawT movement first surfaced, significantly NuktawT works were composed in an extremely enough in the village of Andjudan near Kashan, a opaque style and are marked by frequent recourse to principal centre of post-Alamut NizarT IsmacTlism. abbreviations and special signs similar to those found Shah Tahir, thirty-first Imam of the Muhammad- in Hurufi literature, but the main themes of Mahmud ShahT NizarT line, is reported to have so angered Shah Pasikhani's teaching can easily be comprehended. IsmacTl by gathering around him in Andjudan They consist in the first place of a peculiarly NuktawTs and other religious deviants that he had to materialist type of metempsychosis according to which flee precipitately to India (Macsum CA1T Shah ShTrazT, the particles of the body do not disintegrate on death Tard^ik al-hakd^ik, ed. Muhammad Djacfar Mahdjub, but are absorbed as a single mass into the soil. They Tehran 1339 6&./1960, iii, 136). Another instance of then re-emerge in vegetable or solid form, possibly to NuktawT-IsmacTlT symbiosis is provided by Murad be consumed by animals or men, the level of existence MTrza, thirty-sixth Imam of the Kasim-ShahT NizarT on which they are finally reintegrated being depen- line, whose combined NuktawT and IsmacflT following dent on the degree of virtue and knowledge attained in Andjudan was broken up by Shah Tahmasp in 981- by their previous owner. When a being rises or 2/1573-4 and who was himself put to death (Ahmad descends from one level of existence to another, the ThattawT, Ta^rikh-i Alfi, cited in Kiya, 36). Mention traces of his former existence are still visible and can may also be made of two poets: WukucT of NTshapur be discerned by the insightful, a process known as whose beliefs are said to have been intermediate ihsd^ "enumeration" (whence yet another designation between Nuktawism and Ismacflism (Kiya, 35), and for the sect, Ihsa°iyya).
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