Nasr (deity)
Pre-Islamic Arabian deity / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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][lower-alpha 1] J. Spencer Trimingham believed Nasr was "a symbol of the sun".[15]