tradition it is the anniversary of God’s
covenant
with Adam and his offspring at the beginning of
creation, Abraham’s destruction of the idols of his
community, Muhammad’s designation of a
li
ibn
a
bi
t
alib
(d. 661) as his successor, and the future
appearance of the Hidden Imam, who will do
battle with the Dajjal (a
ntichrist
).
See also
calendar
;
children
;
holidays
; s
hiism
.
Further reading: Najmieh Batmanglij,
New Food for
Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and
Ceremonies, 3d ed. (Washington, D.C.: Mage Publish-
ers, 2004), 384–391; Mary Boyce, “Iranian Festivals.”
In Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 3, Part 2, The Seleu-
cid, Parthian, and Sasanian Periods, edited by Ehsan
Yarshater, 792–815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1983); Bess A. Donaldson, The Wild Rue: A Study
of Muhammadan Magic and Folklore in Iran (London:
Luzac, 1938), 120–123.
Nepal
Nepal is a small country (approximately 54,362
sq. miles, slightly larger than the state of Arkan-
sas) located along the southern region of the
Himalayan range. It shares a border to the east,
south, and west with i
ndia
and to the north with
the Tibetan region of c
hina
. It has three distinct
geographic zones—the Himalayan range in the
northern region, the foothills and Kathmandu
Valley in the central region, and the Terai plains
in the southern region. It is home to the highest
peak in the world, Mt. Everest, and it is the birth-
place of the Buddha. Its population is approxi-
mately 29.5 million (2008 est.) and is a complex
and heterogeneous mix of both Indo-European
and Tibeto-Burman ethnic groups and languages,
and of various tribes and castes, each with their
own distinct languages and cultural traditions.
In the late 18th century, the Gorkha king Prithvi
Narayan Shah consolidated the territories of what
is today Nepal. With the exception of the period
of Rana rule from 1846 to 1951, descendants of
the shah king have ruled Nepal as a Hindu state
throughout most of the country’s history. Since
1951 Nepal’s form of government has changed
several times, most notably from a Hindu monar-
chy to a multiparty democracy and constitutional
monarchy in 1991, then to an absolute monarchy
in 2002, and most recently to a parliamentary
democracy achieved in April 2006 after months of
mass protests led by the country’s seven political
parties and the Maoists. Since 1996 Nepal has suf-
fered from a Maoist insurgency that has resulted
in the deaths of over 10,000 Nepali people.
According to the 2001 Nepali government
census, Hindus constitute 80 percent of Nepal’s
population, Buddhists 11 percent, and Muslims
4.2 percent. The majority of Nepali Muslims
live in the Terai region, with small populations
also in the Kathmandu Valley and the western
hill regions. There are numerous mosques and
madrasas in the Terai, including a prominent
Ahl-e Hadis (People of the Hadith)
madrasa
in
the southern district of Kapilvastu. In the Kath-
mandu Valley there are seven mosques, the two
largest of which are the Kashmiri Taqiyya and the
Nepali Jame Masjid (Friday Mosque), and several
madrasas, which impart a mixture of Islamic and
government curriculum. Nepali Muslims are of
varying ethnic and cultural backgrounds, primar-
ily Kashmiri, North Indian, Tibetan, Newari, and
Nepali, and they retain distinct cultural identities
as such. Most Nepali Muslims are Sunni and of
primarily Deobandi, Barelwi, Ahl-e Hadith, or
t
ablighi
J
amaat
affiliation.
Though an eighth-century Arabic text entitled
Hudud al-alam (Boundaries of the world)
men-
tions the import of musk from Nepal, suggest-
ing that there may have been early trade links
between Nepalis and Arab tradesmen, the earliest
historical evidence of Muslim presence in Nepal
comes from an inscription recording an invasion
in 1349 from the east by the Muslim sultan Shams
ad-din Ilyas of Bengal, which destroyed the royal
Hindu temple of Pashupatinath and the Bud-
dhist stupa Swayambunath. In the late 15th and
early 16th-centuries Kashmiri Muslim traders of
K 526
Nepal
woolen goods became the first Muslims to settle
in Nepal when they were permitted to migrate
there during the reign of Ratna Malla in Kantipur
(now Kathmandu). Oral history tells us that the
first Muslim to settle in Nepal was a 16th-century
Kashmiri faqir (
dervish
) by the name of Miskeen
Shah who, through his magical powers, convinced
the king to give him land to establish a
mosqUe
.
This is corroborated by records indicating that a
Muslim
saint
who entered Kathmandu in 1524
built the first mosque in Nepal, which today
is called the Kashmiri Taqiyya, the mosque of
Nepal’s Kashmiri Muslim population and the site
of the saint’s dargah (shrine). In the 17th century
Muslims from India began migrating to Nepal,
and they were given royal permission to build a
mosque in Kathmandu, the Nepali Masjid, which
today serves as a major center of Muslim social
and devotional activity in the Kathmandu Valley.
The kings of Nepal’s Malla Dynasty (13th–18th
centuries) were influenced by the style of the
Muslim imperial courts at d
elhi
and emulated
their imperial portraiture style, adopted Persian
words into Nepali language, and struck their own
imperial coins modeled after those of the Delhi
courts. Following the Indian Revolt of 1857, sig-
nificant numbers of Indian Muslims migrated to
various parts of Nepal. Many Muslims in the Terai
are descendants of Indians who migrated to the
region in the 17th through 19th centuries.
Though the relationship between the Muslim
minority and Hindu majority in Nepal has been
a historically peaceful one, in September 2004
Nepali Muslims became the target of religious
violence following the murder of 13 Nepali
workers in Iraq, marking the second major inci-
dent of anti-Muslim violence in the country’s
history. Mosques, madrasas, and Muslim homes
and businesses throughout Nepal suffered heavy
damage. This tragedy led to the establishment of
the National Muslim Forum, an organization of
Muslim leaders from throughout Nepal that aims
to bring together Nepali Muslims across ethnic,
regional, and sectarian differences into a united
forum. Many of its leaders are also members
of Nepal’s largest Islamic organization, Islami
Sangh Nepal, which conducts Islamic educa-
tion programs throughout the country, oversees
Kathmandu’s Islamic library and the Al-Hira
Educational Society, and publishes Paigham, a
quarterly Muslim journal in Urdu. It also pub-
lishes Madhur Sandesh, a monthly Muslim maga-
zine in Nepali.
See also b
arelWi
, s
ayyid
a
hmad
; b
Uddhism
and
i
slam
; d
eoband
; h
indUism
and
i
slam
; k
ashmir
.
Megan Adamson Sijapati
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
