Page:EB1911 - Volume 19.djvu/263

 became British territory in 1818 on the overthrow of the peshwa. The population in 1901 was 816,504, showing a decrease of 3% in the decade. The principal crops are millet, wheat, pulse, oil-seeds, cotton and sugar cane. There are also some vineyards of old date, and much garden cultivation. Yeola is an important centre for weaving silk and cotton goods. There are flour-mills at Malegaon, railway workshops at Igatpuri, and cantonments at Deolali and Malegaon. At Sharanpur is a Christian village, with an orphanage of the C.M.S., founded in 1854. The district is crossed by the main line and also by the chord line of the Great Indian Peninsula railway.  NĀSIR KHOSRAU (Nasiri Khusru), Abū Muʽin-ed-din Nāsir b. Khosrau (1004–1088), whose nom de plume was Hujjat, the first great didactic poet of Persia, was born, according to his own statement, 394 ( 1004), at Kubādiyān, near Balkh in Khorāsān. The first forty-two years of his life are obscure; we learn from incidental remarks of his that he was a Sunnite, probably according to the Ḥanifite rite, well versed in all the branches of natural science, in medicine, mathematics, astronomy and astrology, in Greek philosophy, and the interpretation of the Koran; that he was much addicted to worldly pleasures, especially to excessive wine drinking. He had studied Arabic, Turkish, Greek, the vernacular languages of India and Sind, and perhaps even Hebrew; he had visited Multān and Lahore, and the splendid Ghaznavide court under Sultān Mahmūd, Firdousī’s patron. Later on he chose Merv for his residence, and was the owner of a house and garden there. In 437 ( 1045) he appears as financial secretary and revenue collector of the Seljūk sultan Toghrul Beg, or rather of his brother Jāghir Beg, the emir of Khorāsān, who had conquered Merv in 1037. About this time, inspired by a heavenly voice (which he pretends to have heard in a dream), he abjured all the luxuries of life, and resolved upon a pilgrimage to the holy shrines of Mecca and Medina, hoping to find there the solution of all his religious doubts. The graphic description of this journey is contained in the Safarnāma, which possesses a special value among books of travel, since it contains the most authentic account of the state of the Mussulman world in the middle of the 11th century. The minute sketches of Jerusalem and its environs are even now of practical value. During the seven years of his journey ( 1045–1052) Nāsir visited Mecca four times, and performed all the rites and observances of a zealous pilgrim; but he was far more attracted by Cairo, the capital of Egypt, and the residence of the Fātimite sultan Mostanṣir billāh, the great champion of the Shīʽa, and the spiritual as well as political head of the house of ʽAli, which was just then waging a deadly war against the ʽAbbāside caliph of Bagdād, and the great defender of the Sunnite creed, Toghrul Beg the Seljūk. At the very time of Nāsir’s visit to Cairo, the power of the Egyptian Fātimites was in its zenith; Syria, the Hejāz, Africa, and Sicily obeyed Mostanṣir’s sway, and the utmost order, security and prosperity reigned in Egypt. At Cairo he became thoroughly imbued with Shīʽa doctrines, and their introduction into his native country was henceforth the sole object of his life. The hostility he encountered in the propagation of these new religious ideas after his return to Khorāsān in 1052 and Sunnite fanaticism compelled him at last to flee, and after many wanderings he found a refuge in Yumgān (about 1060) in the mountains of Badakshān, where he spent as a hermit the last decades of his life, and gathered round him a considerable number of devoted adherents, who have handed down his doctrines to succeeding generations.

 NASIRABAD, or, a town of British India, headquarters of Mymensingh district in Eastern Bengal and Assam, situated on the left bank of the old channel of the Brahmaputra, which is only navigable during the rainy season. Pop. (1901) 14,668. It has a station on the branch of the Eastern Bengal railway from Dacca to Jagannathganj, on the Jamuna or main stream of the Brahmaputra. The earthquake of the 12th of June 1897 destroyed the church and the high school, and seriously damaged other public buildings.

 NASMYTH, ALEXANDER (1758–1840), Scottish portrait and landscape painter, was born in Edinburgh on the 9th of September 1758. He studied at the Trustees’ Academy under Runciman, and, having been apprenticed as an heraldic painter to a coach-builder, he, at the age of sixteen, attracted the attention of Allan Ramsay, who took the youth with him to London, and employed him upon the subordinate portions of his works. Nasmyth returned to Edinburgh in 1778, and was soon largely patronized as a portrait painter. He also assisted Mr Miller of Dalswinton, as draughtsman, in his mechanical researches and experiments; and, this gentleman having generously offered the painter a loan to enable him to pursue his studies abroad, he left in 1782 for Italy, where he remained two years. On his return he painted