'GAZETTEER OF PERSIA. VOLUME II' [‎236v] (477/706)

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NIA—NIG
weakened owing to his being in the pay of the Moslem, in correspondence
and co-operation with the Anglican Church, and more or less mixed up with
the American Presbyterians ; whilst, as is rumoured, his political sympathies
are with the Russians. The reigning Patriarch, who is always called Mar
Shimun, is always chosen from the same family, a number of the male
members of which, who have never eaten meat from their birth nor married,
are kept as a school of candidates from whom one is chosen, when the others
are allowed to become as ordinary mortals.
The main features of their creed are an uncommon and elastic cata
logue of sacraments (seven in all, baptism, eucharist, ordination, marriage,
burial, confirmation and confession, not auricular) and an hereditary and
a celibate episcopate, accompanied by very strict observance of the Sabbath "
and Christian feasts. Their churches are mostly very plain and unpreten
tious buildings, in order not to excite Muhammadan hostility. There have
been four distinct missions organised to the Nestorians, 1 American Pres
byterian ; 2 French Catholic, 3 Swiss Protestant; 4 Anglican ; of these the
Swiss Protestant did not long survive, but the other three still remain. What
the spiritual result of these missions may be, it is perhaps too early to say,
but one thing is certain that immense benefit has resulted to the Christian
subjects of both Persia and Turkey thanks to the labours of these missions.
The French and Anglican missions are on the best of good terms, but there
is considerable friction between the Anglican and American missions. There
are computed to be 5,500 families of Nestorians in Azarbaijan, which, at
four or five to a family, would give the usually accepted number of 20,000
to 25,000; the missionaries, however, say that eight to a family is a fairer
computation, which gives a total of 44,000 souls.
The Nestorians of the plains are robust, broad-shouldered men, with open
countenances, fair complexion and frequently with red beards, those from
the mountains are wild and uncouth and often undistingishable from the
Kurds with whom, however, they are at deadly enmity. Each attack and
rob the other, but the Kurds being stronger and better armed are usually
the aggressors. The Nestorians being a subject Christian population in
a Muhammadan country have to take their share of all the petty persecu
tions, class and social drawbacks, etc., which always fall to the lot of Chris
tians in such cases, but on the whole, thanks to foreign influence, their lot
is no harder than the rest of the Shah’s subjects. (For further particulars
of this interesting sect sec Lord Curzon’s ‘Persia,’ Yol. I).— [Curzon.)
NIASAR also NAIASTAR— Elev. 5,310'.
A village of 500 to 600 houses, 23 miles west of Kashan in the Sardslr ^
district. It is situated on a plain at the foot of the hills, has 33 hamlets
belonging to it, and has a plentiful water-supply. It is divided into seven
Mahallds, has 8 mosques, 4 baths and 6 saints’ tombs.— (Schindler.)
NID—
A village in the Pusht-i-Kuh sub-division of the Yazd province. It lies
south of the Shirkuh range and about 30 miles south of Taft.— (Stack.)
NIGIL—
A flourishing village in the huliik of Kalat, in Kurdistan. In it stands
an old mosque known as Masjid-i-’Abdullah ibn ’Amran, possessing a Koran
written in Kufic, which is said to be 1,000 years old.