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 ali ibn
abi talib (d. 661) as his successor, and the future
appearance of the Hidden Imam, who will do
battle with the Dajjal (antichrist).
See also calendar; children; holidays; shiism.
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 india and to the north with
the Tibetan region of china. 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
tablighi Jamaat 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 ofK 526 Nepal