According to the Kitābu ʾt-Taʿrifāt, it is the law of God.
Mr. Emanuel Deutsch says: “The nāmūs is a hermaphrodite in words. It is Arabic and also Greek. It is Talmudic. It is, in the first instance, νόμος, ‘law,’ that which by ‘custom and common consent’ has become so. In Talmudic phraseology it stands for the Thorah or Revealed Law. In Arabic it further means one who communicates a secret message. And all these different significations were conveyed by Waraqah to Muhammad.” (Literary Remains, p. 78.)
The word nāmūs occurs in the ethical work known as the Ak͟hlāq-i-Jalālī, in the following passage:—
“The maintenance of equity, then, is realised by three things: (1) The holy institute of God, (2) The equitable Prince, (3) Money, or, as the old philosophers laid it down, the foremost νόμος is the institute, the second νόμος is the Prince who conforms to the institute (for religion and government are twins); and the third νόμος is money (νόμος in their language meaning discipline and correction). Thus the institute or greatest arbitrator is obeyed of all; to this even the Prince or secondary arbitrator is bound to conform. While the third arbitrator, which is money, should be invariably under the authority of the second, which is the Prince. An intimation of this principle we have in the Qurʾān, [Sūrah lvii. 25]: “We have sent down the book, and the balance along with it, that man might stand by the right, and we have sent down steel (ḥadīd), wherein is mighty power and advantages to man.” The book in this passage alludes to the institute; the balance to that which tests the quantities of things, in fact any instrument for ascertaining the value of heterogeneous objects (money being such an one), and steel to the sword, which is grasped by the might of the wrath-exerting doom-pronouncing Prince.” (Ak͟hlāq-i-Jalālī, Thompson’s ed., p. 127.)
NAQL ṢAḤĪḤ (نقل صحيح). “Correct relation.” A term used for a Ḥadīs̤, or tradition, related by a person of authority. [[TRADITIONS].]
AN-NAQSHBANDĪYAH (النقشبندية). An ascetic order of Faqīrs, the followers of K͟hwājah Pīr Muḥammad Naqshband. They are a very numerous sect, and perform the Ẕikr-i-K͟hafī, or silent religious devotion described in the article on [ZIKR].
NĀQŪS (ناقوس). A thin oblong piece of wood, which is beaten with a flexible rod called wabīl (وبيل), used by the Christians of Muḥammad’s time to summon the people to worship. At first “the Companions” suggested either a lighted fire or the nāqūs as the call to prayer, but Muḥammad decided upon the aẕān. (Mishkāt, book iv. ch. v. pt. i.) This method of calling Christian people to prayer still exists in some Greek monasteries, and was seen and illustrated by the Hon. R. Curzon in 1833 (Visits to the Monasteries of the Levant). It is called the simandro (σιμανδρο) and is generally beaten by one of the monks. [[AZAN].]
THE NAQUS AS USED IN A MONASTERY
AN-NĀR (النار), “the fire,” occurs in the Qurʾān very frequently for hell, e.g. [Sūrah ii. 22]: “Fear the fire whose fuel is men and stones.”