Editing Nippur (section)

===Islamic abandonment===
Nippur remained inhabited in Islamic times, and is mentioned by early Muslim geographers under the name of Niffar. It lay on the Nahr an-Nars canal, believed to have been built by Narses. By the late 800s, though, geographers no longer mentioned it, which indicates that the city had gone into decline by that time.<ref>Adams 236</ref> This was part of a broader decline in settlements throughout Iraq, especially in the south, as decaying infrastructure and political violence resulted in large areas being completely abandoned.<ref>Adams 215-225</ref> However, Nippur remained the seat of an Assyrian [[Church of the East]] [[Christianity|Christian]] [[bishopric]] until the late 900s, when the bishopric was transferred to the city of [[Nil, Iraq|Nil]], further northwest. Nippur itself may have remained occupied even later, since ceramics found among the ruins display underglaze [[Sgraffito|sgraffiato]] drawings, which were not used much prior to the end of the 10th century. By the time of [[Yaqut al-Hamawi]] in the early 1200s, Nippur had been definitively abandoned, although Yaqut still recognized its ruins as the site of a famous place.<ref>Adams 236-237</ref>

On the upper surface of these mounds was found a considerable Jewish town, dating from about the beginning of the Arabic period onward to the 10th century AD, in the houses of which were large numbers of [[Aramaic]] [[incantation bowls]].<ref>[https://archive.org/download/aramaicincantati00montuoft/aramaicincantati00montuoft.pdf] Montgomery, James A., "Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur", Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Museum, 1913</ref> Jewish names, appearing in the Persian documents discovered at Nippur, show, however, that Jewish settlement at that city dates in fact from a much earlier period.<ref>Michael David Coogan, Life in the Diaspora: Jews at Nippur in the Fifth Century B.C., The Biblical Archaeologist, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 6-12 (Mar., 1974)</ref>