Table of Contents

• KAʿBA-YE ZARDOŠT

  Gerd Gropp

  “Kaʿba of Zoroaster,” an ancient building at Naqš-e Rostam near Persepolis.

• KABĀB

  Etrat Elahi

  popular dish which traditionally consists of meat cut in cubes, or ground and shaped into balls; these are threaded onto a skewer and broiled over a brazier of charcoal embers.

• KABIR-KUH

  Majdodin Keyvani

  one of the long ranges of the Zagros mountains, lying between Iran’s two western provinces of Loristan and Ilām.

• KABISA

  Simone Cristoforetti

  Arabic term used in calendrical context; “intercalary,” “embolismal.” It is applied to several readjustments that occurred in the Iranian solar calendar.

• KĀBOL MAGAZINE

  Wali Ahmadi

  a monthly magazine with the full title Kābol:ʿElmi, adabi, ejtemāʿi, tariḵi. The periodical was founded by the Kabul Literary Society (Anjoman-e Adabi-e Kābol), 1931-40.

• KĀBOLI

  Rawan Farhadi and J. R. Perry

  the colloquial Persian spoken in the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, and its environs. It has been a common and prestigious vernacular for several centuries, since Kabul was long ruled by dynasts of Iran (the Safavids) or India (the Mughals) for whom Persian was the language of culture and administration.

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• KĀBOLI, ʿAbdallāh Ḵᵛāja

  Maria Szuppe

  (also known as Kāboli Naqšbandi and Heravi), historiographer and poet of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. 

• KABUL

  Multiple Authors

  (Kābol), capital of Afghanistan, also the name of its province and a river.

• KABUL i. GEOGRAPHY OF THE PROVINCE

  Andreas Wilde

  Kabul is part of a system of high level basins, the elevation of which varies from 1,500 to 3,600 meters, extends—geographically speaking—beyond the administrative borders of the present-day province.

• KABUL ii. HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY

  Xavier de Planhol

  Before the period of war and unrest in Afghanistan that started in 1978, almost all the functions concerned with governing the country and directing its international relations were concentrated in Kabul. This primacy among Afghan cities is due to an exceptionally favorable geographical site.

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• KABUL iii. HISTORY FROM THE 16TH CENTURY TO THE ACCESSION OF MOḤAMMAD ẒĀHER SHAH

  May Schinasi

  Kabul was a small town until the 16th century, when Ẓahir-al-Din Bābor (1483-1530), the first of the Great Mughals, made it his capital.

• KABUL iv. URBAN POLITICS SINCE ẒĀHER SHAH

  Daniel E. Esser

  The first master plan marked an important attempt to reorganize the spatial structure of the city. A first revision was authorized in 1971.

• KABUL v. MONUMENTS OF KABUL CITY

  Jonathan Lee

  This article focuses on the major monuments in and around the Old City of Kabul and the most significant Dorrāni dynastic monuments and mausolea.

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• KABUL LITERARY SOCIETY

  Wali Ahmadi

  (Anjoman-e adabi-e Kābol), the first official academic and cultural association of Afghanistan, 1930-40.

• KABUL MUSEUM

  Carla Grissmann

  popular name of the National Museum of Afghanistan. A modest collection of artifacts and manuscripts already existed in the time of King Ḥabib-Allāh (r. 1901–19). In 1931 the collection was finally installed in a building in rural Darulaman (Dār-al-amān), eight kilometers south of Kabul City.

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• KABUL RIVER

  Andreas Wilde

  in eastern Afghanistan. It forms one of Afghanistan’s four major river systems and is the only Afghan river that flows, as tributary of the Indus, into the sea.

• KĀČI

  Etrat Elahi and Majdodin Keyvani

  a traditional Persian dish generally made of rice flour, cooking oil, sugar diluted in water, and turmeric or saffron with a sprinkling of golāb (rosewater) to give it a pleasant scent.

• KADAGISTĀN

  Nicholas Sims-Williams

  an eastern province of the Sasanian empire. The clearest evidence for the existence of such a province is provided by a bulla bearing the impression of a seal.

• ḴĀDEM MIṮĀQ

  Amir Hossein Pourjavady

  (1907-1958), musician, teacher, conductor, and composer.

• ḴĀDEM-E BESṬĀMI

  Kioumars Ghereghlou

  , Moḥammad Ṭāher b. Ḥasan, local historian, calligrapher, and poet of the reign of Shah ʿAbbās I.

• KADIMI

  Ramiyar P. Karanjia

  a Zoroastrian sect (Ar. qadim “old, ancient”). The movement emerged in 18th-century India.

• KADḴODĀ

  Willem Floor and EIr.

  principal meaning “headman,” from Middle Persian kadag-xwadāy, lit. “head of a household."

• KADPHISES, KUJULA

  Osmund Bopearachchi

  (1st cent. CE), first Kuṣān king, founder of the Kuṣāna dynasty in Central Asia and India, as indicated by the legend written in Gāndhāri and Kharoṣṭhī.

• KAEMPFER, ENGELBERT

  Detlef Haberland

  German physician and traveler to Russia, the Orient, and the Far East (1651-1716).

• KAĒTA

  William W. Malandra

  an Avestan word whose approximate meaning is ‘soothsayer.’

• KAFIR KALA

  Boris Litvinsky

  (Kāfer Qalʿa), ancient settlement and one of the largest archeological monuments of the Vakhsh river valley, on the western outskirts of Kolkhozabad, Tajikistan. The city (šahrestān) together with the citadel form a square, each side 360 m long, oriented approximately to the cardinal points.

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• ḴAFRI, ŠAMS-AL-DIN

  George Saliba

  , Moḥammad b. Aḥmad-e Kāši, one of the most competent of all the mathematical astronomers and planetary theorists of medieval Islam (d. 956/1550).

• KAFTARI WARE

  C. A. Petrie

  distinctive ceramic vessels dated to the late 3rd and early 2nd millennia BCE, primarily found in Fārs.

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• ḴĀGINA

  Etrat Elahi

  a traditional Persian dish; most of the recipes are very similar to those for making a plain omelet.

• KAHAK

  Farhad Daftary

  Markazi Province, a village located about 35 km northeast of Anjedān and northwest of Maḥallāt in central Iran, with ruins of a fairly large caravanserai.

• KAIFENG

  Donald D. Leslie

  medieval capital of the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127) and home of a Judeo-Persian community.

• KAJAKAY DAM

  Siddieq Noorzoy

  dam built on the Helmand River as a part of the multi-faceted projects aimed at the development of the Helmand Valley.

• KĀK

  Etrat Elahi and Eir.

  a general term applied to several kinds of flat bread or small, often thin, dry cakes variously shaped and made.

• KĀKĀʾI

  Philip G. Kreyenbroek

  a term used both for a tribal federation and for a religious group in Iraqi Kurdistan. 

• KĀKAGI

  Arley Loewen

  the customs and characteristics of a kāka—a vagabond or vigilante characterized by the ideals of chivalry, courage, generosity, and loyalty.

• KĀKĀVAND

  Pierre Oberling

  a Lor tribe of the Delfān group, settled in the Piškuh region of Luristan (Lorestān), as well as west of Qazvin and in the Ṭārom region.

• ḴĀKI ḴORĀSĀNI, EMĀMQOLI

  S. J. Badakhchani

  Ismaʿili poet and preacher of 17th-century Persia (d. after 1646). He was born in Dizbād, a village in the hills half way between Mashhad and Nišāpur.

• ḴĀKSĀR

  Zahra Taheri

  a strictly popular order of Persian dervishes, favored by artisans and shopkeepers. The name “Ḵāksār” (lit. ‘dust-like’) was probably chosen to figuratively denote a lowly, humble, and modest person.

• KĀKUYIDS

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  [KAKWAYHIDS], a dynasty of Deylamite origin that ruled in western Persia, Jebāl, and Kurdistan about 1008-51 as independent princes.

• ḴALAF B. AḤMAD

  C. E. Bosworth

  b. Moḥammad, Abu Aḥmad (d. 1009), Amir in Sistān of the “second line” of Saffarids, who ruled between 963 and 1003.

• KALĀNTAR

  Willem Floor

  “chief, leader,” from the late 15th century onwards, particularly the local official (mayor) in charge of the administration of a town.

• KALĀRESTĀQ

  Multiple Authors

  (or Kalār-rostāq), and Kalārdašt, historical district in western Māzandarān. i. The District and Sub-District.  ii. The Dialect.

• KALĀRESTĀQ i. The District and Sub-District

  Habib Borjian

  This predominantly mountainous district extends along the Caspian coast from the Namakābrud (Namakāvarud) river on the west to the Čālus river on the east.

• KALĀRESTĀQ ii. The Dialect

  Habib Borjian

  The Caspian vernaculars spoken in Kalārestāq, together with those of Tonekābon district, may not be properly classified as either Māzandarāni or Gilaki but serve as a transition between these two language groups.

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• KALĀT-E NĀDERI

  Xavier de Planhol

  an elevated, isolated plateau in the mountains of Khorasan, some 150 km north of Mašhad, edged with steep cliffs that transform it into an almost inaccessible natural fortress. 

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• KALBĀSI

  Hamid Algar

  Ḥāj Moḥammad Ebrāhim (b. Isfahan, 1766; d. Isfahan, 1845), prominent Oṣuli jurist, influential in the affairs of Isfahan during the reigns of Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah and Moḥammad Shah.

• ḴĀLEDI, Mehdi

  E. Naḵjavāni

  Persian violinist and songwriter (1919-1990). As a violinist, Ḵāledi was known for his command of traditional Persian music and its innovative interpretation. As a composer, he was admired for the range of his rhythmically varied and elegiac songs.

• KALEMĀT-E MAKNUNA

  Moojan Momen

  (The Hidden Words), a collection of aphorisms (71 in Arabic and 82 in Persian) by Bahāʾ-Allāh on spiritual and moral themes, dating from 1274/1857-58 and considered one of his most important writings.

• ḴĀLEQI, RUḤ-ALLĀH

  Hormoz Farhat

  (1906-1965), Persian music educator, composer, and music scholar.

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• KALHOR

  Pierre Oberling

  a Kurdish tribe in the southernmost part of Persian Kurdistan. The last of the great Kalhor chiefs was Dāwud Khan, who ruled the tribe in the early 1900s.