Table of Contents

  • KALHOR, Mirzā Mohammad-Reżā

    Maryam Ekhtiar

    (1829-1892), one of the most prominent 19th-century Persian calligraphers.

  • ḴALIFA SOLṬĀN

    Rudi Matthee

    (1592/93-1654), grand vizier under Shah ʿAbbās I (r. 1588-1629) and then again under Shah ʿAbbās II (r. 1642-66).

  • ḴALIL SOLṬĀN b. MIRĀNŠĀH b. TIMUR

    Beatrice Forbes Manz

    Timurid ruler (1405-09).

  • ḴALIL, MOḤAMMAD EBRĀHIM

    Wali Ahmadi

  • ḴALIL-ALLĀH ŠAH

    Nasrollah Pourjavady

    (or Sayyed) BORHĀN-AL-DIN (b. 1373-74, d. 1455-56), the only son of the Sufi master, Šāh Neʿmat-Allāh Wali of Kermān.

  • KALILA wa DEMNA

    Multiple Authors

    collection of didactic animal fables, with the jackals Kalila and Demna as two of the principal characters.  The story cycle originated in India between 500 BCE and 100 BC, and circulated widely in the Near East.

  • KALILA wa DEMNA i. Redactions and circulation

    Dagmar Riedel

    In Persian literature Kalila wa Demna has been known in different versions since the 6th century CE.

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  • KALILA WA DEMNA iii. ILLUSTRATIONS

    Bernard O’Kane

    a collection of didactic animal fables, with the jackals Kalila and Demna as two of the principal characters.

  • ḴALILI, ʿABBĀS

    Hasan Mirabedini

    political activist, journalist, translator, poet, and novelist (b. Najaf, 1895; d. Tehran, 1971).

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  • ḴALILI, ḴALIL-ALLĀH

    Wali Ahmadi

    renowned 20th-century Afghan poet in Dari (Persian), literary historian, scholar, and high-ranking official. Ḵalili is regarded as one of the last great vestiges of the traditional Persianate culture in Afghanistan, where erudition and classical training were particularly valued.

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  • KALIM KĀŠĀNI

    Daniela Meneghini

    (b. ca. 1581-85, d. 1651), Persian poet and one of the leading exponents of the “Indian style” (sabk-e hendi).

  • KALIMI

    Amnon Netzer

    the word used to refer to the Jews of Iran in modern Persian usage.

  • ḴALIQ LĀHURI

    Stefano Pello

     Indo-Persian poet of the 18th-century, probably a Sikh.

  • ḴALḴĀLI, Sayyed ʿAbd-al-Raḥim

    Hushang Ettehad and EIr

    (d. 1942), journalist, translator, and the editor of the collected poems of Ḥafeẓ.

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  • ḴĀLKUBI

    Willem Floor

    making a permanent mark on the skin by inserting a pigment, is one of the oldest methods of body ornamentation. 

  • KALLA-PĀČA

    Etrat Elahi

    a traditional dish made of sheep’s head and trotters and cooked over low heat, usually overnight.

  • KALLAJUŠ

    Etrat Elahi & EIr.

    an old Iranian dish, also pronounced kālajuškālājuškaljuš in different parts of Iran.

  • ḴĀLU

    Pierre Oberling

    a small Turkic tribe of Kermān province.

  • KALURAZ

    TADAHIKO OHTSU

    archeological site (lat 36°54′ N, long 49°28′ E) 1.1 km west of Rostam Ābād city, 11.7 km northeast of Rudbār in Gilan Province.

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  • KAMĀL ḴOJANDI

    Paul Losensky

    (ca. 1320-1401), Persian poet and Sufi also known as Shaikh Kamāl.

  • KAMĀL PĀŠĀ-ZĀDA, ŠAMS-AL-DIN AḤMAD

    T. Yazici

    (1468-1534), prolific Ottoman scholar, author of several works in and on Persian.

  • KAMĀL-AL-DIN EṢFAHĀNI

    David Durand-Guédy

    poet from Isfahan, noted for his mastery of the panegyric.

  • KAMĀL-AL-DIN ḤOSAYN

    Colin Paul Mitchell

    ḤĀFEŻ-E HARAVI, a prominent Safavid calligrapher during the reign of Shah Tˈahmāsp I (r. 1524-76).

  • KAMĀL-AL-MOLK, MOḤAMMAD ḠAFFĀRI

    A. Ashraf with Layla Diba

    (ca. 1859–1940), widely acclaimed Iranian painter of the European academic style during the late Qajar and early Pahlavi periods. He descended from a family that had produced a number of artists since the Afsharid period, including his paternal great-grandfather, Mirzā Abu’l-Ḥasan Mostawfi, a court painter during the reign of Nāder Shah Afshar (r. 1736-47) and Karim Khan Zand (r. 1750-79).

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  • KAMĀLI BOḴĀRĀʾI

    Nasrollah Pourjavady

    , ʿAmid Kamāl-al-Din, a court poet, musician, and calligrapher at the court of Sultan Sanjar, the Saljuqid king (r. 1097-1118), during his rule in Khorasan.

  • KAMĀNČA

    Stephen Blum

    (lit. “small bow”), the most common term throughout much of the Iranian world for a spike fiddle with a small, often spherical, resonating chamber.

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  • KĀMI AḤMED ÇELEBI

    Osman G. Özgüdenlī

     Ottoman scholar, judge, writer, and translator.

  • KĀMI MEHMED-I KARAMĀNI

    Osman G. Özgüdenlī

    Ottoman scholar, judge, poet, and translator.

  • KĀMRĀN B. SHAH MAḤMUD

    Christine Nöelle-Karimi

    Sadōzāy ruler of Herat (r. 1826-42).

  • KĀMRĀN MIRZĀ

    Sunil Sharma

    second son of the founder of the Mughal empire, Ẓahir-al-Din Moḥammad Bābor (q.v.) and of Golroḵ Begom, and half-brother of the emperor Homāyun (q.v.).

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  • ḴAMSA OF NEẒĀMI

    Domenico Parrello

    the quintet of narrative poems for which Neẓāmi Ganjavi (1141-1209) is universally acclaimed.

  • ḴAMSA TRIBE

    Pierre Oberling

    a tribal confederacy formed in the 19th century comprising five large tribes in Fārs province.

  • ḴAMSA-ye AMIR ḴOSROW

    Sunil Sharma

    a quintet of poems in the mathnawi form written by Amir Ḵosrow between 1298 and 1302, as a response to Neẓāmi’s immensely popular Panj ganj (Five Treasures).

  • ḴAMSA-ye JAMĀLI

    Paola Orsatti

    a suite of five mathnawis, composed in response to the Ḵamsa by Neẓāmi (1141-1209).

  • KAMSARAKAN

    C. Toumanoff

    Armenian noble family that was an offshoot of the Kāren Pahlav, one of the seven great houses of Iran claiming Arsacid origin.

  • ḴĀNĀ QOBĀDI

    Philip G. Kreyenbroek and Parwin Mahmoudweyssi

    (fl. ca.1700-1759 or 1778), Gurāni poet.

  • ḴĀNA-YE EDRISIHĀ

    SOHEILA SAREMI

    A novel in two volumes, Ḵāna-ye Edrisihā is set in 1910s, and takes place in a house in Ashkhabad (ʿEšqābād), the capital city of the Republic of Turkmenistan.

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  • KANAF

    Bahram Grami

    (Hibiscus cannabinus L.), an annual herbaceous plant of the Malvaceae family, yielding a soft fiber from the stem bark. Its fiber is used primarily for making gunnysacks and burlap. The first gunny mill (guni bāfi) in Persia was established in 1933 in Rašt by the private sector.

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  • ḴĀNAQĀH

    Gerhard Böwering and Matthew Melvin-Koushki

    an Islamic institution and physical establishment, principally reserved for Sufi dervishes to meet, reside, study, and assemble and pray together as a group in the presence of a Sufi master (Arabic, šayḵ, Persian, pir), who is teacher, educator, and leader of the group.

  • KANDAHAR

    Multiple Authors

    city in southern Afghanistan (lat 31°36′28″ N, long 65°42′19″ E), the second most important in the country and the capital of Kandahar province.

  • KANDAHAR i. Historical Geography to 1979

    Xavier de Planhol

    city in southern Afghanistan (lat 31°36′28″ N, long 65°42′19″ E), the second most important in the country and the capital of Kandahar province.

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  • KANDAHAR ii. Pre-Islamic Monuments and Remains

    Gérard Fussman

    city in southern Afghanistan (lat 31°36′28″ N, long 65°42′19″ E), the second most important in the country and the capital of Kandahar province.

  • KANDAHAR iii. Early Islamic Period

    Minoru Inaba

    city in southern Afghanistan (lat 31°36′28″ N, long 65°42′19″ E), the second most important in the country and the capital of Kandahar province.

  • KANDAHAR iv. From The Mongol Invasion Through the Safavid Era

    Rudi Matthee and Hiroyuki Mashita

    city in southern Afghanistan (lat 31°36′28″ N, long 65°42′19″ E), the second most important in the country and the capital of Kandahar province.

  • KANDAHAR v. In the 19th Century

    Shah Mahmoud Hanifi

    city in southern Afghanistan (lat 31°36′28″ N, long 65°42′19″ E), the second most important in the country and the capital of Kandahar province.

  • KANDAHAR vi. 20th Century, 1901-73

    M. Jamil Hanifi

    city in southern Afghanistan (lat 31°36′28″ N, long 65°42′19″ E), the second most important in the country and the capital of Kandahar province.

  • KANDAHAR vii. From 1973 to the Present

    Antonio Giustozzi

    city in southern Afghanistan (lat 31°36′28″ N, long 65°42′19″ E), the second most important in the country and the capital of Kandahar province.

  • ḴANDAQ

    Michael G. Morony

    a Persian loanword in Arabic meaning a trench or a moat (lit. “dug”), possibly also a wall or an enclosure.

  • KANGARLU

    P. OBERLING

    a Turkic tribe of Azerbaijan and the Qom-Verāmin region of central Persia. 

  • KANGAVAR

    Wolfram Kleiss

    town in eastern Kermanshah Province, on the modern road from Hamadan to Kermanshah, identical with a trace of the silk road. Isidorus of Charax (1st century CE) referred to it as Congobar and mentioned a temple of Anāhitā (Anaitis) there. The site has ruins of debated date and nature.

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