Table of Contents
-
KARAJ i. Modern City
Bernard Hourcade
The area of Karaj has been inhabited since the Bronze Age at Tepe Khurvin, and the Iron Age at Kalāk on the left bank of the Karaj River.
-
KARAJ ii. Population
Habibollah Zanjani
Since the 1976 census, when Tehran was no longer counted within the boundaries of Central (Markazi) province and formed its own province, Karaj has been one of its sub-provinces.
This Article Has Images/Tables. -
KARAJ DAM
Cross-reference
See AMIR KABIR DAM (forthcoming online).
-
KARAJ RIVER
Bernard Hourade
the second major permanent river of the central Iranian plateau after the Zāyandarud river.
-
KARAKI
Rula Jurdi Abisaab
Nur-al-Din Abu’l-Ḥasan ʿAli b. Ḥosayn b. ʿAbd-al-ʿĀli, known as Moḥaqqeq al-Ṯāni or Moḥaqqeq ʿAli (1464-1533), a major Imamite jurist.
-
KARĀMA
Erik S. Ohlander
“(saintly) marvel, wonder, or miracle” in Arabic (pl. karāmāt).
-
KARAPAN
William Malandra
(or Karpan), designation of members of a class of daivic priests opposed to the religion of Zarathustra.
-
ḴᵛĀRAZMŠĀH
Cross-Reference
title assumed by various rulers of Ḵᵛārazm (Chorasmia). See CHORASMIA ii. In Islamic times and ĀL-E AFRĪḠ.
-
KARBALA
Meir Litvak
a city in Iraq, situated about 90 km southwest of Baghdad. It is one of the four Shiʿite shrine cities (with Najaf, Kāẓemayn, and Sāmarrāʾ) in Iraq known in Shʿite Islam as ʿatabāt-e ʿaliāt or ʿatabāt-e moqaddasa.
-
KÁRDAKES
Rüdiger Schmitt
the name of a Persian military unit mentioned several times by Greek and Roman authors, nearly always in relation to the Achaemenid period (cf. Huyse, p. 199, n. 6).
-
KĀRGĀNRUD
Cross-Reference
the northernmost and largest of the five traditional Ṭāleš khanates (Ḵamsa-ye Ṭavāleš) in western Gilān.
-
KARGAR, DARIUSH
Forogh Hashabeiky and Behrooz Sheyda
(1953-2012), Iranist, fiction writer, and journalist. Kargar’s later works of fiction, written in Sweden, participate in the more modern spectrum of writing in the twentieth century and are characterized by his experimentations with disrupted chronology, non-linear plots, and interrupted language reminiscent of stream of consciousness.
This Article Has Images/Tables. -
KĀRGOZĀR
Morteza Nouraei
a term used from the early 19th century until the abolishment of capitulation (kāpitulāsion) in 1927 to refer specifically to an agent of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was charged with regulating relations between Iranian subjects and foreigners.
-
KARIM DEVONA
Keith Hitchins
pen-name of Abdul-Karim Qurbon, Tajik folk poet (1878-1918).
-
KARIM KHAN ZAND
John R. Perry
(ca. 1705-1779), “The Wakil,” ruler of Persia (except Khorasan) from Shiraz during 1751-79. The Zand were a pastoral tribe of the Lak branch of the northern Lors, ranging between the inner Zagros and the Hamadān plains, centered on the villages of Pari and Kamāzān in the vicinity of Malāyer.
This Article Has Images/Tables. -
KĀRIN
Parvaneh Pourshariati
one of the seven great families of the Parthian and Sasanian periods.
-
KĀRIZ
Xavier de Planhol
underground irrigation canals, also called qanāt. The kārēz conducts water from the level of an aquifer to the open air by means of simple gravity in order to distribute it to lower areas.
-
KĀRIZ i. Terminology
Xavier de Planhol
underground irrigation canals, also called qanāt.
-
KĀRIZ ii. TECHNOLOGY
Xavier de Planhol
The technology of kārēz exploits a difference in grade between a tunnel and the groundwater table, so it ends at an elevation higher than that of the water table. In Iran the average grade may be around 0.5 percent.
This Article Has Images/Tables. -
KĀRIZ iii. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONTEXTS
Xavier de Planhol
The major significance of the kārēz lies in its continuous discharge throughout the year. In contrast, irrigation systems that rely on surface water runoff can completely cease to discharge water during the dry season.
This Article Has Images/Tables. -
KĀRIZ iv. ORIGIN AND DISSEMINATION
Xavier de Planhol
One very common technique is an underflow channel in a river valley, which captures water from the shallow aquifer formed by seepage from the watercourse.
This Article Has Images/Tables. -
KĀRIZ v. KĀRĒZ IN THE LATE 20TH CENTURY AND THEIR PROSPECTS
Xavier de Planhol
In 1990 it was estimated that the kārēz technique supplied water to around 1.5 million hectares of the planet’s total irrigated surface area, which constituted only the minor portion of approximately 0.6 percent.
-
KARḴEH RIVER
Eckart Ehlers
the third longest river in Iran after the rivers Karun and Safidrud, flowing in the western provinces of the country. It rises from the Zagros mountain range.
-
KARNĀ
Stephen Blum
designation of three types of musical instrument, the most prestigious being long trumpets made of brass, gold, silver, or other metals. Two regional instruments of Iran are also called karnā. Like the metal karnā, the long reed trumpet of Gilān and Māzandarān lacks fingerholes.
This Article Has Images/Tables. -
KARRĀMIYA
Aron Zysow
the adherents to a theological and legal movement with a broad following in Khorasan and Afghanistan from the 10th to the 13th centuries, with its intellectual center in Nishapur (Nišāpur).
-
KARSĀSP
Prods Oktor Skjærvø
Avestan dragon-slayer, son of Sāma, and eschatological hero. In the Pahlavi and Zoroastrian Persian traditions, several heroic feats are connected with him.
-
KARŠIFT
Céline Redard
a mythical bird mentioned in the Avesta and other Zoroastrian texts. -
KARSĪVAZ
Prods Oktor Skjærvø, Mahmoud Omidsalar
in the old Iranian epic tradition the brother of the Turanian king, Afrāsiāb, and the man most responsible for the murder of the Iranian prince Siāvaš.
-
KART DYNASTY
Cross-Reference
See ĀL-E KART.
-
KARTIR
Prods Oktor Skjærvø
a prominent Zoroastrian priest in the second half of the 3rd century CE, known from his inscriptions and mentioned in Middle Persian, Parthian, and Coptic Manichean texts.
-
KARTLI
George Sanikidze
region occupying most of eastern Georgia. The original name of Georgia (Sakartvelo) and the Georgian people (Kartvelebi) derive from Kartli.
-
KARUN RIVER i. Geography and Hydrology, ii
Habib Borjian
the largest river and the only navigable waterway in Iran. It rises in the Baḵtiāri Zagros mountains west of Isfahan, flows out of the central Zagros range, traverses the Khuzestan plain, and joins the Shatt al-Arab.
This Article Has Images/Tables. -
KARUN RIVER iii. The Opening of the Karun
Shabaz Shahnavaz
With the intensification of the Anglo-Russian rivalry in the late 1800s over Iran’s geopolitical position and commercial resources, Great Britain began to exert immense pressure on the shah’s government to provide it with access to the Karun trade route.
-
KĀŠĀNI, ʿABD-AL-RAZZĀQ KHAN
Mangol Bayat
18th-century governor of Kashan under the Zand dynasty.
-
KĀŠĀNI, SAYYED ABU’L-QĀSEM
Ali Rahnema
(1877-1962), the leading political cleric during the critical period of 1941-53. Until the departure of Reza Shah in 1941, Kāšāni stayed on the sidelines of domestic Iranian politics. Mohammad Reza Shah ascended to his father’s throne on 16 September.
This Article Has Images/Tables. -
KĀŠEF ŠIRĀZI
J. T . P. de Bruijn
Persian writer on ethics and poet of the Safavid period (b. Karbalā, ca. 1592; d. Ray, ca. 1653).
-
KĀŠEF-AL-ḠEṬĀʾ, JAʿFAR
Hamid Algar
(1743-1812), Shiʿi scholar and jurist, broadly influential in both Iraq and Persia. His cognomen, meaning “remover of the veil,” alludes to one of his best known works.
-
KĀŠEF-AL-ḠEṬĀʾ, MOḤAMMAD ḤOSAYN
Hamid Algar
(1877-1954), descendant of the great Shiʿite jurist of the early Qajar period, Sheikh Jaʿfar Kāšef-al-Ḡeṭāʾ, prodigious and versatile author, teacher, and lecturer.
-
KĀŠEF-AL-SALṬANA
Ranin Kazemi
also known as Čāykār (tea planter), Qajar diplomat, reformer, author, constitutionalist, and promoter of tea cultivation (1865-1929)
-
KĀŠEFI
Osman G. Özgüdenlı
(d. 15th century), author of the epic poem Ḡazā-nāma-ye Rum on the lives of the Ottoman sultans Morād II (r. 1421-44 and 1446-51) and Moḥammad II (r. 1444-46 and 1451-81).
-
KĀŠEFI, KAMĀL-AL-DIN ḤOSAYN WĀʿEẒ
M. E . Subtelny
prolific prose-stylist of the Timurid era, religious scholar, Sufi figure, and influential preacher (b. Sabzavār, ca. 1436-37; d. Herat, 1504-5).
-
KĀSEMI, NOṢRAT-ALLĀH
Mostafa Alamouti and EIr.
(1908-1996), physician, poet, writer, orator, and politician.
-
KAŠF AL-ASRĀR
Cross-reference
wa ʿoddat al-abrār of Abu’l-Fażl Rašid-al-Dīn Meybodi. See MEYBODI.
-
KAŠF AL-LOḠĀT WA’L-EṢṬELĀḤĀT
Solomon Bayevsky
(Revealing [of the meaning] of words and terminology), title of a Persian dictionary compiled in India before 1608.
-
KAŠF AL-MAḤJUB of Hojviri
Jawid Mojaddedi
the only surviving work of Abu’l-Ḥasan ʿAli b. ʿOṯmān Hojviri (d. between 1073 and 1077) and the oldest surviving independent manual of Sufism written in Persian.
-
KAŠF AL-MAḤJUB of Sejzi
Hermann Landolt
(“Unveiling the hidden”), the Persian version of an Ismaʿili treatise originally written in Arabic by the 10th century dāʾi.
-
KAŠF AL-ẒONUN
Kioumars Ghereghlou
(“Unveiling of suppositions”), a major bibliographical dictionary in Arabic, composed by Kāteb Čelebi Moṣṭafā b. ʿAbd-Allāh, also known as Ḥāji Ḵalifa (1609-57).
-
KAŠF O ŠOHUD
Cyrus Ali Zargar
(“unveiling and witnessing”), terms commonly used by Muslim mystics to describe the acquisition of esoteric knowledge and the constant first-hand encountering of the divine presence.
-
KAŠF-E ḤEJĀB
Cross-reference
See VEILING AND UNVEILING. Forthcoming.
-
KAŠFI, MIR MOḤAMMAD ṢĀLEḤ ḤOSAYNI
Sunil Sharma
(d. 1651), calligrapher and poet in Mughal India. Authored several works in verse and prose.