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. 

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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. 

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• 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.

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• 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.