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KĀBOLI, 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….

KĀBOLI, ʿAbdallāh Ḵᵛāja (also known as Kāboli Naqšbandi and Heravi), historiographer and poet of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. His pen names were “Gonāhi,” in his Taḏkerat al-tawāriḵ (including his poems therein; e.g. ms. Tashkent, fols. 93a, 177b, 258b), and “ʿAbdi,” based on two contemporary biographical collections (Moṭrebi…

KABUL (Kābol), city in eastern Afghanistan (lat 34°31′00″ N, long 69°11′00″ E), also the name of its province and a river (see KABUL RIVER). The city is the political capital of Afghanistan and has for more than two centuries been its major city. i. Geography of the province. ii. Historical…

KABUL i. Geography of the Province 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 and includes large parts of the neighboring provinces Parvān and Kapisa on its northern flank….

KABUL ii. Historical Geography 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, which showed…

KABUL iii. History from the 16th Century to the Accession of Moḥammad Ẓāher Shah 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. Later, his successors chose to spend the winter months there. Under the first…

KABUL iv. Urban Politics Since Ẓāher Shah Under Moḥammad Ẓāher Shah and Davud Khan As described by Xavier de Planhol, urban planning in Kabul during Moḥammad Ẓāher Shah’s reign (1933-73) had been driven by an overarching assumption of steady but moderate growth, given the city’s function as the capital of…

KABUL LITERARY SOCIETY (Anjoman-e adabi-e Kābol), the first official academic and cultural association of Afghanistan, 1930-40. Moḥammad Nāder Shah (r. 1929-33; see ABDĀLI/DORRĀNI) inaugurated the society (see ANJOMAN) in 1930 to promote modern Persian literature in Afghanistan. Throughout the 1930s the society attracted authors and poets writing primarily in Persian….

KABUL MUSEUM, popular name of the National Museum of Afghanistan. The history of the museum is relatively brief. A modest collection of artifacts and manuscripts already existed in the time of King Ḥabib-Allāh (r. 1901–19). In 1919 an assortment of archival material, regalia, miniatures, and art collected by the royal…

KABUL RIVER (Kābol Rōd, also called Daryā-ye Kābol, Figure 1), river in eastern Afghanistan and tributary of the Indus. The Kabul river 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. Its drainage area takes…

KABUL v. Monuments of Kabul City The modern city of Kabul has expanded to such an extent in the last three decades that it now spills out from the Kabul valley. This article focuses on the major monuments in and around the Old City of Kabul and the most significant…

KĀČI, 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. Kači, which has been identified in certain classical dictionaries with ḥariqa, qābulā, najira, ʿaṣida (used in present-day Iraq),…

KADAGISTĀN, 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 with the Pahlavi legends ktk “Kadag” and ktkstʾn ʾwstʾndʾl, i.e., Kadagistān ōstāndār “provincial administrator of Kadagistān” (Gyselen, pp. 222-23, fig. 43),…

Ḵādem Misāq, Hymn of Motherland (sorud-e mihan) title Ḵādem Misāq, Hymn of Motherland (sorud-e mihan) genre/topic Sorud language   performer Manučehr Sahbāyi, piano instrument piano composer Ḵādem Misāq author/poet   first line of poem   recorded by   place of recording   date of recording   duration 2:04 source Old…

ḴĀDEM MIṮĀQ, ʿAli-Moḥammad (b. Tehran, 1907; d. Tehran, 1958), musician, teacher, conductor, and composer. After finishing his primary education, he studied at the Falāḥat School of Agriculture (Madrasa-ye ʿāli-e falāḥat) for two years, but he soon took an interest in music and enrolled in 1930 in the newly established State…