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KĀK, a general term applied to several kinds of flat bread or small, often thin, dry cakes variously shaped and made, and therefore differently defined in dictionaries and cookbooks. The earliest source which mentions kāk is perhaps Asrār al-tawḥid, where one reads of Shaikh Abu Saʿid (d. 1048, q.v.) sending…

KĀKAGI. The term kāka and its cognate kākagi are common words in Afghan Persian (or Dari) and are roughly equivalent to the well-known Persian words, ʿayyār and ʿayyāri, and javānmard and javānmardi (see also Loewen, 2001). A kāka is a vagabond or vigilante characterized by the ideals of chivalry, courage, generosity,…

KĀKĀVAND, a Lor tribe of the Delfān group. In the second half of the 20th century they had settled in the Piškuh region of Luristan (Lorestān), as well as west of Qazvin and in the Ṭārom region. When the Kākāvand were still nomadic, their winter quarters were around Holeylān and…

KĀKĀʾI, a term used both for a tribal federation and for a religious group in Iraqi Kurdistan. The word Kākāʾi (also spelled Kākaʾi) derives from Kurd. kak ‘brother’ and means ‘belonging to the brotherhood’. It is reminiscent of the terms Ṣoḥbatiya ‘circle of friends’, an ancient name for the group…

ḴĀKI ḴORĀSĀNI, EMĀMQOLI, Ismaʿili poet and preacher of 17th-century Persia (b. Dizbād; d. Dizbād, after 1056/1646). He was born in Dizbād, a village in the hills half way between Mashhad and Nišāpur, which at the time was the largest dwelling place of the Ismaʿilis of northern Khorasan. Little is known…

ḴĀKI ŠIRĀZI, ḤASAN BEG  (حسن بیگ خاکی شیرازی, d. 1612), Persian historian and bureaucrat, whose chronicle, titled Aḥsan al-tavāriḵ, is a general history of pre-Islamic and Islamic dynasties of Iran, the Indian subcontinent, and Central Asia. LIFE Little is known of Ḵāki Širāzi’s life and career. He came from a…

KAKRAK, a Buddhist site comprised of a group of caves, in Bāmyān Province, Afghanistan, about three kilometers southeast of the Bāmyān site. The caves are normally referred to as Buddhist sanctuaries and dwellings of Buddhist monks. Kakrak was discovered at the end of the 19th century by the British military…

ḴĀKSĀR, a strictly popular order of Persian dervishes, favored by artisans and shopkeepers (see also IRAN ix. ISLAM IN IRAN [2.3]). The name “Ḵāksār” (lit. ‘dust-like’) was probably chosen to figuratively denote a lowly, humble, and modest person (Dehḵodā, pp. 9338-39; Moʿin, p. 422). The earliest mention of a group…

ḴĀKŠI (or ḵākšir, ḵākšū; flixweed), a medicinal plant, Descurainia sophia (L) Webb ex Prantl (Syn. Sisymbrium sophia L.) of the Brassicaceae, known as the mustard family (Moẓafariān, p. 181). Ḵākši is an annual herbaceous plant, 50 to 80 cm high with thin branching.  It has long leaves with deep cuts,…

KĀKUYIDS [KAKWAYHIDS], a dynasty of Deylamite origin that ruled in western Persia, in Jebāl and Kurdistan about 1008-51 as independent princes, and thereafter locally as feudatories of the Great Saljuqs until the mid-12th century. They represent one of the hitherto submerged local powers of this region, Deylamite and Kurdish, who rose…

ḴALAF B. AḤMAD b. Moḥammad, Abu Aḥmad (d. 399/1009), Amir in Sistān of the “second line” of Saffarids, who ruled between 352/963 and 393/1003 and may be termed “the Khalafids” after an ancestor (the grandfather of the restored Amir Abu Jaʿfar Aḥmad). He skillfully retained his political authority at a…

ḴALAJ i. Ḵalaj Tribe. ii. Ḵalaji Language.

ḴALAJ  i. TRIBE The Ḵalaj/Khalaj are usually referred to as Turks, but Josef Marquart (pp. 251-54) claimed that they were remnants of the Hephthalite confederation, which would indicate that they were originally Indo-Iranian. “Muslim authors agree that the Khalaj are one of the earliest tribes to have crossed the Oxus,”…

ḴALAJ ii. ḴALAJI LANGUAGE The speakers of Khalaj settle approximately 250 km to the southwest of Tehran. In the 1960s and 1970s their settlement, sometimes called Ḵalajestān, enclosed 47 villages. The number of the speakers of Khalaj at that time was approximately 20,000 people. There is no concrete data available…