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KARAJ RIVER (Rud-e Karaj), the second major permanent river of the central Iranian plateau after the Zāyandarud (see ISFAHAN i-ii). The river runs 245 km, with an average slope of 0.8 percent, average annual discharge of 499 mcm (million cubic meters), and precipitation of 625 mm; the basin area is 2,800 km2. It flows…

KARAKI, 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. Karaki belonged to a family of legal scholars from Karak-Nuḥ in Baalbek (Baʿlabakk). Scores of scholars—referred to collectively as ʿĀmeli—emerged from the towns of Jabal ʿĀmel and Baʿlabakk al-Hermel, where…

KARĀMA “(saintly) marvel, wonder, or miracle” in Arabic (pl. karāmāt). As a technical term in the Muslim religious sciences both its etymology and usage fall close to the Greek charisma(ta) in the sense of denoting the miraculous, wondrous, or preternatural feats which God freely grants certain elect individuals the capacity…

KARAPAN (or Karpan), designation of members of a class of daivic priests opposed to the religion of Zarathustra. These priests were a part of the general society in which Zarathustra was active, as reflected in his Gāthās, but they seem to have receded into legendary status already in the formulaic…

KARĀʾI (QARĀʾI, QARĀ TĀTĀR), a Turkic-speaking tribe of Azerbaijan, Khorasan, Kermān, and Fārs. As Vladimir Minorsky wrote, “The name of the Karāʾi may in fact be connected with that of the famous Mongol tribe, the Kereʾit, who, because of their Christian Nestorian faith, were imagined to be the good people…

KARBALA (Karbalāʾ), 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 (lit. sublime or sacred thresholds; see ʿATABĀT). The third Imam of the…

KÁRDAKES, 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). Notwithstanding the rather muddled terminology found in the sources, the crucial pieces of evidence are the two references in Arrian, Anabasis 2.8.6…

the northernmost and largest of the five traditional Ṭāleš khanates (Ḵamsa-ye Ṭavāleš) in western Gilān. It includes the catchment basin of the river Kargānrud and several smaller streams to its north. In the administrative reform of 1937 Kargānrud became a rural district (dehestān) in Markazi district (baḵš), Ṭavāleš sub-province (šahrestān)….

KARGAR, DARIUSH (Dāriuš Kārgar, b. Hamadān, 7 January 1953; d. Uppsala, Sweden, 2 November 2012), Iranist, fiction writer, and journalist (FIGURE 1). LIFE Dariush Kargar was the second of the five children of Yaḥyā Kārgar Zarrin-qalam and Ḵadijeh Ḵorāsāni. His father was a high school teacher, who also taught painting and music at…

KĀRGOZĀR (lit. agent), a term used from the early 19th century until the abolishment of capitulation (kāpitulāsion) in 1927 (see Judicial System iv and v) to refer specifically to an agent of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was charged with regulating relations between Iranian subjects and foreigners. His function…

KARIM DEVONA, pen-name of Abdul-Karim Qurbon, Tajik folk poet (b. in the village of Jūraki Hisor, in present-day Tajikistan, in 1878; d. 1918 in the same place, a victim of a cholera epidemic). Like the other inhabitants of his village, he was very poor. He spent much of his life…

KARIM KHAN ZAND [Moḥammad-Karim] (b. ca. 1705; d. Shiraz 13 Ṣafar 1193/1 March 1779; FIGURE 1), “The Wakil,” ruler of Persia (except Khorasan) from Shiraz during 1164-93/1751-79. The Zand were a pastoral tribe of the Lak branch of the northern Lors, ranging between the inner Zagros and the Hamadān plains,…

KĀRIN, one of the seven great families of the Parthian and Sasanian periods (OIr.*kar-ina-;cf. OPers. kāra- m., people, army; Parth. krny; MPers. kʾlny; Armen. karen; Gk. karanos; Lat. carenes; Ar. qāren). The name is attested as early as the Achaemenid period (Bivar, 1961, p. 123, n. 5; Tavernier, p. 386)…

KĀRIZ, underground irrigation canals, also called qanāt. The Classical, Eastern (e.g., Khorasan, Baluchistan, Afghanistan), and Middle Persian form kārēz (< kār- “to draw furrows” and rēz- “to flow”) will be used in this article. In official Iranian administrative parlance, the Arabic term qanāt has become the preferred technical term (see...