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KASRAVI, AḤMAD vii. A Bibliographical Survey Aḥmad Kasravi was a prolific writer. From the age of 25, when he began to write in Tabriz in 1915, until his assassination 30 years later in 1946, he wrote numerous articles and published some 70 books and pamphlets on a wide range of…

KASRA’I, HOSAYN SIAVASH (Ḥosayn Siāvaš Kasrāʾi, b. Tehran, 1318 Š./1939; d. Tehran, 8 Tir 1382 Š./20 June 2003), painter. His father’s career entailed a great deal of traveling. Kasra’i’s observations during these numerous travels had later an enormous effect on his artistic works. He lived in Khorasan until he was eighteen,…

KASRA’I, SIAVASH (Siāvaš Kasrāʾi, b. Isfahan, 1926; d. Vienna, 8 February 1996; Figure 1), noted Marxist poet and political activist of the 20th century who, in different stages of his literary career, assumed several pseudonyms: Kowli, Rašid Ḵalqi, Farhād-e Rahāvar and Šabān-e bozorg-e omid. Shortly after his birth, Kasra’i’s parents…

ḴĀṢṢ BEG ARSLĀN B. PALANG-ERI, Turkish ḡolām who became the ḥājeb “chamberlain” and court favorite of the Great Saljuq Sultan Masʿud b. Moḥammad b. Malek Šāh (r. 1134-52); he played a prominent role in the troubled events of western Persia during that reign. Palang-Eri, Persian-Turkish “leopard-man,” seems to be a probable…

ḴĀṢṢA, an Arabic term that in the early Muslim period as well as later denoted people and things that were “special, elite, private” as against those that were “public, common, general” (ʿāmma; Morony, p. 258; see CLASS SYSTEM iv). However, soon the term was also used to denote the private…

KAŠŠI, ABU ʿAMR MOḤAMMAD b. ʿOmar (d. 367/ 978), an Imami traditionist and an important figure in Shiʿite biographical literature (rejāl). Kašši lived in the first half of the 10th century. Though his place of origin is not mentioned, he was probably born in Kešš, a city in medieval Transoxania,…

KASSITES, a people who probably originated in the Zagros and who ruled Babylonia in the 16th-12th centuries BCE. Their Akkadian name Kaššû originates from a Kassite form *G/Kalž- (cf. Balkan, 1954, pp. 131 f.). Middle Babylonian documents from Nuzi have the form Ku-uš-šu (-hé), i.e., with the Hurrian adjectival ending…

KAŠVĀD, the name of the ancestor of the Gōdarziān clan (q.v.) of heroes in the Šāh-nāma.  Based on Ṭabari’s rendition of his name as Jašvād (Ṭabari, I, pp. 608, 617-18), Theodor Nöldeke suggested that the correct form of this name must be Gašvād, with an initial “g” rather than “k”…

KĀṮ (or Kāt, Kat), the old capital of Chorasmia, situated by the Oxus/Āmu Daryā river, near its delta at the Aral Sea. Like the other large urban centers of Chorasmia, Kāṯ owes both its glory and demise to the Oxus, an unending source of sustenance as well as destruction in…

KATA (kateh), a simple, everyday rice dish characteristic for the Caspian provinces, Gilan and Mazanderan. It is prepared by combining all the ingredients (rice, two cups of water for every cup of rice, butter, and salt) and boiling over medium heat; the rice is not soaked previously.  When the water is absorbed, the…

KATĀYUN, a mythological figure in the Šāh-nāma of Ferdowsi and in the Bundahišn.  In the Šāh-nāma (pp. 19-24), Katāyun is the daughter of the emperor of Rum, who marries Goštāsp while he is in exile.  In the Bundahišn it is mentioned as the name of  Ferēdun’s brother (TD₁, fol. 98r; Anklesaria, 35.10,…

ḴAṬIB ROSTAM DEDE B. ʿABD-ALLĀH MAWLAWI (Hatîb Rüstem Dede b. Abdullah el-Mevlevî; d. after 903/ 1498), Ottoman Sufi, writer, and poet. Little is known about his life. He seems to have been born in the second half of the 9th/15th century. He belonged to the Mawlawi order and lived in…