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KĀVA, the name of a heroic blacksmith in the Šāhnāma who rebels against the tyrant Żaḥḥāk and helps Ferēdun wrest the kingdom from him. Kāva appears in the narrative when Żaḥḥāk is set on forcing his subjects to testify to his good rule by signing an official document to that effect….

KĀVA (Kaveh, کاوه ), a Persian journal (1916-22) published in Berlin by Sayyed Ḥasan Taqizāda (q.v.), who headed a group of nationalist Persians living in Germany known as Komita-ye Melliyun-e Irāni dar Berlan (Iranian Nationalist Committee of Berlin). Kāva was printed usually in double-column format (in early years, sometimes single-column) on…

ḴĀVARĀN-NĀMA (or ḴĀVAR-NĀMA) a Persian religious epic poem composed by Ebn Ḥosām Ḵᵛāfi or Ḵusfi. i. The Epic Poem. ii. The Illustrated Manuscripts.  

ḴĀVARĀN-NĀMA i. The Epic Poem Moḥammad b. Ḥosām-al-Din b. Ḥasan b. Šams-al-Din Moḥammad, known as Ebn Ḥosām Ḵᵛāfi or Ḵusfi (b. 783/1381, d. 875/1470), a native of Qohestān, completed the Ḵāvarān-nāma in 830/1426-27. The epic is written in the motaqāreb meter and comprises about 22,500 verses. There is no complete…

ḴĀVARĀN-NĀMA ii. The Illustrated Manuscripts This sub-entry discusses illustrated manuscripts of Ḵāvarān-nāma from Iran, Turkey, and India. Iran. The earliest extant, richly illustrated, copy of Ebn Ḥosām’s Ḵāvarān-nāma is partly preserved in a later binding, with the folios not in the orginal sequence, for a while in the Golestān Palace…

ḴĀVARI KĀŠĀNI, Sayyed AḤMAD Faḵr-al-Wāʿeẓin, Lesān-al-Eslām (b. Kashan, ca. 1854; d. Kashan, 1914), preacher, poet, journalist, and constitutional activist. He was born into a cultured family of Kāšāni poets and preachers; his mother, who may well have been his main literary influence, was a niece of notable Qajar poet and…

Sasanian king (r. 488-96, 498-531), son of Pērōz I (see FIRUZ). Kawād I succeeded his uncle Walāxš (see BALĀŠ) in 488, when the latter was deposed by the nobility. This entry is divided into two sections: i. Reign. ii. Coinage.

KAWĀD I ii. COINAGE Since the reign of Jāmāsp interrupts the two regnal periods of Kawād I, and because of several marked differences between the first and second reigns, the two should be treated separately. As has been shown by Mosig-Walburg (1994, pp. 37-56), there never was a reign of…

KAWĀD I i. Reign The reign of Kawād I, lasting from 488 to 531, with an interruption of some three years , is a turning point in Sasanian history. When the king ascended the throne, power and prestige of the Sasanian King of Kings had reached its nadir; when Kawād…