Table of Contents

• KÖROĞLU

  Multiple Authors

  also Göroḡly, name of an early-17th-century folk hero and poet, whose stories are mainly known among the Turkic peoples; passed into the folk literature of the Armenians, Georgians, Kurds and Bulghars, and the Iranian provinces of Azerbaijan and Khorasan.

• KÖROĞLU i. LITERARY TRADITION

  Hasan Javadi

  There are at least 17 versions of the Köroǧlu/Göroḡly tradition about a heroic bandit minstrel, but the Turkic versions of the story among the Azerbaijanis, the Turks of Anatolia, and the Turkmen, are most similar to each other regarding language and plot.

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• KÖROĞLU ii. PERFORMANCE ASPECTS

  Ameneh Youssefzadeh

  The traditional venues for the performance of the Köroǧlu/Goroḡli epic are life-cycle celebrations, private gatherings, and teahouses. In Azerbaijan and northern Khorasan, from the 17th century up to the Islamic Revolution of 1978, teahouses played a pivotal role in the diffusion and the preservation of the epic.

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• KOROSH

  Multiple Authors

  the name of a tribe scattered across southwestern Iran, whose language is closely related to southern varieties of Balochi.

• KOROSH i. The Korosh people

  Maryam Nourzaei, Erik Anonby, and Carina Jahani

  Korosh communities are found in villages near large towns and cities, and in the suburbs of these cities, across southwestern Iran. Their traditional livelihood is based on camel and goat husbandry.

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• KOROSH ii. Linguistic Overview of Koroshi

  Maryam Nourzaei, Carina Jahani, and Erik Anonby

  Koroshi can be described as a distinct subgroup within the Balochi macro-language, although it shares many features with southern dialects of Balochi. The Koroshi spoken in Fars Province (the ‘northern’ dialect) differs to some extent from varieties of the southern dialect.

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• ḴORRAMIS

  Patricia Crone

  adherents of a form of Iranian religion often identified as a survival or revival of the Zoroastrian heresy, Mazdakism.

• ḴORRAMIS IN BYZANTIUM

  Evangelos Venetis

  Iranians who fought the ʿAbbasid caliph Moʿtaṣem be’llāh (r. 833-41) and enrolled in the Byzantine army of the iconoclast emperor Theophilos I (r. 829-42).

• ḴORŠĀH B. QOBĀD ḤOSEYNI, NEẒĀM-AL-DIN

  Kioumars Ghereghlou

  a Hyderabad-based diplomat and historian of Iranian descent best known for his composition of a universal chronicle in Persian in the name of the Qoṭbšāhi ruler, Ebrāhim (r. 1550-80).

• ḴORŠĀH, ROKN-AL-DIN

  Farhad Daftary

  (1230-1257), Nezāri Ismaʿili imam and the last lord of Alamut.

• ḴOŠ MAḤAL

  Phillip B. Wagoner

  Tughluqid audience hall in the Deccan.

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• KOŠĀNIYA

  P. Lurje

  a medieval Sogdian town to the west of Samarkand. Its name is most probably related to the Yuezhi Kušān dynasty and its claimed heirs, such as the Kidarites.

• ḴOSROW I

  Multiple Authors

  Sasanian king (r. 531-79), son of Kawād I.

• ḴOSROW I i. LIFE AND TIMES

  Multiple Authors

  Sasanian king (r. 531-579). i. Life and Times (forthcoming).

• ḴOSROW I ii. REFORMS

  Zeev Rubin

  a series of reforms in Sasanian taxation and military organization, probably initiated already under Kawāḏ I.

• ḴOSROW I iii. COINAGE

  Nikolaus Schindel

  The reign of Ḵosrow I (531-79) is generally regarded as the heyday of the Sasanian empire, but his coinage marks the nadir of Sasanian coin art. The most noteworthy features are innovations in reverse typology. In the first type, the assistant figures are shown frontally, a totally new depiction; and they hold what appears to be a spear.

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• ḴOSROW II

  James Howard-Johnston

  the last great king of the Sasanian dynasty (590-628 CE). The principal extant history of the period, written in Armenia in the early 650s, was appropriately entitled The History of Khosrow. He is rightly accorded a great deal of space in the Šāh-nāma of Ferdowsi.

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• ḴOSROW KHAN GORJI QĀJĀR

  Hirotake Maeda

  (1785/86-1857), an influential eunuch (Ḵᵛāja) of the Qajar era, who lived in the period spanning the reigns Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah (r. 1797-1834) to Nāṣer-al-Din Shah (r. 1848-96).

• ḴOSROW MALEK

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  the last sultan of the Ghaznavid dynasty, in northwestern India, essentially in the Panjab, with his capital at Lahore. Various honorifics are attributed to him in the historical sources, in the verses of poets eulogizing him, and in the legends of his coins in the collections of the British Museum and Lahore

• ḴOSROW MIRZĀ QĀJĀR

  George Bournoutian

  (1813-1875), the seventh son of Crown Prince ʿAbbās Mirzā, who led an official Iranian delegation to the Tsarist court in St. Petersburg.

• ḴOSROW O ŠIRIN

  Paola Orsatti

  the second poem of Neẓāmi’s Ḵamsa, recounting the amorous relationship between the Sasanian king Ḵosrow II Parviz (r. 590-628 CE), and the beautiful princess Širin.

• ḴOSROWŠĀH B. BAHRĀMŠĀH

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  penultimate ruler of the Ghaznavid dynasty, apparently still in Ghazna until the dynasty found its last home at Lahore in northwestern India at a date around or soon after the time of his death.

• ḴOṬBA

  Tahera Qutbuddin

  (oration, speech, sermon), a formal public address performed in a broad range of contexts by Muslims across the globe, rooted in the extemporaneously composed discourses of pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabia.

• ḴOTTAL

  Clifford Edmund Bosworth

  a province of medieval Islamic times on the right bank of the upper Oxus river in modern Tajikistan. A region of lush pastures, Ḵottal was famed for horse-breeding.

• KRÁMSKÝ, JIRÍ

  Jiri Bečka

  (1913-1991), Czech general linguist who specialized in Persian language studies. He then studied English and Persian (the latter under Professor J. Rypka) at the Charles University, Prague. 

• Křikavová, Adéla

  Jiri Bečka

  (1938-2002), Czech scholar of Iranian and particularly Kurdish studies.

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• KRYMSKIĬ, Agfangel Efimovich

  Natalia Chalisova

  (1871-1942) Ukrainian orientalist, author of over 1,000 works on the history and culture of Iran, Arab countries, Turkey, the Khanate of the Crimea, and Azerbaijan.

• KUFA

  Meir Litvak

  a city south of Baghdad.

• KUFTA

  Etrat Elahi

  popular Persian dish usually made of ground lamb or beef, and more recently, ground chicken or turkey in a mixture of herbs, spices, or other ingredients. There are two kinds of kufta: with rice and without.

• KUH-E ḴᵛĀJA

  Soroor Ghanimati

  a well preserved archeological site of chiefly Sasanian date, in the delta of the Helmand River, in the Iranian province of Sistān, near Zābol. The sacred precinct is located on the monumental upper part of the site and has inevitably attracted most attention.

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• KUHPĀYA

  Multiple Authors

  piedmont district east of Isfahan province, historically known as Vir.

• KUHPĀYA i. The District

  Habib Borjian

  Kuhpāya is a large piedmont boluk (3,000 km²) separated from Ardestān on the north and Nāʾin on the east respectively by the Fešārk and Kuhestān chains, extensions of the Karkas range.

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• KUHPĀYA ii. The Dialect

  Habib Borjian

  The dialects spoken in the Kuhpāya district belong to the Central Dialects, but in a narrower sense they are grouped together with the welāyati “provincial” idioms around the city of Isfahan.

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• KUKADARU, JAMSHEDJI SORAB

  Michael Stausberg and Ramiyar P. Karanjia

  (1831-1900), Parsi Zoroastrian priest. He was renowned for his spiritual powers, in particular with respect to healing and divination.

• KULĀB

  Habib Borjian

  or Kōlāb, city and former province (the greater part of medieval Ḵottal[ān]) of Tajikistan.

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• KULĀBI DIALECT

  Habib Borjian

  a distinct variant of Tajik spoken in Kulāb and adjoining districts.

• KUNDA(G)

  Mahnaz Moazami

  a demon in Zoroastrian literature;  in the Avesta, Sraoša or Ātar is implored to cast it into hell; in Middle Persian books, it is the steed of the sorcerers.  

• ḴUR

  Habib Borjian

  oasis on the southern border of the Great Desert in central Persia; the administrative center of the sub-province of Ḵur and Biābānak.

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• KURDISH LANGUAGE i. HISTORY OF THE KURDISH LANGUAGE

  Ludwig Paul

  from Old and Middle Iranian times, no predecessors of the Kurdish language are yet known; the extant Kurdish texts may be traced back to no earlier than the 16th century CE.

• KURDISH LANGUAGE ii. HISTORY OF KURDISH STUDIES

  Joyce Blau

  The article provides a brief account of Kurdish studies, which is a relatively recent academic field. The earliest studies of the Kurdish language and civilization were carried out by missionaries.

• KURDISH TRIBES

  Pierre Oberling

  Kurdish tribes are found throughout Persia, eastern Anatolia and northern Iraq, but very few comprehensive lists of them have been published.

• KURDISH WRITTEN LITERATURE

  Philip G. Kreyenbroek

  Written, “elevated” poetry traditionally played a less prominent role in Kurdish society than folk poetry (q.v.) did. The number of written literary works in Kurdish is far smaller than in the surrounding cultures.

• KURDOEV, QENĀTĒ

  Joyce Blau

  (1909-1985), Kurdish philologist and university professor.

• KURGAN TEPE

  Habib Borjian

  (Qūrḡonteppa in Tajik orthography; Kurgan-Tyube in Russian), provincial capital and former province of Tajikistan.

• KURUNI

  Pierre Oberling

  a Kurdish tribe of Kurdistan and Fārs. Most of the tribe was transplanted from Kurdistan to Fārs by Karim Khan Zand during the 1760s.

• KUŠ-NĀMA

  Jalal Matini

  part of a mythical history of Iran written between 1108 and 1111, dealing with the eventful life of Kuš the Tusked.

• KUSA

  Anna Krasnowolska

  a carnival character known to the medieval and modern folklore of central and western Persia.

• KUSHAN DYNASTY

  Multiple Authors

  the line of rulers in Bactria, Central Asia and northern India from the first century CE.

• KUSHAN DYNASTY i. Dynastic History

  A. D. H. Bivar

  During the first to mid-third centuries CE, the empire of the Kushans (Mid. Pers. Kušān-šahr) represented a major world power in Central Asia and northern India.

• KUSHAN DYNASTY ii. Inscriptions of the Kushans

  N. Sims-Williams and H. Falk

  The inscriptions issued by the Kushan rulers or in areas under their rule include texts in Bactrian, written in Greek script, and in Prakrit written in Brāhmī or Kharoṣṭhī script. Naturally enough, the Bactrian inscriptions are mostly found in Bactria and the Indian inscriptions in the Kushan territories to the south and east of the Hindu Kush.