Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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Subject: Middle East and Islamic Studies
Edited by Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas and Everett Rowson.
With Roger Allen, Edith Ambros, Thomas Bauer, Johann Büssow, Ruth Davis, Ahmed El Shamsy, Maribel Fierro, Najam Haider, Konrad Hirschler, Nico Kaptein, Alexander Knysh, Corinne Lefèvre, Scott Levi, Roman Loimeier, Daniela Meneghini, Negin Nabavi, M'hamed Oualdi, D. Fairchild Ruggles, Ignacio Sánchez, and Ayman Shihadeh.
The Third Edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam is an entirely new work, which sets out the present state of our knowledge of the Islamic World and reflects the great diversity of current scholarship. It is a unique and invaluable reference tool, an essential key to understanding the world of Islam, and the authoritative source not only for the religion, but also for the believers and the countries in which they live. The new scope includes comprehensive coverage of Islam in the twentieth century and of Muslim minorities all over the world.
Kaarta
(918 words)
Kaarta was a pre-colonial state in present-day western Mali covering approximately fifty thousand square kilometres at its maximum extent, under the rule of non-Muslim, Bamana-speaking Kulibali lineages during the early nineteenth century. Kaarta, originally a small region of Kaare (whose name is the source of “Kaarta”) from which the Kulibali expanded state control, extended west to the upper Senegal River valley, east to include Bakhunu on the frontier with Maasina, north to a frontier with Ha…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
Kaʿba
(2,899 words)
The
Kaʿba is a cuboid structure in the centre of Mecca and is the most prominent sacred structure in the Islamic world. Also known as God’s house
(bayt Allāh), it is the direction of prayer
(qibla) for Muslims across the world and the focal point of several rituals performed by pilgrims undertaking the
ḥajj and the
ʿumra (the lesser pilgimage). It is approximately fifteen metres tall at its highest point, and its four sides are between approximately ten and thirteen metres long. Inside the Kaʿba, the roof is supported by three pillars. The façade wal…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
Kabābīsh
(498 words)
The
Kabābīsh are the largest of the nomadic Arab tribes of northern Kordofan, numbering approximately 130,000 in 2010. Their economy is based on the highly mobile rearing of camels and sheep and on some cultivation of millet. Like the other tribes of the northern Sudan, they provide a good example for ethnogenetic processes in the shadow of consecutive Sudanese states. In about 1850 they were reported to inhabit the country west of the Nile, from Dongola to El Dueim, their more mobile groups spending the rainy season northwest of the Wādī al-Milk with their herds and flocks. Their chief
shayk…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
Kaʿb b. Mālik
(900 words)
Kaʿb b. Mālik al-Anṣārī (d. 50/670 or 53/673) was a poet from the Banū Salima branch of the Khazraj and an early convert of the Anṣār (Medinan Companions of the Prophet). Kaʿb’s birthdate is unknown but it appears he was an adult when Muḥammad emigrated to Yathrib (1/622), since he was reportedly present at the second ʿAqaba meeting (where leaders of Yathrib swore allegiance to the Prophet), and the Prophet reportedly changed Kaʿb’s
kunya from Abū Bashīr to Abū ʿAbdallāh (Ibn Ḥajar,
al-Iṣāba, 5:309). Most traditions state Kaʿb was not at the battle of Badr (Ibn Ḥajar,
Tahdhīb, 8:440), but f…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
Kabul art and architecture
(2,784 words)
Kabul, capital and principal city of modern Afghanistan, has a history of
art and architecture spanning over two millennia but only few material remains survived. Kabul blossomed at times as a provincial garrison town and major trade post, at other times as the centre of the various pre-Islamic and Islamic empires that dominated the Hindu Kush region, the proverbial “crossroads of Asia” and “gateway to India,” amalgamating cultural influences from Hellenic, Persian, Arabo-Islamic, Central Asian, and Indian civilisations. Numerous remains and archaeological finds both with…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
Kachchh
(2,060 words)
The history of
Kachchh (Kachchh, often spelt Kutch) in western India has been affected by its status as a maritime centre and by its geographical location between Sind and Gujarat (Gujarāt). The region’s ports long handled much of the overseas trade of the northern Indian subcontinent, and for centuries Kachchhī sailors have ranged across the Indian Ocean. 1. Population The Arab conquest of Sind in 90–2/709–11 placed Kachchh on the frontier between Muslim-dominated Sind to the north and the Hindu-ruled states of Saurāshtra (now part of Gujarat) to the s…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
Kachchh art and architecture
(1,965 words)
Kachchh (Kachchh, a Sanskritic word, often spelt Kutch) was, from the seventh/thirteenth century to 1948, a princely state in present-day northwestern Gujarat state, India, which included Sind (Pakistan), Badmer and Jaisalmer (Rajasthan), and the Rann (salt marshes) of Kutch in Gujarat. Isolated geographically on the Subcontinent by the impenetrable Thar desert and the Arabian Sea, with no easy land access to a neighbouring country, Kachchh was not well known to Indian travellers, although its interior did become more familiar in the e…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
Kadın
(597 words)
Kadın (Qādīn, “Woman”) was an Ottoman women’s magazine published in the city of Salonica (Selānīk, present-day Thessaloniki) during the Second Constitutional period (1325–36/1908–18) in the Ottoman Empire. Like many of the 32 Ottoman women’s journals published from 1285 Rumi /1869 to 1923,
Kadın’s publication life was brief, consisting of thirty issues, from Teşrīn-i Evvel 1324 Rumi/September 1908 to Māyıs 1325 Rumi/May 1909.
Kadın’s publishers were ardent supporters of the Constitutional Revolution of 1908 and had close ties with the İttihat ve Terakki Ce…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
Kadınlar Dünyası
(638 words)
Kadınlar Dünyası (“The World of Women”), an Ottoman illustrated journal published from 1913 to 1921, is a significant source for the history of the women’s movement in the Ottoman Empire (Çakır,
Osmanlı kadın hareketi). The periodical was owned and run exclusively by women. It had an editorial board and printing staff composed of women; the letters and essays it published were written by women contributors; and the press where it was printed bore the same name as the periodical.
Kadınlar Dünyası’s goal was “to defend the rights and interests of womanhood,” as expressed on t…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
Kaftārū, Aḥmad
(1,121 words)
Aḥmad Kaftārū (1912–2004) was the grand
muftī of Syria (1964–2004) and the leader of the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya-Khālidiyya-Kaftāriyya Ṣūfī order (
ṭarīqa) in Syria. He was a devoted supporter of the regime of Ḥāfiẓ al-Asad (r. 1970–2000) and Bashshār al-Asad (r. beginning 2000). Aḥmad Kaftārū was born around 1912 in Damascus, the son of Amīn Kaftārū (1877–1938) and Nājiyya Sinjābī. His father was a Kurd, whose family had moved from Karma, near al-Ḥasaka, in northeastern Syria, to Damascus in 1878 (al-Ḥāfiẓ and Abāẓa, 290, 515). Aft…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
Kāfūr, Malik
(886 words)
Malik Kāfūr (d. 715/1316) was a eunuch converted to Islam, reportedly of Marāťhā origin, who went on to become a high-ranking minister and powerful military commander during the reign of Sulṭān ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad Shāh Khaljī (r. 695–715/1296–1316). Acquired as a young slave during the conquest of Gujarat in 698/1299—his sobriquets
hazār dinārī and
al-alfī (lit., of a thousand dinars) ostensibly referred to the price paid for him—Kāfūr’s advance over the following years is undocumented, although his later career was very successful. In about 705–…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
Kāhī
(599 words)
Abū l-Qāsim Najm al-Dīn Muḥammad
Kāhī (d. 988/1580) was a scholar and professional Persian poet who was connected chiefly to the courts of the Mughal emperors Humāyūn (r. 937–47/1530–40 and 962–3/1555–6) and Akbar (r. 963–1014/1556–1605). He was born in Mian Kal, in Central Asia, but was generally known by the
nisba Kābulī. Kāhī encountered the great Tīmūrid Ṣūfī poet and hagiographer Jāmī (d. 898/1492) at the age of fifteen and studied
tafsīr (Qurʾānic commentary) and mysticism with him. He was known for his accomplishments in music and the composition of riddles …
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
Kajoran, Raden
(506 words)
Raden Kajoran (d. 1679), also known as Panembahan Rama, was a Muslim spiritual leader in Central Java reputed to have had supernatural powers (which are not described in detail in the sources). Kajoran, where he was based, is some sixteen kilometres northeast of the court of Plered, which had been founded by the Mataram dynasty ruler Amangkurat I (r. 1646–77), who stands in Javanese history as the quintessential royal tyrant. He ordered the slaughter of 5,000 to 6,000 Muslim religious leaders and…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
Kākatīya dynasty
(966 words)
The
Kākatīya dynasty was a line of Indian rulers who controlled parts of the eastern Deccan as independent monarchs from 558/1163 to 723/1323, when their territory was seized by the Delhi Sultanate (r. 602–932/1206–1526). The Kākatīya realm was one of three regional kingdoms that flourished in the Deccan in this period, each associated with a different vernacular literary culture: Telugu in the Kākatīya case, Kannaḍa in Hoysaḷa territory, and Marāťhī in the Yādava region. Similar in being based in…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
al-Kalābādhī
(1,046 words)
Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Isḥāq
al-Kalāabādhī was the author of the
Kitāb al-taʿarruf li-madhhab ahl al-taṣawwuf (“Book of acquaintance with the Ṣūfī school”), a famous treatise on Ṣūfism. His year of death is contested but was perhaps 380/990. He probably came from Kalābādh, a town near Bukhara, where his tomb is located. He is said to have been of the Ḥanafī rite, like many Transoxanians of his time. While it may be questioned whether he was the great jurist, the Indian author ʿAbd al-Ḥayy al-Lakhnawī (d. 1886) (Arberry, xi) made him out to be, he does seem to have been trained as a reporter of
ḥadīth…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
al-Kalāʿī, Ibn ʿAbd al-Ghafūr
(1,021 words)
Abū l-Qāsim Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Ghafūr b. Muḥammad
Ibn ʿAbd al-Ghafūr (d. after 542/1147)
al-Kalāʿī—from the Ḥimyarite tribe of Dhū l-Kalāʿ—was an Andalusī secretary and a jurist, and the author of
Iḥkām ṣanʿat al-kalām (“Mastering the art of prose writing”), a treatise belonging to the genre of Arabic secretarial manuals (
adab al-kātib). 1. Life Ibn ʿAbd al-Ghafūr was probably born in or around Seville, where his family came from and where both his grandfather and father ranked among the leading secretaries (
kātibs) and
wazīrs of the city’s ʿAbbādid rulers (417–84/1027–91). A…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
Kalatidha, Serat
(472 words)
Serat Kalatidha (“The time of darkness/troubles”) is amongst the most celebrated of Javanese poems. This twelve-stanza (108-line) poem was composed in sung verse by the renowned author R. Ng Ronggawarsita (d. 1873), court poet of the Kraton Surakarta, the royal palace of the Central Javanese kingdom of Surakarta. It is generally accepted that Ronggawarsita wrote the poem in 1873, shortly before his death. Often taken as a prophecy, the work is both a critical commentary on the state of society an…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
Kalāt, khānate of
(2,732 words)
The
khānate of Kalāt existed on the borderlands of India and Iran until its merger with Pakistan in 1955. It emerged in the eleventh/seventeenth century, when a declining Ṣafavid empire to the west and weakening Mughal rule to the east created a power vacuum that later facilitated the emergence of several polities in the area. 1. Early history The khānate was formally established by Aḥmad Khān (r. 1077–1107/1666–95) as a loose federation of the Brahui (Brahūī) tribes of the Kalāt highlands in 1077/1666. The origins of the Brahui and the processes that …
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
Kalbāsī, Muḥammad Ibrāhīm
(881 words)
Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Kalbāsī (or Karbāsī, 1179–1262/1766–1845) was amongst the most prominent Shīʿī scholars in the world and was central to the neo-Uṣūlī network in Iran. Neo-Uṣūlism has been the most powerful socio-intellectual movement in the Shīʿī world since the twelfth/eighteenth century and is rooted in the rationalist school of Shīʿī law. Kalbāsī helped consolidate the international Shīʿī community in the hands of Uṣūlīs, who persecuted Akhbārīs, Ṣūfīs, and others as a result of ideological di…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
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2020-12-18
Kalb b. Wabara
(1,095 words)
Kalb b. Wabara was a major Arabian lineage group of the Quḍāʿa. Predominantly camel-breeding pastoralists, the Kalb constituted powerful clans in the deserts between Syria and Iraq in pre-Islamic times, and were a key power-broking faction in the Umayyad era. Their lands were strategically significant: from their base in the ancient cult centre of Dūmat al-Jandal, the Kalb controlled the Wādī Sirḥān access route between Syria and central Arabia; they also occupied the Samāwa desert west of al-Ḥīra…
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
Date:
2020-12-18