Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Kadı Burhaneddin (Qāḍī Burhān al-Dīn) (745–c.800/1345–98) was an eminent eighth/fourteenth-century Anatolian ruler, poet, and author. “Burhaneddin” is an epithet meaning “the proof of the correct ritual practice,” and the title kadı ( qāḍī, judge) refers to his early profession. His original name was Ahmed (Aḥmed). Of Oghuz Turkic descent, Burhaneddin was born on 3 Ramazan (Ramaḍān) 745/8 January 1345 into a family of judges in the Anatolian town of Kayseri. Political turmoil following the death of Kayseri’s overlord, Eretna (d. 753/1352–3…

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…

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…

Kadınlar Halk Fırkası (Qādīnlar Khalq Fırqası, Women’s People’s Party, KHF, 1341–2/1923–4) was an officially prevented attempt to establish an Ottoman-Turkish women’s party in order to achieve political, social, and economic rights for women. It was a group of activist women in Istanbul, founded in June 1923 by leading feminist Nezihe Muhiddin (Nezīhe Muḥyī al-Dīn, d. 1958) and dissolved in February 1924. Kadınlar Halk Fırkası was established by prominent Ottoman-Turkish women, “of the most enlightened strata of Turkish women” according to Vakit ((Vaqt), no. 1966) daily new…

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…

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–…

Kafzade Faizi (Qāfzāde Fāʾiḍī, 998–1031/1589–1622) was an Ottoman poet, judge, and scholar who was active in his hometown Istanbul. His real name was Abdülhay (ʿAbd al-Ḥayy), his pen name was Faizi, and Kafzade was his cognomen inherited from his paternal grandfather. His family was one of the most well-known and well-established Istanbulite ulema (ʿulemā) families of the period. Faizi’s mother was the granddaughter of Şeyhülislam Ebussuud Efendi (Shaykh al-Islām Abū l-Suʿūd Efendi, d. 982/1574) who was rated among the most distinguished scholars …

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 …

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…