Tuesday, February 14, 2023

2023: Kiarostami - Kizilbash


Kiarostami, Abbas

Abbas Kiarostami (b. June 22, 1940, Tehrān, Iran — d. July 4, 2016, Paris, France) was an Iranian director-writer known for experimenting with the boundaries between reality and fiction.

Kiarostami studied painting and graphic arts at the University of Tehrān and spent a period designing posters, illustrating children’s books, and directing advertisements and film credit sequences. He was hired in 1969 by the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults to establish its film division. The institute produced his first film as a director, the lyrical short Nān va kūcheh (1970; Bread and Alley), which featured elements that would define his later work: improvised performances, documentary textures, and real-life rhythms. His first feature, Mosāfer (1974; The Traveler), about a rebellious village boy determined to go to Tehran and watch a football (soccer) match, is an indelible portrait of a troubled adolescent. In the 1980s, Kiarostami’s documentaries Avalihā (1984; First Graders) and Mashq-e shab (1989; Homework) offered insight into the lives of Iranian schoolchildren.

In the Koker trilogy, named for the village where much of the trilogy takes place, Kiarostami moved from his traditional subject matter of the moral lives of children to explore the overlap between films and reality. In Khaneh-ye dust kojast? (1987; Where Is the Friend’s Home?), an eight-year-old boy must return his friend’s notebook, but he does not know where his friend lives. The second film, endegi va digar hich (1992; And Life Goes On…, or Life and Nothing More), follows the journey of the director (played by an actor) of Where Is the Friend’s Home? to Koker, damaged by a severe earthquake since the first film, to find the young boy who starred in that movie. And Life Goes On… was also the first of Kiarostami’s films centered around a car trip, a motif he would return to often in his career. The final film in the trilogy, ir-e darakhtan-e evton (1994; Through the Olive Trees), is about an actor’s difficult romantic pursuit of a fellow actress during the filming of And Life Goes On…. During this period Kiarostami also made Namay-e nadik (1990; Close-Up), which tells the true story of a film buff who swindled an upper-class Tehrān family by pretending to be noted director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. The film buff, the family, and Makhmalbaf all played themselves. The Koker trilogy and Close-Up brought Kiarostami international acclaim. 

Kiarostami's screenplay for Jafar Panahi's Bādkonak-e sefīd (1995; The White Balloon), a look at life through the eyes of a seven-year-old girl, further increased his reputation.

In Taʿm-e gīlās (1997; Taste of Cherry), a man drives around the hills outside Tehrān trying to find someone who will bury him after he commits suicide. Much of the film’s action unfolds in long scenes of conversation set in the protagonist’s car. Taste of Cherry shared the Palme d’Or with Imamura Shohei's Unagi (The Eel) at the 1997 Cannes film festival. Bād mā rā khāhad bord (1999; The Wind Will Carry Us) tells the story of an engineer who travels with a film crew to a remote mountain village to document a funeral ceremony. The film is told in an elliptical style, with many characters remaining offscreen entirely.

ABC Africa (2001) is a documentary about Ugandan orphans whose parents died of AIDS or were killed in the civil war, and it was the first of several features Kiarostami shot entirely by using digital video. With 10 (2002) Kiarostami took advantage of the creative freedom offered by lightweight digital video equipment to do a film of 10 scenes set entirely in the front seat of a car. A young divorced woman drives around Tehrān and has conversations with her son and a diverse group of women who form a cross section of contemporary Iran. Five: 5 Long Takes Dedicated to Yasujiro Ou (2003) is five scenes of a seashore shot without camera movement in a style inspired by that of Japanese director Ou Yasujiro, and it began a period of Kiarostami’s work in which he made films that eschewed narrative. In Shīrīn (2008) members of an audience of women watch a film inspired by Nezami's romantic epic poem Khosrow o Shīrīn (“Khosrow and Shīrīn”). The film consists, except for the credits, of close-ups of the women, and the film-within-the-film about Khosrow and Shīrīn is heard but never shown.

Copie conforme (2010; Certified Copy) was Kiarostami’s first narrative feature film since 10 and the first he shot outside Iran. In Tuscany a gallery owner (played by Juliette Binoche, who appeared in Shīrīn) invites an art historian (William Shimell) to tour the countryside with her. However, the true nature of their relationship is ambiguous in that sometimes they act as a long-married couple and sometimes they seem to have just met. Like Someone in Love (2012), which was shot in Japan, is about a young prostitute, her fiancé, and one of her clients, an elderly writer, and is another of Kiarostami’s films that features many driving scenes.

Kiarostami’s films garnered numerous awards throughout his career. In 2004 he received the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale prize for theatre/film.

Kimweri ye Nyumbai
Kimweri ye Nyumbai (d. 1868).  Ruler of the Kilindi empire (of Tanzania) and one of the most powerful nineteenth century east Africans.  Kimweri came to power very early in the nineteenth century.  Kimweri was the fifth member of the Kilindi clan to rule Usambara in northeastern Tanzania.  The Kilindi clan was founded by Mbega in the 1700s.  During his reign of approximately 60 years, Kimweri extended Kilindi rule from his capital at Vuga over the Swahili and Arab towns on the coast.  Little is known about Kimweri before 1848.  However, in 1848, Kimweri was visited by a literate European and his history began to be known.  During the early 1850s, Kimweri clashed with the Zanzibari ruler Sayyid Said over control of the coastal towns but in 1853 an accommodation was worked out by which a sort of condominium administration was established along the coast.  Kimweri oversaw an extensive trade in ivory, and some slaves, to the coast.  During this period, Kimweri took the title Sultan.  Thereafter his successors were also known as Sultan.  After his death in 1868, Usambara fell into a civil war, which ended only when the Germans occupied the country in 1890.


Kinda
Kinda (Kindah) (Kindites).  South Arabian tribal group, whose descent, real or imaginary, from Kahlan correctly identifies them as Arabs and distinguishes them from Himyar and other non-Arab inhabitants of South Arabia.  The tribe spread all over Arabia in the fifth and sixth centuries, from the south to the center to the north.  Although the Kinda had its heyday in pre-Islamic times, it retained some of its power and influence in the time of the Prophet and later.  Branches of the Kinda carved out for themselves short-lived principalities in Muslim Spain in the eleventh century during the period of the so-called Muluk al-Tawa’if.

The Kindah, in full Kindat al-Mulūk (Arabic: “The Royal Kindah”), was ancient Arabian tribe that was especially prominent during the late 5th and 6th centuries of the Christian calendar, when it made one of the first attempts in central Arabia to unite various tribes around a central authority. The Kindah originated in the area west of Ḥaḍramawt in southern Arabia. At the end of the 5th century of the Christian calendar, however, they were led by Ḥujr Ākil al-Murār, the traditional founder of the dynasty, into central and northern Arabia. There they successfully united a number of tribes into a loose confederacy. Ḥujr’s grandson, al-Ḥārith ibn ʿAmr, was the most renowned of the Kindah kings. Al-Ḥārith invaded Iraq and captured al-Ḥīrah, the capital of the Lakhmid king al-Mundhir III. About 529, however, al-Mundhir regained the city and killed al-Ḥārith, together with about 50 other members of the royal family—a devastating blow to Kindah power.

After al-Ḥārith’s death, the kingdom split up into four tribes—Asad, Taghlib, Qays, and Kinānah—each led by a Kindah prince. The tribes feuded constantly, and, after about the middle of the 6th century, the Kindah princes were forced by the local tribesmen to withdraw once more to southern Arabia.

During Muslim times, descendants of the Royal Kindah continued to hold prominent court positions, and one branch of the tribe gained great influence in Spain. The famous Arabian poet Imruʾ al-Qays (d. c. 540) was from the Kindah tribe.


Kindah see Kinda
Kindites see Kinda
Kindat al-Muluk see Kinda


Kindi, ‘Abd al-Masih ibn Ishaq al-
Kindi, ‘Abd al-Masih ibn Ishaq al- (‘Abd al-Masih ibn Ishaq al-Kindi).  Name given to the author, probably a Nestorian Christian, of a defense of Christianity during the ninth or tenth century.  The defense, which is also a refutation of Islam, is presented in the form of a letter written in response to that of a Muslim friend, named ‘Abd Allah ibn Isma‘il al-Hashimi, who invited his correspondent to embrace Islam.  The letter was translated into Latin in1141 by Peter of Toledo and revised by Peter of Poitiers and played a very important role, in the East as well as in the West, in the polemic between Christians and Muslims.
'Abd al-Masih ibn Ishaq al-Kindi see Kindi, ‘Abd al-Masih ibn Ishaq al-


Kindi, Abu Yusuf Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq al-
Kindi, Abu Yusuf Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq al- (Abu Yusuf Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi) (Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi)(Alkindus) (c.801-873).  Arab scholar and philosopher.  He was a companion of the ‘Abbasid Caliphs al-Ma’mun and al-Mu‘tasim, and probably had a tendency towards Mu‘tazilism.  He is known as “the philosopher of the Arabs,” and has survived as a universal scholar and as an astrologer.  He is among a small number of Muslim scientists who made original contributions in many various fields.  Al-Kindi was a philosopher, astronomer, physician, mathematician, physicist, and geographer.  He also was an expert in music.

Al-Kindi was born Abu Yusuf Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi in Basra [Kufa?] in what is today Iraq.  His father worked for Khalifah (Caliph) Harun al-Rashid. He was educated in Baghdad.  It was in the latter city that he spent his life and died. Acclaimed  “philosopher of the Arabs,” he is said by one famous medieval biographer to have been renowned for his excursions into Greek, Persian, and Indian wisdom and for his detailed knowledge of astronomy.  Another medieval biographer claims that al-Kindi was exceedingly knowledgeable in medicine, philosophy, arithmetic, logic, and geometry, in addition to being skilled as a translator and editor of Greek philosophical works.  Moreover, in a famous medieval collection of wisdom literature, it is reported that al-Kindi served in the Abbasid court under the caliphs al-Ma’mun (r. 813-833) and al-Mu‘tasim (r. 833-842) as a tutor and was pre-eminent as an astrologer.  The list of his books is extensive and, although he is not known to have been schooled in the traditional Islamic sciences, includes works that focus on subjects of a theological and jurisprudential character.

Al-Kindi was the first physician who systematically determined the dosage for most drugs.  It greatly helped in the development of dosage standards (prescriptions) for patients.  In the field of Chemistry, al-Kindi argued that base metals cannot be converted to precious metals and that chemical reactions cannot produce transformation of basic elements.  He made important contributions to the Arabic system of numerals.  In addition, he contributed to spherical geometry while assisting al-Khwarizmi in astronomical studies.  Al-Kindi’s original work provided the foundation for modern arithmetic.  He also made original contributions to geometrical optics, a special field of physics, and wrote a book on it.  Several centuries later, al-Kindi’s work inspired Roger Bacon.

Al-Kindi researched on the scientific aspects of music.  He stated that the various notes that combine to produce harmony have a specific pitch, and the degree of harmony depends on the frequency of notes.  Further, he provided a method for the determination of pitch.  Al-Kindi stated that when a sound is produced it generates waves in the air, which strike the eardrum.

Al-Kindi wrote more than two hundred forty books.  Among them are sixteen books on astronomy, twenty-two each on medicine and philosophy, twelve on physics, thirty-two on geometry, eleven on arithmetic, nine on logic, four on the number system, seven on music and five on psychology.  In addition, he wrote monographs on astronomical instruments, tides, rocks and precious stones.

Gerard of Cremona translated many of his scientific books into Latin. These books include Ikhtiyarat al-Ayyam, al-Mosiqa, Risalah dar Tanjim, Ilahyat-e Aristu, Mad-o-Jazr and Adviyah Murakkaba.  Al-Kindi’s influence on the development of physics, mathematics, medicine, philosophy and music lasted for several centuries.  

Although he is credited with over 200 works, less than a tenth have come down to the present.  Today, al-Kindi is remembered primarily as the author of a treatise on metaphysics, Fi al-Falsafat al-Ula (On First Philosophy).  However, it is his Treatise on the Utterances of Socrates -- his Risala fi Alfaz Suqrat -- which is all but ignored, that contains the seminal foundation of Islamic political thought.   

The Risala fi Alfaz Suqrat can be characterized as a turning back from the apparent assuredness of Aristotle to the tentative probing of Socrates.  Differently stated, al-Kindi’s reflections on Plato and Aristotle led him to praise the life of Socrates, the Socrates who had renounced physical and metaphysical speculation in order to concentrate on the day-to-day speech and actions of his fellow citizens.  This choice allowed al-Kindi to provide for a limited kind of philosophical inquiry and at the same time to vouchsafe the claims of revelation.  Al-Kindi’s observations about Aristotle and Socrates may have influenced al-Razi’s later portrait of Socrates in the justly famous Kitab al-Sira al-Falsafiyya (Book on the Philosophic Life), thereby setting in motion the series of reflections that lead to al-Farabi’s founding of Islamic political philosophy.  

In the Risala fi Kammiyyat Kutub Aristutalis wa ma yuhtaj ilaih fi Tahsil al-Falsafa (Treatise on the Number of Aristotle’s Books and What Is Needed to Attain Philosophy), al-Kindi admits his inability to provide a rational account of human existence or its end and thus to ground political inquiry.  Even his Risala fi al-Hila li-Daf’ al-Ahzan (Treatise on the Device for Driving Away Sorrows), with its allegory of human existence, ends in a similar admission.

The allegory of the ship in al-Kindi’s Treatise on the Device for Driving Away Sorrows makes the broad point that all possessions, not merely superfluous ones, cause sorrow and threaten to harm us.  Our passage through this world of destruction, al-Kindi says, is like that of people embarked upon a ship “to a goal, their own resting place, that they are intent upon.”  When the ship stops so that the passengers may attend to their needs, some do so quickly and return to wide, commodious seats.  Others -- who also tend quickly to their needs but pause to gaze upon the beautiful surrounding sights and enjoy the delightful aromas -- return to narrower, less comfortable seats.  Yet others -- who tend to their needs but collect various objects along the way -- find oly cramped seating and are greatly discomforted by the objects they have gathered.  Finally, others wander far off from the ship, so immersed in the surrounding natural beauty and the objects to be collected that they forget their present need and even the purpose of the voyage.  Of these, those who hear the ship’s captain call and return before it sails, find terribly uncomfortable quarters. Others wander so far away that they never hear the captain’s call and, left behind, perish in horrible ways.  Those who return to the ship burdened with objects suffer so, due to their cramped quarters, the stench of their decaying possessions, and the effort they expend in caring for them, that most become sick and some even die. Only the first two groups arrive safely, though those in the second group are somewhat ill at ease due to their more narrow seats.  

For al-Kindi, those passengers who endanger themselves and others by their quest for possessions are like the unjust we encounter in daily life.  Conversely, the just must be those who attend to their needs or business quickly and do not permit themselves to become burdened with acquisitions or even to be side-tracked into momentary pleasures.  The passengers are all bound for their homeland, but it is not clear where they are heading.  At one point, al-Kindi claims that we are going to “the true world” and at another that the ship is supposed to bring us to “our true homelands.”   There is no doubt, however, that whether the destination be one or many, it can be reached only by acquiring the habits that eschew material possessions.  

The allegory emphasizes the voyage and the conduct of the passengers. But the vessel is no ship of state nor the captain its governor.  The ship is merely a vehicle of transport here, and the captain evinces no desire to police the passengers.   Nor is anything said about the route followed by the ship.  As one who calls to the passengers, however, the captain may be compared to a prophet.  Like a prophet, he calls only once.  Those who do not heed the call are left to their misery, even to their perdition.  Yet the content of the call is empty; it merely warns about the imminent departure of the ship.  The captain offers no guidance about what to bring or leave.  He merely calls.  

The compilation of sayings ascribed to al-Kindi in the Muntakhab Siwan al-Hikma and those he sets down in his Risala fi Alfaz Suqrat (Treatise on the Utterances of Socrates) also encourage the pursuit of the ascetic life.  In this work, al-Kindi and Socrates are portrayed as men aloof from the worldly concerns of most people.  As men who have learned to turn their thoughts away from possession and to think about how to live a truly free human life.    Each account consists of anecdotes and pithy statements attributed to Socrates and to al-Kindi respectively, some of which reinforce things said in the treatise about Aristotle’s philosophy and in the treatise about the avoidance of sorrows.


Abu Yusuf Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi see Kindi, Abu Yusuf Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq al-
Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi see Kindi, Abu Yusuf Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq al-
Alkindus see Kindi, Abu Yusuf Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq al-
The Philosopher of the Arabs see Kindi, Abu Yusuf Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq al-


Kipchaks
Kipchaks (Kypchaks) (Kipczaks) (Qipchaqs) (Qypchaqs) (Kıpçaklar)  Loosely organized, nomadic, Turkic tribal confederation (deriving from the Kimek-Kipchak union) that dominated the steppes from the Danube to Kazakhstan from the eleventh to the early thirteenth century.  The western grouping was also called Cuman (“pallid ones”), and elements of the eastern grouping were known as Kangli.  Their movements contributed to the Ghuzz (Oghuz) and Pecheneg migrations.

The Kipchaks were involved in the domestic affairs of Rus, the Khwarazmshahi state (through marital and military ties), and Georgia (where they helped to drive out the Seljuks).  They assisted in the creation of the second Bulghar empire and became a major source of ghulams (military slaves) for the Islamic world.  These ghulams later formed the Mameluke state in Syria and Egypt (1250-1517) and constituted the “slave kings” of the Delhi sultanate (1206-1290).  Thus, Iltutmish (1211-1236) claimed descent from the royal clan of the Olberli, a Kipchak tribe of the Volga region.

The lack of central authority not only blunted their attacks on sedentary societies, but left them ill-prepared to face the Mongols of Jenghiz Khan.  They were conquered in 1237.  In time, the Kipchaks turkicized the Tatars of the Golden and White Hordes, giving rise to the Kipchak Turkic peoples of the Soviet Union.  Kipchak families were also prominent in the service of the Yuan dynasty in China, and sizable numbers of them settled in Hungary in flight from the Mongols.

The Kuman, or western Kipchak tribes, fled to Hungary, and some of their warriors became mercenaries for the Latin crusaders and the Byzantines. Members of the Bahri dynasty, the first dynasty of Mamluks in Egypt, were Kipchaks; one of the most prominent examples was Sultan Baybars, born in Solhat, Crimea. Some Kipchaks served in the Yuan dynasty and became the Kharchins.



Cuman see Kipchaks
"Pallid Ones" see Kipchaks
Kangli see Kipchaks
Kypchaks see Kipchaks
Kipczaks see Kipchaks
Qipchaqs see Kipchaks


Kiram, Esmail II
Esmail Kiram II (also spelled as Ismael Kiram II) (November 9, 1939 - September 19, 2015) was the self-proclaimed Sultan of Sulu in the Philippines from March 12, 2001 until his death.


Kirghiz
Kirghiz (Kirgiz) (Kyrgyz). Turkish people of Central Asia.  About 840, they conquered the lands of the Uyghur in Mongolia, and exported musk to the Muslim lands.  They were driven out of Mongolia by the Karakhitai, had to submit to Jenghiz Khan, and afterwards to the Kalmuks and the Russians, who established their rule in 1864.  

The etymology of the ethnonym “Kirghiz” is not clear, but most Turkologists believe it to be a compound of two Turkic words: girgh (forty) and qiz (girl, daughter), which means, according to the Kirghiz, “descendants of the 40 maidens.”  Since about the middle of the eighteenth century the Kirghiz have occupied the Pamir-Altai ranges in Kirghizstan and Afghanistan and the Kunlun and the Tien Shan in China.   

The Kirghiz had embraced Islam by the sixteenth century, becoming Sunni followers of the Hanafi school of shari‘a.  Because of their nomadic way of life, Western writers have often considered the Kirghiz to be nominally religious and their Islam full of Central Asian shamanistic beliefs and rituals. However, the Kirghiz commitment to Islam and their practice of Islam prior to the Bolshevik Revolution seems to have been as strong as that of any other sedentary or nomadic people in the Muslim world.

Until 1978, the small number of Kirghiz in Afghanistan were probably the only Kirghiz who were able to continue their traditional pastoral nomadic mode of subsistence and to perpetuate their social organization without any significant direct outside interference.  They had been able to create a rather stable niche for themselves within the pre-1978 context in Afghanistan.  Following the Marxist coup, they decided to leave their mountain retreat in the Afghan Pamirs.  Resettled in eastern Turkey, they are now confronted by the challenge to build a new future.

In China, Communist government policies towards all pastoralists has been, and remains, their eventual sedentarization and transformation into agricultural communes.  The policies towards the minorities envisage their eventual assimilation into the larger Han culture and politics.  However, in practice, government policies regarding minorities and nomads in Xinjiang have been determined both by the social realities in the area and by the changing nature of Soviet and Chinese political relations in the past three decades.

Three distinct phases have marked Chinese policies towards the peoples of Xinjiang.  First, from 1949 to 1957 the Chinese were confronted by strong anti-Communist and anti-Han resistance in Xinjiang from the Muslim populations, nomadic and sedentary alike.  The Chinese response was moderate and gradual, aimed at strengthening state power by pacifying or eliminating the resistance leadership.  Only in 1955 did the government begin to organize the Kirghiz into mutual aid teams and cooperatives organized along the traditional oruq (patrilineage) structure.

The second phase coincided with Mao’s Great Leap Forward of 1958-1960.  The principal aim of this policy was the formation of communes and a socialist upsurge.  No special economic or ethnic peculiarities of people were tolerated, and the anti-Islamic and anti-nomadic campaign was strong.  The Great Leap Forward policy caused a great influx of Hans into Xinjiang.  Reaction towards the radical policies resulted in a grain crisis, and the authorities decided to put some of the pastoralists’ pasture lands under the plow.  The nomadic population reportedly slaughtered large numbers of livestock during this phase, and in the face of growing political disputes between the Chinese and the Soviets a large number of pastoralists in northwestern Xinjiang, among them some Kirghiz, joined in the exodus across the border to the Soviet Union, causing the “Ili Crisis” of 1962.

The third phase of the Chinese policies was particularly influenced by the Sino-Soviet split.  In many instances a reversal in their Great Leap Forward policies occurred.  The pastoral communes are believed to have remained as nominal enterprises, although they were nothing more than earlier forms of cooperatives located near various settlement points. Kirghiz oruq once again became the basic unit of the production brigades, who enjoy certain material incentives and partial ownership of the herds.  Undoubtedly, the Kirghiz have benefitted to some extent from Peking’s laissez-faire approach to ruling its ethnic minorities along the Xinjiang-Soviet frontier.

By the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Kirghiz in Central Asia had lost much of their land to Slavic colonists, and their alienation and resentment towards the Russians led to a major rebellion in 1916.  When the Bolsheviks established control over the area in 1918, the Kirghiz territories were incorporated with various other provinces in Turkestan.  As in the earlier period, Kirghiz lands were expropriated and given to Russian settlers.  Confronted with the anti-Communist armed resistance of the so-called Basmachi movement in the area, the Bolsheviks adopted a more conciliatory policy, and during the land reform of 1920-1921 some of Kirghiz lands were returned to them.  In 1924, a Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast’ was created, a number of leading Kirghiz intellectuals were recruited into the administration and the traditional structure of Kirghiz society and pastoral nomadic economy was left intact.  In February 1926, the Kirghiz Oblast’ was elevated to an autonomous Soviet socialist republic, and ten years later, in 1936, it was accepted as Kirghiz S.S.R.

Despite the concessions offered during the early 1920s, the Russians dominated all aspects of government and party structure.  When Kirghiz intellectuals openly expressed their frustrations, many of them were incarcerated or exiled.  The real change of policy came about in 1928, when Stalin set out to “de-nomadize” and collectivize the Kirghiz.  This agrarian revolution of 1927-1928 was met by widespread slaughter of livestock and the exodus of large numbers of Kirghiz and Kazakhs into Xinjiang in China.  Despite the turmoil, significant progress was made in the development of education and health care during this period.

Industrial development in Kirghizia expanded after World War II.  However, the industrial economy, which emphasized power production, non-ferrous metallurgy, construction material, fossil fuel extraction, woodworking, textiles, sugar refining and meat packing, was dominated by the Slavs.  The great majority of the Kirghiz are still herding through pastoral collectives.




Kirgiz see Kirghiz
Kyrgyz see Kirghiz


Kirgiz
Kirgiz.  See Kirghiz.
Kirghiz see Kirgiz.

Kirmani, Hamid al-Din Ahmad ibn ‘Abd Allah al-
Kirmani, Hamid al-Din Ahmad ibn ‘Abd Allah al- (Hamid al-Din Ahmad ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Kirmani) (Hamid al–Din Abu’l–Hasan Ahmad ibn ‘Abdallah al–Kirmani)  (d. 1020).  Propagandist of the Fatimids.  He was the author of many works on the theory of the Imamate and on Isma‘ili philosophy.

Hamid al-Kirmani was of Persian origin.  He appears to have spent the greater part of his life as a Fatimid da'i (missionary) in Iraq and in the central and western parts of Iran.  Al-Kirmani was part of the official Fatimid campaign against dissident da'is, who had also proclaimed al-Hakim's divinity.  In Cairo, he produced several works in refutation of the Druze movement and religion.  Subsequently, al-Kirmani returned to Iraq where he completed his last and magnum opus, Rahat al-aql.

A prolific writer, al-Kirmani was one of the most learned theologians of the Fatimid times.

Hamid al–Din Abu’l–Hasan Ahmad ibn ‘Abdallah al–Kirmani was a Persian Isma'ili scholar who served as a da'i, theologian and philosopher under the Fatimid caliph-imam al-Hakim bi Amr Allah. His prominent works are:

    * Rahat al-‘aql (Peace of Mind, or Comfort of Reason), completed in 1020 and considered his magnum opus
    * Al-Aqwal al-dhahabiya, refuting al-Razi's argument against the necessity of revelation
    * Kitab al

-riyad, a book that propounds the early Isma'ili cosmology.

Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani, a prominent Ismaili da’i or missionary, was one of the most learned Ismaili theologians and philosophers of the Fatimid period. Al-Kirmani rose to prominence during the reign of Fatimid Caliph-Imam al-Hakim (r.996-1021).

Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani’s date of birth remains unknown, but he was of Persian origin and was probably born in the province of Kirman. He seems to have spent the greater part of his life as a Fatimid da’i in Iraq, having been particularly active in Baghdad and Basra.

The central headquarters of the Fatimid da’wa in Cairo considered him the most learned Ismaili theologian of the time. It was in that capacity that al-Kirmani played an important role in refuting the extremist ideas of some of the da’is. Al-Kirmani was summoned in 1014 or shortly earlier to Cairo where he produced several works to disclaim the extremist doctrines. Al-Kirmani’s writings, which were widely circulated, were to some extent successful in checking the spread of the extremist doctrines.

Of his corpus of nearly thirty works, only eighteen seem to have survived. One of his important works, also his final work, is the Rahat al-aql (Peace of Mind). In this work, Al-Kirmani intended to provide the reader an opportunity to understand how to obtain the eternal life of the mind, the paradise of reason, in a constantly changing world.
Hamid al-Din Ahmad ibn 'Abd Allah al-Kirmani see Kirmani, Hamid al-Din Ahmad ibn ‘Abd Allah al-
Hamid al–Din Abu’l–Hasan Ahmad ibn ‘Abdallah al–Kirmani  see Kirmani, Hamid al-Din Ahmad ibn ‘Abd Allah al-


Kisa’i, al-
Kisa’i, al-.  Name of origin given to the unknown author of the famous Stories of the Prophets (Qisas al-Anbiya), an Arabic work on the lives of the prophets and pious men prior to the Prophet.  The identity of the author remains an enigma.

Because the lives of biblical figures (":prophets" in the Muslim tradition) were covered only briefly in the Qur'an, Muslim scholars, poets, historians, and storytellers felt free to elaborate, clothing the bare bones descriptions from the Qur'an with flesh and blood.  Authors of these texts drew on many traditions available to medieval Islamic civilization such as those of Asia, Africa, China, and Europe.  Many of these scholars were also authors of commentaries on the Qur'an.  However, unlike the commentaries which follow the order and structure of the Qur'an itself, the Qisas told its stories of the prophets in chronological order.

The Qisas usually begin with the creation of the world and its various creatures including angels, and culminating in God's masterpiece, Adam.  Sometimes the author incorporated related local folklore or oral traditions, and many of the tales in the Qisas echo medieval Christian and Jewish stories.


Kisa’i, Abu’l-Hasan al-
Kisa’i, Abu’l-Hasan al- (Abu’l-Hasan al-Kisa’i) (c. 737-805).  Arab philologist and “reader” of the Qur’an, of Persian origin.  He is said to have stayed for some time among the Bedouins in order to become fully conversant in Arabic.  He is the real founder of the grammatical school of Kufa.  His discussion with Sibawayhi, the prominent grammarian of the school of Basra, became famous.  
Abu'l-Hasan al-Kisa'i see Kisa’i, Abu’l-Hasan al-


Kisa’i, Majd al-Din
Kisa’i, Majd al-Din (Majd al-Din Kisa’i) (953-1000).  Persian poet from Marw.
Majd al-Din Kisa'i see Kisa’i, Majd al-Din


Kisakurek
Kisakurek (Necip Fazil Kisakurek) (Ahmet Necip Fazıl Kısakürek)  (May 26, 1904 - May 25, 1983).  A Turkish poet, playwright, and essayist.  One of the most striking figures of modern Turkish literature, Necip Fazil combined in his life concerns for literary style and political ideology.  Today he is remembered primarily for the second, but in fact his poetry, prose, journalism, and theater bring together experimentation with form and concerns about the cultural identity of the modern Turk.

Necip Fazil was born in Istanbul in 1904 to a family with ancient roots in the town of Maras in southeastern Turkey.  The early death of his father and the somewhat retiring role of his mother in the family strengthened the influence on him of his grandparents, who had strong, idiosyncratic personalities.  From his grandfather, he acquired a knowledge of Ottoman culture and history.  From his grandmother, he absorbed her attempts to join the stream of Western culture and to imitate Western manners, shaped by her immersion in French novels.  These sources instilled in the boy a curiosity about the West that eventually led to his reasonably wide knowledge of European culture.  It also generated a suspicion of the suitability of western European values and of westernization in general as a model for Turkish modernization.  This concern increased as he aged and grew into the primary focus of his later years.

He irregularly attended a number of the schools that during the nineteenth century had replaced the traditional madrasah (seminary) with programs copied from western European schools.  After a five year stint, he dropped out of the Naval Cadet School in Istanbul.  While registered at the Faculty of Philosophy of Istanbul University, he won a government scholarship for study abroad in 1921.  As a student in Paris he refined his knowledge of French literature and culture but never received a university degree.  He pursued a bohemian lifestyle, some traces of which remained for the rest of his life.

Upon his return, he worked in various banks and taught at the Conservatory of Arts in Ankara, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul, and at Robert College, an American missionary school with strict academic standards.  His poetic pieces and short stories appeared in such Istanbul literary magazines as Yeni Mecmua, Milli Mecmua, Anadolu, Hayat, and Varlik in the 1920s.  His earliest pieces show a pervasive pessimism and often highlight motifs of boredom, despair, or death combined with a search for identity.

His versification was in the modern Turkish “syllabic” style, in which he showed an originality that brought him to the attention of the literary establishment.  His poems show the influence of French symbolism promoted by his predecessor Ahmet Hasim but also have aspects reminiscent of the worldview of Ottoman Sufism.  Orhan Okay has described such cultural mixture and use of themes from Western sources as characteristic of Turkish writers who lived through the transformation of the Ottoman Empire.  With the establishment of the Turkish Republic (1923) the change of values from Islamic to secular, at work since the nineteenth century, was greatly accelerated.  For Necip Fazil, the transformation brought up the problem of achieving a degree of authenticity amid the clash of two cultures, a dilemma prominent in his plays of the 1930s, such as Tohum (The Seed) and especially Bir adam yaratmak (To Create a Man).

To resolve these matters, Necip Fazil adopted a philosophy that placed the East and Islam at the foundation of his outlook on life.  In his autobiography Ove ben (He and Myself) he ascribed this change to the influence of a shaykh of the Naqshbandi order, Abdulhakim Arvasi, whose path he followed thereafter.  Although ideologically committed to Islam, Necip Fazil never abandoned a frankly Western way of life, nor did he succeed in erasing the bohemianism of his early days, which brought him repeatedly to the gambling table.

His adoption by the younger generation of Turkish conservatives at a time when Turkish nationalism was giving way to the stronger influence of Islam may be attributed to the theme of a revival of the East first broached in his periodical (The Great East [1943-1978]), where he presented a critique of the emptiness of the basic social and humanistic philosophy of republican Turkey.  Although frequently interrupted for long periods, the journal and the themes found in its columns, which reappeared in a number of collected essays, make up a compendium that younger conservative Turks use for ideological guidance.

Necip Fazil Kisakurek died in Istanbul on May 25, 1983.

Ahmet Necip Fazıl Kısakürek (May 26, 1904 – May 25, 1983) was a Turkish poet, novelist, playwright and philosopher. He is also known with his initials NFK. He was noticed by the French philosopher Henri Bergson, while Necip Fazıl had been a student of his in Sorbonne during the 1920s. In his poetries, it is possible to realize the influences of Bergson.


In his own words, he was born in "a huge mansion in Çemberlitaş, on one of the streets descending towards Sultanahmet" in 1904. His father was Abdülbaki Fazıl Bey who held several posts including deputy judge in Bursa, public prosecuter in Gebze and finally, judge in Kadıköy. His mother was an emigree from Crete. He was raised at the Çemberlitaş mansion of his paternal grandfather Kısakürekzade Mehmet Hilmi Efendi of Maraş who named his grandson after his own father, Ahmet Necib as well as his son, Fazıl.

Necib Fazıl learned to read and write from his grandfather at the age of five. After graduating from the French School in Gedikpaşa, he continued his education in various schools, also including Robert College of Istanbul as well as the Naval School. He received religious courses from Ahmed Hamdi of Akseki and history courses from Yahya Kemal at the Naval School but he was actually influenced by İbrahim Aşkî, whom he defined to have "penetrated into deep and private areas in many inner and outer sciences from literature and philosophy to mathematics and physics". İbrahim Aşkî provided his first contact with Sufism even at a "plan of skin over skin". "After completing candidate and combat classes" of Naval School, Kısakürek entered the Philosophy Department of Darülfünûn and graduated from there (1921-1924). One of his closest friends in philosophy was Hasan Ali Yücel. He was educated in Paris for one year with the scholarship provided by the Ministry of National Education (1924-1925). He worked at the posts of official and inspector at Holland, Osmanlı and İş Banks after returning home (1926-1939), and gave lectures at the Faculty of Linguistics and History and Geography and the State Conservatoire in Ankara and the Academy of Fine Arts in İstanbul (1939-1942). Having established a relation with the press in his youth, Kısakürek quit civil service to earn his living from writing and magazines.

Nacip Fazıl Kısakürek died in his house at Erenköy after an illness that "lasted long but did not impair his intellectual activity and writing" (25 May 1983) and was buried in the graveyard on the ridge of Eyüp after an eventful funeral.

Necip Fazıl was awarded the First Prize of C.H.P. Play Contest in 1947 with his play Sabır Taşı. Kısakürek was awarded the titles of "Great Cultural Gift" by the Ministry of Culture (25 May 1980) and "Greatest Living Poet of Turkish" by the Foundation of Turkish Literature upon the 75th anniversary of his birth

In his own words, having "learned to read and to write from his grandfather in very young ages", Kısakürek became "crazy about fimitless, trivia reading" until the age of twelve starting from "groups of sentences belonging to lower class writers of the French". He writes as follows: "My interest climbing up to the works such as (Pol ve Virjini), (Graziyella), (La-dam-d-kamelya), (Zavallı Necdet) claiming to be sensational and literary, eventually transformed into an illness and surrounded my nights and days as a net". Having been involved in literature with such a reading passion, Necip Fazıl states that his "poetry started at the age of twelve" and that his mother said "how much I would like you to be a poet" by showing the "poetry notebook of a girl with tuberculosis" lying on the bed next to his mother's bed when he went to visit her staying at the hospital, and adds: "My mother's wish appeared to me as something that I fed inside but I was not aware of until twelve. The motive of existence itself. I decided inside with my eyes on the snow hurling on the window of the hospital room and the wind howling; I will be a poet! And I became".

The first published poem of Necip Fazıl is "Kitabe" poem that he later included in his book Örümcek Ağı with the title "Bir Mezar Taşı" and it was published in the Yeni Mecmua dated 1 July 1923.

After this date Kısakürek expanded his reputation until 1939 with his poems and articles published in magazines such as Yeni Mecmua, Milhi Mecmua, Anadolu, Hayat and Varlık and Cumhuriyet newspaper.

After returning home from Paris in 1925, Necip Fazıl stayed in Ankara intermittently but during long periods and in his third visit he published a magazine called Ağaç on 14 March 1936 by providing the support of some banks. Ağaç, the writers of which included Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Ahmet Kutsi Tecer and Mustafa Şekip Tunç, decided to follow a spiritualist and idealist line on the contrary to the materialist and Marxian ideas supported by the writers such as Burhan Belge, Vedat Nedim Tör, Şevket Süreyya Aydemir and İsmail Husrev Tökin of closed Kadro magazine owned by Yakup Kadri and which influenced the intellectuals of the time greatly. Kısakürek later transferred to Ağaç magazine published during six volumes in Ankara to İstanbul, however, unable to establish a viable reader base, the magazine was closed at the 17th volume.

Necip Fazıl this time published the magazine called Büyük Doğu in 1943 which also had religious and political identity, fronted the rulers with Büyük Doğu that he published intermittently as weekly, daily and monthly until 1978, he was prosecuted because of his articles and publications and the magazine was closed several times. Particularly objecting to secularism and supporting Sultan Abdul Hamid II, Necip Fazıl gradually became one of the leaders of the Islamist section. It should be stated that as in Ağaç, the writers' cadre is quite cosmopolitan in the first volumes of Büyük Doğu as well. From Bedri Rahmi to Sait Faik, many signatures of the new literature are seen on the pages of the magazine.

However, as Necip Fazıl transformed Büyük Doğu into an outlet of particularly religious quarrel, these writers withdrew from the pages one after another. Upon the collection of Büyük Doğu in 1947, Necip Fazıl also published a political humor magazine called Borazan, which he could publish only three volumes between November-December.

His poetry works include:

    * Örümcek Ağı (1925) (Spider Web)
    * Kaldırımlar (1928) (Pavements)
    * Ben ve Ötesi (1932) (Me and the Rest)
    * Sonsuzluk Kervanı (1955) (Caravan of Infinity)
    * Çile (1962) (Pain)
    * Şiirlerim (My poems) (1969)
    * Esselâm (1973) (Welcome)
    * Çile (1974) (Pain)
    * Bu Yağmur (This rain)

His novels include:

    * Aynadaki Yalan (1980) (The Lie in the Mirror)
    * Kafa Kağıdı (1984-Published as a series in Milliyet newspaper)

His stories include:

    * Birkaç Hikaye Birkaç Tahlil (1932) (Some Stories and Some Research)
    * Ruh Burkuntularından Hikayeler (1964) (Stories From Broken Souls)
    * Hikayelerim (1970) (My Stories)

His memoirs include:

    * Cinnet Mustatili (1955) (Rectangle of the Possessed)
    * Hac (1973) (Hajj)
    * O ve Ben (1974) (It/He and I)
    * Bâbıâli (1975) (The High Door)


Necip Fazil Kisakurek see Kisakurek
Ahmet Necip Fazıl Kısakürek  see Kisakurek


Kishk
Kishk (‘Abd al-Hamid Kishk) (Shaykh ‘Abd al-Hamid ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Muhammad Kishk) (Sheikh Abdul-Hamid Kishk) (1933 - December 6, 1996).  Egyptian preacher, known to many of his followers as Shaykh ‘Abd al-Hamid.  Born in 1933, in Shubrakhit, a village not far from Damanhur, Kishk went to school in Alexandria and became blind at the age of twelve.  Graduating from the usul al-din (dogmatics) faculty of al-Azhar, he worked for some time in the service of the Egyptian awqaf (religious endowment) ministry as a mosque preacher and imam.  

From May 5, 1964 until August 28, 1981, Kishk was an independent preacher in the ‘Ayn al-Hayah Mosque in Misr wa-’l-Sudan Street in the Cairene quarter known as Hada’iq al-Qubbahi.  This mosque is also known as the Masjid al-Malik.  It was from here that his fame and popularity spread.  Under the regime of President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1952-1970), Kishk came into conflict with the authorities over several questions.  For instance, he refused to give a fatwa that approved of the death sentence imposed by the regime on Sayyid Qutb in 1966; and he avoided answering the question of Arab socialism’s compatibility with Islam.  By such attitudes he identified himself as a dissident, and he consequently spent time in prison.

Under the regime of Anwar el-Sadat (1970-1981), Kishk’s sermons became immensely popular.  In these, he continued to criticize sharply any behavior that he regarded as a deviation from the norms of Islam.  However, the regime was a little more tolerant of such criticisms, since it needed the support of the Islamic movement in the struggle against “communism and atheism.”  Nevertheless, Shaykh Kishk, unlike Islamists such as Shaykh al-Sha‘rawi, did not appear on state run television or publish in the official printed media.  

In spite of the official media boycott, Kishk’s sermons were widely distributed on cassette tapes, as were, in the same period, those by the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, who came to power in 1979.  Hence, the Western media have sometimes called Kishk an Egyptian Khomeini.  It is now more obvious than it was in the 1980s that the resemblance between the two men was superficial at best.  Whereas Khomeini founded a revolutionary movement that came to power in Iran and survived the death of its founder by years, Kishk’s political views (as far as they can be found in his books) resemble a form of anarchism.  He wrote, for instance, with great nostalgia about the days when there were no policemen to stop people and ask for their driver’s licenses, or frontier guards to ask for passports and entry or exit visas.  Those were the days when the Muslims conquered the world, so Kishk wants his audience to remember.  

Anarchism, obviously, is too strong and too Western a word to describe the traditional dislike for rulers and government officials in the Middle East and elsewhere.  This common attitude is perhaps best put into words by Sa‘d Zaghlul (1857-1927); prime minister of Egypt from January to November 1924, who once remarked that Egypt’s citizens tend to look at their rulers in the same way a bird looks at the hunter.

The emphasis in Kishk’s preaching falls on personal and private piety, not on something as transitory as worldly power.  The shaykh is occupied with the end of the world, the miracles of the Sufi saints, the metaphysics of the soul, eschatology, and death.  Nevertheless, in a politically tense atmosphere the statements he makes about this world may easily be understood as veiled demands for the introduction of a theocracy, especially by those who are in favor, or in fear, of an Islamic theocracy. There can, however, be little doubt that many in the shaykh’s audiences, in the traditions of the Islamic quietist Sufi movements, are only superficially, or not at all, interested in political (Islamic) utopias.

“The believer’s creed must be compressed into: loving God,” Kishk once wrote.  It is not plausible, although, admittedly possible, that such an emphasis on love, also known from Islamic mysticism, accompanies political ambitions, revolutionary schemes, and participation in the struggle for worldly power.  Yet Kishk’s social criticisms may be thought to imply political consequences.  In a sermon on December 12, 1980, he attacked not only Jews, Crhistians, lax Muslims, and a former rector of al-Azhar University, but also a soccer captain and a businessman who was reported to have presented his wife with an expensive coat.  Since the shaykh was intermittently sent to jail, one has to assume that those in power were concerned about the force of such sweeping criticisms.  

In the first days of September 1981, on the eve of the assassination of Sadat, which took place on October 6, Kishk was again thrown into prison.  He shared this fate with 1,526 others of all political persuasions who were put under “precautionary arrest.”  In anticipation of the publication of a complete official list of detainees, the first page of Al-ahram on September 4 noted the imprisonment of Kishk along with a small number of prominent Egyptians.  In spite of controls on the media, the shaykh’s fame had clearly spread.

On January 24-25, 1982, Kishk was released from detention.  In February, the Egyptian semi-official weekly devoted to religious affairs, Al-liwa’ al-islami, contained minor contributions by Kishk – an indication that a compromise with the regime of Hosni Mubarak had been reached.  His books and cassette tapes were to be freely available (they still were in 1993), but his life as a public preacher was over – for the time being at least.  His mosque in Cairo has since been transformed into a public health center.  

Kishk’s uniqueness wss closely connected to the way in which he chanted his sermons.  His voice expressed nostalgia for the Kingdom of Heaven in a way that moved many members of his audiences.  According to Kishk, the greater jihad -- the greater struggle -- is a continuous struggle aimed at subduing one's baser nature and attuning oneself to God's moral standards.  It is the basis for personal moral development, creating pious and philanthropic activisim, promoting justice and prosperity in society, while combating ignorance, injustice, and oppression.  As a result of this greater jihad, Islam heals those societies which follow its guidance and are built on consciences which have been awakened and hearts which have been illuminated by the light of belief.

Kishk died on December 6, 1996.




'Abd al-Hamid Kishk see Kishk
Kishk, 'Abd al-Hamid see Kishk
'Abd al-Hamid 'Abd al-'Aziz Muhammad Kishk see Kishk
Sheikh Abdul-Hamid Kishk see Kishk


Kizilbash
Kizilbash (Qizilbash) (Ottoman Turkish for "Crimson/Red Heads") (Qezelbash) (Qazilbash).  Name given to Turkish tribal groups who supported the Safavids beginning in the fifteenth century of the Christian calendar, referring to the distinctive red headgear they wore.  It is sometimes used to refer to both the Safavid religious ideology and the Safavids in general.

The Kizilbash originally consisted largely of converts to the Safavid cause from seven major Turkish uymaqs (loosely, “tribes”) but soon expanded to include most of the large uymaqs of the period.  While in the early period one could become a Kizilbash simply by converting to the cause of the Safavids, in a short time (at least by Shah Isma’il’s reign at the beginning of the sixteenth century) membership in the Kizilbash was restricted to members of certain uymaqs.

The Kizil bash came to be a “closed class group with specific military functions” and were distinguished from all other members of the Safavid state.  The terms Turk and Tajik were loosely employed to refer to the members of the Kizilbash and the predominantly Persian-speaking elite, respectively.  The former, under the early Safavids, comprised the military and governmental elite of the state, but many Tajiks acquired major government positions in time, and the distinctions of the roles are not altogether clear.  The term fell out of use with the end of the Safavid dynasty and became used almost exclusively for the heterodox Shi’ite religious beliefs espoused by the Safavids.

The description Kizilbash is still used in Afghanistan to refer to an urban middle class of Turkish origin believed to have immigrated originally during the reign of Nadir Shah.  The largest community of Kizilbash in Afghanistan is in Kabul, but their population is undetermined.



Red Heads see Kizilbash
Qizilbash see Kizilbash
Crimson Heads see Kizilbash
Qezelbash see Kizilbash
Qazilbash see Kizilbash

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