Category: K

KHALWATIYAH

KHALWATIYAH. This Sufi tariqah derives its name from khalwah, periodic retreat, which is an important feature in most branches of the Khalwatiyah. It is significant that the order derives its name from an institution rather than from an eponym, because the tariqah does not trace its origin to one founder. Originating in Central Asia, the

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KHALID, KHALID MUHAMMAD

KHALID, KHALID MUHAMMAD Egyptian writer and essayist. Born in Shargiyah ince, he graduated from al-Azhar in 1947 with miyah degree from the Faculty of Shari`ah gained a teaching certificate, also from al-Azhar. He worked as an Arabic language teacher and the Cultural Bureau (Idarat al-Thaqafah) of the Ministry of Education and with the Writers’ Committee

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KHALAFALLAH, MUHAMMAD AHMAD

KHALAFALLAH, MUHAMMAD AHMAD (1916- 1991), contemporary Islamic modernist thinker. Born in Sharqiyah Province in Lower Egypt, he attended traditional Islamic schools, a government school, and then Dar al-`Ulum, followed by the Faculty of Arts at the Egyptian (later Cairo) University, from which he graduated in 1939 He completed his M.A. in 1942 with a thesis on

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KEMALISM

KEMALISM. The ideas and principles of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder and first president of the Turkish Republic, are termed Kemalism; Kemalism constitutes’ the official ideology of the state, and endured publicly unchallenged until the 1980s. Kemalism proper is symbolized in the six points enumerated in the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, or CHP)

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KEMAL, MEHMET NAMIK

KEMAL, MEHMET NAMIK (1840-1888), Ottoman Turkish poet, prose writer, and libertarian theoretician. Namik Kemal was born in 1840 in the small town of Tekirdak, but his life was shaped by more exalted influences, including his family’s tradition of state service, immersing him in Ottoman culture at an early age. His own career in the Ottoman

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KAZAN KHANATE

KAZAN KHANATE. A Chinggisid successor state to the so-called “Golden Horde”, the patrimony granted to Chinggis Khan’s oldest son Jochi in the early thirteenth century CE, the Kazan Khanate was centered on the city of Kazan, located in present-day Tatarstan on the eastern bank of the Volga River north of its confluence with the Kama.

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KAZAKHSTAN

KAZAKHSTAN. Sunni Islam of the Hanafi School was introduced to the territory of what is now Kazakhstan in the late eighteenth century on the order of Catherine the Great, with the intention of civilizing and pacifying the pastoral nomads with whom her expanding empire was coming into increasing conflict. Her missionaries of choice were Tatars

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KAWAKIBI,`ABD AL-RAHMAN AL

KAWAKIBI, `ABD AL-RAHMAN AL- (185419o2), Islamic revivalist and advocate of an Arab caliphate. Al-Kawakibi was born to a prominent family in Aleppo, Syria, and was educated thoroughly in religion, Ottoman administrative law, Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi. He began his career in journalism and the law and from 1879 to 1896 held several senior public posts.

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KASRAVI, AHMAD

AHMAD KASRAVI (1890-1946), major historian of modern Iran, political thinker, iconoclastic secularist, and founder of an ideological school named the Azadigan (Freedom) Society. Kasravi was born into a traditional middle-class family in Tabriz and raised for the clerical profession. But in his late youth he broke with Islam in general and the Shi`i `ulama’ in particular.

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KASHMIR

KASHMIR. The state of Jammu and Kashmir has been a disputed territory between India and Pakistan since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947. Situated in the extreme northwest corner of the South Asian sub continent, it was one of the largest and most populous princely states of British India, sharing borders with India, Pakistan,

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