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Khatun

Turkic and Mongol female title of nobility From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Khatun[a] (/xəˈtn/ khə-TOON) is a title of the female counterpart to a khan or a khagan of the Mongol Empire.

Etymology and history

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Before the advent of Islam in Central Asia, Khatun was the title of the queen of Bukhara. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, "Khatun [is] a title of Sogdian origin borne by the wives and female relatives of the Göktürks and subsequent Turkish rulers."[1]

According to Bruno De Nicola in Women in Mongol Iran: The Khatuns, 1206–1335, the linguistic origins of the term "khatun" are unknown, though possibly of Old Turkic or Sogdian origin. De Nicola states that prior to the spread of the Mongols across Central Asia, Khatun meant 'lady' or 'noblewoman' and is found in broad usage in medieval Persian and Arabic texts.[2]

Peter Benjamin Golden observed that the title qatun appeared among the Göktürks as the title for the khagan's wife and was borrowed from Sogdian xwāten "wife of the ruler"[3] Earlier, British Orientalist Gerard Clauson (1891–1974) defined xa:tun as "'lady' and the like" and says there is "no reasonable doubt that it is taken from Sogdian xwt'yn (xwatēn), in Sogdian xwt'y ('lord, ruler') and xwt'yn 'lord's or ruler's wife'), "which is precisely the meaning of xa:tun in the early period."[4]

Modern usage

In Uzbek, the language spoken in modern-day Bukhara, in Uzbekistan, the word is spelled xotin and has come to simply refer to any woman. In Turkish, it is written hatun. The general Turkish word for 'woman', kadın, is a doublet derived from the same origin.[5]

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Notable Khatuns

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Valide Hatun

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Valide Hatun was the title held by the "legal mother" of a ruling Sultan of the Ottoman Empire before the 16th century.

By the beginning of the 16th century, the title hatun for sultan's mother, princesses, and sultan's main consort was replaced by "sultan" and they started to carry it after their given names. This usage underlines the Ottoman conception of sovereign power as family prerogative.[6] Consequently, the title valide hatun also turned into valide sultan.

List of valide hatuns

More information Name, Maiden name ...

Given name

See also

References

Further reading

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