Khatun
Khatun (Mongolian: ᠬᠠᠲᠤᠨ, khatun, хатан khatan; Persian: خاتون khātūn; Urdu: خاتون khātūn, plural خواتين khavātīn; Bengali: খাঁতুন, খাতুন; Turkish: hatun) is a female title of nobility and counterpart to "khan" or "Khagan" prominently used in the Turkic Khaganate and in the subsequent Mongol Empire. It is equivalent to "queen regnant" or "empress regnant", approximately.
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Etymology and history[edit]
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 T'u-chüeh and subsequent Turkish rulers."[1]
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"[2] 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."[3]
Modern usage[edit]
In Uzbek, the language spoken in modern-day Bukhara, 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.[4]
In Urdu, the word khatun is used commonly to refer to any woman. The female title khanum is also used as the feminine counterpart of khan.
Notable Khatuns[edit]
- Börte, wife of Genghis Khan
- Buluqhan Khatun, wife of Abaqa Khan
- Bulugan, wife of Temur Khan
- Chabi, wife of Kublai Khan
- Despina Khatun
- Doquz Khatun, wife of Hulagu Khan
- Erketü Qatun, wife of Altan Khan
- Mandukhai Khatun, wife of Dayan Khan
- Momine Khatun
- Oghul Qaimish, wife of Guyuk Khan
- Po Beg
- Radnashiri, wife of Ayurbarwada Buyantu Khan
- Töregene Khatun, wife of Ogedei Khan
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Mernissi, Fatima (1993). The Forgotten Queens of Islam. University of Minnesota Press. p. 21.
- ^ Peter Benjamin Golden (1998), "Turks and Iranians: An historical sketch" in Johanson, Lars; Csató, Éva Ágnes (2015). The Turkic Languages. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-136-82534-7., page 5
- ^ Clauson, Gerard (1972). An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 602–603.
- ^ Clauson, p. 602.
Works cited[edit]
- Clauson, Gerard; Róna-Tas, András (1981). An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-thirteenth-century Turkish. Index. Universitas Szegediensis de Attila Jószef Nominata.
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