Khatun

Khatun (Mongolian: Хатан, Khatan, Persian: خاتون‎ – Khātūn, Urdu: خاتون‎ – Khatoon, Turkish: Hatun) is a female title of nobility and alternative to male "khan" prominently used in the First Turkic Empire and in the subsequent Mongol Empire. It is equivalent to "queen" or "empress" approximately.

Before the advent of Islam in Central Asia, Khatun was the title of the Queen of Bukhara. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam:[1]

“ Khatun [is] a title of Sogdian origin borne by the wives and female relatives of the T'u-chüeh and subsequent Turkish rulers. ”

British Orientalist Gerard Clauson (1891–1974) considers "xa:tun" as borrowed from Sogdian "xwat'yn" (xwateen), in Sogdian xwat'y ('landlord, sovereign') and "xwat'yn" ('a landlord's or a sovereign's wife'); it is the precise wife'; it is the precise meaning of "xat:un" in the early period; cf. Pers.[2]

Notable Khatuns

See also

References

  1. ↑ Mernissi, Fatima (1993). The Forgotten Queens of Islam. University of Minnesota Press. p. 21. "... Khatun 'is a title of Sogdian origin borne by the wives and female relatives of the Tu-chueh and subsequent Turkish Rulers ..."
  2. ↑ Clauson, Gerard (1972). An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish. Oxford: Ai the Clarendon Press. p. 602.