Bohtan

The Bohtan were the ruling family of the Kurdish principality centered on Jazirat ibn Umar, or Cizre, on the Tigris. The Sharafnama traces the dynasty, known as the Azizan, to the Bokhti chief Sulaiman Khalid and his son Abdulaziz; in the fourteenth century the family followed Yezidism before converting to Sunni Islam.

In 1336 or 1337 the Bohtan seized Cizre with the help of the Ayyubid emir of Hisn Kayfa, who married a daughter to the emir Izz al-Din in the hope of controlling the town. The Bohtan kept their independence and repelled a Hisn Kayfa attack in 1385. The eighth ruler, Izz al-Din Abdal, submitted to Timur at Mardin in 1394.

At its height the emirate stretched from Diyarbakır to Van and from Zakho to Sinjar. After the Ottoman victory at Çaldiran in 1514 it was recognized as a hereditary Kurdish principality.