Ruzagi

The Ruzagi, also called Rojaki or Rusaki, were the Kurdish tribal confederation that supplied the princes of Bitlis, a fortress town in the Armenian highlands. Their principality was established by the late twelfth century.

In the fourteenth century its emirs were vassals of the Kara Koyunlu; the emir submitted to Timur in 1394. The Aq Qoyunlu needed three sieges in the 1470s to take Bitlis and held it from 1467 to 1495, after which the Motikan retook the town.

The Ruzagi backed the Ottoman sultan Selim I and were rewarded with the title of Noble Khans, but in 1531 the Ottomans overran the emirate. In 1578 Murad III invested Sharaf al-Din Bitlisi as emir. The Ottomans ended its autonomy in 1655 and merged the emirate into the Van eyalet.