Khatun is a title of the female counterpart to a khan or a khagan.
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 Turkic 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 said there is "no reasonable doubt that it is taken from Sogdian xwt'yn (xwatēn)", with "Sogdian xwt'y (lord, ruler) and xwt'yn (lord's or ruler's wife)" being "precisely the meaning of xa:tun in the early period".[4]
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.[5]
Valide Hatun was the title held by the mother of an Ottoman sultan before the 16th century.
By the beginning of the 16th century, the hatun title for imperial princesses, the sultan's mother and the sultan's chief consort was replaced by sultan. This usage underlines the Ottoman conception of sovereign power as family prerogative.[6] Consequently, the valide hatun title turned into valide sultan.
| Name | Birth name | Origin | Consort of | Became | Ceased to be | Death | Sultan | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nilüfer Hatun | unknown | Byzantine Greek | Orhan I | March 1362son's ascension | 1363 | Murad I (son) | ||
| Gülçiçek Hatun | unknown | Byzantine Greek | Murad I | 16 June 1389son's ascension | Bayezid I (son) | |||
| Devlet Hatun | unknown | unknown | Bayezid I | 5 July 1413son's ascension | 26 May 1421son's death | 1422 | Mehmed I (son) | |
| Emine Hatun | Emine | Turkish | Mehmed I | 26 May 1421son's ascension | August 1444son's abdication | Murad II (son) | ||
| September 1446son's reinstatement | 1449 | |||||||
| Hüma Hatun | unknown | disputed | Murad II | August 1444son's first ascension | September 1446 | Mehmed II (son) | ||
| Gülbahar Hatun | unknown | Greek or Albanian | Mehmed II | 3 May 1481son's ascension | 1492 | Bayezid II (son) | ||
