Sharaf Khan

Sharaf Khan 

(also Sharaf al-Din ibn Shams al-Din Bitlisi). Born Feb. 25, 1543, in Bitlis; died 1603 or 1604. Kurdish historian and military and state figure.

Sharaf Khan’s family had the hereditary right to rule the city of Bitlis in eastern Anatolia. Sharaf Khan was raised and educated at the court of the Iranian shah Tahmasp I. He later became the chief leader of the Kurdish tribes of Iran. In the late 1570’s he became the ruler of the princely state of Bitlis. In 1595 and 1596, Sharaf Khan wrote Sharaf-nameh (in Persian)—the fundamental and earliest source on the medieval history of the Kurdish people.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
Sharaf-name, vols. 1–2. Translation, foreword, notes, and appendixes by E. I. Vasil’eva. Moscow, 1967–76.