Soran was a Kurdish principality associated with Rawanduz. Its history includes Khanzad’s authority, Muhammad Pasha’s expansion, violence against neighbouring communities and Ottoman centralisation.
Soran and Rawanduz
Soran was a Kurdish principality whose nineteenth-century ruler Muhammad Pasha governed from Rawanduz. His expansion brought him into conflict with neighbouring emirates and communities as well as the Ottoman authorities. [2]
Khanzad: authority and historical evidence
Khanzad’s career belongs to an earlier period. In his published abstracts for a 2018 study, historian Saadi Uthman Haruti compares oral accounts with Ottoman and Safavid writings. He identifies her as Omer Bek’s daughter, places her accession after her father’s killing in 1617 and traces her authority until at least 1629. He describes a leading ruler among others in Soran, rather than its sole emir throughout that span. [1] Haruti also relates her military activity to Ottoman cooperation against Iran. Songs helped preserve her reputation, but their conflicting details require comparison with written evidence. The surviving traditions are part of her history of remembrance as well as a source requiring interpretation. [1]
Muhammad Pasha’s expansion
Known as Mîr Kor, Muhammad extended his power through conquest. Göymen links his attacks against Sheikhan’s Yazidis with the subsequent seizure of Amadiya and displacement of Bahdinan’s hereditary rulers. [2]
Violence and the end of his rule
Göymen records mass killing of Yazidis in Sheikhan. She describes Reşid Pasha’s 1836 intervention with Baghdad and Mosul forces, Muhammad’s surrender and transfer to Istanbul, and reports his killing on the return journey. Precise circumstances require care. [2]
Why Ottoman intervention intensified
Barbara Henning places campaigns of 1834–1839 within Ottoman efforts to obtain taxes and military manpower for reform. Defeat by Muhammad Ali of Egypt’s forces in 1831–1832 increased the pressure. Muhammad of Rawanduz was among local leaders reluctant to supply troops. Bedir Khan initially supported Ottoman campaigns against other regional rulers. [4] These shifting alignments help explain why the confrontation cannot be reduced to a single united movement by all Kurdish emirates.
Scholars and livelihoods beyond the court
Rawanduz’s social history continued beyond Muhammad’s fall. A 2025 archival study by Bzhar Othman Ahmed, Star Shekh Hassan and Rebaz Dlawar Omar examines scholars’ livelihoods across 1813–1916. Its published abstract reports that many combined scholarly work with agriculture and livestock, while Ottoman salaries, rewards for books and seasonal food support also contributed to their income. [3] The study’s long timespan spans the emirate and later administration. These varied livelihoods connect religious learning to land, households and institutions, and show why the history of the region includes more than its most famous rulers. [3]
Sources and further reading
- Saadi Uthman Haruti, Khanzad of Soran and the Oral Literature in Two Historical Studies (Kurdish Academy, 2018); author’s published English abstracts.
- Sema Yaşar Baraç Göymen, Nestorians, Kurds, and the State (Boğaziçi University MA thesis, 2015), pp. 18–20: Soran, conquest and Ottoman intervention.
- Bzhar Othman Ahmed, Star Shekh Hassan and Rebaz Dlawar Omar, “The Economic Life of Scholars in Rawandz 1813–1916,” IIUM Journal of Religion and Civilisational Studies 8/1 (2025), pp. 70–81; published abstract.
- Barbara Henning, Narratives of the History of the Ottoman-Kurdish Bedirhani Family in Imperial and Post-Imperial Contexts (2018), p. 96: taxation, manpower and changing alliances.