The first namely Kurdish dynasty was the Shahdid dynasty:
The
Shaddadids were a dynasty of
Kurdish origin
[2][3][4] who ruled in various parts of
Armenia and
Arran from 951 to 1174 AD. They were established in
Dvin. Through their long tenure in Armenia, they often intermarried with the
Bagratuni royal family of Armenia.[
citation needed]
They began ruling in the city of Dvin, and eventually ruled other major cities, such as
Bardha'a and
Ganja. A cadet line of the Shaddadids were given the city of
Ani and
Tbilisi[5] as a reward for their service to the
Seljuqs, to whom they became
vassals.
[6][7] From 1047 to 1057, the Shaddadids were engaged in several wars against the
Byzantine army. The area between the rivers
Kura and
Arax was ruled by a Shaddadid dynasty.
- Andrew C. S. Peacock, Nomadic Society and the Seljūq Campaigns in Caucasia, Iran & the Caucasus, Vol. 9, No. 2, 2005:210.
- Andrew C. S. Peacock, Nomadic Society and the Seljūq Campaigns in Caucasia, 209.
- Shaddadids, C.E. Bosworth, The Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol.IX, Ed. C.E.Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P.Heinrichs and G.Lecomte, (Brill, 1997), 169.
- Lokman I. Meho,Kelly L. Maglaughli (1968). Kurdish culture and society: an annotated bibliography. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-31543-5.
The most famous Kurdish dynasty and with the most impact were the Ayyubids
The
Ayyubid dynasty (
Kurdish:
دەوڵەتی ئەییووبی Dewleta Eyûbiyan;
Arabic: الأيوبيون
al-ʾAyyūbiyyūn) was a Muslim dynasty of
Kurdishorigin,
[3][4][5] founded by
Saladin and centered in
Egypt. The dynasty ruled much of the
Middle East during the 12th and 13th centuries CE. Saladin had been the vizier of
Fatimid Egypt before he brought an end to Fatimid rule in 1171. In 1174, he proclaimed himself Sultan following the death of the Ayyubids' former master,
Zengid sultan
Nur al-Din.
[6] The Ayyubids spent the next decade launching conquests throughout the region and by 1183, the territories under their control included Egypt,
Syria, northern
Mesopotamia,
Hejaz,
Yemen, and the
North African coast up to the borders of modern-day
Tunisia. Most of the
Kingdom of Jerusalemfell to Saladin after his victory at the
Battle of Hattin in 1187. However, the
Crusaders regained control of
Palestine's coastline in the 1190s.
- R. S. Humphreys, "Ayyubids" in Encyclopedia Iranica
- Özoğlu, Hakan, Kurdish notables and the Ottoman state, (State University of New York, 2004), 46; "The next Islamic dynasty of Kurdish origin was the Ayyubids...".
- C.E. Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties, (Columbia University Press, 1996), 73.