The Kurdish principalities that were renown since the Middle Ages have soon developed an ambiguous relationship with central states. They used the social and political specificities of their lands and the binarity of imperial powers situation in order to thrive. The Mamluk (thirteenth to fifteenth centuries) and Ottoman (sixteenth to twentieth centuries) eras seem to share some features as for the Kurdish configuration. Both realms intended to integrate while keeping a differentiated Kurdish space aside their core territory as a resource against Iranian (Ilkhani and Safavi) attacks. Although the Mamluks did not fully aggregate a Kurdish entity, two centuries later the Sublime Porte finally made this leap and created a fully Ottoman Kurdistan. The circumstances under which autonomy was granted to Kurdish principalities that recognized the one and only Ottoman rule were multifaceted. To take a few factors at stake, the troubled political situation that preceded the incorporation of Kurdistan, the deal that the Ottoman bureaucrats, among which the infamous Idrîs Bidlisi, crafted for the Kurdish mirs as well as their religious siding, were crucial. However, the process of full integration of Kurdish lands into the Ottoman imperium resumed at the end of the nineteenth century by crushing the weapons it once utilized against their neighbours.

From the arrival of the Ottomans and the Safavids to Kurdistan until the removal of the Kurdish emirates in the mid-nineteenth century, the Kurdish nobility was actively involved in regional and trans-border politics. The struggle between the Ottomans and the Safavids, especially during the first half of the sixteenth century, when the division between ‘Iranian Kurdistan’ and ‘Ottoman Kurdistan’ was consolidated, was pivotal in shaping the political landscape in Kurdistan. However, for the successive centuries some of the Kurdish lands would keep changing hands after each war between two states. At other times Kurdish lords would switch their loyalty for another ruler or simultaneously pay tribute and tax to both states. Tools of politics used by both states and the Kurdish emirs varied from time to time but remained mainly the same in essence. While the Ottoman Empire and Iranian dynasties planned their imperial project on Kurdistan the Kurdish nobility played an active role in regional and trans-border politics. The policies of both states had lasting effects in the region while Kurdish lands remained a ‘buffer zone’ between two states until the mid-nineteenth century, when finally the Ottomans and Qajar Iran removed the Kurdish notables from their position and incorporated their lands into the central administration.