The Jaf are a large and powerful Kurdish tribe historically located on the border area between the Ottoman and Persian empires in what is now southern Iraqi Kurdistan and the Iranian province of Kordestan. The tribe claimed descent from Saladin. During the 1920s, the Jaf opposed Sheikh Mahmud of Barzinji, as well as Great Britain's failure to grant Kurdish autonomy in Iraq. Such modernizing trends as a more defined border, effective government, and tribal settlement have decreased the Jaf's former importance.
See also Ashiret.
Historical Dictionary of the Kurds. Michael M. Gunter.