Beylik of Karaman

Overview

The Beylik of Karaman (Karamanids; Turkish Karamanoğulları) was a Turkish Anatolian beylik centered on south-central Anatolia, around present-day Karaman Province, and from 1307 onward at Konya. It was one of the most powerful of the Anatolian beyliks and the Ottomans' principal Turkish rival in Anatolia. Though geographically in Asia, it belongs in an Africa-adjacent list because of its long strategic alliance with Mamluk Egypt, whose sultans armed and encouraged the Karamanids as a counterweight to Ottoman expansion.

History

The dynasty descended from the Salur tribe of Oghuz Turks. Its founders, Hodja Sad al-Din and his son Nure Sufi, migrated from Arran (modern Azerbaijan) to Sivas fleeing the Mongol invasions around 1230, then settled in the western Taurus near Larende (later renamed Karaman in the dynasty's honour). Nure Sufi's son, Kerîmeddin Karaman Bey, gained control of the mountainous parts of Cilicia in the mid-13th century, capturing castles at Ermenek, Mut, Ereğli, Gülnar and Silifke at the expense of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia and the weakening Seljuks of Rum.

Karamanid power grew through war against both the Seljuks and their Mongol Ilkhanid overlords. Mehmed I briefly captured the Seljuk capital Konya in 1277, installing the pretender Jimri, before being defeated and executed in 1278. Aided by Mamluk Egypt—especially under Sultan Baybars—the Karamanids took Konya twice more in the early 14th century. Their greatest expansion came under Alaattin Ali Bey (r. 1361–1398), whose marriage to Nefise Hatun, daughter of Ottoman sultan Murad I, began the fateful entanglement of the two dynasties. When Ottoman sultan Bayezid I died at Ankara in 1402, Timur restored Karamanid lands, and Mehmed Bey even raided the Ottoman capital Bursa. Under Ibrahim II (r. 1423–1464) the beylik was again strong enough to attack Ankara and Kütahya while the Ottomans fought the Crusade of Varna in 1443–44—an act the Ottomans branded treason.

The state was Sunni Muslim; Persian was the language of court culture alongside Old Anatolian Turkish. Its economy rested on control of strategic commercial centres—Konya and Karaman inland and the Mediterranean ports of Silifke, Anamur and Manavgat—and its army was reckoned at some 25,000 cavalry plus Turkmen tribal levies. The Karamanids were also prolific builders: 66 mosques, 8 hammams, 2 caravanserais and 3 medreses survive, including the İnce Minare Medrese in Konya and the Ibrahim Bey Imaret in Karaman.

Decline and legacy

With Mamluk power waning, the Ottomans finally extinguished the beylik in 1487; its people were deported to Bulgaria, northern Greece and Azerbaijan, and its lands became the Ottoman Karaman Eyalet. Its legacy endures in Anatolian Turkish identity—the beylik is traditionally (if apocryphally) credited with making Turkish an official language—and in the Karamanlides, the Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christians of the region.