Ahis

The Ahis were a fraternity of Muslim craftsmen and merchants who governed Ankara as a self-governing commonwealth in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Their guild-like order was headed by sheikhs rather than a ruling dynasty.

The Ottoman ruler Orhan first occupied Ankara in 1354. The Ahis briefly tried to restore their rule, but Murad I absorbed their commonwealth into the Ottoman state in 1362. In later years, some Ahi leaders served as Ottoman officials.