Dulkadir

The Dulkadirids were a Turkoman dynasty drawn from the Oghuz Bayat, Afshar and Begdili clans, whose beylik became one of the strongest in southeastern Anatolia. Their chieftain Zayn al-Din Qaraja took Elbistan in 1337 and was recognised as na'ib, or deputy governor, by the Mamluk sultan al-Nasir Muhammad, having fought alongside the Mamluks against Cilician Armenia.

From Elbistan and Maraş the dynasty expanded until its lords held Kayseri, Malatya and Antep. Sandwiched between the Mamluk sultanate and the rising Ottoman Empire, the Dulkadirids became linked to the Ottoman house by several royal weddings while playing the two empires off against each other.

The balancing act ended under Selim I: after the Battle of Turnadağ in 1515 the Ottomans overran the beylik and reduced it to a sanjak, the last vestiges of its autonomy disappearing by 1522.