Karaman

The Karamanids were a powerful Anatolian beylik founded in the mid-thirteenth century by the Turkmen chief Karaman Bey, whose clansmen had fled the Mongol advance from Arran to the Taurus Mountains. They seized Larende, later renamed Karaman. In 1277 Mehmed Bey briefly captured Konya and enthroned the pretender Jimri before being defeated and executed.

The family made Konya its capital as the Sultanate of Rûm collapsed. Mehmed Bey proclaimed Turkish the language of state. The Karamanids became the Ottomans' principal Anatolian rivals, allying with the Mamluks and European powers. Bayezid I reduced them to vassalage in 1398, but Timur restored their lands after Ankara in 1402.

Ottoman campaigns and succession quarrels broke the dynasty, and Bayezid II completed its annexation in 1487. Its mosques and madrasas continued Seljuk architectural traditions.