Karesioğulları

The Karasids, in Turkish the Karesioğulları, were a Turkoman dynasty that in the early fourteenth century ruled Mysia, around Balıkesir facing the Dardanelles. Its founder Karasi Bey built an independent emirate as Seljuk power faded, and on his death around 1328 the realm was divided between his sons Demir Khan and Yakhshi Khan. Demir's fleet raided Cyzicus and the Thracian shore.

Later rulers such as Ajlan Bey were drawn into Byzantine civil wars, and the dynasty's end is obscured by conflicting legends: after Ajlan's death his son Dursun took refuge with the Ottoman sultan Orhan and guided the Ottoman takeover of the Karasid lands around 1345.

Karasi was the first Anatolian beylik to be absorbed by the Ottomans. The conquest gave the Ottomans a fleet of experienced Aegean sailors and a frontage on the Dardanelles, opening the road into Rumelia.