Nomadic Warriors on the Edge of the World Empire: The Early Karamanids (1225-1335)

The Mongol invasions of the Islamic Near East (c.a. 1230-1260) brought profound demographic, political and cultural changes to the region. In Anatolia, the sixty years that followed the first Mongol invasion (1242/1243) saw the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, once the unchallenged dominant political power in the region, collapse into a myriad of smaller emirates, the so-called Anatolian beyliks. This dissertation studies the formation, expansion, and growth of the early Karamanid Beylik (c.a. 1256-1340), from a weak warband of nomads into one of the most politically, economically, and culturally significant entities to emerge from the ashes of the Seljuks, analyzing the processes through which the Mongol invasions forced the ancestors of the Karamanids to abandon their homeland for the greener pastures of Anatolia. It contends that the systematic destruction of much of the economic and agricultural landscape of Anatolia allowed for the emergence of the embryo of the Karamanid Beylik, originally a band of predatory Turkmen warriors under the leadership of Karīm al-Dīn Karaman. In addition, this study brings to light the hitherto ignored role played by local emirs and the foreign powers whose interests collided with that of the Karamanids and allowed them to expand the boundaries of their burgeoning emirate. This dissertation concludes with a study of the main political, cultural, and economic challenges faced by the young Karamanid Beylik in the post-Seljuk era (c.a. 1307-1340)