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Timurtaş and the end of the Eşrefoğulları

Timurtaş, also written Demirtaş, was an Ilkhanid governor whose 1326 campaign ended the Eşrefoğlu beylik in Beyşehir.

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Ilkhanid authority in Anatolia

The Ilkhanids exercised power over the final Anatolian Seljuk period and its successor beyliks through governors and military commanders. The frontier rulers were not always passive subjects: they sought room for local authority while negotiating or resisting the governors. In Beyşehir the Eşrefoğulları had built a political centre and endowed institutions, but their independence existed within this unstable wider order.[1][2]

Kofoğlu’s account describes Timurtaş as the Ilkhanid governor of Anatolia. He took Konya from the Karamanoğulları, increasingly acted on his own authority and threatened neighbouring beys. Eşrefoğlu Süleyman II and Hamidoğlu Dündar Bey complained to the Ilkhanid ruler Abū Saʿīd through Timurtaş’s father Emir Choban. Timurtaş was recalled and forgiven, then returned to Anatolia.[3][4]

The 1326 attack on Beyşehir

On his return Timurtaş moved against beyliks that challenged him. Kofoğlu states that he entered Beyşehir and had Eşrefoğlu Süleyman II killed on 9 October 1326. This is the securely cited event behind the beylik’s end. Later dramatic accounts of precisely how the last bey died should be identified as traditions unless independent evidence establishes them.[5]

The assault did not erase the mosque, palace history or settlement around the lake. It ended a particular ruling house’s independent political project. A good chronology therefore separates the fate of the dynasty from the longer histories of Eşrefoğlu Mosque, the town and its inhabitants. It also separates Timurtaş’s military campaign from later local authority recorded in inscriptions.[6][7]

What followed

After the attack, the former Eşrefoğlu lands were divided among neighbouring powers. Kofoğlu places Beyşehir, Seydişehir and Akşehir under the Hamidoğulları, while other areas went to the Sâhib Ataoğulları and Karamanoğulları. The Hamidid history also describes Timurtaş’s pressure on their ruler Dündar Bey. These events formed part of a regional reordering, not an isolated episode at Beyşehir.[8][9]

Evidence from later decades adds Emir İsmail Ağa to the story of local rule. Still later, Hamidid and Karamanid–Ottoman competition altered the town’s allegiance again. Timurtaş belongs in Beyşehir’s history because one decisive campaign changed the political framework in which all of those later developments took place.[10][11]

See also

Medieval BeyşehirEşrefoğullarıThe Eşrefoğulları were a late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Anatolian beylik centred on Beyşehir.Medieval BeyşehirEşrefoğlu Süleyman BeySeyfeddin Süleyman Bey founded the Eşrefoğulları beylik and made Beyşehir its centre.Medieval BeyşehirHamidoğulları and BeyşehirThe Hamidoğulları held Beyşehir after the fall of the Eşrefoğulları, placing the lake town in a wider political contest across southwestern Anatolia.Medieval BeyşehirEmir İsmail Ağaİsmail Ağa was a later medieval emir whose name survives in Beyşehir’s medrese and funerary record.Medieval BeyşehirBeyşehir on the Karamanid–Ottoman frontierFrom the late fourteenth to the mid fifteenth century, Beyşehir repeatedly changed hands in the struggle between the Karamanoğulları and the Ottomans.

References

  1. 1Sait Kofoğlu · Eşrefoğulları · TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi · 1995 · Ilkhanid context and late beylik
  2. 2M. Akif Erdoğru · Beyşehir - TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi · Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi · 1992 · medieval political history
  3. 3Sait Kofoğlu · Eşrefoğulları · TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi · 1995 · Mehmed Bey and Süleyman II narrative
  4. 4Sait Kofoğlu · Hamîdoğulları · TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi · 1997 · Dündar Bey and Demirtaş narrative
  5. 5Sait Kofoğlu · Eşrefoğulları · TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi · 1995 · 9 October 1326 passage
  6. 6Sait Kofoğlu · Eşrefoğulları · TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi · 1995 · end of beylik
  7. 7İbrahim Kunt, Hüseyin Muşmal, Mustafa Çetinaslan · Beyşehir’de Moğol Emiri İsmail Ağa Dönemine Ait Farsça-Arapça Sandukalar · Turkish Studies 9/1, pp. 367–386 · 2014 · fourteenth-century local evidence
  8. 8Sait Kofoğlu · Eşrefoğulları · TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi · 1995 · final paragraph
  9. 9Sait Kofoğlu · Hamîdoğulları · TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi · 1997 · 1326 crisis and Hızır Bey
  10. 10İbrahim Kunt, Hüseyin Muşmal, Mustafa Çetinaslan · Beyşehir’de Moğol Emiri İsmail Ağa Dönemine Ait Farsça-Arapça Sandukalar · Turkish Studies 9/1, pp. 367–386 · 2014 · abstract and conclusion
  11. 11M. Akif Erdoğru · Beyşehir - TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi · Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi · 1992 · political history

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