Beylik of Karaman

The Karamanids were the Turkish beylik that nearly beat the Ottomans to an empire, ruling central Anatolia from 1250 to 1487. Sprung from the Salur Oghuz, the Karaman clan built its capital at Larende, today's Karaman, and as the Seljuks of Rum decayed, swallowed Konya itself and claimed the Seljuk inheritance. For a century and a half Karaman was the Ottomans' mirror and tormentor: Muslim, Turkish-speaking, patron of the Turkish language against Persianate fashion, and strong enough that the two houses intermarried even while plotting each other's ruin. The Karamanids allied with Hungary, Venice, the Mamluks, anyone against the rising House of Osman, and twice came close to breaking it. They failed twice. Mehmed the Conqueror's successors ground the beylik down in campaign after campaign, and in 1487 the last Karamanid resistance ended with annexation, deportation and the resettlement of Karaman's people across the empire. Anatolia spoke Turkish, as Karaman had wanted; it only obeyed another house.