Beylik of Hamid

The Beylik of Hamid was a small Turkish principality in south-western Anatolia, founded around 1300 as the Sultanate of Rum disintegrated. Its name came from Hamid, a frontier commander under the Seljuks; his grandson Dündar Bey, also known as Felek al-Din, established the beylik around Uluborlu and Eğirdir. Dündar's brother Yunus founded the neighbouring Beylik of Teke around Antalya and Korkuteli, splitting the family's lands. Hamid controlled the route between the Aegean coast and the Anatolian interior, and its rulers profited from the trade and pastoral wealth of the lakes region. In the second half of the fourteenth century the beylik was drawn into the orbit of the Ottomans: Sultan Murad I pressured its princes into selling Akşehir and Beyşehir, and in 1391 Bayezid I annexed the remaining territory. It was reorganised as the Ottoman Sanjak of Hamid, roughly corresponding to modern Isparta Province. Although short-lived, the beylik left its name on the region and illustrates how the Seljuk collapse produced a patchwork of Turkish emirates in Anatolia.