Beylik of Karasi

The Beylik of Karasi was a Turkoman emirate in north-western Anatolia, in the region the ancients called Mysia. Its rulers, the Karasids, were among the frontier beys who carved out territories from the collapsing Seljuk and Byzantine order at the end of the thirteenth century. Karasi Bey and his father Kalam Shah are thought to have taken control of the country around Balikesir during the reign of the Seljuk sultan Mesud II and to have claimed independence at an uncertain date. After Karasi Bey's death the family divided into two branches, led by Demir Khan and Yakhshi Khan. Demir Khan raided Byzantine territory and in 1328 concluded a truce with Andronikos III; the traveller Ibn Battuta met him in 1333 and left an unfavourable account. The Karasids were eventually absorbed by the Ottoman emirate under Orhan, although the circumstances are obscure and the sources contradict one another. Their lands became an important base for Ottoman expansion into Thrace.