Germiyanids

The Germiyanids (Turkish: Germiyanoğulları Beyliği or Germiyan Beyliği) was one of the prominent frontier principalities established mainly by Turks and a mixed group of Kurds after the decline of Seljuq Sultanate of Rûm.[1][2][3][4]

Germiyan
1300–1429
Beylik of Germiyan (light red) in 1300.
Capital	Kütahya
Common languages	Old Anatolian Turkish
Religion	Muslim
Government	Monarchy
Bey
• 1300–1327	Yakup I of Germiyan
• 1402–1429	Yakup II of Germiyan
Historical era	Late Medieval
• Established	1300
• Disestablished	1429
Preceded by Succeeded by Seljuq Sultanate of Rûm Ottoman Empire

Origins

According to Agoston and Masters Germiyanoğulları were Turkomans who had immigrated to the west because of Mongol pressure in the second half of the 13th century.[5] According to Mehmet Fuat Köprülü, the ruling clan belonged to Afshar branch of Oghuz Turks.[6] Germiyanids likely came from Kerman or Fars Province, perhaps headed west with Khwarazmshahs. After the death of Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu, they remailed in Malatya area for a while, then moved to Kütahya, where they established the beylik.[6]

History

For a brief period in the second half of the 14th century, Germiyan Dynasty was second only to Karamanid Dynasty in its rising power. But they were later taken over by the neighboring Osmanoğlu dynasty, who were to found the Ottoman Empire later.

Germiyans played a crucial role in settling Turkish populations along the coastal regions of the Aegean Sea, the founders of the Beyliks of Aydin, Sarukhan, İnançoğlu and Menteşe having started out as Germiyan commanders.

They rebelled against the central power in 1283, upon the execution of the sultan Kaykhusraw III by the Mongols, and placing of Mesud II on the Seljuq throne. The struggle between combined Mongol-Seljuq forces based in Konya and the rebel forces of Germiyan continued until 1290. An agreement could only be reached in 1299, upon which the Germiyan Dynasty also entered into possession of Ankara. When the Ilkhanid governor Emir Çoban took over Anatolia in 1314, they declared allegiance and concentrated on raids towards the regions to their west.

Their western offshoots that were the Beyliks of Menteşe, Aydin, Ladik, Sarukhan and Karasi were all subject to the Germiyan in the early periods of their foundation, while the Beyliks of Sâhib Ata and Hamidids to the south had to rely on them for protection against attacks from the Karamanids. As for the northern regions of Anatolia, Byzantine sources record Umur Bey, a commander and son-in-law to the Germiyan family, to be the possessor of Paphlagonia, where Jandarid dynasty was to rule only after Germiyan power weakened.

Their strong political entity was eventually surrounded by newer states established by their own former commanders, leaving the Germiyan no outlet to the coastline or to Byzantine territory. Their powerful Karamanid neighbors exerting constant pressure from the east, Germiyan gradually fell under the rising influence of the Ottomans. Bayezid I married with Sultan Hatun, a Germiyanid princess, and acquired the eastern portion of Germiyan as a concession in order to border the Ottoman rival, the Karamanids.[7]

Legacy

The actual Turkish province of Kütahya was called the sub-province (sanjak) and later province (vilayet) of Germiyan until the early years of the Republic of Turkey, when it was renamed after its central town.

The founding dynasty of the beylik produced illustrious descendants either under the Ottoman Empire or in present-day Turkey, a notable one among these being the 19th century grand vizier Abdurrahman Nureddin Pasha.

The Egyptian National Library and Archives keeps a copy of Qabus-Nama in Old Anatolian Turkish, written during the reign of Süleyman of Germiyan.[8]

See also

• Süleyman of Germiyan
• Yakup II of Germiyan

References

1. Ducas, Harry J. Magoulias, Ducas, 1975 , Decline and fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks, p. 265, Wayne State University Press, University of Virginia ISBN 0-8143-1540-2, ISBN 978-0-8143-1540-8, The Germiyan were probably Kurdish and Turkish half-breeds who came from east of Malatya.
2. Peter Malcolm Holt, 1986, The Age of the Crusades: the Near East from the eleventh century to 1517, p. 176, Longman, University of Michigan, ISBN 0-582-49303-X, 9780582493032 The second of the eastern principalities, Germiyan, developed from a group, probably of mixed Kurdish and Turkish origin
3. Marios Philippides, Biblioteca apostolica vaticana - 1990, Byzantium, Europe, and the early Ottoman sultans, 1373-1513: an anonymous Greek chronicle of the seventeenth century, p. 6, A.D. Caratzas, University of Michigan, ISBN 0-89241-430-8, ISBN 978-0-89241-430-7, Near Byzantine borders in Phrygia, the emirate of Germiyan was formed by a mixed population of Turks and Kurds, who had come from east of Malatya
4. Carl F. Petry, 1998, The Cambridge History of Egypt, Vol. 1, p. 527, Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-521-63313-3, ISBN 978-0-521-63313-0, An Anatolian Turco-Kurdish dynasty, with its capital at Kutahya
5. Gabor Agoston-Bruce Masters, Encyclopaedia of the Ottoman Empire, p. 41 ISBN 978-0-8160-6259-1
6. Mehmet Fuat Köprülü, (1937), The Origins of the Ottoman Empire, p. 37
7. Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey: Volume 1, Empire of the Gazis: The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire 1280-1808. Cambridge University Press. p. 21.
8. Sadettin Buluç (1969). "Eski Anadolu Türkçesiyle Bir Kabus-name Çevirisi". Belleten (in Turkish). Turkish Language Association. p. 195.

• (limited preview) Mehmet Fuat Köprülü (1992). The Origins of the Ottoman Empire. Translated by Gary Leiser. State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-0819-1.