Alaiye

Piri Reis map of Alanya from 1525, shortly after the beylik was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire.

Alaiye (علاعية) is the medieval Seljuk name for the modern Turkish city of Alanya, derived from the name of the Sultan Alaeddin Keykubad I. It refers to the city-state in a specific period and the beylik which developed around there, at times under the Karamanoğlu dynasty. After the 1242 Battle of Köse Dağ, Seljuks lost control of the city, and it became semi-autonomous.

Occupations

Before the influence of the Karamanoğlu dynasty, Henry II of Jerusalem made an unsuccessful attempt to invade the city in 1291. Karamanoğlu influence which began in 1293 with the capture of the beylik by Mecd' ad-Din Mahmud (Turkish: Mecdüddin Mahmud). In 1427 the Mamluk Sultan Al-Ashraf Sayf Addin Barsbay acquired the beylik from the Karamanid Sultan Damad II İbrahim Bey in exchange of 5,000 gold coins. In 1366 an attempt to occupy the beylik by Peter I of Cyprus was unsuccessful.

Governance

The beylik existed as an independent principality in some form from 1293 until 1471. The second rule of Alaeddin Keykubad III was centered there. The Ottoman general Gedik Ahmet Pasha's victory against Kasım Bey and the Karamanoğlu also happeded in Alaiye. During this period no major state existed in Anatolia, following the defeat of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm by the Mongol Empire at the Battle of Köse Dag.

Following minor Christian incursions in the region in 1371, Badr ad-Din Mahmud Bey, an emir of the Karamanoğlu built a mosque and medrese in 1373-1374 in the city.

References

• (Turkish) Alâiye Beyligi