Sarukhanids

Historic principality

The Sarukhanids or Sarukhanid dynasty (Modern Turkish: Saruhanoğulları, Saruhanoğulları Beyliği), also known as the Principality of Saruhan and Beylik of Saruhan (Saruhan Beyliği), was one of the Anatolian beyliks, centered in Manisa. Although the origin of Saruhanids is not known, there are theories that they may be of Oghuz or Kipchak origin. Some researchers attribute the origins of Saruhanids to the "Sarı" tribe of Kipchak Kimeks. The Saruhanids It was founded by the tribal chief Saruhan about 1300 and lasted for a first time until 1390, when Bayezid I overran the region and finally until 1412, when the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed I killed Hızır, the last Saruhan ruler, and absorbed the Beylik into the Ottoman Empire as a province.

The founder of the beylik, Sarukhan Bey, began his military career as an emir of the Germiyanids. Sometime at the beginning of the 14th century, he seized territories for himself in the Gediz River (Hermus under its previous Byzantine rulers) valley and founded a dynasty that started to rule the region from its base in Manisa. Its principal towns included Menemen, Gördes, Demirci, Nif, and Kasaba.

The dynasty's period as a regional power is largely limited to the long reign of its founder, Sarukhan Bey (d. 1346), under whom the principality became a naval power in the Aegean Sea, and regularly battled with the fleets of the Republic of Genoa and the Dukes of Naxos. The region roughly corresponding to the area of extension of Sarukhan dynasty's administration became an Ottoman sub province (sanjak) under the continued name of Sarukhan until the early years of the Republic of Turkey.