Karamania

Karamania, formerly an independent inland province in the south of Asia Minor, named after Karaman, the son of an Armenian convert to Islam, who married a daughter of Ala ed-Din Kaikobad, the Seljuk sultan of Rum, and was granted Laranda in fief, and made governor of Selefke, 1223-1245. The name Karaman is, however, Turkoman and that of a powerful tribe, settled apparently near Laranda. The Armenian convert must have been adopted into this. On the collapse of the Seljuk empire, Karaman’s grandson, Mahmud, 1279-1319, founded a state, which included Pamphylia, Lycaonia and large parts of Cilicia, Cappadocia and Phrygia. Its capital, Laranda, superseded Konia. This state was frequently at war with the kings of Lesser Armenia, the Lusignan princes of Cyprus and the knights of Rhodes. It was also engaged in a long struggle for supremacy with the Osmanli Turks, which only ended in 1472, when it was definitely annexed by Mahommed II. The Osmanlis divided Karamania into Kharij north, and Ichili south, of the Taurus, and restored Konia to its metropolitan position. The name Karamania is now often given by geographers to Ichili only; but so far as it has had any exact significance in modern times, it has stood for the whole province of Konia. Before the present provincial division was made (1864), Karamania was the eyalet of which Konia was the capital, and it did not extend to the sea, the whole littoral from Adalia eastward being under the pasha of Adana. Nevertheless, in Levantine popular usage at the present day, “Karamania” signifies the coast from Adalia to Messina.

(D. G. H.)