Ashraf-oghullari

Ashraf-oghullari ("the sons of Ashraf") were a Turkoman tribe that the Anatolian Saljuq state had settled on its western frontiers, where they served as march-wardens. From this base they embellished the town of Gorgurum and then Beyshehri, and established a principality in that region. ¹

The first of the family known from the sources is the Saljuq amir Sayf al-Din Sulayman Bey, who played an important part in the reigns of Ghiyath al-Din Kaykhusraw III and Ghiyath al-Din Mas'ud II. After the Ilkhanids had put Kaykhusraw III to death, they ordered Mas'ud II to rule in his place (Rabi' I 682/June 1283). Kaykhusraw's mother, at Konya, proclaimed his sons as successors with Ilkhanid approval and declared against Mas'ud. She invited Sulayman Bey to Konya and made him regent for the infant sovereigns (8 Rabi' I 684/14 May 1285). With Mongol help, Mas'ud II, who was at Kayseri, disposed of the two children and seized power, and Sulayman Bey withdrew to Beyshehri. In 687/1288 he made his submission to Mas'ud and came to Konya. ²

Mas'ud II regarded his brother Siyawush as a rival and had him sent to Beyshehri, on the pretext of bringing back the Ashrafid's daughter as a bride for the sultan. By prior arrangement Sulayman Bey imprisoned Siyawush, but the threats of the Karamanid Guneri Bey forced him to release Siyawush and send him to Konya. The episode is recorded in the Seljuqnama (Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Persian MS no. 1553). ³

Sulayman Bey was almost constantly in conflict, sometimes with his neighbours and sometimes with the Saljuq governors. At one point the Karamanids, who were attacking Beyshehri, put him in danger, but he later won the upper hand. The territory also suffered from Ilkhanid assaults under Ghaykhatu. ³

Sulayman Bey renamed Beyshehri Sulaymanshehri and endowed it with a number of foundations. He repaired the fortress and set his inscription over its gate in 689/1290, where he styled himself an amir of the Saljuqs. He built his mosque, a distinguished work of art, in 696/1296, and the mausoleum beside it in 1302. The mosque ceiling is carried on 48 wooden pillars decorated with stalactites; the mihrab is set with porcelain mosaics, Qur'anic verses and hadiths; and the minbar, made of jointed pieces of ebony, is a masterpiece of woodcarving. Above the doorway are the names of the first four caliphs in Kufic lettering. Sulayman Bey died on Monday 2 Muharram 702/27 August 1302 and was buried in the mausoleum. In his waqfiyya he named his sons Muhammad and Ashraf as mutawallis of these foundations. ³

Sulayman Bey was succeeded by his elder son, Mubariz al-Din Muhammad, who added Akshehir and Bolvadin to the family domains. An Ashrafid amir built the market mosque at Akshehir in 720/1320. When the Ilkhanid governor-general Coban visited Anatolia in 1314, an Ashrafid bey came to his obedience, and this was most probably Mubariz al-Din Muhammad. Muhammad died after 1320 and was succeeded by his son Sulayman II (the scan of the sentence about his reign is partly garbled). The Ilkhanid influence in Anatolia was waning. Demirtash, son of Coban, was appointed governor of Anatolia; he first took Konya from the Karamanids (1320), then marched on Beyshehri, seized Sulayman II and killed him. The Masalik al-Absar says he was tortured to death before his body was thrown into the lake of Beyshehri. The Paris manuscript of the Seljuqnama dates the killing to 726/1326; the Takwim-i Nudjumi gives the year as 722/1322-3. ⁴

With the murder of Sulayman II the principality of the Ashrafids came to an end. After Demirtash's time their territories fell partly to the Hamidids and partly to the Karamanids. No coins of the Ashrafids have come to light, though coins of Muhammad Bey may yet exist. Shihab al-Din al-Umari, in his Masalik al-Absar, says that the Ashrafids possessed almost 70,000 cavalry, 60 towns and 150 villages. ⁵

A philosophical work in Arabic, in nine sections, al-Fusul al-Ashrafiyya fi Usul al-Burhaniyya wa'l-Kashfiyya, was written by Shams al-Din Muhammad Tushtari for the Ashrafid Mubariz al-Din Muhammad (the scan of this sentence is partly garbled). The author's autograph copy, written at Konya in 710/1311, is in the library of St Sophia (no. 2445). ⁵