Kerîmeddin Karaman Bey

Kerîmeddin Karaman Beg (Turkish) (Arabic: كريم ٱلدين Karīm al-Dīn Karaman Bey) was a Turkmen chief founder of the dynasty Karaman-oğhlu or Karamanoğulları. The province and city of Larandia was renamed Karaman in his honor.

He was the son of Nûre Sûfî Bey, a Turkmen leader from Arran, who established himself in the Taurus Mountains near Larandia and who became a Seljuk vassal. Some time before 1256, Karaman Bey officially succeeded his father (who had already left him the effective power several years prior in order to pursue a life in seclusion). In about 1260 Karaman makes his first appearance in the Isaurian-Cilician Taurus regions.

Although the points of detail can probably never be determined, it can be accepted that Karaman started life as a woodcutter and timber merchant who brought supplies from the western Taurus to the little town of Laranda.

In the struggle between Izz al-Din Kaykaus (1246-1260) and his rival Kilidj Rukn al-Din Arslan IV Karaman supported the first. But Kilidj Rukn al-Din Arslan with the help of Parvaneh (Parvana) Sulayman Muin al-Din who was the one who had the real power, and the Mongols, managed to eliminate most of the hostile emirs or begs, but could not capture or kill Karaman and thus, tried to appease him by granting him Larandia and Ermenek and by giving his brother Buñsuz the position of amir djandar in Konya. The fall of Izz al-Din is said to have been one of the causes and possibly was the occasion of or pretext for his uprising. Izz al-Din was regarded, relatively speaking, as an ally of the Turcomans against the Mongols, and the efforts of Rukn al-Din to win the support of the Karamanids were in vain.

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