Mesud II | |||||
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Seljuq sultans of Rum | |||||
Reign | 1284–1296 | ||||
Predecessor | Kaykhusraw III | ||||
Successor | Kayqubad III | ||||
Seljuq sultans of Rum | |||||
Reign | 1303-1307 | ||||
Predecessor | Kayqubad III | ||||
Successor | Office abolished | ||||
Died | 1308 | ||||
Issue | Mesud III | ||||
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House | House of Seljuq | ||||
Father | Kaykaus II |
Full name | |
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Ghiyāth ad-Dīn Mas'ūd bin Kaykāwūs |
Masud II or Mas'ud II (Old Anatolian Turkish: مَسعود دوم, Ghiyāth ad-Dīn Mas'ūd bin Kaykāwūs (Persian: غياث الدين مسعود بن كيكاوس) bore the title of Sultanate of Rum at various times between 1284 and 1308. He was a vassal of the Mongols and exercised no real authority. History does not record his ultimate fate.
Masud II was the eldest son of Kaykaus II. He spent part of his youth as an exile in the Crimea and lived for a time in Constantinople, then the capital of the Byzantine Empire. He appears first in Anatolia in 1280 as a pretender to the throne. In 1284 the new Ilkhan Sultan Ahmad deposed and executed the Seljuq sultan Kaykhusraw III and installed Masud in his place. Ahmad’s successor, Arghun, divided the Seljuq lands and granted Konya and the western half of the kingdom to the deposed sultan’s two young sons. Masud invaded with a small force, had the two boys killed, and established himself in the city in 1286.
He led several campaigns against the emerging Turkmen principalities, the Beyliks, always on behalf of the Mongols and usually with Mongol troops. Notable among these is the expedition beginning late in 1286 against the Germiyanids. The Germiyanids were a warlike band of Turkmen ancestry, settled by the Seljuqs a generation before in southwestern Anatolia to keep the more unruly Turkmen nomads in check. Masud conducted the campaign under the tutelage of the vizier and elder statesman, Fakhr al-Din Ali. Though there were a few successes on the battlefield, the highly mobile Germiyanids remained a significant force in the region. Masud and his Mongol allies conducted similarly futile expeditions against the Karamanids and Eshrefids.