Reframing the Qarāmānids: Exploring Cultural Life through the Arts of the Book

Abstract

ABSTRACT The so-called “Beylik” (Turkmen principalities) period of Anatolian history (roughly, the late thirteenth to early fifteenth centuries) has long interested Turkish scholars, particularly in relation to the ascendance of the Ottoman beylik in the second half of the fourteenth century. Much existing scholarship emphasises the apparently inherent “Turkishness” of the beyliks, at the expense of more nuanced analyses. Some recent exceptions, however, reassess the character of some of these beyliks, thereby highlighting the deficiencies in existing scholarship and providing new ways of understanding this period. This article contributes to this ongoing discourse by discussing the artistic patronage of three Qarāmānid princes. Based on three illuminated and illustrated manuscripts, one of which is relatively unknown to scholarship, the article demonstrates that the cultural activities of these princes complicate simple understandings of “beylik” identity and emphasises the need to consider this context with a more critical, and inclusive, eye.