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The Dulghadïr Oghullarï or Dhu ’l-Qadrids

738–928/1337–1521

South-eastern Anatolia

The founder of this line of rulers in the Taurus Mountains and upper Euphrates region, with its centres at Maraş (Mar’ash) and Elbistan (Albistān), was an Oghuz chief, Qaraj b. Dulghadïr (the latter Turkish name, of uncertain meaning, being later Arabised or rendered by folk etymology as Dhu ’l-Qadr ‘Powerful, mighty’), who led Turkmen bands into the region of Little Armenia. His successors maintained their position, at times as vassals of the Mamlūks, and survived the attacks of Tīmūr. In the fifteenth century they maintained good relations with both the Ottomans, as enemies of the Qaramānids, and the Mamlūks, and resisted pressure from the Aq Qoyunlu ruler Uzun Ḥasan (see below, no. 146). The potentates of Istanbul and Cairo struggled for influence in this region of south-eastern Anatolia and supported rival candidates for power in Elbistan and Maraş. But Selīm I’s victories over the Mamlūks in 922–3/1516–17 tipped the scales decisively in favour of the Ottomans, who ended the Dulghadïr line shortly afterwards and transformed their beylik into the Dhu ’l-Qadriyya governorate.

Sachau, 15–16 no. 28; Khalīl Ed’hem, 308–12; Zambaur, 158; Bosworth–Merçil-İpşrli, 294–6.

EI² ‘Dhul-Kadr’ (J. H. Mordtmann and V. L. Ménage); İA ‘Dulkadirhlar’ (J. H. Mordtmann and Mükrimin Halil Ymanç).

I. H. Uzunçarşılı, Anadolu beylikleri, 169–75.