emirate · Anatolia and the Levant

Eshrefids

1285 CE – 1326 CE · capital Beyşehir

A short-lived beylik on Lake Beysehir whose wooden-columned Eshrefoglu Mosque is a World Heritage Site.

Origins

The Eshrefids descended from Eshref, a Turkmen commander serving the Sultanate of Rum. In the 1280s Sayf al-Din Suleyman Bey made Beysehir on the lake of the same name the centre of a principality as Seljuk power waned.

Rule and society

The beylik held Beysehir, Seydisehir and Aksehir at times. Suleyman Bey built the Eshrefoglu Mosque in 1296-1299, whose interior has a forest of carved cedar columns and painted wooden ceilings, among the finest surviving wooden mosques; it was listed with other Anatolian wooden mosques as a World Heritage Site in 2023. The beylik had little political weight among its neighbours.

Decline and legacy

In 1326 the Ilkhanid governor of Anatolia, Timurtash, executed its last ruler, Suleyman II, and the lands passed to the Hamidids.

Connections (1)

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Cite this page
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Eshrefids. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/eshrefids
MLA
“Eshrefids.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/eshrefids. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Eshrefids.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/eshrefids.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Eshrefids’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/eshrefids (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻