Kadi Burhan al-Din state

Origins

Kadi Burhan al-Din Ahmad was a jurist from Kayseri who served the Eretnids as judge and vizier. As the dynasty weakened he became the real power, and in 1381, after the death of Ala al-Din Ali, he declared himself sultan in Sivas.

Rule and society

He spent his reign fighting: against the Ottomans, whom he defeated at Kirkdilim in 1392, against the Mamluks, the Aq Qoyunlu, Mutahharten of Erzincan and the beys of Amasya. He was also a poet whose divan of Turkish verse is one of the earliest in Anatolia, and his court historian Astarabadi wrote the Bazm u Razm, a chronicle of his reign in Persian.

Decline and legacy

In 1398 he was killed by the Aq Qoyunlu chief Qara Yuluk Osman. Sivas surrendered to Bayezid I, but Timur destroyed it in 1400.