Karaman, Ottoman eyalet of

The major religious groups have been allowed under Ottoman rule to establish their own self-governing communities, called millets, each retaining its own religious laws, traditions, and language under the general protection of the sultan.

Religious chiefs, who serve as secular as well as religious leaders and thus have a substantial interest in the continuation of Ottoman rule, lead the millets.

Mehmed uses the conquering army to restore the physical structure of the city.

Old buildings are repaired, streets, aqueducts, and bridges are constructed, sanitary facilities are modernized, and a vast supply system is established to provide for the city's inhabitants.

Since the papacy and Venice are unable to raise a new crusade in Europe, they divert Mehmed by encouraging attacks by his enemies in the east, the Turkmen principality of Karaman and the Ak Koyunlu (White Sheep) dynasty, which under the leadership of Uzun Sasan had replaced Timur's descendants in western Iran.

Mehmed, however, skillfully uses dynastic divisions to conquer Karaman in 1468, thereby extending direct Ottoman rule in Anatolia to the Euphrates.

When Uzun Sasan responds by invading Anatolia with the support of many Turkmen princes who had been dispossessed by Mehmed, Venice intensifies its attacks in the Morea, Hungary moves into Serbia, and Skanderbeg attacks Bosnia.

Mehmed, however, is able to defeat each of these enemies.

In 1473, he routs Uzun Sasan, who acknowledges Ottoman rule in all of Anatolia and returns to Iran.

This brings the Ottomans into conflict with the Mamluk empire of Syria and Egypt, which seeks to expand into southeastern Anatolia.

Mehmed neutralizes Mamluk forces, though he cannot defeat them.

The papacy persuades Uzun Hasan, leader of the Ak Koyunlu (“White Sheep”) Turkmen tribal federation and a major opponent of the Ottomans, to join with the Timurid principality of Karaman in fighting Istanbul from the east during the middle phase of the current war between the Ottomans and Venice.

Ottoman sultan Mehmed II captures Karaman, then drives Hasan’s forces eastward until 1473, when his defeat of the white sheep at Bashkent forces them into Persia and angers the Mamluks of Syria and Egypt.

Konya, captured by the Il-Khan Mongols in the late thirteenth century, remains part of the Turkish principality of Karaman until its annexation by the Ottoman Empire in 1468.

Mehmed II appoints his son Mustafa as governor of the new eyalet, with his seat at Konya.

The expanding Ottoman Empire had overpowered the Balkan Peninsula in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Present-day European Turkey and the Balkans, among the first territories conquered, are used as bases for expansion far to the West during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The Ottoman Turks have by 1517 conquered Persia, Syria, Palestine, the Hejaz and Egypt itself, in the process destroying the Mamluks, who have failed to adopt field artillery as a weapon in any but siege warfare.

The Ottoman Empire is a world power when Suleyman dies in 1566.

Most of the great cities of Islam—Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo, Tunis, and Baghdad— are under the sultan's crescent flag.

The Porte exercises direct control over Anatolia, the sub-Danubian Balkan provinces, Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia.

Egypt, Mecca, and the North African provinces are governed under special regulations, as are satellite domains in Arabia and the Caucasus, and among the Crimean Tartars.

In addition, the native rulers of Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, and Ragusa (Dubrovnik) are vassals of the sultan.