Kastemuni (24)
This emirate, at its zenith, comprised practically all of the ancient Roman province of Paphlagonia. It was formed by Ali Omar bey, who started as lord of the inland city of Kastemuni, and whose son Abdullah, in the lifetime of Osman, drove Ghazi Tchelebi from Sinope. The emirate had many vicissitudes and changes in dynasty. In the time of Ibn Batutah, Soleiman padishah was the sovereign, and had extended his rule from Heraclea on the Black Sea coast almost to Trebizond. His son Ali ruled at Borlu, and another son Ibrahim Shah, who succeeded Soleiman, contested Samsun with the emperor of Trebizond. Ibrahim was the younger son, and was designated as his successor by Soleiman. Under the third dynasty of Kastemuni, the ben-Isfendiar, the emirate was at the height of its power. Its fleets swept the Black Sea, and did much harm to the Greeks of Trebizond and the Genoese of Kaffa. Kaouïa was absorbed, and its eastern boundaries included Osmandjik. The emirs of Menteshe and Aïdin took refuge here, and the refusal of the emir of Kastemuni, Bayezid, to give them up, led to the invasion of 1392. Bayezid and the fugitive princes fled to Timur, who restored them after the battle of Angora. Isfendiar, son of Bayezid, managed to retain Sinope, and a large portion of the interior, for thirty years. He was father-in-law of the Ottoman sultan, Murad II. When Clavijo visited Sinope in 1404 Isfendiar had forty thousand men to put in the field against the Osmanlis. It was not until after the fall of Constantinople that Kastemuni finally lost its independence.[765] As the history of this emirate is involved with that of Sinope, see also below under Sinope.