Aïdin comprised the greater part of Ionia, with a portion of Lydia, if we take its boundaries to be those of the present vilayet of the same name. It comprised, at the time of its greatest extent, Smyrna, Ephesus, and Tralles. Smyrna was captured by the crusaders in 1344. Ephesus was at times independent under the name of Ayasoluk. Tralles, called Guzel Hissar, and sometimes also Birgui or Berki, was the capital of Aïdin in the time of Orkhan. Later, Ayasoluk, and, last of all, Tira, were the successive capitals.
The emirate was founded by Aïdin, a contemporary of Osman, who was succeeded by his son Mohammed about 1330. Ibn Batutah regarded Mohammed as a very powerful prince, who was especially strong on the sea. His eldest son, Omar, who succeeded him in 1341, met death in an unsuccessful attempt to recapture Smyrna in 1348. His relations with Cantacuzenos are given in the chapter on Orkhan. Isaac, fourth of the line, reigned from 1348, until he was dispossessed by Bayezid in 1390. He died in exile at Nicaea. His sons, Isaac II and Omar II, were placed again on the throne in 1403. The line of Aïdin became extinct soon after. A usurper, Djuneïd, Ottoman governor of Smyrna, managed to keep the power until he was assassinated in 1425. It was not until then that Aïdin definitely passed into the hands of the Osmanlis.
After the death of Aïdin, the founder of the dynasty, the territory of the emirate seems to have suffered some diminution, aside from the loss of Smyrna. One of the sons, Soleiman, married a daughter of Orkhan, while another, Khidr, ruled independently at Ayasoluk, which was lost for a time to Rhodes twenty years later. Under Omar, the Turks of Aïdin were very active in the Aegaean Sea, and made large invasions of Thrace and Macedonia in 1333 and 1334. They co-operated with the Genoese of Phocaea against the Greeks and the Osmanlis, and were at times allied with the emirates of Sarukhan and Menteshe, with whom they are frequently mixed by the Byzantine historians. The western historians almost invariably gave credit to the Osmanlis for the maritime exploits of these emirates during the fourteenth century.[741]
Akbara (3)
At some time before 1340, a certain Demir Khan, son of Karasai, emir of Pergama, ruled in Akbara, whose location is given by Shehabeddin as ‘south of Brusa and Sinope, and north of Mount Kasis’. This emirate was probably destroyed by Orkhan in the expedition of 1339-40. It was a region along the borders of Mysia and Phrygia, which had been able to resist the encroachments of Kermian owing to the mountainous character of the country.[742]
Akridur (4)
This city was at the south end of the lake of the same name (to-day called Egherdir), and was within the limits of the emirate of Hamid. But, like Nazlu, it had frequently a wholly independent existence, and both Shehabeddin and Ibn Batutah, as well as other writers, mention its emirs as if independent of the emir of Hamid, and these rulers are given from the families of Tekke and Hamid. The Osmanlis first reached the northern end of Lake Egherdir in 1379, and incorporated Akridur about 1390.[743]
Akseraï (5)
This is the ancient Archelaïs, and is three days north-east of Konia on the road to Kaïsariya (Caesarea). In the time of Ibn Batutah, it was one of the most beautiful and most solidly built cities of Asia Minor, and was ruled by the emir Artin, possibly an Armenian, who was vassal of the Mongol ruler of Persia. Later, Ak Seraï was incorporated in Karamania, to which it belonged at the time that the Osmanlis, under Bayezid, first entered it.[744]