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| c. 1297 |
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| Death of Haji Bektash, a Sufi leader who was widely revered in Seljuk Anatolia, where he preached a version of Islam that combined Sunni, Shi’ite, and Christian practices and beliefs. From his teachings evolved the influential Bektashi Sufi order, which gained strong support among the Turkoman tribesmen and later became the adopted order of the Janissary corps in the Ottoman Empire. | 1 |
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| 1307 |
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| Founding of the city of Sultaniyya in Azerbaijan, to which the Ilkhanid ruler Oljeitu moved his capital from Tabriz. The magnificent mausoleum built for him in the city survives to this day. | 2 |
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| 1308 |
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| The Turkoman leader Mehmed Bey, son of Aydin, conquered Birge (Pyrgion) and made it the capital of a principality in western Anatolia that extended as far as Izmir (Smyrna). The principality of Aydin survived until its annexation by the Ottomans in 1389–90. | 3 |
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| 1313 |
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| Saruhan Bey conquered Manisa (Magnesia), which formed the base of the Turkoman principality of Saruhan in western Anatolia. The principality fell to the Ottomans in 1389–90. | 4 |
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| 1314 |
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| Konya, former capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, was captured by the principality of Karaman and made its capital. The Karamanids increasingly represented themselves as the heirs of the sultans of Rum. | 5 |
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| 1318 |
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| Execution of Rashid al-Din (b. 1247), the Ilkhanid minister. A Jewish convert to Islam and a physician by training, he emerged as a central power in the Ilkhanid state, especially under Ghazan. He wrote an important general history that includes primary material on the Ilkhanid state as well as a treatment of Europe, India, and Judaism. | 6 |
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| 1321 |
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| Death of Yunus Emre (b. c. 1250), the most celebrated of the early Turkish poets of Anatolia. His verses, which used colloquial Turkish to express his mystic devotion, achieved unmatched force and lyricism and are sung to this day. | 7 |
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| 1334 |
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| Death of Shaykh Safi al-Din (b. 1252), founder of the Safavid movement that ultimately brought the Safavid dynasty to power in Iran (See 1501). In 1301 he became the head of a Sufi organization in Ardabil and developed a body of devoted followers who attributed to him miraculous deeds. (He was a Sunni, which embarrassed his Shi’ite descendants when they came to power, and led them to portray him as a Shi’ite.) Under the leadership of his descendants the order grew, expanding its headquarters in Ardabil and acquiring extensive property holdings and many disciples. It was only from around the mid-15th century that it began to transform itself from a conventional Sufi organization to a militant political movement. | 8 |
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| 1335 |
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| DISINTEGRATION OF THE ILKHANID REGIME. Abu Sa'id (1316–35) succeeded in holding the state together despite factional strife, but when he died leaving no heir, the regime dissolved into competing provincial states. Mongol pretenders carved up various parts of Iran, Iraq, and eastern Anatolia, and some local dynasties asserted their independence. None of these successor states was able to reconstitute the Ilkhanid territories, and Timur eliminated many of them from the political scene in the 1380s and 1390s. The most notable of the local dynasties were the Muzaffarids based in Shiraz and the Karts based in Herat, both of which were wiped out by Timur. The Sarbadars based in Sabzavar in eastern Iran established a revolutionary Shi’ite state that enjoyed independence until 1381, when it came under Timur's suzerainty. The Jalayirids, who developed from a powerful Mongol faction, built a dynastic state in Iraq and Azerbaijan, with its base in Baghdad. | 9 |
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| 1336 |
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| Death of Ahmad Simnani (b. 1261), founder of the Kubrawiyya Sufi order (named after the Sufi Najm al-Din Kubra, who died in 1221). The order, which spread widely in Khurasan and Transoxania, appealed to Sunnis and Shi’ites in the name of Islamic communal unity, and sought to win Mongol converts to Islam. | 10 |
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| 1337–1515 |
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| THE DULKADIR (DHU AL-QADR) PRINCIPALITY. Founded by the Turkoman dynasty of Dulkadir as Ilkhanid power in Anatolia waned, the principality had its capital in Elbistan on the upper Euphrates. It stood as a buffer state between the Mamluks and the Ottomans, acting as a thorn in the flesh of both powers until the Ottomans finally annexed it in 1515. | 11 |
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| 1347–50 |
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| THE BLACK DEATH. The epidemic, which wreaked havoc in the entire Middle Eastern region, added to the troubled economic state of Iran and Iraq, although details about its impact in those lands remain scarce in comparison with information about Egypt. | 12 |
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