page_title: Amasya
section_title: Early Turkish rulers
hierarchical_section_title: Amasya / History / Early Turkish rulers
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Die Altstadt von Amasya
context_page_description: Amasya is a city in northern Turkey and is the capital of Amasya Province, in the Black Sea Region. Tokat from east, Tokat and Yozgat from south, Çorum from west, Samsun from north.
  The city of Amasya, the Amaseia or Amasia of antiquity, stands in the mountains above the Black Sea coast, set apart from the rest of Anatolia in a narrow valley along the banks of the Yeşilırmak River. Although near the Black Sea, this area is high above the coast and has an inland climate, well-suited to growing apples, for which Amasya province, one of the provinces in north-central Anatolia Turkey, is famed. It was the home of the geographer Strabo and the birthplace of the 15th century scholar and physician Amirdovlat Amasiatsi. Located in a narrow cleft of the Yeşilırmak river, it has a history of 7,500 years which has left many traces still evident today.
  In antiquity, Amaseia was a fortified city high on the cliffs above the river. It has a long history as a wealthy provincial capital, producing kings and princes, artists, scientists, poets and thinkers, from the kings of Pontus, through Strabo the geographer, to many generations of the Ottoman imperial dynasty.
context_section_description: In 1075, ending 700 years of Byzantine rule, Amasya was conquered by the Turkmen Danishmend emirs. It served as their capital until the annexation of the Danishmendid dominions by the Seljuk ruler Kilij Arslan II. When he died, his realm was divided among his sons, and Amasya passed to Nizam ad-Din Arghun Shah. His rule was brief, as he lost it to his brother Rukn ad-Din Suleiman Shah, who subsequently became Sultan. In the 13th century the city passed under the control of the Mongol Ilkhanate, and was ruled by Mongol governors, except for a brief rule by Taj ad-Din Altintash, son of the last Seljuk sultan, Mesud II.
  Under the Seljuks and the Ilkhan, the city became a centre of Islamic culture and produced some notable individuals such as Yaqut al-Musta'simi (1221-1298) calligrapher and secretary of the last Abbasid caliph who was a Greek native of Amasya. Schools, mosques, tombs and other architecture of this period still remain.
  In 1341, the emir Habiloghlu occupied the city, before it came under the rule of the Eretnid emirate. Hadji Shadgeldi Pasha took Amasya from the Eretnids under Ali Bey, and successfully fended off the claims of Kadi Burhan al-Din, who had supplanted the Eretnids. Shadgeldi was succeeded by his son Ahmed, who managed to retain his autonomy for a while, with Ottoman assistance; but in 1391/92, the mounting pressure forced him to cede the city to the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I, who installed his son, the future Mehmed I, as its governor.
caption: An example of an Ottoman architecture in Amasya
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