Mihaloğulları

The Mihaloğlu or Mihalzâde ("son of Michael"), in the collective plural Mihaloğulları ("Sons/descendants of Michael"), were a distinguished family of akıncı leaders and frontier lords (uç bey) of the early Ottoman Empire.

The family descended from Köse Mihal, the Byzantine lord of Chirmenkia (modern Harmanköy), who may have been a relative of the Byzantine imperial dynasty of the Palaiologoi. After converting to Islam, he became a companion of the founder of the Ottoman beylik, Osman I, and played a considerable part in the early expansion of the Ottoman state. He and his descendants bore, until the early 16th century, the hereditary title of "commander of the akıncıs". According to the great Ottomanist Franz Babinger, along with the Evrenosoğulları, the Malkoçoğulları, the Timurtaşoğulları, and the Turahanoğulları, the Mihaloğulları were "among the most celebrated of the noble families of the early Ottoman empire".