Molla Mehmet Karayılan (1888 - 24 May 1920) was a Kurdish villager who famously fought and died in the Siege of Aintab.

Mehmet was born in 1888 in a tent in the Elifler or Kürt Elif hamlet in the Besni kaza, Ottoman Empire, modern-day Pazarcık, Turkey, to a relatively affluent family belonging to the Kabalar sub-tribe of the Kurdish Atma[1] or Reshwan[2] tribe.

He collaborated with the Ottoman government to track down and kill the infamous bandit Bozan Agha,[1] who terrorized the region between Pazarcık and Malatya.

[2] Upon hearing of the French expansion to Aintab, Molla Mehmet gathered 82 volunteers from his tribe and sold his family property, against his mother’s wish for him to stay.

The local Association for Defence of National Rights invited him for a mission to capture and kill Kel Ahmet (lit.