Osman and the rise of the Ottomans
A small Turkish frontier principality in north-west Anatolia, led by Osman and his son Orhan, grows into an empire straddling Europe and Asia.
- Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1923 — Caroline Finkel, John Murray (2005)
- Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State — Cemal Kafadar, University of California Press (1995)
- The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300–1600 — Halil İnalcık, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1973)
After the Mongols broke the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum in 1243, Anatolia splintered into small Turkish principalities, beyliks. One of them, on the Byzantine frontier near Söğüt and Bursa, was led by a chief named Osman, from whom the Ottomans (Osmanlı) take their name. His son Orhan took Bursa in 1326, and the Ottomans crossed into Europe at Gallipoli in the 1350s.
- Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1923 — Caroline Finkel, John Murray (2005)
- The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300–1600 — Halil İnalcık, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1973)
Within a few decades they had conquered much of the Balkans, defeating the Serbs at Kosovo in 1389 and moving their capital to Edirne. They built an army around the devşirme, a levy of Christian boys raised as Muslims to serve as Janissary soldiers and officials. In 1402 the Central Asian conqueror Timur crushed and captured Sultan Bayezid I at Ankara, nearly ending the state, but it recovered.
- Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1923 — Caroline Finkel, John Murray (2005)
- The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300–1600 — Halil İnalcık, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1973)
- Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State — Cemal Kafadar, University of California Press (1995)
Osman, son of Ertuğrul, dreamed that a great tree sprang from his body and spread over the world, a sign of God's favour, and founded the dynasty in 1299, the date the empire traditionally celebrates as its beginning.
- Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1923 — Caroline Finkel, John Murray (2005)
- Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State — Cemal Kafadar, University of California Press (1995)
Almost nothing about Osman can be documented; the dream and the 1299 date come from chronicles written over a century later. The early Ottomans were one of many frontier principalities, whose success owed as much to pragmatism, alliances with Byzantine Christians and absorbing local elites as to holy war.
- Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State — Cemal Kafadar, University of California Press (1995)
- Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1923 — Caroline Finkel, John Murray (2005)
Why it matters today
The Ottomans ruled for over six hundred years, and the story of their rise from a band of frontier warriors to a world empire is a source of great pride. Television dramas such as Diriliş: Ertuğrul and Kuruluş: Osman, about Osman and his father, have been huge hits in Turkey and across the Muslim world, and are part of a revival of Ottoman nostalgia.