Osman I
Osman I gave his name to the Ottoman Empire, and almost nothing about his life can be established from contemporary evidence. He was a Turkoman chief in north-western Anatolia around 1300, leader of one of a number of small frontier principalities that emerged as the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum disintegrated under Mongol overlordship. His territory bordered Byzantine Bithynia, which is the single most important fact about him. The other Anatolian beyliks were surrounded by fellow Muslims and could expand only at each other's expense; Osman faced a weakening Christian empire, which made him the natural destination for ghazi warriors, adventurers and refugees from the Mongol advance. He won a battle at Bapheus in 1302 against a Byzantine force sent to relieve Nicaea, which is the earliest event of his career recorded in an outside source — the historian Pachymeres. His method was slow encirclement rather than assault. He took the countryside, cut the roads, and starved the walled cities; Bursa fell in 1326, either just before or just after his death, and became the first Ottoman capital. The dream attributed to him — a tree growing from his navel and shading the world — appears in chronicles written a century and a half later, and belongs to dynastic legitimation rather than biography. He is also credited with a marriage into the family of a religious leader, Sheikh Edebali, which gave the dynasty a claim to piety. His descendants ruled for six centuries, the longest-lasting dynasty of the modern era, until 1922. Every Ottoman sultan was girded with what was said to be his sword at accession.
- Lived: 1258 CE – 1326 CE
- Nationality: Turkish
- Roles: ruler, head_of_state
