Around the year 1300 Osman was one of many Turkish chiefs on the edge of the shrinking Byzantine world in north-western Anatolia. He ruled a few villages and grazing lands near Söğüt.
Later Ottoman chroniclers told a story about him. Staying in the house of the wise Sheikh Edebali, Osman dreamed that a moon rose from the sheikh's chest and sank into his own, and from his body grew a tree whose branches covered the world.
The sheikh gave Osman his daughter in marriage. Whether or not the dream was real, Osman's small state kept growing, and his descendants would carry his name for six centuries.
All episodes of The Rise of the Ottomans
-
1
Osman’s Dream
1 min read
A frontier chief, a sheikh's daughter and a dream of a great tree.
-
2
Bursa, the First Capital
1 min read
After a long siege, Orhan takes a Byzantine city and gives the Ottomans a home.
-
3
The Fall of Constantinople
1 min read
Spring 1453: a twenty-one-year-old sultan, giant cannon and ships carried over a hill.
