Page:Islam, Turkey, and Armenia, and How They Happened.djvu/109

Rh of their leader fell with him and he perished in the river. Upon this accident the tribe was divided into four companies by his sons, and Ertogrul, the war-like head of one division, resolved to turn back to the westward and seek a settlement in Asia Minor. While pursuing his course he saw two armies in hostile array, and joined himself to the apparently weaker party, and his timely aid decided the victory. The conquered were an invading horde of Mongols; the conqueror was Aladdin, the Seljouk Sultan of Iconium, one of the divided principalities of the great dominion of Melik Shah. As a reward of his timely help Aladdin assigned a territory for Ertogrul and his people, which consisted of the rich plains in the valley of the river Sangarius, and of the Black Mountains in Asia Minor. This was the accident which led to the establishment of the present Turkish empire, because Ertogrul was the ancestor of the present Ottoman dynasty.

4. Osman the First (Ottoman) Turkish Sultan. On the death of the Seljouk ruler of Iconium, who left no son to succeed him, the Emirs, the chiefs of the clans, divided his dominion into petty states among themselves. Osman, the son of Ertogrul, being one of these local chiefs, became practically an independent prince, 1289 A. D. His dominion as a Sultan began, however, in 1299, by the invasion of Nicomedia, the first conquest of the Ottoman Turks.

According to the native historians, a dream foretold to Osman his future greatness. While resting beneath the roof of a sheikh, whose daughter he admired, and whom he afterwards married, the