1 janv. 1299 - Ottoman Empire Founded

Description:

As the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman I (d. 1323/4), a figure of obscure origins from whom the name Ottoman is derived. Osman's early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River. A Byzantine defeat at the Battle of Bapheus in 1302 contributed to Osman's rise as well. It is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the lack of sources surviving from this period. The Gaza Thesis theory popular during the twentieth century credited their success to their rallying of religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, but it is now highly criticised and no longer generally accepted by historians, and no consensus on the nature of the early Ottoman state's expansion has replaced it.