COMMERCIAL RELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE AGES 39
danger. The lands of Karajabagh, near Angora, were assigned to the new settlers, who found there good pasturage and winter quarters. The help afforded by Ertoghrul to the Seljukian monarch on a critical occasion led to the addition of Sugut to his fief, with which he was now formally invested. Here Ertoghrul died in 1288 at the age of ninety, being succeded in the leadership of the tribe by his son Osman. When exhausted by the onslaughts of Ghazan Mahmud Khan, ruler of Tabriz, and one of Chengiz Khan’s lieutenants, the Seljukian empire was at the point of dissolution, most of its feudatory vassals helped rather than hindered its downfall in the hope of retaining their fiefs as independent sovereigns. But Osman remained firm in his allegience, and by repeated victories over the Greeks revived the drooping glories of his suzerain. His earliest conquest was Karoja Hissar (1295), where first the name of Osman was substituted for that of the sultan in the weekly prayer. In that year Ala-ud-din Kaikobad II conferred on him the proprietorship of the lands he had thus conquered by the sword and presented him at the same time with the horse-tail, drum and banner which constituted the insignia of independent command. Osman continued his victorious career against the Greeks, and by his valour and also through allying himself with Kensee Mikhal, lord of Harman Kaya, became master of Aineqeul, Bilejik and Yar Hissar ... In 1300 the Seljuk empire crumbled away, and many small states arose on its ruins. It was only after the death of his protector and benefactor Sultaa Ala-ud-din II that Osman declared his independence, and accordingly the Turkish historian dates the foundation of the Ottoman empire from this event.” [1] The empire of the Turks was very extensive. “ Turks ruled in Asia minor, Turks governed Egypt, Turks held minor authority under the Mongols in Syria and Mesopotamia, while the descendents of Chengizkhan had succeeded to the dominion of the Kalifs; in Persia, had assumed all the dignity of sovereignty in the wild region of the Volga and the Ural mountains, in the lands of the Oxus, and the deserts of Tartary, had spread across central Asia and had founded an empire in China, and were preparing to establish the long line of Mongol emperors in Hindustan whom we know by the name of the Great Moguls.” [2]
1 Enc. Brit 11th Ed., Vol. XXVII, p. 441-3.
2 Stanley Lane-Poole—“Turkey” (New York, 1899), p. 7.