Note 30 — Chapter I · OSMAN A NEW RACE APPEARS IN HISTORY

The improbable connexion between Ertogrul and Osman and the Seljuk sovereigns of Konia has been accepted without question by European historians, on the strength of the assertions of the Ottoman historians. This is curious, because the evidence against this connexion is overwhelming. The Seljuk Empire of Rum lost its independence at the battle of Erzindjian, 1244 (cf. Heyd, Histoire du commerce dans le Levant, i. 534). Neshri himself confesses that after this date ‘now remained only the bare name of the Seljuk Kings’: ZDMG., xiii. 195. In view of the established facts of history, it is astonishing that European historians should have up to this time perpetuated, and given their sanction to, a fiction which was invented for the purpose of helping Mohammed II to incorporate Karamania in his empire! The limits of a footnote forbidding the adequate discussion of this question and the citation of the authorities, I must refer my readers to Appendix A.