Editing Osman I (section)

===Osman's Dream===
{{main|Osman's Dream}}
Osman I had a close relationship with a local religious leader of [[dervish]]es named Sheikh Edebali, whose daughter he married. A story emerged among later Ottoman writers to explain the relationship between the two men, in which Osman had a dream while staying in the Sheikh's house.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kermeli |first=Eugenia |editor-last=Ágoston |editor-first=Gábor |editor-first2=Bruce |editor-last2=Masters |title=Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire |chapter=Osman I |date=2009 |page=445 |quote=Apart from these chronicles, there are later sources that begin to establish Osman as a mythic figure. From the 16th century onward a number of dynastic myths are used by Ottoman and Western authors, endowing the founder of the dynasty with more exalted origins. Among these is recounted the famous "dream of Osman" which is supposed to have taken place while he was a guest in the house of a sheikh, Edebali. [...] This highly symbolic narrative should be understood, however, as an example of eschatological mythology required by the subsequent success of the Ottoman emirate to surround the founder of the dynasty with supernatural vision, providential success, and an illustrious genealogy.}}
* {{Cite journal|first=Colin|last=Imber|title=The Ottoman Dynastic Myth|date=1987|journal=Turcica|pages=7–27|volume=19 |doi=10.2143/TURC.19.0.2014268|quote=The attraction of Aşıkpasazade's story was not only that it furnished an episode proving that God had bestowed rulership on the Ottomans, but also that it provided, side by side with the physical descent from Oguz Khan, a spiritual descent. [...] Hence the physical union of Osman with a saint's daughter gave the dynasty a spiritual legitimacy and became, after the 1480s, an integral feature of dynastic mythology.}}
</ref> The story appears in the late-fifteenth-century chronicle of [[Aşıkpaşazade]] as follows:

{{blockquote|He saw that a moon arose from the holy man's breast and came to sink in his own breast. A tree then sprouted from his navel and its shade compassed the world. Beneath this shade there were mountains, and streams flowed forth from the foot of each mountain. Some people drank from these running waters, others watered gardens, while yet others caused fountains to flow. When Osman awoke he told the story to the holy man, who said 'Osman, my son, congratulations, for God has given the imperial office to you and your descendants and my daughter Malhun shall be your wife.<ref>{{Cite book|first=Caroline|last=Finkel|title=Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1923|publisher=Basic Books |year=2005|page=2}}, citing {{Cite book|first=Rudi P.|last=Lindner|title=Nomads and Ottomans in Medieval Anatolia |publisher=Indiana University Press |place=Bloomington|date=1983|isbn=0-933070-12-8|page=37}}</ref>}}

The dream became an important foundational myth for the empire, imbuing the House of Osman with God-given authority over the earth and providing its fifteenth-century audience with an explanation for Ottoman success.<ref>{{Cite book|first=Caroline|last=Finkel|title=Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1923|date=2006|page=2|quote=First communicated in this form in the later fifteenth century, a century and a half after Osman's death in about 1323, this dream became one of the most resilient founding myths of the empire|publisher=Basic Books|isbn=978-0-465-02396-7}}</ref> The dream story may also have served as a form of compact: just as God promised to provide Osman and his descendants with sovereignty, it was also implicit that it was the duty of Osman to provide his subjects with prosperity.<ref>{{Cite book|first=Cemal|last=Kafadar|title=Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State |date=1995|pages=132–133}}</ref>