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The Sheik Edebali (1206 - 1326), celebrated for his piety and learning, had come, while Osman was very young, to Itbourouni, a village in Eskişehir . Osman used often to visit the holy man, out of respect for his purity and learning; and the young prince’s visits became still more frequent, after he had one evening accidentally obtained a view of the Sheiks fair daughter, Mal Hatun name which means “Treasure of a Woman.” Osman confessed his love; but the old man thought that the disparity of position made a marriage imprudent, and refused his consent.

Osman sought consolation for his disappointment in the society of his friends and neighbors, to whom he described with a lover’s Inspiration, the beauty of Mal Hatun. He discoursed so eloquently on this theme to the young chief of Eskişehir, that the listener fell in love with Mal Hatun upon word of mouth; and, going to her father, demanded her hand for himself. Edebali refused him also fearing his vengeance more than that of Osman, the old man removed from the neighborhood of Eskişehir to a dwelling close to that of Ertoghrul. The chief of Eskişehir now hated Osman as his rival. One day when Osman and his brother Goundonroulp were at the castle of their neighbor, the lord of Ineani, an armed force suddenly appeared at the gate, led by the chieftain of Eskişehir and his ally, Michael of the Peaked Beard, the Greek lord of Khirenkia, a fortified city at the foot of Phrygian Olympus. They demanded that Osman should be given up to them; but the lord of Inaeni refused to commit such a breach of hospitality. While the enemy lingered irresolutely pound the castle wall, Osman and his brother seized an adventegous moment for a sudden sally at the head of a few companions. They chased the chief of Eskişehir off the field in disgrace, and took Michael of the Peaked Beard prisoner. The captive and the captors became staunch friends; and in after times, when Osman reigned as an independent prince, Michael sided with him against the Greeks, and was thenceforth one of the strongest supporters of the Ottoman power.

Osman had by this encounter at Ineani, triumphed over his rival, and acquired a valuable friend; but he could not yet gain the maiden of his heart. For two more years the course of his trite love ran through refusal and anxiety, until at length, old Edebali was touched by the young prince’s constancy, and he interpreted a dream as a declaration of Heaven in favour of the long-sought marriage. One night, when Osman was resting at Edebali’s house (for the shelter of hospitality could never be denied even to the suite whose addresses were rejected), the young prince, after long and melancholy musing on her whom he loved, composed his soul in that patient resignation to sorrow, which, according to the Arabs is the hey to all happiness. In this mood he fell asleep, and he dreamed a dream.

Osman saw himself and his host reposing near each other. From the bosom of Edebali rose the full moon (emblem of the Malkhatoon), and inclining towards the bosom of Osman it san upon it, and was lost to sight. Thence sprang forth a goodly tree, which grew in beauty and in strength ever greater and greater. Still did the embracing verdure of its boughs and branches east an ampler and an ampler shade, until they canopied the extreme horizon of the three parts of the world. Under the tree stood four mountains, which he knew to be Caucasus, Atlas, Taurus, and Haemus. These mountains were the four coloums that seemed to support the dome of the foliage of the sacred tree with which the earth was now pavilioned. From the roots of the tree gushed forth four rivers, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Danube, and the Nile. Tall ships and barks innumerable were on the waters. The fields were heavy with harvest. The mountain sides were clothed with forests. Thence in exulting and fertilising abundance sprang fountains and rivulets that gurgled through thickets of the cypress and the rose. In the valleys glittered stately cities, with domes and cupolas, with pyramid and obelisks, with minarets and towers. The Crescent shone on their summits: from their galleries sounded the Muezzin’s call to player. That sound was mingled with the sweet voices of a thousand nightingales, and with the prattling of countless parrots of every hue. Every kind of singing bird was there. The winged multitude warbled and flitted round beneath the fresh living roof of the interlacing branches of the all-overarching tree; and every leaf of that tree was in shape like unto a scimetar. Suddenly there arose a mighty wind, and turned the points of the sword-leaves towards the various cities of the world, but specially towards Constantinople. That city, placed at the juncion of two seas and two continents, seemed like a diamond set between two sapphires and two emeralds, to form the most precious stone in a ring of universal empire. Osman thought that he was in the act of placing that visioned ring on his finger, when he awoke.

Osman related this dream to his host; and the vision seemed to Edebali so clearly to presage honour, and power, and glory, to the posterity of Osman and Mal Hatun, that the old Sheick no longer opposed their union. They were married by the saintly Dervise Touroud , a disciple of Edebali. Osman promised to give the officiating minister a dwelling-place near a mosque, and on the bank of a river. When Othman became an independent prince, he built for the dervis a convent, which he endowed richly with villages and lands, and which remained for centuries in the obssession of the family of Touroud.

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