Osman I or Osman Ghazi (Ottoman Turkish: عثمان غازى, romanized: ʿOsmān Ġāzī; Turkish: I. Osman or Osman Gazi; died 1323/4)[1][3][a] was the founder of the Ottoman Empire (first known as the Ottoman Beylik or Emirate). While initially a small Turkoman[6] principality during Osman's lifetime, his beylik transformed into a world empire in the centuries after his death.[7] It existed until shortly after the end of World War I.Owing to the scarcity of historical sources dating from his lifetime, very little factual information about Osman has survived. Not a single written source survives from Osman's reign,[8] and the Ottomans did not record the history of Osman's life until the fifteenth century, more than a hundred years after his death.[9] Because of this, historians find it very challenging to differentiate between fact and myth in the many stories told about him.[10] One historian has even gone so far as to declare it impossible, describing the period of Osman's life as a "black hole".[11]
