As early as 1243 the fatal course of the decadence was marked by constant defeat, and from this time on they were not able to defend their position. The Sultanate came practically to an end with the death of Masud II of Iconium, who was murdered by one of his emirs, though the Mongols continued the office, ruling under the name of Alaed-Din II, 1297-1307. Of the ten fragments which represented the former empire of the Seldjouks, one was controlled by Osman, from whose name the latest and most enduring effort to establish a Moslem world power takes its origin. Within the restricted bounds of a small emirate, whose most important point was the ancient city of Dorlæum, now called Sultan-Oeni, was trained and developed the people who were destined to make great European conquests lasting down to our own day, to threaten for many centuries Christian powers at their most vulnerable centers, and, finally, when their own ability to conquer and devastate had come to an end, to stir up such constant jealousies among the states which claimed the succession to their dominions in Europe, that some of the most disastrous and hardly contested wars in the nineteenth century have been due to their presence on European soil. No more than in the case of Mohammed could such far-reaching consequences have been detected in the obscure beginnings of the people over whom Osman began to rule as an independent prince. Nearly a century before, his ancestor Souliman had led a migration from Khorassan; with tribal adherents numbering 150,000, he took possession of lands near Erzendjan and Akhlath; then came the invasion of the Mongols, which brought ruin to these plans of settlement. Souliman, in his flight from the invaders, was drowned as he was crossing the Euphrates at a place called to-day Turk-Mesari, the tomb of the Turk. On his death the nomads who followed his leadership were dispersed; even his four sons failed to keep together. Two returned to the place from which they had come, while the other two, Dundar and Ertoghroul, keeping four hundred families with them, occupied territories near Erzeroum. But as the proximity of the Mongols held out no prospect of peaceful possession, the two brothers continued their march westward, and finally put themselves under the protection of Ala-ed-Din I, Sultan of the Seldjouks. (1219-1234.)