The historian Konstantinos Moustakas has traced the descent of Pseudo-Sphrantzes' report, via Francesco Sansovino's "Annali Turcheschi", to a similar story recorded by Theodore Spandounes about the descent of the Seljuk sultan Kayqubad I (), who fits the timeframe in question. However, Spandounes himself considered this story as false, even though he also stresses that the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II, the conqueror of Constantinople, reportedly knew of it and disseminated it. Moustakas therefore suggests that the story arose in Mehmed II's court, not by the sultan himself, who rarely made use of the Byzantine imperial inheritance as a legitimizing device, but possibly among the convert recruits of aristocratic Christian origin who rose to high office and sought similar models in the past, such as Hersekzade Ahmed Pasha or Mesih Pasha.