These are some of the contributions I have made in another forum (in Turkish)named
Cumhuriyet Forumu about the topic of "Kimdir bu Osmanlılar" (Who are these Ottomans):
Bu yazının Türkçesi için bu forumdaki
Kimdir Bu Osmanlılar 'a gidiniz.
About the first Ottomans, we do not even know as much as that is found in this post [here reference is to what was written in the original Turkish post in Cumhuriyet forum]. Although it has been argued that Osman, the first ruler of the Ottoman Empire, was not a Muslim in the beginning, there is nothing to show us that these opinions point to a fact. There are arguments even about Osman’s name and our only information about his father is the expression “Osman the son of Ertuğrul” found on a coin from this era.
Yes, we have some histories written about the Ottomans, but since the oldest of these do not go any further than the beginning of 1400’s or the 1390’s, we cannot tell how reliable the information contained in them about the very beginning of the Ottomans is. It is possible that these historians may have conveyed their own biased perspective or produced histories designed to help the Ottomans in their identity struggles (political or whatever else). About Osman not being religious or nor believing in religion, since it is stated in the work that makes this claim that the one who introduces Osman to İslam is Ede Bali and his dervish lodge, one could see this as the product of a discourse that tries somehow to secure prestige for this dervish lodge or Islam in general. In other words, it is very difficult to know “the truth” about the first Ottomans by reading these first histories. We could use them to make intellectual speculations, but it is very difficult at this point to make definite statements about this particular subject. It is highly likely that we will never be able to do so anyway, and the first Ottomans will stay as a group described in many ways.