Did the Ottomans/Osmanoğlu see themselves as a family, a tribe, or a culture?

by Vladith
CptBuck

Rudi Lindner has a really interesting essay on the Ottoman case specifically and on nomadic tribes generally called "What Was a Nomadic Tribe?"

To summarize his view, your question implies an exclusivity between the three that wouldn't have existed contemporaneously. Modern tribes are often described in terms of genealogical kinship, a family, but this was obviously not the case with Ottoman, and other, forms of nomadic tribalism where tribal membership and association was much more fluid. The success of the Ottomans, however, necessarily involved sedentarization and with it the end of their tribal existence as such and transformation into a dynasty re-focused on the genealogical relationship with the chieftain of the former tribe as ruler.

Culturally this involved a rewriting of history as raids for profit became raids for the Prophet in Ottoman histories.