I have a feeling, based on my grandparents' views on Islam, that rural village and small town Turks in Ottoman times, especially those from Anatolian coastal regions and Balkans, were not stereotypical examples of Islamist Fundamentalists that we see today.
Despite the fact that Ottoman society is often imagined (by both political sides in Turkey) to be a very strict Islamic heavy society, my theory is that this was only true at the top level of society and in the big cities and towns like Istanbul and in the regions closer to Arabia. Whereas in Western and Northern rural areas and small towns it was less orthodox, less by the book and more of a cultural and identity thing.
So I want to prove that hypothesis via expert opinion and extensive reading in the subject area.
I would highly appreciate recommend sources for further reading.
In The Modern Middle East: A Sourcebook for History (ed. Amin, Fortner, Frierson), there are numerous sections on the state and religions relation to society. The book compiles primary sources with editorial notes to explain the context.
Indeed, many Turks did view Abdulmejid [the sultan] rather than Kemal as the legitimate head of state as well as the head of Islam [following Attaturk's seizure of power].
Source 4.3
In the 1920s Turkey was fairly homogenised, to the point where those who did not follow Attaturk's secular ideals sought out a common leader, a Sunni religious leader. However, this was probably out of convenience, rather than commonly held belief. Other sources in the book indicate that their were widely held beliefs around the Empire, though unfortunately I cannot find any specifically pertaining to Turkey/Anatolia.
Colin Imber's The Ottoman Empire 1300-1650 is perhaps focused too early for your question, but has some quotations on a lack of Islamic orthodoxy outside of the Turkish heartlands.
The Ottoman Empire was a Muslim polity, but one with a large non- Muslim population which, in most districts of the European provinces, formed a majority of the population. The Muslim population itself was heterogeneous. The Kurdish tribesmen on the eastern borderlands, the Turcoman of Anatolia, or the Bedouin of Syria, Egypt and the Arabian peninsula had little in common with the Muslim townsfolk. The shi‘i and kizilbash communities found especially in central Anatolia, Iraq and the Lebanon professed a form of Islam at odds with the sunni orthodoxy of the Sultans.
Imber, pg. 216
Most areas practised local "Islams" under the blanket term Islam, with many of these local practises being a product of traditions held prior to conversion within that culture. The huge differences in people and the vastness of the Ottoman territory made this inevitable.
Gelvin's The Modern Middle East: A History may also provide some examples of the lack of religious homogeneity.