168 DESTINY DISRUPTED
Many proponents of Sufi chivalry traced their lineage back to Ali, not
necessarily because they were Shi'i but because Ali enjoyed legendary
renown as the perfect knight, the ideal combination of strength, courage,
piety, and honor. It was said, for example, that in one of those iconic bat-
tles of early Islam, a young man came toward Ali, swinging a sword. Ali
said, "Don't you know who I am, you foolhardy youngster? I'm Ali! You
can't beat me. I'll kill you. Why are you attacking me?"
"Because I am in love," said the young fellow, "and my sweetheart says
that ifi kill you, she'll be mine."
"But if we fight, I am more likely to kill you," Ali pointed out.
"What's better than dying for love?" the young man said.
Upon hearing those words, Ali took off his helmet and stretched out
his neck. "Strike right here."
Seeing Ali's willingness to die for love, however, set that young man's heart
ablaze and turned his love for a woman into something higher-love of Allah.
In a single moment, Ali transformed an ordinary young man into an enlight-
ened Sufi.^3 Such were the legends that inspired these Muslim knights.
THE OTTOMANS (ABOUT 700 TO 1341 AH)
Although Sufi orders proliferated through the Muslim world, they had the
most profound consequences in Asia Minor, also known as Anatolia, the
territory that constitutes modern Turkey. It was here that the post-Mongol
recovery of Islam began.
In Asia Minor, Sufi orders linked up with merchants' and artisans'
guilds called akhi (the Turkish word for futuwwah). These outfits cush-
ioned ordinary folks against the uncertainties of the time. Certainly, peo-
ple needed some cushioning. Asia Minor had long been the frontier
between Turkish Muslims and European Christians. The Seljuks and
Byzantines had torn the land up, fighting over it. One Seljuk prince had
forged a fairly stable sovereign state here called the Sultanate of Rum (Rum
being the Arabization of Rome) but then armies of Crusaders crisscrossing
the land had disrupted order, and Seljuks fighting among themselves had
eroded stability further.
By the time the Crusades were winding down, various Turkish princes
more or less controlled eastern Asia Minor, but only more or less; the Byzan-