Religion and orthodoxy
The imagery of Islam and the religion's point of view on life and reality is clearly the bedrock foundation upon which these stories are predicated. The stories are at least in part helpful allegories which are designed to translate Islamic principles and virtues into Turkish life through analogous stories that both parties would understand. In other words, the stories are a cultural translation of Islam into a new part of the world, and so the ideas of honor, dishonor, and the importance of orthodoxy and correct behavior are important parts of how the book "feels."
Warfare and conquest
The portraits of warfare are epic and legendary to modern humans, fitting within the narrative framework of legend or epic story. As legends, the stories are eligible for emulation as allegories of virtue and vice. That means that instead of stories about common life, these are the grand tales of heroes and royalty in an epic tumult of political change and competition. The wars often lead to slave or hostage situations which necessitate military salvation, which offers heroes a literal chance to die for the one's they love, or otherwise, to prove themselves cowards and heretics.
Fate and control
The imagery of control is an important part of who gets selected for stories in this book. The people in the story are masters of their fate, with power and small militias. They are basically petty local lords or petty kings who exert their will on a certain range that could be called their dominion. However, what happens when that power is removed from them? The imagery of fate in this book is Allah gradually sharpening the hero's potential, aiming them toward a specific purpose. As a concrete expression of this imagery, we see many chained prisoners and hostages in need of "deus ex machina" kinds of salvation.
The hero's quest
It does not take Carl Jung or Joseph Campbell to isolate why the hero's quest is important to Muslim virtue. In Islam, the principle commandment is to obey Allah's will and to worship him. That worship means having trust in the narrative unfolding of one's fate. By trusting Allah, these heroes are able to undertake extreme actions with precision and goodness so that they are living examples of how Allah intends his worshipers to be. That means that in order for these new converts to completely adopt Islam, they have to give the religion more than lip service; they must accept a divine call to adventure.
