Book: Medieval Islamic Political Thought

Crone, Patricia. Medieval Islamic Political Thought. Edinburgh: EUP, 2004.

Chapter on ‘The Persian Tradition and Advice Literature’.

p.149 Caliph Hisham orders “…compilation and translation into Arabic of a book about Persian kings.”  Source of this is Mas’udi’s (d.345/956) Kitab al-tanbih wa’l-ishraf, though according to a conversation with Dr. Marsham, this may be spurious.

Sources on Mirrors for Princes in English given as Lambton and Danishpazhouh

p.150 likens the popularity of advice literature in this period with the popularity of self-help books today.  Argues that most of the advice given in this tradition was just as banal as its modern iterations.

Statecraft seen as existing outside religion – what is right is what works and there is no commitment to an Islamic government.  Hence the advice is free to draw on the authority of “…Sasanid kings, Greek philosophers, and sages of all kind, not just the Prophet, Companions and religious scholars…”

pp.151-52 Testaments of Persian kings were translated (ref to Ibn al-Nadim) and translations of manuals on court etiquette (Book of the Crown – see article on origins by Schoeler)

p.153 By mid-tenth century local rulers were calling themselves ‘Shah’ and ‘Malik’ – this is in contrast to an incident a century before when an Arab in Spain put on a crown (seen as a sign of going Christian).

pp.153-54 Characteristics of advice literature-

• Kings are a different rank of human beings – same as prophets (ref to Marlow)
• Kings are granted farr-i izadi by God (ref to Nizam al-Mulk’s mirror)
• One could not have religion without sovereigns (ref to the preface of Tha’alabi)
• No legal qualifications for kingship (e.g. lineage – God raised up whomsoever he willed according to Q.3:26)
• “If a king paid no heed to justice, his subjects would rebel, his kingdom would be laid waste, and his fortune would turn: this piece of wisdom, current already in the third millenium BC, was still valid.” (Ref to Driver and Miles, Babylonian Laws)

pp.154-56 On Obedience

• Up to tribal chiefs and outsiders to depose sovereigns, not subjects
• Stressed Q.4:59 commanding people to obey those in command, despite the fact that the ulama had gone to great lengths to stress that this was not the correct interpretation (ref Marlow 108)
• Tyrannical rulers should be accepted as part of God’s greater plan.
• Obedience not deification – which was to be resisted

pp.156-58 On governance

• Governance is seen by mirrors as “…the art of staying in the saddle”
• Relations with every group governed by how to maintain control – do not let women get involved, have an ethnically diverse army etc. and spy network
• Also provided advice for entourage – especially how to guard oneself against enemies
• King’s duty to make sure his public appointees do not oppress subjects (ref to Nizam al-Mulk)

pp.158-161 On justice

• Nobles are dangerous when poor
• “…as far as the common people were concerned, it was the king’s fundamental duty is (sic) to ensure that justice prevailed.”
• ref to caliph al-Mansur (from Tabari) “The masses need only three things; if someone is appointed to look into their laws so that justice is done amongst them, to make their roads safe so that they need not fear by night or day, and to strengthen their frontiers and outlying lands so that the enemy will not come upon them, then I will have done those things for them.”
• If kings failed to ensure justice, they would be expected (according to the literature) to compensate for losses
• Public money could not be used for private purposes
• Special court of redress for corrupt officials (mazalim – from Nizam al-Mulk)
• Strong link between justice and prosperity – “…injustice caused peasants to leave, so that the revenues diminished, leading to polical decline”.
• With a just king “Rain would come at the due time, springs and streams would fill up, crops would grow abundant, the roads would be safe, and the kingdom would prosper.  But if the king intended injustice, famine and barrenness would appear.” Refs Lambton, Al-Azmeh and Crone Pre-Industrial Societies (more general).
• Longevity of Persian kings put down to their love of justice (ref Nizam al-Mulk) while the Umayyads fell because their subjects were oppressed.
• p.161 Advice literature is full of stories of oppressed subjects gaining redress from their kings – which Crone likens to the use of images of children airlifted to safety makes up for the atrocities of war.

pp.162-164 Conclusion

• The transformation of the caliph from ordinary person to a more Persianate concept appears to have begun under Umayyad ‘Abd al-Malik (685-705) where correspondence can be seen to become more grandiose.
• Saladin kissed the ground where he received Caliphal greetings (al-Azmeh, Muslim Kingship)
• “The basic assumption behind these ideas is that the regularities of nature depended on a moral order which it was the duty of the king to maintain.”  This assumption was pagan as it pre-dated monotheism – emphasised well-being in this world and idolized a single being
• The monotheist conception of a clean seperation between man and God became muddied in the centuries after the Arab conquest as the pre-Islamic beliefs of the conquered people resurfaced; divinity was graded, with those in power closer to God
• “To early Muslims, kings were usurpers of God’s power.  To later Muslims, by contrast, they typified it.”