Guiding the Ruler: Insights into Islamic Mirrors for Princes and Concepts of Governance
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15575/rpj.v2i2.1252Keywords:
Islamic governance, mirrors for princes, rulership, political thought, Islamic ethics, leadership manuals, religion and politics, historical analysis, Islamic literatureAbstract
Research Problem: Islamic ideas on rulership and governance are disseminated through various textual traditions, among which the mirrors for princes genre holds a prominent place. These texts, serving as manuals for rulers and future leaders, encapsulate a blend of ethical, spiritual, and practical guidance. However, there is a lack of clarity regarding the nature of this genre, particularly its integration of religious and political dimensions, as well as its significance in shaping Islamic thought on governance.
Research Purposes: This study aims to explore the historical and cultural development of the mirrors for princes genre, analyze its content to uncover insights into Islamic rulership, and challenge the notion that this genre is quasi-secular by highlighting its intrinsic connection to Islamic principles.
Research Methods: The research employs a qualitative approach, drawing on a comprehensive review of primary and secondary sources within the mirrors for princes tradition. Historical analysis and textual interpretation are utilized to examine the themes, structures, and intended purposes of these works across different Islamic contexts.
Results and Discussion: The study reveals that mirrors for princes are deeply embedded in Islamic ethical and political thought, offering rulers guidance that intertwines religious obligations with administrative responsibilities. These texts emphasize the ruler's role as a moral and spiritual guide, as well as a political leader. The research demonstrates the diversity of traditions that contributed to the genre and highlights its adaptability across time and regions in the Islamic world.
Research Implications and Contributions: This study contributes to a deeper understanding of Islamic political and ethical thought, emphasizing the mirrors for princes genre as a vital source of historical insights into governance. It challenges secular interpretations by illustrating the genre's rootedness in Islamic values and its role in shaping the ideals of rulership. The findings provide a foundation for further research into the interplay between religion and politics in Islamic history and offer valuable perspectives for comparative studies in governance and leadership.
References
Abbés, M. (2023). The Influence of Aristotle‘s Thought on Arab Political-Philosophical Ideas. In Perret, N. L. &Péquignot, St. (eds.), A Critical Companion to the ‚Mirror for Princes‘ Literature (pp. 263-312). Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Abbés, M. (2023). The Arabic Mirror for Princes as Witnesses to the Evolution of Political Thought. In Perret, N. L. & Péquignot, St. (eds.), A Critical Companion to the ‚Mirror for Princes‘ Literature (pp. 314-342). Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Aigle, D. (2023). The Conception of Power in Islam: Persian Mirrors of Princes and Sunni Theories (11th-14th Centuries). In Perret, N. L. & Péquignot, St. (eds.), A Critical Companion to the ‚Mirror for Princes‘ Literature (pp. 136-159). Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Alatas, S. F. (2018a). The Persian Roots of Malay Political Theory: Taj al-Salatin. In The Civilisational and Cultural Heritage of Iran and the Malay World: A Cultural Discourse (pp. 79-92). Petaling Jaya/Kuala Lumpur: Gerakbudaya.
Alatas, S. F. (2018b). Anti-Feudal Elements in Classical Malay Political theory: The Taj al-Salatin. In Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 91(1), 29-39.
Al-Azmeh, A. (2013). God‘s Caravan: Topoi and Schemata in the History of Muslim Political Thought. In Boroujerdi, M. (ed.). Mirror for the Muslim Prince: Islam and the Theory of Statecraft (pp. 326-397). Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.
al-ʿAẓma, ʿA. (2000). al-Māwardī. Beirut: Riad El-Rayyes Books-
Al-Azmeh, A. (1997). Muslim Kingship: Power and the Sacred in Christian and Pagan Polities. London/New York: I. B. Tauris.
Anonymous (2012). al-Asad wa‘l-ghawāss. Ed. by al-Sajjid, R. Riyadh: Ibn al-Azraq Center for Political Heritage Studies.
Ardjomand, S. A. (2013). Perso-Islamicate Ethic in Relation to the Sources of Islamicate Law. In Boroujerdi, M. (ed.). Mirror for the Muslim Prince: Islam and the Theory of Statecraft. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.
Askari, N. (2016). The Medieval Reception of the Shāhnāma as a Mirror for Princes. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Ayubi, Z. (2019). Gendered Morality: Classical Islamic Ethics of the Self, Family, and Society, New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Bauer, Th. (2011). Die Kultur der Ambiguität. Eine andere Geschichte des Islams. Berlin.
Boccaccini, E. (2022). Reflecting Mirrors, East and West: Transcultural Comparisons of Advice Literature for Rulers (8th – 13th Century). Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Bourdieu, P. (2020). Habitus and Field: General Sociology, Volume 2. Lectures at the Collège de France (1982-1983), Cambridge/Melford, MA: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2000). Pascalian Meditations, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Brockelmann, C. (2017). History of the Arabic Written Tradition. Supplement Volume 1. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Busse, H. (1977). Der persische Staatsgedanke im Wandel der Geschichte, Saeculum, 28, 53-74.
Busse, H. (1968). Fürstenspiegel und Fürstenethik im Islam, Bustan 9, 12-19.
Butterworth, C. E. (Transl. & Comm.). Alfarabi: The Political Writings. „Selected Aphorisms“ and other Texts. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press.
Campagna, N. (2010). Alfarabi: Denker zwischen Orient und Okzident. Berlin: Parodos.
Dankoff, R. (2009). From Mahmud Kaşgari to Evliya Çelebi: Studies in Middle Turkic and Ottoman Literatures. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press.
Dankoff, R. (Transl.) (1983). Yūsuf Khāss Hājib, Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutadgu Bilig): A Turko-Islamic Mirror for Princes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Deleuze, G. (1993). The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque. London: The Athlone Press.
Duturaeva, D. (2022). Qarakhanid Roads to China: A History of Sino-Turkic Relations. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
El Hamel, Ch. (1999). The Transmission of Islamic Knowledge in Moorish Society from the Rise of the Almoravides to the 19th Century. In Journal of Religion in Africa, 29(1), 62-87.
al-Fārābī, Abū Nasr (1906) Kitāb Arāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fādila. Ed. Mustafā Fahmī al-Kutubī. Cairo: Matbaʿa Saʿ āda.
al-Fārābī, Abū Naṣr (2009). Die Prinzipien der Ansichten der Bewohner der vortrefflichen Stadt. Transl. by Cleophea Ferrari. Ditzingen: Reclam 2009.
al-Fārābī, Abū Nasr (1405h.q.). Fuṣūl muntazaʿa. Teheran: Maktaba al-Zahrāʼ.
Forster, R. (2006). Das Geheimnis der Geheimnisse: die arabischen und deutschen Fassungen des pseudo-aristotelischen Sirr al-asrar / Secretum Secretorum. Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert.
al-Ghazālī, Abū Hāmid (1938). Nasīhat ol-mulūk. Ed. Jalāl Homāʾī. Teheran: Enteshārāt Bābak.
al-Ghazālī, Abū Hāmid (1971). Ghazālī‘s Book of Counsel for Kings. Transl. by F. R. C. Bagley. London et al.: Oxford University Press (corr. repr. of the edition 1964).
Griffel, F. (2009). Al-Ghazālī‘s Philosophical Theology. Oxford et al.: Oxford University Press
Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, ʿA. (Transl.) (2004). Kalīla wa-Dimna. Beirut: Dār al-fikr al-lubnānī.
Jardan, A. (2015). Das Saif al-mulūk wa-l-ḥukkām des Muḥyī ad-Dīn Muḥammad b. Sulaimān al-Kāfiyaǧī (gest. 1474). Edition, translation, and commentary (Doctoral dissertation, University Marburg).
Kaikāʾus b. Eskandar b. Qābūs b. Vošmgir (1312 h. Sh.): Kitāb Naṣīḥat-nāme maʿrūf be-Qābūs-nāme with a foreword by Saʿīd Nafīsī. Teheran: Chāpkhāne-ye majles.
Kātuziān, H. (2006). Saʿdi: The Poet of Life, Love and Compassion. Oxford: Oneworld .
Leder, St. (1999). Aspekte arabischer und persischer Fürstenspiegel: Legitimation, Fürstenethik, politische Vernunft. In De Benedictis, A. (ed.). Specula principum (pp. 21-50). Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann 1999.
Lohlker, R. (2024). Der muslimische Herrscher: Fürstenspiegel als Spiegel islamischer Philosophien der Herrschaft. In Karimi, A. M. (ed.). Politische Philosophie. falsafa. Horizonte islamischer Religionsphilosophie 8 (pp. 55-77). Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Lohlker, R. (2023). The Kutadgu Bilig: some characteristics and its relation to the idea of charismatic rule. In Historical Ethnology, 8(3), 383-393.
Lohlker, R. (2006). Islamisches Völkerrecht: Studien am Beispiel Granada. Bremen: Kleio Humanities.
Manzalaoui, M. (1974). The pseudo-Aristotelian Kitab Sirr al-asrar: facts and problems. In Oriens, 23-24, 146–257.
Marlow, L. (2023). Royal Power and its Regulations: Narratives of Hārūn al-Rashīd in Three Mirrors for Princes. In Perret, N. L. & Péquignot, St. (eds.), A Critical Companion to the ‚Mirror for Princes‘ Literature (pp. 343-375). Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Marlow, L. (2016). Counsel for Kings: Wisdom and Politics in Tenth-Century Iran. Volume I: The Naṣīḥat al-mulūk of Pseudo-Māwardī: Contexts and Themes. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Marlow, L. (2013). Among Kings and Sages: Greek and Indian Wisdom in an Arabic Mirror for Princes. In Arabica, 60, 1-57.
Marlow, L. (2009). Surveying Recent Literature on the Arabic and Persian Mirrors for Princes Genre. In History Compass, 7 (2), 523–538.
Al-Māwardi (1996). The Ordinances of Government: Al-Aḥkām al-Sulṭārniyya w‘al-Wilāyā al-Dīniyya. Transl. by Wahba, W. H.. Reading: Garnet Publishing.
al-Māwardī, Abu ’l-Hasan ʿAlī (1983). Nasīhat al-mulūk. Ed. by Khidr, Kh. M. Kuwait: Maktaba al-turāth al-islāmī.
Melvin-Kouchki, M. (2019). Imperial Talismanic Love: Ibn Turka’s Debate of Feast and Fight (1426) as Philosophical Romance and Lettrist Mirror for Timurid Princes. In Der Islam, 96(1), 42-86.
Nagel, T. (1981). Staat und Glaubensgemeinschaft im Islam: Geschichte der politischen Ordnungsvorstellungen der Muslime. Vol. 2. Zürich: Artemis.
al-Muhammadī, Shihāb al-Dīn Ahmad b. Tūghān (2012). al-Burhān fī fadl al-sultān. Ed. by al-Jaʿīd, A. Beirut: Ibn al-Azraq Center for Political Heritage Studies.
an-Nasībī, Abū Sālim Muhammad b. Talha (1889). Al-ʿIqd al-farīd li‘l-malik as-Saʿīd. Cairo: al-Matbaʿa al-Wahbiyya.
Netton, I. R. (1999). Al-Fārābī and his School. Richmond: Curzon (Repr. Edition 1992).
Ould Sheikh, A. W. & Saison, B. (1987). Vie(s) et mort(s) de Al-Imām al-Ḥaḍrāmi: Autour de la postérité saharienne du mouvement almoravide (11e-17e s.). In Arabica, 34(1), 48-79
Richter, G. (1932). Studien zur Geschichte der älteren arabischen Fürstenspiegel. Leipzig: Hinrichs.
Rudolph, U. (ed.) (2022). Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī: Die Prinzipien der Ansichten der Bewohner der vortrefflichen Stadt. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.
Nizāmulmulk: Das Buch der Staatskunst Siyāsatnāma (1987). Transl. by K. E. Schabinger Freiherr von Schowingen. Zürich: Manesse Verlag.
Shomali, A. & Boroujerdi, M. (2013). On Sa‘di‘s Treatise on Advice to the King. In Boroujerdi, M. (ed.). Mirror for the Muslim Prince: Islam and the Theory of Statecraft (pp. 45-81). Syracuse, NY 2013.
Subtelny, M. E. (2007). Timurids in Transition: Turko-Persian Politics and Acculturation in Medieval Iran, Leiden/Boston: Brill.
at-Tūsī, Nāsir ad-dīn (2008). Akhlāq-e nāsirī. Ed./Transl. by Faḍlallāh, M. Ṣ. Beirut: Dār al-Hādī.
Wain, A. (2012). A Critical Study of Mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila. In Journal of Islamic Philosophy, 8, 45-78.
Walbridge, J. (1992). The Political Thought of Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī. In The Political Aspects of Islamic Philosophy. Essays in Honor of Muhsin S. Mahdi (pp. 345-378). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Weber, M. (1985). Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).
Weststeijn, A. (2017). Provincializing Grotius: International Law and Empire in Seventeenth Century Malay Mirror. In Koskenniemi, M. et al. (eds.). International Law and Empire: Historical Explorations (pp, 21-38). Oxford et al.: Oxford University Press.
Williams, St. J. (2023). The Peseudo-Aristotelian Secret of Secrets as a Mirror fo Princes: A Cautionary Tale. In Perret, N. L. & Péquignot, St. (eds.), A Critical Companion to the ‚Mirror for Princes‘ Literature (pp. 376-402). Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Yılmaz, H. (2018). Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Yılmaz, M. Ş. (2016) Sultanların Aynası Ahmed bin Hüsameddin Amasi ve eseri Miratu’l-Müluk. Istanbul: kitabyurdu.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Rüdiger Lohlker
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.