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The 'mirror for princes' genre of literature offers advice to a ruler, or ruler-to-be, concerning the exercise of royal power and the wellbeing of the body politic. This anthology presents selections from the 'mirror literature' produced in the Islamic Early Middle Period (roughly the tenth to twelfth centuries CE), newly translated from the original Arabic and Persian, as well as a previously translated Turkish example. In these texts, authors advise on a host of political issues which remain compelling to our contemporary world: political legitimacy and the ruler's responsibilities, the limits of the ruler's power and the limits of the subjects' duty of obedience, the maintenance of social stability, causes of unrest, licit and illicit uses of force, the functions of governmental offices and the status and rights of diverse social groups. Medieval Muslim Mirrors for Princes is a unique introduction to this important body of literature, showing how these texts reflect and respond to the circumstances and conditions of their era, and of ours.
List of contents
Part I. Introduction: 1. The Arabic, Persian and Turkish mirror literatures; 2. Contexts; 3. Texts and authors; 4. Editions and translations; Part II. Texts: 5. The nature of sovereignty; 6. The king's person and character; 7. Foundations of royal authority and principles of governance; 8. The practice of good governance; 9. Problems in the kingdom and their remedies; Appendix; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.
About the author
Louise Marlow is Professor of Religion at Wellesley College. She is the author of Counsel for Kings: Wisdom and Politics in Tenth-Century Iran (2016) and Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought (Cambridge, 1997). She is the editor of The Rhetoric of Biography: Narrating Lives in Persianate Societies (2011), Dreaming across Boundaries: The Interpretation of Dreams in Islamic Lands (2008) and, with Beatrice Gruendler, Writers and Rulers: Perspectives on Their Relationships from Abbasid to Safavid Times (2004).
Summary
This anthology introduces major examples of the medieval Arabic, Persian and Turkish mirror for princes literatures in their historical and intellectual contexts. It provides access to an important body of literature, contains several new translations, and addresses parallels in neighbouring and contemporaneous traditions of political thinking.
Foreword
Introduces some major examples of the medieval Arabic, Persian and Turkish mirror for princes literatures, in their historical and intellectual contexts.
