“Political Philosophy” and the Moralist Tradition^91
subsequently, even if they did not adhere to the general “Tusian” trend being
described in this chapter. The first of these was the quartet of the cardinal
virtues, which played a central part in moral and political theory throughout
the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.56 The theory of virtues, based on a
combination of Aristotle’s and Plato’s ethics, had been elaborated (together
with the theory of the three-fold partition of the soul) in an Islamic context by
al-Kindî in the ninth, Avicenna (Ibn Sina) in the tenth, and Ibn Miskawayh in
the early eleventh century. It also played a major role in the later Middle Ages
and Renaissance in Europe, as it was central to the definition of the ideal ruler
until the reconsideration of virtù by Macchiavelli.57 Fifteenth-century adab
authors shared the idea that moral perfection is a prerequisite for rule, but the
full elaboration of a complex system of virtues and their respective vices was
developed by the authors who adapted Tusi’s moral philosophy.
Secondly (and together with the preponderance of justice among the four
virtues) is the idea of the “circle of justice”, a recurring theme in Persian and
Ottoman political ideology that was expressed by various formulations which
differed from each other in various ways.58 The basic idea of the “circle of jus-
tice” is that the ruler needs the army, the army needs wealth, wealth is produced
by the peasants, and the peasants’ welfare is secured by the ruler through jus-
tice. The elements of the circle may differ in number or description, but the
essence is always that the ruler has to protect his subjects with justice in order
to secure his own power. Here, too, earlier authors had also emphasized justice
and its role in rulership, but it is Amasi who first quotes the famous “circle
of justice” in Arabic (and so may be credited with the first appearance of it
in Ottoman literature): “there is no religion without king, no king without an
army, no army without wealth, no wealth without improvement of the cities,
and no such improvements without justice” (Y142). From then on, not only was
it only adherents of Tusian moral philosophy but practically every writer of
political works in the sixteenth century who reiterated this pattern in various
56 On the cardinal virtues see Sariyannis 2011a; on the evolution of the idea in Islamic phi-
losophy, see R. Walzer’s detailed article in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (s.v. “ak̲h̲ lak”).
57 See Skinner 1978, 1:69ff. and esp. 128ff.; Bejczy – Nederman 2007. Cf. also the quite differ-
ent perspective of Central Asia as represented in the four major characters in Kutadgu
Bilig, namely justice, fortune, intellect/wisdom, and ascetic illumination (Yusuf Khass
Hajib – Dankoff 1983, 3 and passim). On al-Kindi’s adaption of Aristotle’s metaphysics
see Fakhry 1994, 67–70; Fakhry 2000, 22–29; on Avicenna’s enumeration of the virtues,
Donaldson 1963, 108; on Miskawayh, Donaldson 1963, 121–133; Fakhry 1994, 107–130.
58 This notion comes from a very old Iranian and Middle Eastern tradition (Darling 2008;
Darling 2013c); it is also to be found in the Central Asian Kutadgu Bilig (İnalcık 1967, 263).
A meticulous study of the development of the various formulations of this concept can
be found in Kömbe 2013.