124 chapter 3
4 The Iranian Tradition Continued: Bureaucrats, Sufis, and Scholars
The sixteenth century was a period of translations: as the imperial capital
attracted more and more intellectuals, mainly from the cities of Iran and
Central Asia, its dependance on—or, more correctly, its close relationship
with—Persian political ideas continued well into Süleyman’s reign and beyond.
Works such as al-Ghazali’s Nasîhat al-mulûk, Hamadani’s (d. 1385) Zakhîrat
al-mulûk (influenced by al-Ghazali and Ibn Arabi’s mystical ethics from a Sufi
perspective), and Zamakhshari’s (d. 1143) Rabî al-abrâr (an anthology of wis-
dom literature) were translated or adapted numerous times by leading Ottoman
scholars; similarly, the pseudo-Aristotelian Sirr al-asrar (“Secret of secrets”), a
medieval compilation of advice on government and ethics, as well as physi-
ognomy and medical science, which exerted a major influence on Islamicate
(as well as medieval European) thought, was translated in 1571 for the grand
vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha.74 At an unknown date during Süleyman’s reign,
Abdüsselam b. Şükrullah el-Amasi (not to be confused with the early fifteenth-
century author) composed Tuhfetü’l-ümerâ ve minhatü’l-vüzerâ (“Gift for the
commanders”), a translation of Jizri Mahmud b. Isma’il b. Ibrahim’s (d. 1444)
Durrat al-garrâ fi nasayih al-mulûk wa al-wuzarâ, which had been written in
1439 for the sultan of Egypt.75 As was seen above, the work speaks of the imam
or caliph, identifying him explicitly with Süleyman. Following the same model
as Şeyhoğlu Mustafa in his fourteenth-century Kenzü’l-küberâ (based, in turn,
on Najm al-Din Razi), Amasi structures his reasoning on the three “situations”
(hal) of both the sultan (his relationship with himself, with his people, and
with God) and the vizier (his relationship with God, with the sultan, and with
the people and army). Not only were there translations, but original works in
Arabic or Persian also kept being copied. For instance, İbrahim b. Muhammed,
an Azeri author from the mid-fifteenth century, was copied by Mahmud b.
Ahmed al-Kayseri in 1545, to be read by Sultan Süleyman. İbrahim’s work is a
typical adab text, making use of sources such as al-Ghazali and Zamakhshari;
it also contains an interesting discussion of justice as a balance in all of nature,
including in fauna and flora.76
74 On these translations see Yılmaz 2005, 44–62. On pseudo-Aristotle’s text see Manzalaoui
1974; Grignaschi 1976; Forster 2006. A similar work (Sîraj al-mulûk) by Turtushi, a twelfth-
century Egypt-based scholar, on principles of good government, was also very popular in
its Ottoman translation (see Yılmaz 2005, 53–54).
75 The work was recently published as Amasi – Coşar 2012. Jizri Mahmud’s work was also
translated later by Mehmet b. Firuz (d. 1609) for Selim II.
76 İbrahim – Acar 2008 (on justice as balance see esp. 154ff.).