The Imperial Heyday 127
(taqvâ); however, he has to remember that the real government of the world
belongs to the hierarchy of the invisible saints and their head, the Pole.80
Another side of the traditional literature, mostly compiled from Iranian
sources, was expressed in “encyclopedic” works, in which political theory was
seen as a branch of human knowledge and science. Such works in this period
had strong religious connotations and often used the notion of “duties”, a con-
cept with roots going back to medieval Persian literature (such as Najm al-Din
Razi’s work) and which was conceived as agreements between the ruler and
God, as in the “situations” (halet) that were seen in Şeyhoğlu Mustafa’s and
Abdüsselam b. Şükrullah el-Amasi’s works at the start of the fourteenth
and the sixteenth century, respectively. For instance, the judge Hüseyin b. Hasan
al-Semerkandi wrote his Latâ’if al-afkâr wa kâshif al-asrâr (“Fine thoughts
and the revealer of secrets”) in 1529 and dedicated it to Ibrahim Pasha.81 The
work was intended to provide the young grand vizier with a concise encyclo-
pedia on government, morals, history, etc., and it draws from the ideas and
vocabulary of fikh literature. It consists of three parts, namely on government
(siyasa), the history of the caliphs, and miscellaneous topics (including man-
ners, literature, moral qualities, stories about jinns and the creation of man,
and, eventually, a concise geography of the ajaib genre). The first part consists
of four chapters. In the first, Semerkandi speaks of the ruler’s responsibili-
ties and duties towards both God and his subjects: the sultan has to look after
God’s slaves (with the usual emphasis on the safety of property, roads, and the
like) and uphold His orders. The author then enumerates several of the virtues
required by the ruler, such as avoiding wrath and hasty punishment, having
only appropriate pastimes (such as horse-riding), and consulting the right
people. The second chapter discusses offices and their holders at all levels of
government (tabakâti’l-velâye): Semerkandi analyzes the legal requirements
and qualifications (which are of a quite high standard) for the five principal
offices of government: the viziers (who are of two kinds, those who act as prox-
ies for the ruler, tefvîz, and those who simply carry out his orders, tenf îz), the
state offices (mansıp; these are the legal jurisprudence, the judicial system, and
80 Yılmaz 2005, 89–90 (on Dizdar Mustafa), 86–89 (on al-Adliyya al-Süleymaniyya). Among
these Sufi-oriented treatises, we should probably include ‘Ârifî Ma’rûf Efendi’s (d. 1593)
Uqûd al-jawâhir li-zaha ’ir al-ahâ’ir (“Precious necklace for matchless treasures”) of 1560,
a book on the vizierate dedicated to Semiz Ali Pasha a year before his rise to the office of
grand vizier (Yılmaz 2005, 91–93).
81 Semerkandi’s work was first noticed by Yılmaz 2005, 68–70; for an extensive summary and
analysis see Kavak 2012, who points out the strong connection of the work with the fikh
milieus. The list of requirements for the various offices is an elaboration of a similar list
by the Shafi’i jurist Ibn Jama ’a (d. 1333): Rosenthal 1958, 49.