“Mirrors for Princes”: The Decline Theorists^171
An interesting point on which Ali departs from commonplace advice con-
cerns his financial views.44 He often speaks of the fixing of market prices, not-
ing that if the sultans consider this matter trivial and leave it to judges, then
lower-class people become rich and the army becomes poor (for instance in
Füsûl-i hall ü akd, D56–57); his concern for standard measurements of textiles
and the wasteful use of gold thread (with the result that the precious metal
yields no benefit at all and loses its value) bears some resemblance to Kitâbu
mesâlîh (Τ2:41–42/163–164). Like Lütfi Pasha, he also stresses the need for aus-
terity in public finances, although in Ali’s work such austerity initially concerns
the sultan in person. For instance, the sultan should create charitable founda-
tions only through his personal property, i.e. his share of the booty, and not the
public treasury (beytü’l-mal; T1:54/146; he also condemns as hypocritical the
construction of mosques, dervish lodges, etc. in a flourishing city, in Mevâidü’n-
nefâis: B121).45 Furthermore, the sultan should not consider the lavish spend-
ing of money as generosity (saha vu kerem) but rather as waste and dissipation
(T1:58–59/151–53). Ali also condemns unnecessary expenditure, such as keep-
ing numerous palaces in the same city, waste in the palace kitchen, and court
artisans (T1:59–62/153–57). In contrast, a chapter in Mevâidü’n-nefâis (B162–
65) speaks of kingly generosity and beneficence, specifying that a ruler should
spend 1% of the annual income of his treasury on gifts. Ali calculates the gifts
given by the Ottoman sultans and finds them rather stingy; this contradicts
somewhat his urge for sultanly austerity, but one should note that here he talks
of gifts granted to erudite men (among whom he, obviously, counts himself ).
2.2 Ali as a Landmark of Ottoman Thought
Ali himself stresses that he wished to depart from the established practice of
copying earlier advice books, which were destined for other states and prob-
lems. His Nushatü’s-selâtîn ends with a series of short appendices and supple-
ments (T2:110–16/246–56) in which he defends himself against accusations of
self-interest and bias and emphasizes that the great merit of his book lies in
the fact that it has examples and stories from his own experience that give
reliable information on the present time. And indeed, exactly like Lütfi Pasha
before him, Mustafa Ali chooses to ignore the neo-Aristotelian and/or neo-
Platonic traditions of a philosophical foundation of political society. Again like
Lütfi Pasha (whom Ali calls, with contempt, “an ignorant Albanian”, by the way:
B41), this is not due to him ignoring the Persian sources (Ali was an admirer of
44 On his views concerning monetary problems see Kafadar 1986, 84–93.
45 Such considerations did have an impact, as seen in the opposition to Ahmed I’s decision
to build his mosque (Rüstem 2016, 254–256).