Samples of Translated Texts 483
the order of the world, a service rendered from either the esoteric or the external
(visible) reality. Farmers and weavers, viziers and sultans, judges and teachers,
spiritual guides and sheikhs, all serve God according to the capabilities ordained
to them. Certainly, all services rendered to sultans cannot be viewed as equal and
all posts granted cannot be of the same value; but if one’s intentions in rendering
a service are pure and clear, one becomes a real man (merd).
... (The sultan) should take great care of his soldiers and protect his army:
these are the people of honor and zeal who protect the commoners and the
peasants ... If one of them is wounded on a day of battle and loses a limb from
his body, so that he is useless for the rest of his life, then, again, his name must
not be wiped from the registers ... and if one is made a martyr and killed (fight-
ing) with his group, (the sultan) should care for those left behind and protect his
children ... True, these soldiers are a good class, and the order of the land finds its
arrangement through them, but disciplining them is a difficult task ... They must
be divided into several sorts and various classes, so that they are of different
opinions and cannot agree; thus, they will not dare to unite and act against the
sultan nor gather and associate for great mischief. The mischief of one corps
should be prevented through the act of another; in such a way, every class is
neutralized through another, and the subjects are safe from all of them. Every
group has its bad habits; the soldier’s bad habit is his tendency to disobey.5 Tursun Beg (See Chapter 2)
From Târîh-i Ebu’l-Feth (“The history of the Conqueror”):5
This noble species [mankind], with all these perfect features it has, has by choice
as a free agent the tendency to form civilized societies by nature; in other words,
it is social in its manner of providing for health and in its ways of making a liv-
ing: this is society, which, according to our customs, is called town, village, and
nomad camp. Man wants this disposition by nature, and (it is) inevitable since
all need each other’s help; this mutual help cannot be successful unless people
gather together in one place ... Yet if people are left to act according to their
nature, there is so much quarreling, hostility, conflict, and loathing that mutual
help, the real aim of society, cannot be attained; on the contrary, they will be
incited against each other and eventually destroy themselves. Thus, it is neces-
sary for man that everybody be placed in a defined position; that one be satis-
fied with one’s position and does not put one’s hand upon another’s rights; and5 Tursun Beg – Tulum 1977, 12 and 16–17; cf. the Italian translation in Tursun Bey – Berardi 2007,
14–15 and 19–21.