504 appendix 2
It is a widespread belief among the common people that bribery is absolutely
unlawful; this is a parrot-cry which they repeat without knowing what class of
bribe it is. Even those who do know, say, ‘What’s the use of arguing? It is unlaw-
ful’, and they give and take bribes stealthily. Even where there is no earthly rea-
son for payment, no one hesitates to accept bribes. Those who do not take bribes
are moved not by piety and fear of God, but by a consideration of the difficulty
of hiding it and by fear of gossip, for they regard a bribe as rather a pleasant and
agreeable thing. The facts are so; there is no aversion from bribery at the present
time.
The best course is this. In bribery of the third and fourth categories [i.e. that
given to a ruler to avert harm or secure advantage, and that given to avert the risk
of harm to oneself or to one’s property, in which cases it is permissible to give but
unlawful to receive], the parties should employ the ‘oath of hire’ for which Ibn
Najim quotes Qadikhan, and so save themselves from evil consequences. That is
how bribery is conducted nowadays in government departments in all matters
except appointments to the office of judge.
Now there is a risk of disruption to the existing order if men persist in nullify-
ing the true and regularising the false ... Now also, compliance with the law is
necessary ... It is no use saying ‘We have employed a legal device’; there are many
actions which can be dressed in the garb of legality but are not acceptable to the
reason, because of the manifold corruptions lurking beneath.22 Mustafa Na’ima (See Chapter 7)
From Ravzat al-Hüseyin fi hulâsât ahbâr al-hâfikayn (“Huseyin’s garden, with a sum-
mary of news for East and West”):26
Let it be known that the divine custom and God’s will have ordained that the
situation of every state and community is always settled in a uniform manner; it
does not stay perpetually on one path, but instead moves through several peri-
ods (from one situation) to a renewed one. The features of one period are differ-
ent from (those of ) another, and the necessities of one stage are unlike those of
the preceding one. As for the children of the time [contemporary people], they
are in accord with the characteristics of the period in which they live; men of
each era are defined according to the circumstances necessary for their era. For
it is an innate feature, based on concealed [divine] ordinance, that one conforms26 Na ’ima – İpşirli 2007, 1:26, 37, 39 and 4:1571–1572. For the latter part (on Derviş Pasha’s
economic views) I use the translation by Metin Kunt (Kunt 1977, 205–206).