512 appendix 2
representatives to the centre of government where the council is conducted. In
their turn, these representatives elect one from among themselves, and in the
end a council of ten elected people administers state affairs. These ten people sit
on the council for one year and conduct the public affairs. After this term, an-
other ten people are elected in the same way; they inspect the accounts of the
previous year’s government and punish who that have oppressed people. This
form of state is called “democracy” (dîmukrâsiya), i.e. Demokratis’ opinion, or
“rule of the elected”; it is used in England and the Netherlands. All nations and
religions are, in general, governed according to one of these three forms of state.
... As for the Muslims, they have complete ignorance of the aforesaid peoples
and have not even felt the need of becoming interested in this important task,
although they have common borders with the Exalted State and with every op-
portunity show their enmity and greed towards it. In relation to this, it is impera-
tive that one examines and exposes their state organizations, the rules under
which their people settle their affairs, the regulations that ensure the prosperity
of their lands, their political laws, their customs, and especially their military
ways, which made Europe rise from its small and unimportant state, become
dominant where once it was dominated, and expand across the whole world
where once it was squeezed into a corner ... Thus, statesmen must learn the situ-
ation of the enemy and especially the military manners and the war stratagems
recently initiated as a “new order”; in this manner, the Muslim countries will
turn away from the sleepiness, bigotry, laziness, and ignorance that cause the
surrender of Muslim lands to the infidel, and they will stop the events that open
the way to state decline.28 Ahmed Resmi (See Chapter 9)
From Hülâsatü’l-i’tibâr (“A summary of admonitions”), translated by Ethan L.
Menchinger:32
It is impossible to deny that posterity regards the conditions and modes of past
history ... Carefully have they studied histories in this fashion, yet heretofore,
in every period and in every clime, men have been prey to war and strife ...
Reasoned and experienced men, however, who have learned the precept that
the prosperity and strength of the worldly realm depend on peace and amity
with enemies as circumstances require, know never to glorify battle and act by
this logical rule. Preferring peace over war, they have ever bestowed ease and
security upon mankind and the state they serve ...32 Ahmed Resmi – Menchinger 2011, 33, 66–68, 85.