86 chapter 2
These theories on the origin and character of political society and power
originate, as do most of the ideas seen in this chapter, in Tusi and Davvani’s
adaptation of ancient Greek theories.48 As did most of their Muslim prede-
cessors, Tusi, Davvani, and their Ottoman followers chose to emphasize the
need for cooperation in order to achieve basic human needs as the motivat-
ing factor behind the origins of society. Although they sometimes referred to
the idea that, without a regulating power, conflict and oppression would arise,
society was always seen as a field of natural cooperation rather than strife.
On the other hand, different views had begun to permeate Islamic political
thought from the thirteenth century onwards, in the aftermath of the Mongol
invasions. As will be seen in more detail in the conclusion, an emphasis on
man’s natural tendency to dominate and oppress one another was to become
increasingly apparent during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For
the moment, however, the optimistic view of a growing, pious empire that
would visibly bring security and peace probably favored an analogous view of
political society.
Having established the origins of political society, the moral philoso-
phers describe the forms of government in an Aristotelian model ultimately
derived from al-Farabi. Amasi uses Tusi’s formulation, distinguishing between
the “virtuous government” (siyaset-i fazıla), also called the imamate, where the
imam sees his subjects as friends and treats them with justice, and the
“imperfect” one (siyaset-i nakısa), also called tyranny (tagallüb), where a
tyrant, himself a slave of his own appetites, turns his subjects into his servants
and slaves (Y130–135). Justice, therefore, is the sole element differentiating the
various kinds of government. A more elaborate distinction, between the vir-
tuous and the imperfect state (medine-i fazıla, medine-i gayr-ı fazıla), is to be
found in Kınalızade (K451–459), who closely follows Davvani and the Platonic
interpolations he made in Tusi’s theory.49 There is only one kind of virtuous
state, while imperfect ones have three forms: in the “ignorant state” (medine-i
cahile) it is bodily powers rather than the faculty of reason that lie behind the
need for association (accordingly, there can be the “irascible ignorant state” or
ve a ’yan u ahad). If love prevails in a given group (cema ’at), justice is not necessary, as
there are no conflicting wishes (K419). In the rest of the chapter, Kınalızade explores
at length the various types of love, its causes and features; among the types of love, he
also discusses briefly that of the subjects (re’aya) for the sultan (K441–442). This chapter
was incorporated into Davvani’s and Tusi’s works from Ibn Miskawayh: Tezcan 1996, 94.
Cf. also. Donaldson 1963, 130; Unan 2004, 121ff. On the importance of love or attraction for
social unity in Kınalızade’s vision see Hagen 2013, 438.
48 Yücesoy 2011; Syros 2012a.
49 On the supplementation of Tusi’s system in Davvani’s work see Rosenthal 1958, 217ff.