Chapter Two: the manners of the servants of kings

but if he has plunged into it and then dreads it, that is faintheartedness. Let him not enter upon any matter save after reflection and deliberateness, for in that lies the opening of judgement and the clearing of what is right. It has been said: the man who reflects hits the mark, or nearly; the man who hurries misses it, or nearly. Let an easy ascent not deceive him when the way down is rough. And let him know that the sweetest ease is what comes after weighty matters have been settled firmly. God is the granter of success in good things.

﴿ Chapter Two: on the manners (ādāb) of the servants (khidmah) of kings (mulūk) ﴾

Know that the king will not tolerate anyone who is not in accord with him. Even if your standing with him is firmly established and your means of access is close at hand, be alert to his accord and follow his inclination in what you like and what you dislike; submit to him with the submission of contentment and choice, not the submission of resentment and compulsion; and be sincere toward him with the sincerity of awe and of desire, for these are two qualities that cannot be hidden in the man who has them. Then: ranks are held in common before the king, and no one has a better claim to a rank than another save by keeping to the straight path and persevering in praiseworthy character (akhlāq). So inspect yourself and set right what is hidden within you by cultivating gravity, patience, gratitude and sincere counsel; avoid insolence, greed and rancour; arm yourself with calm, humility and affability; keep your hair and your skin clean; adorn yourself with the finest clothing you are able to afford, and perfume yourself with the most fragrant scent you can obtain. For we have sometimes seen the common people dislike in one another a departure in just such a matter as this — how much more, then, the king, who has the power and the right to employ the like of these things? When you attend his assembly, stand as one who does not consider sitting to be his right, so that your heart does not become attached to it; do not show your longing for it, and do not think the king slow if he is too occupied for you in the matter. And if he bids you sit, then sit, counting it from the king a favour you did not deserve and an honour you had no claim to, but for his bestowing it upon you and his condescending with what he has turned your way of it; and show such joy at it and such thanks for it that the king knows by it that you have grasped the measure of his honouring and given thanks for what came of his bounty. For if you do that, he will see you as fit for more and will find in you a merit above others. Then keep to silence, wrapped in its mantle. And if some matter compels you to speak, beware of grandiloquence, for it is no more effective in making things understood, and it is evidence of a faltering tongue and a shortfall in clear expression; rather, deliver yourself plainly, so that you may be reported as you are, and entrust the matter to your own native wit; for if something sound comes to you along with an unhurried ease, that is more honourable to your standing and more comely for your thought. Know that there is no assembly among assemblies in which there gathers such quarrelling and mutual envy as gathers in the assembly of the king, where people vie with one another before him for favour and rank. So if someone of this class turns against you, beware of using abuse against him or of taking upon yourself to get your own redress from him; rather take with him the road of argument, holding to gentleness, and contend with him for the means of fair redress, preferring moderation. And if an argument turns in your favour, do not go to excess with it in boasting, nor be conceited with it in arrogance, lest insolence deprive you of the means of advancement. And if an argument turns against you in his favour, receive it with acknowledgement and yield to the one who holds it with submission, lest its holder gather against you — along with your having missed the mark — the force of those who rebuke and reproach. Know that classes of people of many kinds attend the assembly of the king, and with each class of them goes one kind of propriety (adab), and each is eager that the king’s listening should be to him and his attention turned to him, while the king must gather them all in his gaze and extend his favour over them all. So if something comes up in the assembly in which you have a share, run with those concerned in it, without fawning, without haste and without pushing yourself forward; and if it is something in which you have no share, let envy of those concerned in it not lead you to seek to turn the king away from them or to give them the lie, for that adds nothing to your standing with the king — rather the contrary of it is the likelier and the more fitting. And guard against the wicked in his presence. Know that everything that passes in the assembly of the king is a thing which whoever sees it and hears it is bound to conceal and cover over, except some noble act of the king’s which he spreads abroad and some good deed of his which he publishes; for it is a right of the king’s intimates who attend his assembly that they should describe him by his finest qualities, for the gladdening of friends and the confounding of enemies. Then guard your eye as you guard your tongue: do not look about much to right and left, do not scan faces scrutinising and pondering, and do not survey what is in the assembly making sport of it and greedy for it, for all that is frivolity, and it may bring the man who does it to a standing in which his foot slips and his regret is long. Then guard your ear as you guard your eye: if you see the king or another lean in with a secret to someone other than you, do not lean your ear toward it and do not be eager to hear any of it, for that is treachery, and whoever betrays the king in his presence is yet more treacherous in what is hidden from him. Let the house of the king be your house, in which you conduct yourself with your zeal and your constant attendance, and where you build up your place by your obedience and your sincere counsel. For if you bind yourself to your own house, having decked it out and prepared its diversions, that will call you to find your place in the house of the king burdensome; so know that your place in the lowest of the ranks of the king’s house is nobler in worth and more honourable in repute than your place in the highest of the ranks of any other. And whoever the king knows to love distance from him and withdrawal from him, he wearies of him and tires of him, and he becomes the heaviest of burdens upon him. Let it be among the traits of character by which the king knows you that you strive to make excuse for the man you know the king wishes to find an excuse for, among his servants who has slipped or erred, even if he is one of your enemies; that you refrain from calling opportunity to witness against him when the king’s mood has turned; and that you go to lengths in arguing against the man whose case with the king is the contrary of this; and if he be the key of the people of the Fire and lead to it, and that this world is built for ruin, and that your lifetime is for ruin and your body for the dust, and what you have amassed is for the heirs: the enjoyment is another’s, the reckoning is upon you, the punishment is yours and the blame is yours, and your companion in the grave is your deed. So call yourself to account before you are called to account. Keep to My obedience and beware of disobeying Me, be content with what I have given you, and be among the thankful. Whoever commits a sin while laughing, I shall bring him into the Fire weeping; and whoever sits weeping out of fear of Me, I shall bring him into the Garden laughing. How many a rich man will wish for poverty on the day of his reckoning! How many a tyrant death has humbled! How many a sweet thing death has made bitter! How many a man rejoicing in his blessing, for whom death has muddied it! How many a joy has bequeathed a long grief! And if you knew of death what the beasts know, you would refuse food and drink until you died of hunger and thirst. O son of Ādam, were nothing decreed against you but death and its severity, you would be bound not to sleep by night nor to settle by day — how then with what comes after it, which is harsher still? O son of Ādam, let your joy be in the bliss you attain in your hereafter, and let your regret be for what you have missed of it; what comes to you of your world, do not rejoice in it, and what escapes you of it, do not grieve over it. Do not be deluded by your youth, for how many a young man has gone before you to death. O son of Ādam, from the dust I created you, to the dust I return you, and from the dust I shall raise you once again; so bid this world farewell and prepare for death. Know that when I love a servant I withdraw this world from him, set him to work for the hereafter, and show him the defects of this world so that he guards against it and works the work of the people of the Garden, through My mercy toward him; and when I hate a servant I occupy him with this world and set him to its work, so that he becomes one of the people of the Fire, and I bring him into the Fire in My wrath. O son of Ādam, the whole of your life passes away, however long it is, and this world is like the shade of the shadows: a little while, then it goes and does not return to you. I am the one who created you, I am the one who provides for you, I am the one who gives you life. I am the one who makes you die, I am the one who raises you, I am the one who calls you to account; and if you have done good you will see it as good, and if you have done evil you will see it as evil — though you possess for yourself neither benefit nor harm, nor death, nor life, nor resurrection. O son of Ādam, obey Me and beware of Me, and do not be anxious about provision, for its matter has already been taken care of for you; and do not carry care for anything, for its matter has already been taken care of. How can you carry care for a matter that has not been decreed for you and that you will not attain, just as you do not take the reward of a work you have not done? And one whose road is death — how should he rejoice in this world? And one whose house is the grave — how should he be glad at what he builds in the abode of this world? O son of Ādam, a little provision while you are thankful is better than much while you are unthankful. The best of your wealth is what you have sent ahead, and the worst of your wealth is what you have left behind in this world; so send ahead for yourself some good that you will find with Me, before the thief of death takes you unawares. Whoever is burdened with care, I am the one who has relieved his care; whoever asks forgiveness, I am the one who forgives him; whoever repents, I am the one who forbade him; whoever is naked, I am the one who stripped him and who clothes him; whoever is afraid, I am the one who makes his fear secure. Whoever is hungry, I am the one who satisfies him; and when My servant keeps to My obedience and carries out My command, I make his affair easy for him, strengthen his back and expand his breast. O Mūsá, whoever enriches himself with the wealth of the poor and of orphans, I shall make him poor in this world and punish him in the hereafter; whoever plays the tyrant over the poor, I shall humble him; and whoever raises a building by the strength of the poor and the weak, I shall make ruin follow upon his building and shall settle him in the Fire. (Truly this is in the earlier scriptures, the scriptures of Ibrāhīm and Mūsá.)