Section: On the Meaning of the Vizierate

he diverts himself with of jest, a keeping guard over his religion and a safeguarding of his manly honour (murūʼah); and this measure falls outside the ruling upon the jest that is blamed, because it is an aid to the seriousness (jidd) that is praised. As the poet said:

Give your nature, worn down with earnest, a rest that it may revive — and divert it with a little mirth; But when you grant it mirth, let that be — in the measure in which food is given salt.

And as seriousness and jest repel one another, so truthfulness (ṣidq) and lying (kadhib) repel one another: two mutually repellent opposites whose causes differ and whose outcomes diverge. Truthfulness is among the necessary properties of reason; it is the foundation of religion and the upright support of the truth. And lying is among the instincts of ignorance; it is a falsity coupled with delusion: if its beginnings are obscured, its ends are laid bare; and if its obscurity draws some benefit, its exposure comes back as harm, so that it escapes neither the disgrace of falsity nor the injury of delusion. ʻUqbah ibn ʻĀmir related of the Prophet — may God bless him and give him peace — that he said: “The greatest of sins is the lying tongue.” And ʻUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb — may God be pleased with him — said: That truthfulness should lower me — and it seldom does — is dearer to me than that lying should raise me — and it seldom does. And I found, of Sulaymān son of Dāwūd — blessings and peace be upon them both — in the book of his wisdom, that he said: He who persists in lying pastures the winds. And this is among the clearest of similes, in statement and in plain sight.

Section

( On the meaning of the vizierate )

Now that these sections upon the preliminaries of the vizierate (wizārah) have been set down, its name is derived from its meaning; and there is disagreement about this along three lines. The first: that it is from wizr, which is burden, because he carries the king's burdens for him. The second: that it is derived from azr, which is the back, because the king is made strong by his vizier as the body is made strong by its back. The third: that it is derived from wazar, which is refuge — and of this is the word of God the Exalted, ( No indeed! there is no refuge ), that is, no place of shelter — because the king takes refuge in his judgement (raʼy) and his help, since upon him turns the pivot of governance (siyāsah) and to him the monies are committed. And one of the kings of the Persians said: Viziers are the governors of the offices and the keepers of the monies.

That being so, the vizierate is of two kinds: a vizierate of delegation (wizārat al-tafwīḍ), which unites the two competences of the sword and the pen; and a vizierate of execution (wizārat al-tanfīdh), which is proper to judgement and resolve (ḥazm). And each of the two has its dues and its conditions.

As for the vizierate of delegation, uniting the two competences of the sword and the pen, it is more comprehensive in oversight and more effective in command. It is related of the Prophet — may God bless him and give him peace — that he said: “God created the world for the sword and the pen, and set the sword beneath the pen.” This vizierate consists in taking command of administration, of binding, of loosing, of appointment, and of dismissal. As for binding, it comprises two conditions: execution and boldness; and as for loosing, it comprises two conditions: defence and wariness. So loosing and binding are here one of the two conditions of this vizierate, and the two of them comprise four conditions: execution, defence, boldness, and wariness. And each of these conditions has a section which comprises sections.

As for the first section, which is execution: it is the foundation of the vizierate and the base of deputyship, and it is the most proper to the competence of the pen in what serves the interests of the kingship and the straightness of the offices. It comprises four divisions. The first is the execution of what the king's commands have issued; and in these the vizier owes two dues. The first is that he scrutinize them for any lapse at their outset and guard them from any flaw in their course, so as to turn him back from their lapse with tact and to strengthen his resolve upon what is right in them with commendation. Aflāṭūn has said: The first discipline of the vizier is that he consider closely the king's character and his dealing: if it is severe and harsh, let him deal with people more mildly than it, and if it is soft and unrestrained, let him deal with them more firmly than it, so that he may come near to justice in his conduct. The second is that he hasten their enactment to the time appointed for them, so that it does not come to a halt and cause estrangement — for the halting of his commands causes estrangement, and he is appointed for execution, not for halting. The sage of India has said: Haste in a matter is rashness, and more rash than that is negligence in a matter once one has the power over it. And one of the sages of the Arabs said: How many a mighty man has his rashness abased, and how many a lowly man has his character exalted! And the liability (darak) for this charge falls back upon the king, not the vizier.

And the second division is the execution of what the vizier's own judgement requires in the administration of the realm; and in enacting it he owes two dues. The first is that he attend to the most fitting of courses in his exertion and the most correct of them in his judgement, for he is appointed for the soundest of them and held to account for the most correct. The second is that he report it to the king if it is weighty, though he may fold it away from him if it is slight, so as to keep clear of the arbitrariness that alienates and to be safe from the rancour that leaves its mark. The sage of India has said: Rancours leave their mark wherever they are, and the most to be feared of them is what is in the souls of kings, for they hold revenge a matter of religion and reckon the pursuit of a blood-claim a nobility and a glory. And if the king opposes him in his judgement after being informed of it, let him not take offence at his opposition, for he is a king who appoints a deputy and a man of conjecture who is in doubt; and let him set his own judgement beside the objection made to it, and draw out from him the grounds of the objection with tact, if they are obscure. For it has been said: Soft speech is a snare for hearts. Then if the rightness of the objection is clear, let him stand off from his own judgement and thank him for catching his lapse and repairing his flaw, and let him hold it a favour that he overlooked it and did not rebuke him. And if the right is with the vizier, let him be gentle in making his rightness plain and in uncovering its grounds and causes; then if the king seconds him in enacting it, he enacts it, and the liability for its execution falls back upon the vizier, not the king; and if he does not second him in it, let him stand off from it in compliance with the obedience due to him. For one of the forebears has said: Whoever is jealous of his honour, let him leave off disputation. And he said: Leave the road to him who will not come to his senses. And the liability for its halting falls back upon the king, not the vizier.

And the third division is the execution of what issues from his deputies over the offices that he has delegated to their judgement and entrusted to their exertion. If they carry them out on their own, he lets them stand for them and does not review them, so long as their lapse in them is not established; and the liability for their execution falls back upon the agents (ʻummāl), not the vizier. And if they suspend them upon the vizier's execution, then he owes two dues in executing them: the first is that he search out their grounds so as to know what is wrong in them from what is right; the second is the strengthening of their hands and the putting away of suspicion from them, for the showing of suspicion disgraces them. The sage of the Persians has said: None is further from good than two men whose station is one and whose causes differ: one of them is he who trusts no one, and the second is he whom no one trusts. So if he executes them for them when their lapse in them has not been established, the liability for their execution falls back upon the agents, not the vizier; and if he suspends them, the liability for the suspension falls back upon the vizier, not the agents.

And the fourth division is the execution of the subjects' affairs according to the customs and dealings they are accustomed to, in which they have differed until they came to be knit together by them; for men are formed with a need for kinds of work no single man is able to undertake in their entirety, so their aspirations were made to differ, that each set of people might take one kind of them to itself alone and so be knit together by them: the farmers attend to their fields, the craftsmen busy themselves with their crafts, and the merchants apply themselves wholly to their trades. Ḥimyar the king said to his vizier: People are four classes — a class for horsemanship: attach them to honour; a class for the upholding of religion: attach them to sufficiency; a class for farming and building: let their wage be upon terms of fairness; and a class for the trades: do not leave them without beneficence. And in executing these for them he owes two dues: the first is that he not cross any class of them in what it pursues, and the second is that he not share in what it earns. And it may be that the sultan forms a view about keeping for himself out of one of the classes, and so transfers into it one who is not habituated to it, whereupon the order is thrown into disorder by them, both in what they were moved from and in what they were moved to; for their being distinguished by the prompting of natural temperaments is more equitable for their cohesion than an artifice contrived for it. And it may be that the sultan begrudges them their earnings, and so encroaches upon them or shares in them, trading with the merchants and farming with the farmers; and this is a weakening of the dues of governance and a flaw in the conditions of leadership, in two respects. The first is that when he encroaches upon a business, the hand of everyone but him falls short in it; then if he settles his weight upon it he does not carry it through, and if he is given a share in it, it grows too narrow for the people whose it is. It is related of the Prophet — may God bless him and give him peace — that he said: “No governor who traded among his subjects ever dealt justly.” The second is that kings are the most honourable of men in office, and so the revenues of sovereignty were assigned to them alone, because those are the most honourable of revenues in the manner of their earning; so if they jostle the commons in the attainment of their earnings, they weaken the subjects by the ill condition of the realms, and their weakening comes back upon it, so that its order is disordered and its aim falls sick. It is related of the Prophet — may God bless him and give him peace — that he said: “When the shepherd turns trader, the flock is neglected.” And one of the sages said: If the joy of the subjects is not in the king's sovereignty, his kingship is injustice. And the sage of the Greeks wrote to al-Iskandar: Any king whose soul looks up toward paltry things — death is more honourable for him.