Section: Opinion and Consultation

This envoyship (sifārah) pertains to five classes. The first: the envoyship between the king and his troops, whereby he carries them to his commands and his prohibitions and procures for them from the king what they have merited and requested; and in his envoyship with them he needs to join softness with force, and roughness with gentleness, so that they may be led to obey him by desire and by dread. The second: the envoyship between the king and his agents (ʻummāl), whereby he discharges in full the oversight of the offices and reads over the circumstances of the agents, so as to make good a defect if there be one and to keep a sound state in being if he finds one; and in this envoyship he needs to employ dread in particular, so as to hold them back from treachery and rouse them to trustworthiness. The third: the envoyship between the king and his subjects, that he may set himself to deal justly with them and may give ear to their grievances, carrying out what comes easily to him and reporting up what proves hard for him; and in this envoyship he needs to employ softness and gentleness, so that they may attain the full redress of a grievance and may fend off the humiliation of being wronged. The fourth: the envoyship in exacting in full the dues of sovereignty, those owed to the king and those owed by him, without himself taking in hand either their collection or their abatement; and in this envoyship he needs dread in what he exacts for the king, and gentleness in what he procures from the king. The fifth: the envoyship in the choice of agents and the supervision of the offices, that he may report the case of the man whose investiture or dismissal he sees fit, without himself undertaking any investiture or dismissal, because investiture and dismissal fall within the vizierate of delegation (wizārat al-tafwīḍ) and outside the vizierate of execution (wizārat al-tanfīdh), and it is the king who gives the order for investiture and dismissal if he does not undertake it himself. The conditions of this envoyship are that he be of good conjecture (ḥads), sound in his choosing, little given to being taken in, and knowing of the competence of agents and the measures of the offices, so that his choice may be praised and his stumbling be few.

Section

(Judgement and Counsel)

The second section of the canons of this vizierate: that he supply the king with his judgement (raʼy) and his counsel (mashūrah). For the king, for all the weight of his judgement and the soundness of his reflection, is a person screened off from taking affairs in hand, and so came to be one whose judgement is screened off from direct acquaintance with them; and so he needed a man whose person is out in the open by taking affairs in hand, that he might be one whose judgement is out in the open by direct acquaintance. For the present is not as the absent, nor the reporter as the eyewitness; and this is why the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, said: "Report is not as eyewitness."

The vizier has the closest claim to this station, and so was the most entitled to judgement and counsel. It is mentioned in the books of the Persians that the vizier has three claims upon the king: the lifting of the screen from before him, the holding suspect of those who slander him, and the disclosure of the secret to him. And it is said in the wisdom of the house of Dāwūd: silver and gold make the foot firm, but better than both is sound counsel. The vizier may seek counsel concerning that on which he counsels the king, when it is not a guarded secret; but one other than the vizier may not seek counsel concerning that on which he is himself consulted, because of the difference that holds between the two in two respects. The first: that the vizier is singled out from among the king's interests with what others fall short of, so that there is incumbent upon him a measure of fortifying himself with support that is not incumbent upon any other. The second: that the vizier's seeking of counsel comes back to the king's interests, and so is general, whereas another's seeking of counsel comes back to his own judgement, and so is particular. Those fit to be consulted differ with the difference of the end in view, as the sages have said: consult the brave in what is the fitter for resolve, and cowards in what is the fitter for prudence, that you may come out clear of the disgrace of the coward's falling short and the brave man's recklessness, and that there be winnowed out for you from the two judgements the issue of what is right. The vizier has two states in counsel. The first: that the king opens with him by seeking his counsel, in which case he is bound to advise with his judgement upon it, whether it concerns his own kingdom or passes beyond it to another. ʻAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, may God honour his face, said: it may be that the sighted man misses his aim and the blind man hits upon his right course. And two obligations lie upon the vizier in this. The first: the straining of his judgement in making the right course plain. The second: the demonstration of its soundness by giving the grounds of his answer, so that he may be one who argues his case, thereby averting the supposition of a slip and coming off safe from the imputation of doubt. The second state: that the vizier opens by pressing counsel upon the king; and in this he has two cases. The first: that there attaches to his counsel neither the drawing in of a benefit nor the fending off of a harm — this is a liberty taken by the vizier and a presuming upon the king: if he reproves it, that is his right, and if he bears with it, that is of his bounty. For it has been said: much admonition breaks in upon evil opinion.

The second: that there attaches to his counsel the drawing in of a benefit and the fending off of a harm. If this pertains to the realm, it is among the rights of the vizierate; and if it passes beyond the realm, it is of the vizier's good counsel. He must state the reason for his broaching it and make plain the rightness of his judgement. And when the most prudent course has settled upon what the judgement required, he is bound, in what he renders of consultation and offers of counsel, to conceal it from every man, privileged and common alike, for two reasons. The first: that judgement must show itself in deeds and not in words, because its showing itself in deed is harm and its showing itself in word is danger. And it has been said: part of what weakens an affair is proclaiming it before it is made firm. The second: that it belongs to the king's secrets, which must be kept hidden in breasts and guarded from disclosure, so as to join the discharge of the trust with the seeking of safety; for in the divulging of a king's secrets there is danger both to him and to the one who has divulged them. And it has been said: the uncovering of secrets is among the traits of the wicked. Hence it is said: the safeguard is better than the spell. And seldom do kings pardon one who divulges their secrets, since he wavers between treachery and crime; and the best of his cases in this, if he comes off safe, is that the eye be averted from him, so that he is brought low, or that he be kept out of sight, so that he counts for little. It is said in one of the books of the Children of Israel: the ignorant man's tongue and his heart are one. And it is said in the scattered maxims (manthūr al-ḥikam): the ignorant man's tongue is the key to his death. Hence it is said: the breasts of free men are the graves of secrets. And by the keeping of their secrets a man may prosper who is bare of every other virtue and stripped of every other means of access, because he has become a treasurer to the masters of hoarded things and one entrusted with the most precious of deposits — if he comes off safe from presuming upon it. For if feet slip in the presence of kings, it is by the like of such presumption; and few who presume come off safe from abasement. And that you should grow the more reserved when he emboldens you, and so grow in honour, is fitter for a man of sound discernment than its opposite. It has been said: whom presumption emboldens, abasement draws in. And it is said in the scattered maxims: when the king increases his familiarity toward you, increase your reverence toward him.