Section: His Zeal for the King's Interests

that small affairs should become great, or that the great among them should turn back into small, gives word of their realities, informing at the outset and advising at the outcome. But if he gives word of the outcomes and turns away from mentioning the outsets, that is a falsifying of his report by his counsel, and he has not discharged the trust in his report, even if it be not so in his sincere counsel; and so he deserves reproof and merits blame. It has been said: many a love-longing has been planted by a glance, and many a war reaped from a single word.

Section

(His Zeal for the King's Interests)

The fourth section of the canons of this vizierate: that he ransom the king's ease with his own weariness and shield his repose with his own labour, that he not be absent when he is wanted nor grow weary when he is called again; for he is the king's tongue when he speaks, and his eye when he looks, and his hand when he strikes. So do not hold back from his summons, nor be vexed at his call, for the king's sudden needs arise from the promptings of his thoughts and the turning of his mind, and there may arise with the hours what has no known cause and no appointed time. So let him keep watch for them, so that the king's purposes are not brought to a halt by him, which would issue in aversion or in vexation — and he stands in danger from each of the two, for he may be called to account for the offence before it has appeared, and punished for the small fault as for the great, once judgement goes by caprice and power springs to act. And in this respect the vizier of delegation (wizārat al-tafwīḍ) differs, who may absent himself from continual attendance because he takes affairs in hand; whereas this vizier is confined to attendance and not to the acting, so that the one is the more given to conveying and the other the more given to acting. He may well weary of constant attendance, and it will leave him regret behind it when he parts from it, because in his constant attendance upon the king there is a labour coupled with honour, and in his leaving it off there is an ease that comes round to abasement — and the two are what they are in their divergence. So let him choose for himself whichever suits him: an honour he draws to himself by exertion, or an abasement he comes round to by taking his ease. For if he bears patiently with the king's calling him again, he gains his own desire from the king, whereas he stands answerable if he crosses it. Anūshirwān said: affairs have never been brought to success by anything like patience, nor has hatred ever been earned by anything like pride. And it has been said: whoever serves the sultan, his brethren serve him. So carry the same reasoning through: whomever the sultan turns against, his brethren forsake — because he is followed in his arbitrary rule and abetted in his suppositions

This, then, is what belongs properly to the canons of the vizierate of execution (wizārat al-tanfīdh), after what we have already set out of the canons of the vizierate of delegation. The two then differ in the very basis of investiture in six respects. The first: that the king invests the vizier of delegation with his own rights and the rights of his subjects, and invests the vizier of execution — he carries them out by the king's commands and according to his judgement. The second: that the vizierate of delegation requires a contract by which the validity of his acts is established, whereas the vizierate of execution requires no contract, because in it he is one commanded to carry out what has issued from the king's order. The third: that the vizier of delegation is held answerable for the consequence of what he has carried out. The fourth: that the vizier of delegation is not dismissed save by an express word or what carries its sense, and not by mere abandonment of the post, because he has come to possess it by taking affairs in hand; whereas the vizier of execution is dismissed by abandonment, because he is one under orders. The fifth: that the vizier of delegation is not dismissed if he desists and leaves off, until he asks the king to release him from it, because he is the depositary of the offices and so is bound to return them to the one entitled to them; whereas the vizier of execution may be dismissed by dismissing himself through desisting and abandonment, because there is nothing in his hands that he should be required to return it. The sixth: that the vizierate of delegation requires competence in the sword and in the pen, since he must rise to what makes both of them necessary; whereas the vizierate of execution has no need of them, falling short of them. Rather, six qualities are what count in it, and they are the qualities that count in every administrator possessed of leadership. They are: imposing dignity, vigour, high resolve, continence, manly virtue (murūʼah), and weight of judgement. Most of the viziers of the Persians were viziers of execution, and most of the viziers of the kings of Islam viziers of delegation.

The vizierate of delegation is a handing over, and the vizierate of execution a drawing of supply