Section: The Covenants, Continued

he desired equity, justice would be the more able; and if he does not desire it, then the vizier's hand with him is the shorter. The vizier wanted only a helper for himself, and did not want him as a helper against himself. So if he finds a way to assist him, he hastens to it; and if he fears the harm of that and the spread of corruption through it, he contrives gently to hold him back from it, if he can; and if that proves impossible for him, he contrives gently to be delivered from it, if he can. Let him not proclaim opposition openly so long as the other is bent upon his own wish in the oversight. One of the sages of al-Rūm was asked about the soundest manner in which kings may be consorted with. He said: Little opposition, and the lightening of burdens. For that reason kings are companioned only upon their own choosing, and they hold fast to none but him who agrees with them in their opinions. He who opposes them has no portion with them; rather, he stands in danger in their company. And if the conditions of men are considered, they are found not to grow intimate save through agreement — so how much more with kings, who possess power.

And the poet has said:

Men, if you agree with them, are sweet water — otherwise their fruit is bitter How many meadows have no companion in them — abandoned because their road was rough

And one of the sages said: Men's safeguard is three things: an intimacy that gathers them, an obedience that restrains them, and a sincere counsel that profits them. For if they scatter, their affairs are scattered; if they disobey, their aversion shows; and if they are not counselled sincerely, their breasts are filled with rancour

Section

(The Covenants, continued)

As for the covenants that rouse a man, I shall now speak them, hoping that acceptance may go together with what I say. Set, O vizier, over your inmost self a watcher for God Most High, who will mark you if you swerve from His due; and set over your solitude a watcher for your sultan, who will hold you back from falling short in his command — so that your religion may be sound in the rights of God Most High, and your worldly estate sound in the rights of your sultan, and you be made happy in your present life and in the life to come. But if it proves impossible for you to bring the two together, then put the right of God Most High before the right of the king, for there is no obedience to a creature in disobedience to the Creator. It has been related of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, that he said: “Whoever loves his world harms his hereafter, and whoever loves his hereafter harms his world; so prefer what abides to what perishes.” And it has been related of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, that he said: “Whoever seeks God's good pleasure at the cost of men's displeasure, God is pleased with him and makes men pleased with him.” And one of the sages said: Every man runs on out of his lifetime toward a term at which the span of his appointed hour ends and upon which the scroll of his deeds is folded up; so take from yourself for yourself, and measure your today against your yesterday. ʻUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may God be pleased with him, used often to cite these verses:

Men are but one departing and one who stays — and he who has gone is an admonition to him who stays And among men is one who lives upright — wakeful by night, working in vigilance And if he is a man of shame and religion — he is wary of death and abashed before the recording angels

It is your duty, O vizier, to be well informed concerning the subjects, watchful over their conditions, and to seek support from them both for yourself and against them; for they are among those whom you govern or whose help you enlist, so that you may know what is in a man of merit and of deficiency, of knowledge and of ignorance, of good and of evil, and may guard yourself against the deceit of the man who feigns a likeness and the fraud of the man who puts on a show. Then you give each one his due, neither slighting a man of merit nor relying upon a man of ignorance. For it has been said: It is of ignorance to keep company with the ignorant, and it is of absurdity to dispute with the man of absurdity.

Distinguish between the good and the wicked, for the man of good builds and the man of evil pulls down. Beware the liar, for he who has cheated his own self will never counsel you sincerely, and he who has harmed it will never profit you. And it has been said: He who has squandered his own affair has squandered every affair, and he who is ignorant of his own worth is ignorant of every worth. Do not commit an office to an incapable man, or the work will be lost; nor to a greedy man, for he will harm you by his hoarding. And it has been said: Let him be counted among the beasts whose only end in this world is his own self. Do not concern yourself with one who does not preserve manly honour (murūʼah), for you will seldom find any good in him, given his indifference to guarding his own person and his inclination toward obscurity of rank. Far is it from one who has thrown away his own right that he should uphold the right of another, and hard is it for one who has grown used to throwing off all self-restraint to turn away from it. It has been said among the wise sayings of al-Hind: The man of honour is raised by it and the man who abandons it sinks; ascent is hard and descent easy, like the heavy stone whose lifting is difficult and whose lowering is light. And one of the masters of eloquence said: Show the best regard for those who have a claim of inviolability upon you, and turn with favour toward men of honour; for regard for the man who has such a claim points to nobility of character, and favour toward the man of honour declares loftiness of purpose

Test the conditions of those to whom you have committed office, that you may know incapacity from competence and good service from ill; then act upon what you have learned — confirming the competent, dismissing the incapable, praising the man who does well and censuring the man who does ill. It has been said: He who commits office to the competent is spared his enemies. But if their affairs are confused for you, you weaken the competent, give power to the incapable, waste the man who does well and embolden the man who does ill. And that a work should stand vacant, so that your own thought turns toward it, is better than that an incapable or a treacherous man should take it in hand, so that by the two of them the mark you leave is made foul. So beware the incapable man, for he is a squanderer, and shun the treacherous man, for he labours for himself. And the poet said:

When you have charged the treacherous man with a trust — you have propped it upon the worst of props

Keep your assistants to the measure of your need of them; do not take many of them in order to make a show of numbers, for taking many will not be free either of a mutual discord that brings on disorder, or of a leaning upon one another by which the work becomes a jumble of like parts. Let your assistants match your work, for that gathers things in better, draws the work together more, carries further in diligence and rouses more to sincere counsel. I have had recited to me, of Ibn al-Rūmī:

Your enemy is got out of your friend — so do not take many companions For sickness, most of what you see of it — comes of food or of drink So let the much alone: how much that is much — is loathed, and how much that is little is relished The briny deeps do not slake thirst — and you find your fill in sweet small drops

Refine your own self of defilement, and all your followers will be refined; keep your own self far from covetousness, and all your deputies will keep far from it. Shun evil, for it will only increase your greed if you are left barren and your loss if you come away empty-handed; and the two of them are a disgrace to men of merit and a harm to men of resolve. And it has been said: By your thankfulness, not by your ingratitude. And it has been related of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, that he said: “The Hour has drawn near, and men only increase in greed for this world, while it only grows further from them.” And Maḥmūd al-Warrāq said:

Let not greed, the conqueror, conquer you — and know that men are in diminution Leave your brother clothed in his pretence — for many a man is disgraced when pressed to the plain text Scarcely did I search out a brother I trusted — but I lost the ripe fruits of the searching

Train yourself to oversee the business in person: all your agents will stand in awe of you, and by it all your works will be set in order. Do not consign to another what belongs to your own handling in search of ease, thereby withdrawing yourself from it and preferring another to it — for then you stand exposed to treachery in his fidelity and to falling short in your own self; for idleness is a hobbling, and the noble steed, when it halts, is outrun by the pack-nags. Buzurjmihr said: If occupation is a thing that wearies, leisure is a thing that corrupts. And ʻAbd al-Ḥamīd said: Nothing has adorned you that has squandered your time, and nothing has disgraced you that has set your affair in order.

Let the time of your leisure be spent upon two states. The first of them is the rest of your body and the refreshment of your mind, that these two may help you in your oversight. It is related that a son of ʻUmar ibn al-ʻAzīz came in upon him while he was sleeping and said: Father, do you sleep, while the people stand at your door? He said: My son, my own self is my riding beast, and I fear that if I overload it, it will sit down under me. The second state is that, after the rest of your body and the refreshment of your mind, you should think upon what you have already sent ahead of your deeds and what you have had a hand in of your works: whether you hit upon what was right in them, so that you make of it a pattern to follow, or whether some slip befell you in them, so that you may retrieve of it what is possible and refrain from its like in time to come. For it has been said: He who thinks, sees. And one of the sages said: He who has no preacher out of his own self, admonitions profit him nothing. Then turn your thought after that to what lies before you of your deeds: by what means will you carry it through, and what will you do in it? In setting thought before the deed there is a guarding against the slip, so that you may be sure of the right course; and then, if the decrees of fate cross you, you are not blamed. For it has been said: Affairs, when they are spent, are like the stars when they fall. And al-Nābighah al-Jaʻdī said:

Do you two not know that the profit of blame is little — once a thing has turned away and gone by

Lower your wing to him who is above you, and make your side soft for him who draws near you; keep clear of pride, and you will possess from hearts their affection and from souls their support. For it has been related of the Prophet, God bless him and his family and grant him peace, that he said: “No solitude is more desolate than conceit.” And the sage of al-Rūm was asked: Who among men has the narrowest road and the fewest friends? He said: He who consorts with men with a scowling face and lords it over them with his own person. And therefore it has been said: Humility in high standing is nobler than the high standing itself

Be thankful in prosperity and patient in hardship; let ease not make you insolent, nor affliction stupefy you — so that your states may be matched and your qualities even, and you be safe from the giddiness of judgment and the drunkenness of insolence, for these clear away into nothing but regret or harm. One of the sages has said: The man of intellect does not meet prosperity with insolence, nor take leave of it with despair. It is said in the scroll of wise sayings (manshūr al-ḥikam): Busy yourself with thanks for a blessing rather than with insolence because of it. And it is said among the proverbs of al-Hind: The man of intellect is not made insolent by a rank he has attained, nor by any honour — he is like the mountain that does not shake though the wind blow hard; whereas the empty-headed man is made insolent by the meanest rank, like the grass that the slightest breeze stirs.

Keep your friend's affection lasting by doing good to him, and draw off the rancour of your enemy after taking precaution against him; and dissemble with him who has not declared his enmity to you openly and who fights you with its like, so that you may quench the blaze of his enmity and he may fall in with you in civility. One of the sages was asked: What is resolution? He said: Dissembling with enemies, and brotherhood with equals.

Do not rely upon suspicions and conjectures, and cast away doubt by certainty. For it has been said: Let not conjecture corrupt you against a friend concerning whom certainty has reached you. The poet said: If you do not cease conjecturing and passing judgment — upon conjecture, lying conjectures will bring you to ruin

Put to the test the man whose condition is doubtful to you, that you may know what he holds concerning you and be aware of his pretence toward you; for tongues do not tell the truth of hearts, because of what the dissembler feigns and the flatterer forces upon himself. As ʻAmr ibn al-Ahtam said:

Your tongue is sweet to me while your inward self is bitter — and your good is like pasturage on a rugged mountain

The testimonies of hearts are truer, and the indications of the soul more trustworthy. And it is said in the scroll of wise sayings: The eye has a secret knowledge of what is kept secret. And Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mahdī said:

Hatred lies hidden in his eye — the heart conceals it and the eye reveals it And the eye knows, in the eyes of the one who speaks with it — who is of its party and who of its enemies

So if your state brings you to a halt in mistrust, hold to affection in his outward dealing and take the resolute course in his inward. And if closing your eyes satisfies you in place of putting him to the test, do not overstep it, for most affairs go forward with feigned heedlessness and the closing of the eye. Aktham ibn Ṣayfī has said: He who is severe puts men to flight, he who is easy wins their intimacy, and nobility lies in feigned heedlessness. Rarely indeed is the man who closes his eye dealt with harshly, or the man who feigns heedlessness cut off — with hearts inclining toward him and souls leaning to him; and this is among the causes of happiness and of good success. Maʻmar related, from Khallād ibn ʻAbd al-Raḥmān, from his father, who said: The Messenger of God, God bless him and grant him peace, preached to us and said: “Shall I not tell you who among you is most beloved to God?” — and we supposed that he would name a man. He said: “The most beloved of you to God is the most beloved of you to men. Shall I not tell you who among you is most hateful to God?” — and we supposed that he would name a man. He said: “The most hateful of you to God is the most hateful of you to men.”

Take counsel in your affairs with one whom you trust in three qualities: soundness of judgment, purity of intention, and the keeping of a secret. There is no shame upon you in consulting one who is beneath you, if he is well versed in counsel; for every intellect has its store of judgment and its portion of what is right, so that you are increased by another's judgment even if your own judgment is ample, as the sea is increased by what the rivers bring to it even though it is abundant. For it has been related of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, that he said: “No support is more trustworthy than taking counsel.” The one who seeks counsel may excel the one who gives it, and the counsellor may carry off the prize of the judgment; for it is a stray thing, and whoever finds it carries it off, be he the better man or the lesser. And Abū al-Dardāʼ related of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, that he said: “Seek guidance of the man of intellect and you will be guided, and do not disobey him lest you come to regret it.” Rely upon the counsel of one who has tried affairs and knows them well, who has turned about in them and handled them until he knows their inlets and their outlets, so that neither their good nor their ill is hidden from him — so long as the feebleness of old age has not weakened him. Such was the case related of Aktham ibn Ṣayfī, when his people, the Banū Tamīm, asked him about what had come suddenly upon them in the war of the Day of al-Kulāb. They said: Give us your judgment, for you are our elder and our chief, and the seat of judgment among us. He said: The feebleness of age has spread through my whole body, and my heart is but a piece of me. I have not with me the keenness of mind to begin with a judgment of my own; but do you speak, and I shall listen, for I know what is right when it passes by. And rely upon men of years, for wisdom is with them. And the poet has said:

When affairs are managed by the young — apart from the elders, you see a flaw in some of them The young have in a matter a rush to act — and the elders a deliberateness that fends off the slip

Turn away from the counsel of one who aims at agreeing with you in following your whim, or who purposes to disagree with you out of aversion from you; and rely upon one who seeks out the truth for you and against you. For it has been said among the ancient wise sayings: He who seeks out the easy dispensations — from his brothers in matters of judgment, from the physicians in sickness, and from the jurists in a doubtful case — errs in judgment, increases in sickness, and takes the burden of sin upon himself. Do not take to task the one whose counsel you have sought for the shortcoming of the judgment if he slips, for nothing is required of him but his best effort, even if the decrees of fate bar him from success. And it is said in the scroll of wise sayings: He whose right judgments are many is not cast aside for a little error

Choose for your secrets one whose religion and whose secrecy you trust, and from whose divulging of it and presuming upon it you are safe. If you were able not to deposit your secret with anyone at all, that would be fitter for you and safer for you, since in such matters you stand between danger and wariness. And ʻAṭāʼ related, from ʻUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may God Most High be pleased with him, of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, that he said: “Seek help toward the fulfilment of your needs by keeping them secret, for everyone who has a blessing is envied.” And it is said in the scroll of wise sayings: Keep your secret to yourself alone; do not deposit it with a resolute man, for he may slip, nor with an ignorant man, for he will betray it. And the Arabs say: He who seeks out someone for his secret has already spread it abroad

Be deliberate in what cannot be retrieved, for haste seldom has anything in its train but regret. It has been related of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, that he said: “He who goes slowly hits the mark, or nearly; and he who hurries errs, or nearly.” And it is said among the wise sayings of the house of Dāwūd: He who has deliberateness is described as wise. And it is said in the scroll of wise sayings: A deliberateness whose outcomes bring attainment is better than a haste whose outcomes bring loss

Send ahead of you such kindness as lies within your power, for the sin seldom has anything in its train but regret; for power has its limit, and the effectiveness of command its end. So seize the chance while you have the means: you will be made happy by what you have sent ahead, and he whom you have helped will be made happy by you. For it has been related of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, that he said: “Every runner has a goal, and the goal of every runner is death.” And ʻAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, may God be pleased with him, said: Snatch at these opportunities, for they pass as the clouds pass. And one of the sages said: He who puts an opportunity off past its time, let him be sure of losing it. And therefore it has been said: The best of good is the swiftest of it. And the poet said:

The man of feeble judgment is a squanderer of his chance — until, when the matter has slipped away, he reproaches the decrees of fate

And it is said among the wise sayings of the Persians (al-Furs): There is no good in speech except with the deed, just as there is no good in the outward look except with the inward reality. And it is said among the proverbs of al-Hind: The goodness of speech is not complete save by goodness of deed, like the sick man who is not cured by knowing the remedy until he takes it

Beware of accepting the praise of flatterers, for hypocrisy is fixed in their natures and they dissemble with you with what costs them little. If they find a ready market with you, you have cheated your own self and flattered your own perception, and there comes true of you what is said in the scroll of wise sayings: The market of hypocrisy is always in brisk demand. And ʻAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān said to Rawḥ ibn Zinbāʻ: Do not backbite anyone in my presence, for I do not trust you with what is behind my back; do not disclose a secret to me, for I do not trust you in my own assembly; and do not extol me to my face, for if I accept it from you I have cheated my intellect, and if I throw it back at you I have behaved ill as your companion. You know your own self better than another knows it as to what you deserve of praise or blame, so open the reckoning with your own self concerning what is in it, for you know best its beauties and its faults. And it is said among what God Most High sent down in the earlier scriptures: I marvel at the man of whom good is said that is not in him — how can he rejoice? And I marvel at the man of whom evil is said that is in him — how can he be angry? And one of the sages said: He who praises you for what is not in you deserves well to blame you for what is not in you. And one of the masters of eloquence said: He who shows you thanks for what you never did for him — beware lest he deny your favour in what you have bestowed upon him. So commit your praise to your own deeds, for they will praise you truthfully if you have done well and blame you rightly if you have done ill; and do not be deceived by the trickery of a lying tongue. For it has been said: The most clear-sighted of men is he who has taken the full measure of his sins and stood upon his own faults. And it is said in some of the earliest scriptures: The fruits of the wise are for themselves. The sage of al-Rūm wrote to al-Iskandar: Do not desire the honour you obtain from men unwillingly, but the honour you deserve by the good mark you leave and the rightness of your management

Set your oversight upon earning your sultan's approval and your subjects' thanks, and your days will be happy, your deeds praised, men glad in you and helpers to support you; and there will remain after you, in this world the fair report of you, and in the hereafter your ample wage. Seek refuge in God from the opposite of these, that you may be turned aside from it. For offices of authority are like the touchstone: they bring out the substance of those who hold them. Among such men there is one brought low and spurned, and one who rises and is accepted. It has been related of Anas ibn Mālik, of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, that he said: “Be good neighbours to the blessings of God Most High, for seldom have they departed from a people and then returned to them.” And so it has been said: A man drinking water may choke before he has had his fill. A man presented himself to Yaḥyā ibn Khālid ibn Barmak with a letter, while he was upon the bridge, and asked him to seal it. He said: Boy, seal his letter while the clay is still wet. Then he recited:

When your winds blow, seize their moment — for every gust has its falling still And be not heedless of doing good while they blow — for you do not know when the stillness will come

When you have gained a portion from your sultan, and have made some right of your service fall due upon him, do not exact it in full. Leave over for yourself a remainder that he may store up for you, so that he sees it as a right among your rights, and let him be the surety for its payment to you. For if you exact it in full, you have come to a limit beyond which there is nothing but decrease. And the poet has said:

When a thing is complete, its defect appears — look for a passing away when it is said, It is complete

Know that you are set as a mark for men's needs, because the reins of affairs are in your hand and the end of all seeking is with you. So be patient with them, that you may be thankful in the granting of them; let the petitioner not vex you when he has set his hope in you, and do not recoil from him if he comes back to you, for men can find no escape from asking. And it is the best of your age that you be seen as one who is hoped in. I have had recited to me, of Abū Bakr ibn Durayd, may God Most High have mercy upon him:

Let no vexation at a petitioner enter you — for it is the best of your age that you be seen as one petitioned Do not strike with refusal the face of one who hopes — for the endurance of your might is that you be seen as one hoped in And know that in a little while you will become — a report; so be a report that is told as a fair one

And it is said in the earliest scriptures: Leadership does not sit well upon a narrow heart, nor wealth upon a base man. And though needs are like penalties to him who finds them burdensome, they are spoils to him who is granted success in them; what comes back as gain is no loss, and nothing is squandered that is spent upon a kindness. ʻUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may God be pleased with him, related of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, that he said: “God's blessing upon a servant is never made great but that men's burden upon him is made great; and whoever does not bear men's burden exposes that blessing to departure.” And since the vizierate has made the ends of affairs come to rest with you, and men's needs fall upon you, and power supports you through the open reach of your hand and the effectiveness of your command, then by holding back and turning away you become one who fails the duties of his oversight and helps on the loss of his own discernment. And Bahrām Jūr said in his covenant to the kings of Persia: You are in a place from which men have no turning away with their needs from you; so let your breasts be as wide as your dominion. For your store laid up by conferring a favour endures the longer, and your fending off of harm from your blessing by it is the better shield. And ʻAlī ibn al-Jahm has said:

When God renews a blessing for me — I give thanks, and He does not see me a denier And God has never ceased with the returning one — exalted is he who is open-handed with them, returning again O you who gather wealth, you have amassed it — for another, since you are not to live forever And if you say, I gather it for my sons — then indeed the child has made the father poor And if you say, I fear the turns of time — then be one who finds his sufficiency in its turnings

So make your today happier than your yesterday, and let the well-being of men with you follow upon the well-being of your own soul; incline to the drawing of hearts by conciliation and to the winning of souls by equity, and you will find them treasuries in your hardships and a stronghold in your calamities. And one of the sages said: He who sows good reaps a reward, and he who confers a favour upon a free man gains thanks. And it is said in the scroll of wise sayings: The best provision of power is the laying up of favours. The poet said:

One day you reap what you have sown — for a man is one day requited with that wherein he is a debtor

Beware the prayer of the wronged man and shun it, and be tender toward it if he brings it before your face. Let your might not drive you to violence, so that by your violence you increase in wrong and by your might in transgression; and it is enough for you that he is one given victory over you. Jaʻfar ibn Muḥammad related, from his father, from his grandfather, may God Most High be pleased with them, of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, that he said: “Fear the prayer of the wronged man, for he is only asking God for his right, and God does not withhold from one who has a right his right.”

Be one who turns away from appetites, and you will be released from their captivity; for whoever is overcome by appetite is a slave to it, and whoever appetite has enslaved is abased by it. It has been related of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, that he said: “Whoever longs for the Garden hastens to good works, and whoever dreads the Fire turns away from appetites.” And one of the sages of al-Rūm was asked: What is the greatest kingship? He said: That a man overcome his appetite. And he was asked: What is the difference between you and the king? He said: The king is the slave of appetites, and I am their master,

So be well informed about the age, and you will be safe from its stumbling, for being deceived by it is a ruinous thing; and send ahead for your place of return, that what you have laid up may remain to you — for you will find nothing but what you have sent ahead, and you are requited for what you have done. Reckon this world little, and you will find in your own self a strength: you will be content when it makes you angry and glad when it makes you sorrow; for none is abased but the one who seeks it, and none is grieved but the one who owns it. And it has been related of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, that he said: “I am surety, for the man who throws himself upon this world, of a poverty with no wealth in it and an occupation with no end to it.” And ʻAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, may God be pleased with him, said: Beware this world, for it is treacherous, full of guile, faithless, a loss; every day it takes a husband, every night it receives a household, and every day it scatters a gathering. And one of the sages said: Let your seeking of this world be of necessity, your thinking about it a taking of warning, and your striving for your place of return a hastening. And ʻAbd al-Ḥamīd said: The seeker of this world is a sick man whose thirst is never slaked. And the poet said:

No despair, if time has troubled you with its turning — and changed a state; and so it is with calamities For life is but a span that will run out — and wealth but a perishing thing and the child of a perishing thing

Make the soundness of your work a store for you with your Lord, and the beauty of your conduct a mark thanked among men after you, so that the good may take you as a pattern and the wicked be deterred by you; and you will be worthy of the reward and deserving of praise. For it has been said: To be deceived by long life is among the traits of the raw and untried. Nothing will remain after you but your remembrance in this world and your reward in the hereafter; so win the two of them, and make the remainder of your life a prize for them, and you will be happy in both. For this world is like the dreams of a sleeper, which he finds sweet in his slumber and spits out after his waking. And it is said in the earliest scriptures: Strive after the good name, for nothing else will keep you company. And al-Jāḥiẓ said: I was put in charge of the library of al-Rashīd's books, and I went through his books, and I found not a saying but that I found its contrary — except sayings that came from the philosopher of the Arabs (fayāsūf al-ʻArab), ʻAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, may God Most High be pleased with him: The worth of every man is what he does well; whoever is ignorant of a thing becomes its enemy; no man will perish who has known his own measure; whatever is pictured in imaginings, God is otherwise than it; and the remainder of a man's life has no price and no value, because by it he attains what he has missed and revives what he has let die

So seize, O vizier, the remainder of your days with the fairest of your deeds; retrieve in them what has gone before of the ill marks you left, and blot out by them what you did earlier of your wrongdoing and your heedlessness. For the sealing of affairs effaces what went before, until souls forget it and eyes look away from it, because they are entrusted to what is nearest, however great what has passed. And when the decrees of fate stretch out to you with success, and intellect overcomes you toward the making of amends, you have dealt justly and become balanced; and so you triumph in your hereafter and are made happy in your life to come. And the Messenger of God, God bless him and grant him peace, said: “God has never entrusted intellect to anyone but that He rescued him by it one day. So if your intellect has tethered you away from falsehood, then you are a man of intellect.”

And I shall seal your warning and your admonishing, and follow up your enlightening and your reflections, with that whereby the Messenger, God bless him and grant him peace, gave warning; for he is the most admonishing of warners, and the most effective in striking fear and in warning. ʻAbdallāh ibn ʻUbayd related, from ʻUmayr al-Laythī, from Ḥudhayfah ibn al-Yamān, who said: The Messenger of God, God bless him and grant him peace, said: “It is among the portents of the Hour when you see people who have put prayer to death and squandered the trust, made usury lawful, made light of blood and sold religion for the world; and wines are drunk and the prescribed penalties left idle, and the Qurʼān is taken for pipes and songs, and the trust is taken as spoil and the alms-tax as a penalty; and forbearance is a bundle of mixed herbage, a child a cause of rage; and the noble ebb away in an ebbing and the base flood in a flooding; and the commanders are debauched, the viziers liars, the trustees traitors and the reciters profligate; and the chief of a people is the basest of them, and men imitate women and women men, and the truthful man is called a liar and the liar held truthful, and the last of this community curses its first — then let them look for the descent of affliction upon them

And I have set out for you in brief, O vizier, what will remind you if your practice encompasses it, and will warn you if you are heedless of it; and that He may extend to you His grant of success, and help you to His obedience by His bounty. Amen.

The book is completed, with the praise of God and His help and the goodness of His granting of success; and there is no power and no strength save in God, the Exalted, the Great