I came across the treatise that forms the core of this book by sheer coincidence, when working on a larger project involving the well-known Arab scholar Ê¿AlÄ« ibn YÅ«suf al-Qifá¹Ä«1 (d. 646/1248):2 though mentioned nowhere among the writings of al-Qifá¹Ä«, there appeared to exist, not only a manuscript but also an edition of a text titled AsÄs al-siyÄsa or âThe Foundation of Governanceâ. This edition of the Arabic text, established by JalÄ«l al-Ê¿Aá¹iyya and published in 2008,3 turned out to be a fairly solid philological production, with the major caveat that the editorâs attribution of the work to al-Qifá¹Ä« seemed increasingly doubtful to me as I perused it; at the same time, the small text revealed itself to be a highly interesting exponent of the so-called âmirrors for princesâ genre, dating back indeed to the days of al-Qifá¹Ä« but more likely a creation of his contemporary Ê¿AlÄ« ibn áºÄfir al-AzdÄ« (d. 613/1216). Surprisingly, al-Ê¿Aá¹iyyaâs edition went completely unnoticed in relevant secondary literature or, if it was noticed, must have been deemed trivial or spurious. None of this is the case: the text no doubt represents a genuine, albeit somewhat eccentric specimen of medieval Arabic politico-ethical literature, composed to the hoary standards of classical rhymed prose, and certainly deserving far greater attention than has so far been given to it. On this background, an annotated English translation of the workâpreceded by a detailed introduction, accompanied by a revised Arabic reprint, and followed by extensive glossariesâalmost suggested itself, and any qualms I initially had about the difficulty and feasibility of that task were soon dispelled by a growing realization of the textâs historical value and inherent beauty.
I am grateful to the editors of ITH for accepting my work in this series; to the anonymous readers for their comments; to Abdurraouf Oueslati at Brill for his kindness and competence, as well as for securing reproduction rights from DÄr al-ṬalÄ«Ê¿a publishers in Beirut; and to Sanne Hadfy-Kovács at TAT Zetwerk for the fine typesetting.
The system of transliteration used in this book is that of the Encyclopaedia of Islam THREE, see bibliography s.n. EI³ and, for the rules,
Dates separated by a slash refer to the Islamic and Christian calendars respectively.
See bibliography s.n. AsSiy.