In continuation of the article titled “The Ruler and society”, we shall discuss the criteria for the selection of people for administrative affairs and the leader’s responsibilities thereafter.
Then look into the affairs of your administrators. Employ them (only after) having tested (them) and appoint them not with favouritism or arbitrariness, for these two (attributes) embrace different kinds of oppression and treachery (1).
Among them look for people of experience and modesty (2) from righteous families foremost in Islam (3), for they are nobler in moral qualities, more genuine in dignity and less concerned with ambitious designs, and they perceive more penetratingly the consequences of affairs.
Then bestow provisions upon them liberally, for that will empower them to set themselves aright and to dispense with consuming what is under their authority; and it is an argument against them if they should disobey your command or sully your trust.
Then investigate their actions. Dispatch truthful and loyal observers (to watch) over them, for your investigation of their affairs in secret, will incite them to carry out their trust faithfully and to act kindly toward the subjects.
Be heedful of aides. If one of them should extend his hand in a treacherous act, concerning which the intelligence received against him from your observers concurs, and if you are satisfied with that as a witness, subject him to corporeal punishment and seize him for what befell from his action. Then install him in a position of degradation, brand him with treachery and gird him with the shame of accusation. (3)
Investigate the situation of the land tax in a manner that will rectify the state of those who pay it, for in the correctness of the land tax and the welfare of the taxpayers is the welfare of others. The welfare of others will not be achieved except through them, for the people, all of them, are dependent upon the land tax and those who pay it.
Let your care for the prosperity of the earth be deeper than your care for the collecting of land tax, for it will not be gathered except in prosperity. Whoever exacts land tax without prosperity has desolated the land and destroyed the servants (of God). His affairs will remain in order but briefly. So if your subjects complain of burden (4) of blight, of the cutting off of irrigation water, of lack of rain, or of the transformation of the earth through its being inundated by a flood or ruined by drought, lighten (their burden) to the extent you wish their affairs to be rectified.
In addition, let not anything by which you have lightened their burden weigh heavily against you, for it is a store which they will return to you by bringing about prosperity in your land and embellishing your rule. You will gain their fairest praise and pride yourself at the spreading forth of justice among them.
You will be able to depend upon the increase in their strength (resulting) from what you stored away with them when you gave them ease; and upon their trust, since you accustomed them to your justice toward them through your kindness to them.
Then perhaps matters will arise which afterwards they will undertake gladly if in these you depend upon them, for prosperity will carry that with which you burden it.
Truly, the destruction of the earth only results from the destitution of its inhabitants, and its inhabitants become destitute only when rulers concern themselves with amassing (wealth), when they have misgivings about the endurance (of their own rule) (5) and when they profit little from warning examples.
(2c.) Then examine the state of your secretaries and put the best of them in charge of your affairs (6). Assign those of your letters in which you insert your stratagems and secrets to him among them most generously endowed with the aspects of righteous moral qualities, a person whom high estate does not make reckless, that because of it he might be so bold as to oppose you in the presence of an assembly.
(He should be someone) whom negligence will not hinder from delivering to you the letters of your administrators, nor from issuing their answers properly for you in that which he takes for you and bestows in your stead; a person who will not weaken a contract which he binds for you, nor will he be incapable of dissolving what has been contracted to your loss; a man who is not ignorant of the extent of his own value in affairs, for he who is ignorant of his own value is even more ignorant of the value of others.
Let not your choosing of them be in accordance with your own discernment, confidence and good opinion, for men make themselves known to the discernment of rulers by dissimulating and serving them well, even though beyond this there may be nothing of sincere counsel and loyalty. Rather examine them in that with which they were entrusted by the righteous before you.
Depend upon him who has left the fairest impression upon the common people and whose countenance is best known for trustworthiness. This will be proof of your sincerity toward God and toward him whose affair has been entrusted to you.
Appoint to the head of each of your concerns a chief from among these men, (a person) who is neither overpowered when these concerns are great nor disturbed when they are many. Whatever fault of your secretaries you overlook will come to be attached to you (4).
Then make merchants and craftsmen-those who are permanently fixed, those who move about with their wares and those who profit from (the labor of) their own body (7) -your own concern, and urge others to do so, for they are the bases of benefits and the means of attaining conveniences. They bring (benefits and conveniences) from remote and inaccessible places in the land, sea, plains and mountains, and from places where men neither gather together nor dare to go.
(The merchants and craftsmen) are a gentleness from which there is no fear of calamity and a pacifity from which there is no worry of disruption. (8)
Examine their affairs in your presence and in every corner of your land. But know, nevertheless, that in many of them is shameful miserliness, detestable avarice, hoarding of benefits and arbitrariness in sales.
This is a source of loss to all and a stain upon rulers. So, prohibit hoarding (ihtikar), for the Messenger of God (may God bless him and his household) prohibited it. (9)
Let selling be an openhanded selling, with justly balanced scales and prices which do not prejudice either party, buyer or seller. (10)
As for him who lets himself be tempted to hoard after you have forbidden him (to do so), make an example of him and punish him, but not excessively. (5)
Then (fear) God, (fear) God regarding the lowest class, the wretched, needy, suffering and disabled who have no means at their disposal, for in this class there is he who begs and he who is needy (but does not beg).
Be heedful for God’s sake of those rights of theirs which He has entrusted to you. Set aside for them a share of your treasury (bayt al-mal) and in every town a share of the produce of the lands of Islam taken as booty (sawafi al-Islam), for to the farthest away of them belongs the equivalent of what belongs to the nearest. (11)
You are bound to observe the right of each of them, so be not distracted from them by arrogance, for you will not be excused if, to attend to the very important affair, you neglect the trifling, So avert not your solicitude from them and turn not your face away from them in contempt.
Investigate the affairs of those (of the lowest class) who are unable to gain access to you, those upon whom eyes disdain to gaze and whom men regard with scorn.
Appoint to attend exclusively to them a person whom you trust from among the God-fearing and humble, and let him submit to you their affairs. Then act toward them in a manner that will absolve you before God on the day that you meet Him. (12)
For among the subjects, these are more in need of equity than others. In the case of each of them, prepare your excuse with God by accomplishing for him his rightfully due (al-haqq).
Take upon yourself the upkeep of the orphans and aged from among those who have no means at their disposal and do not exert themselves in begging. (All of) this is a heavy burden upon rulers. The truth (al-haqq), all of it, is a heavy burden.
But God may lighten it for people who seek the final end, who admonish their souls to be patient and trust in the truth of God’s promise to them.
NOTES:
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1. Ibn Abi-l-Hadid reads hum for hum’a, i.e.: “For they (the administrators) are embraced by different kinds of oppression and treachery”, and he interprets the sentence to refer to the administrators who served under the three caliphs before ‘Ali.
Al-Hashmi offers a number of arguments in support of this interpretation, Minhaj al-bara’ah vol. 20, pp. 246-9.
2. “Experience (tajribah) alone is not sufficient if the administrator is not endowed with modesty (haya’), for modesty is the basis of manliness (muru’ah).
As the Prophet said, ‘Modesty brings only good’, and ‘Whoso has not modesty has not religion and will not enter Paradise’ . . .” (al-Fakiki, al-Ra’iwa l-ra’iyyah, vol. 2, p. 38).
3. I.e., those families who were first to enter Islam. “This is because…. righteousness of family determines the way men are raised, and being foremost in Islam indicates nobility of character . . .” (Ibid., p. 39).
4. Whether as the result of the land tax itself or the oppression of the tax collectors (Ibn Abi-l-Hadid, vol. I7, p. 72).
5. Ibn Abi-l-Hadid offers two possible explanations of this clause. According to the first the words “su’ zannihim bi-l-baqa'” would have to be translated “they think wrongly about endurance”, which means that they think their own existence will endure and they forget death and dissolution.
In the translation however, I have followed the second interpretation, which he explains as meaning “They imagine they will be deposed and replaced, so they seize upon opportunities, appropriate wealth and show no concern for the prosperity of the land” (vol- I7v p- 73)
6. “Know that the secretary alluded to by the Commander of the Faithful is he who nowadays is commonly called the ‘vizier’, for he is entrusted with the management of the affairs of the ruler’s person and in all of them is his deputy.
The letters of the administrators come to him and their answers are issued by him. He puts the (affairs of the) administrators in order and is supervisor over them. In fact he is the ‘secretary of the secretaries’ and for this reason is known as the vizier in the absolute sense.
It is said that the secretary has three prerogatives before the king: to remove the veil from him (i.e., he has access to his personal affairs, even in the harem), to accuse traitors before him and to make secrets known to him . . .” (Ibn Abi-l-Hadid, vol. I7, p. 79).
7. Ibn Abi-l-Hadid explains that the first two of these groups are merchants -those who have shops and those who travel with their wares-and the third group are the craftsman (vol. I7, p. 84).
[42] The translation of this sentence is rather free and follows Ibn Abi-l-Hadid’s first interpretation. He adds that it is also permissible to read the sentence as follows: “Accept counsel (from me) for the good of merchants and craftsmen and counsel (others) concerning them” (vol. I7, pp. 83-4).
8. This is a literal translation of a passage which Ibn Abi-l-Hadid explains as follows: “Than the Imam says, ‘Surely they are a gentleness’, that is to say, merchants and craftsman are so.
He seeks Malik al-Ashtar’s sympathy and favor for them and he says they are not like tax-collectors and commanders of the army, for they have to be sustained, protected and taken care of, the more so since there is no fear of calamity from them, neither in property where they might be disloyal (as in the case of the tax-collectors) nor in the government where they might work corruption (as in the case of the commanders of the army)” (vol. I7, p. 84).
9. “According to the Sixth Imam, Jafar al-Sadiq (founder of the Ja’fari, i.e. Twelve-Imams Shi’ite, school of law), ‘It is reprehensible (makruh) to hoard and to leave men with nothing. And it is said that it is forbidden (haram), and this latter view is more correct.
As was said by the Prophet of God, “Mercy is upon him who imports, and curses upon him who hoards”. Surely hoarding is forbidden under two conditions: First, that food-i.e. wheat, barley, dates, raisins, clarified butter, or salt-be held back seeking an increase in price. Second, if there is no other distributor to be found . . .’.” Quoted in al-Fakiki, Al Ra’I wa-lra’iyyah, vol 2, p. I65.
10. Cf. Quran 83:I-2: “Woe to the stinters who, when they measure against the people, take full measure, but, when they measure for them or weigh for them, they skimp.”
[46] Reference to the principle alluded to in the following verse of the Quran (5:4I): “Know that, whatever booty you take, the fifth of it is God’s and the Messenger’s and the near kinsman’s and the orphan’s and for the needy and the traveler”.
11. “In other words, all poor Muslims are equal in their shares, there is no ‘farthest away’ or ‘nearest’. Prefer not him who is near to you or to one of your favourites over him who is far from you and without any connection to you or reason for you to turn toward him.
It is also possible that he means that the produce of the land taken as booty in a certain area should not be distributed only to the needy of that area, for the right to the produce of the land is the same whether a person is far from that land or resides in it” (Ibn Abi-l-Hadid, vo1. I7v pp. 86-7)
12. The “meeting with God” is mentioned in a number of Quranic verses, such as the following: “They indeed are losers who deny their meeting with Allah” (6:31).
