Political thought in the beginning of the Ottoman Empire as expressed in Ahmed bin Husameddin Amasi's Kitab-i Miratu`l-Muluk (1406)

Abstract

Ahmed bin Husameddin Amasi’s Mirât al-Muluk was one of the earliest sources on the political literature of the Ottoman World, it was written in 1406 and submitted to Mehmet 1 (1413- 1421). Unlike the later Ottoman political works, Mirât al-Muluk reflects the characteristics of inherited Islamic political literature; it is more abstract and deals with the general aspects of good government instead of offering practical solutions to the contemporary administrative problems. Mirât al-Muluk combines the teaching of two tradition; Ahlak and Adab. Ahlak literature has its origin in ancient Greek philosophy, and Muslim philosophers followed the works of Aristotle, Plato and Galen as the masters of this literature. The first part of Mirât al-Muluk was written in the style of Ahlak literature, and the main source of this part was Nasir al-Din Tusi’s (1201-1274) Ahlak-i Naşiri. Ktnalizade Ali Celebi’s (1510-1572) Ahlak-i Alai was another example of this genre in the later Ottoman World and it was largely influenced by Ahlak-i Naşiri. The second part of Mirât al-Muluk depends on alGhazali’ s (1058-1111) Nasihat al-Muluk, a mirror for princes book written in the style of Persian Adab literature. In this study, the absorption of two pre-Islamic wisdom literature in the political works of Muslim thinkers, and the transmission of this heritage to the Ottoman world was examined in the light of Amasi’s Mirât alMuluk.