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Published on June, 2001
Advice
To World Leaders
- Orders From Ali ibn Abu Talib to Malik
Al-Ashtar
A letter by Ali ibn Abu Talib
('a) to Malik Al-Ashtar
(The following is a detailed
explanation of how to run an effective Islamic state. It is regarded as
one of the greatest writings on this subject. The letter is from Amir-al-Mu'mineen
Ali ibn Abu Talib ('a), the fourth khalifah, to Malik Al-Ashtar, after Amir-al-Mu'mineen
('a) had appointed him as governor of Egypt.)
In the Name of Allah,
the Beneficent, the Merciful
These are the orders issued by the creature of Allah,
Ali ('a), the son Abu Taalib to Maalik, the son of Ashtar when he appointed Maalik as the Governor of
Egypt to collect Zakat there, to combat the enemies of Islam and Egypt, to work
for the welfare of its people and to look after its prosperity.
"I order you, Maalik, always to keep the fear of Allah in your mind, to give
priority to His worship and to give preference to obeying His Commands over
every other thing in life, to carefully and faithfully follow the commandments
and interdictions as are given by the Holy Book and the traditions of the Holy
Prophet ('s) because the success of a man to attain happiness in this world and
in the next depends upon these qualities, and a failure to achieve these
attributes brings about total failure in both the worlds.
I order you to use your head, heart, hands and tongue to help the creatures
of Allah because the Almighty Allah holds Himself responsible to help those who
sincerely try their best to help Him. Allah has further ordered you to keep your
desires under control, to keep yourself under restraint when extravagant and
inordinate yearnings and cravings try to drive you towards vice and wickedness
because usually your 'self' tries to incite and drag you towards infamy and
damnation unless the Merciful Lord comes to your help.
Let it be known to you, Maalik, that I am sending you as a governor to a
country which has seen many regimes before this. Some of them were benign,
sympathetic and good, while others were tyrannical, oppressive and cruel. People
will judge your regime as critically as you have studied the activities of other
regimes and they will criticize you in the same way as you have censured or
approved other rulers.
You must know that a good and virtuous man is known and recognized by the
good that is said about him and the praise which Allah has destined him to
receive from others. Therefore, make your mind the source and fountain-head of
good thoughts, good intentions and good deeds. This can only be attained by
keeping a strict control on your desires and yearnings, however much they may
try to incite and coerce you. Remember that the best way to do justice to your
inner self and to keep it out of harm is to restrain it from vice and from
things which the 'self' inordinately and irrationally desires.
 Kindness
Maalik! You must create in your mind kindness, compassion and love for your
subjects. Do not behave towards them as if you are a voracious and ravenous
beast and as if your success lies in devouring them.
Remember, Maalik, that amongst your subjects there are two kinds of people:
those who have the same religion as you have; they are brothers to you, and
those who have religions other than that of yours, they are human beings like
you. Men of either category suffer from the same weaknesses and disabilities
that human beings are inclined to, they commit sins, indulge in vices either
intentionally or foolishly and unintentionally without realizing the enormity of
their deeds. Let your mercy and compassion come to their rescue and help in the
same way and to the same extent that you expect Allah to show mercy and
forgiveness to you.
Maalik! You must never forget that if you are a ruler over them than the
caliph is the ruler over you and Allah is the Supreme Lord over the caliph. And
the reality is that He has appointed you as the governor and tested you through
the responsibility of this rulership over them.
Never think of raising yourself to such a false prestige that you can declare
war against Allah because you cannot ward off His Wrath and you can never be
free from the need of His Mercy and Compassion.
Forgiveness
Do not feel ashamed to forgive and forget. Do not hurry over punishments and
do not be pleased and do not be proud of your power to punish. Do not get angry
and lose your temper quickly over the mistakes and failures of those over whom
you rule. On the contrary, be patient and sympathetic with them. Anger and
desire of vengeance are not going to be of much help to you in your
administration.
Never say to yourself, "I am their Lord, their ruler and all in all over
them and that I must be obeyed submissively and humbly" because such a
thought will unbalance your mind, will make you vain and arrogant, will weaken
your faith in religion and will make you seek support of any power other than
that of Allah . If you ever feel any pride or vanity on account of your sway and
rule over your subjects then think of the supreme sway and rule of the Lord over
the Universe, the extent of His creations, the supremacy of His Might and Glory,
His Power to do things which you cannot even dream of doing and His control over
you which is more dominating than that which you can ever achieve over anything
around you. Such thoughts will cure your mental weakness, will keep you away
from vanity and rebellion (against Allah), will reduce your arrogance and
haughtiness and will take you back to the sanity which you had foolishly
deserted.
Take care never to think of bringing yourself at par with Allah, never to
think of matching your power with Him and contesting His Glory and ever to
pretend that you possess might and power like Him because the Mighty Lord will
always humble pitiless tyrants and will degrade all pretenders of His Power and
Might.
So far as your own affairs or those of your relatives and friends are
concerned take care that you do not violate the duties laid down upon you by
Allah and do not usurp the rights of mankind, be impartial and do justice to
them because if you give up equity and justice then you will certainly be a
tyrant and an oppressor. And whoever tyrannizes and oppresses the creatures of
Allah, will earn enmity of Allah along with the hatred of those whom he has
oppressed; and whoever earns the Wrath of Allah loses all chances of salvation
and he has no excuse to offer on the Day of Judgement.
Every tyrant and oppressor is an enemy of Allah unless he repents and gives
up oppression. Remember, Maalik! that there is nothing in this world more
effective to turn His Blessings into His Wrath quicker than to insist upon
oppression over His creatures because the Merciful Allah will always hear the
prayers of those who have been oppressed and He will give no chance to
oppressors.
You must always appreciate and adopt a policy which is neither too severe nor
too lenient, a policy which is based upon equity will be largely appreciated.
Remember that the displeasure of common men, the have-nots and the depressed
persons more overbalances than the approval of important persons, while the
displeasure of a few big people will be excused by the Lord if the general
public and the masses of your subjects are happy with you.
Remember, Maalik! that usually these big personages are mentally the scum of
the human society, they are the people who will be the worst drag upon you
during your moments of peace and happiness, and the least useful to you during
your hours of need and adversity, they hate justice the most, they will keep on
demanding more and more out of the State resources and will seldom be satisfied
with what they receive and will never be obliged for the favour shown to them if
their demands are justifiable refused, they will never accept any reasonable
excuse or any rational argument and when the time changes, you will never find
them staunch, faithful and loyal.
While the common men, the poor and apparently the less important section of
your subjects are the pillars of Islam, they are the real assemblage of Muslims
and the power and defensive force against the enemies of Islam. Keep your mind
on their affairs, be more friendly with them and secure their trust and
goodwill.
But be careful in forming your contacts (whether with the most important
persons or the commoners); keep such people away from you and think them to be
the enemy of the State who are scandal-mongers and who try to find fault with
others and carry on propaganda against them because everywhere people have
weaknesses and failings and it is the duty of the government to overlook (minor)
shortcomings. You must not try to go in search of those weaknesses which are
hidden from you, leave them to Allah, and about those weaknesses which come to
your notice, you must try to teach them how to overcome them. Try not to expose
the weaknesses of the people and Allah will conceal your own weaknesses which
you do not want anybody to know.
Do not give cause to the people to envy each other (man against man, tribe
against tribe or one section of the society against the other). Try to alleviate
and root out mutual distrust and enmity from amongst your subjects.
Government
Be fair, impartial and just in your dealings with all, individually and
collectively and be careful not to make your person, position and favours act as
sources of malice. Do not let any such thing or such person come near to you who
does not deserve your nearness and your favour. Never lower your dignity and
prestige.
Remember that backbiters and scandal-mongers belong to a mean and cunning
group, though they pretend to be sincere advisers. Do not make haste to believe
the news they bring and do not heed to their advice.
Do not accept the advice of misers, they will try their best to keep you away
from acts of kindness and from doing good to others. They will make you
frightened of poverty.
Similarly do not allow cowards to act as your advisers because they will make
you timid in enforcing your orders, will scare you from handling important
affairs boldly and will make your enterprises and invasions timid and timorous
attempts. At the same time avoid greedy and covetous persons who would aspire to
the position of acting as your counsellor because he will teach you how to
exploit the community and how to oppress people to get their wealth. Remember
that miserliness, cowardice and greed appear to be different wicked qualities
but they all arise from the same evil mentality of having no faith and no trust
in Allah.
Your worst ministers will be the men who had been ministers to the despotic
rulers before you and who had been a party o atrocities committed by them. Such
persons should not be taken into your confidence and should not be trusted
because they have aided sinners and have assisted tyrants and cruel rulers.
In their stead you can comfortably find persons who are equally wise and
learned but who have not developed sinful and criminal mentalities, who have
neither helped the tyrants in their tyrannies nor have they assisted them to
carry on their sinful deeds. Such persons will prove the least troublesome to
you. They will be the most helpful. They will sincerely sympathise with you. If
you take them in your confidence they will sever their connections with your
opponents. Keep such people with you as your companions in your informal company
as well as in official gatherings in audience. From amongst such honest and
humane companions and ministers some would receive your fullest confidence and
trust. They are those who can always speak out the bitter truth to you and
unreservedly and without fear of your status, can refuse to assist you or
associate with you in the deeds which Allah does not like His good creatures to
commit.
Select honest, truthful and pious people as your companions. Train them not
to flatter you and not to seek your favour by false praises because flattery and
false praises create vanity and conceit and they make a man lose sight of his
real self and ignore his duties.
You should not treat good and bad people alike because in this way you will
be discouraging good persons and at the same time emboldening the wicked to
carry on their wickedness. Everyone should receive the treatment which his deeds
make him deserve.
Try carefully to realize that a ruler can create goodwill in the minds of his
subjects and can make them faithful and sincere to him only when he is kind and
considerate to them, when he reduces their troubles, when he does not oppress
them and when he never asks for things which are beyond their power.
These are the principles which you should keep in mind and act upon. Let your
attitude be such that they do not lose faith in you because a good faith on
their part will reduce many troubles of administration and will relieve you of
many worries and anxieties. And so far as your confidence and trust is
concerned, let it rest with those people whom you have tested in difficulties
and whom you have befriended, but you should always mistrust those people whom
you have wronged or who have proved themselves undeserving, inefficient or
unfaithful.
Do not give up those practices and do not break those rules which good
Muslims have evolved or introduced before you, which have created unity and
amity among the various sections of the society and which have benefited the
masses.
Do not break them and do not introduce innovations because if you do away
with those good rules and traditions, the reward of having introduced them will
go to those who evolved them and the punishment of having despoiled them will be
your lot.
You must know, Maalik, that the people over whom you rule are divided into
classes and grades and the prosperity and welfare of each class of the society
individually and collectively are so interdependent upon the well-being of the
other classes that the whole set-up represents a closely woven net and
reciprocal aspect. One class cannot exist peacefully, cannot live happily and
cannot work without the support and good wishes of the other.
Amongst them there are the soldiers of the army of Allah who defend His
cause, the next class is that of the secretaries of the State to whom duties of
writing out and issuing special or general orders are assigned, the third group
is of the judges and magistrates to administer justice, the fourth is of
officers who maintain law and order and guard the peace and prosperity of the
country. Then there are common men, the Muslims who pay the taxes levied by the
government, and non-Muslims who pay the taxes levied by the government, and
non-Muslims who pay tribute to the State (in lieu of taxes). Then comes the
class of men who carry on various professions and trades and the last but not
the least are the poor and the have-nots who are considered as the lowest class
of the society. The Merciful Allah has fixed rights and duties of each one of
them. They have been either mentioned in His Book or explained through the
instructions of the Holy Prophet (s). A complete code of them is preserved with
us.
The
Military
As far as the soldiers are concerned, they are by the commands of Allah a
fortress and stronghold to guard and defend the subjects and the State. They are
the ornaments of the ruler and the country. They provide power and protection to
the religion. They propagate and preserve peace among mankind. In fact, they are
the real guardians of peace and through them good internal administration can be
maintained. The upkeep and maintenance of an army depends upon the taxes
collected by the State out of which Allah has fixed for them a share. With this
amount they provide for their requirements, maintain themselves and their arms
in sound position to defend the religion and the cause of justice.
The army and the common men (common citizens who pay taxes or tributes) are
two important classes, but in a Welfare State their well-being cannot be
guaranteed without proper functioning and preservation of the other classes, the
judges and magistrates, the secretaries of the State and the officers of various
departments who collect various revenues, maintain law and order as well as
preserve peace and amity among the diverse classes of the society. They also
guard the rights and privileges of the citizens and look to the performances of
various duties by individuals and classes. And the prosperity of this whole
set-up depends upon the traders and industrialists. They act as a medium between
the consumers and the suppliers. They collect the requirements of the society.
They exert to provide goods. They open up shops, markets and trading centres.
Thus providing the consumers with their necessities, they relieve the citizens
of the need of running after their requisites of life.
Then comes the class of the poor and the disabled persons. It is absolutely
necessary that they should be looked after, helped and well-provided for. The
Merciful Allah has explained the ways and means of maintaining and providing for
each of these classes. And everyone of this class has the right upon the ruler
of the State that at least minimum necessities for its well-being and contented
living are provided.
Remember, Maalik that Almighty Allah will not absolve any ruler from his
obligations unless he sincerely tries his best to discharge his duties, invokes
Allah to help him in their performance, remains steadfast and diligent on the
path of truth and justice and bears all this whether the performance of these
duties is congenial or hateful to him.
So far as the army is concerned its chief and commander should be a person
who is most sincere and faithful to Allah, to the Holy Prophet (s) and to your
Imam who is most pious, who is famous for his forbearance, clemency and
gentleness, who is neither short-tempered nor does he get angry quickly, who
sympathetically treats sincere excuses and accepts apologies, who is kind and
compassionate with the weak, but severe against the strong and the powerful, who
has no vindictiveness which might lead to violence or any inferiority complex or
weak-mindedness which makes them helpless and dejected. To find and select such
persons you should have contacts with pious and noble families with high ideals
and exalted traditions, families well-known for their bravery and courage and
generosity and magnanimity. They are the people who may be considered as sources
of magnificence and sublimity of character and fountain-heads of piety and good
deeds.
When you have found and selected such persons then keep an eye over them and
watch them as parents watch their children so that you may find out if there
appears any change in their behaviour. Treat them kindly and sympathetically. Do
not grudge highest considerations to them (if they rightly deserve) and do not
refuse small mercies. This kind of treatment will create reciprocal tendencies
in them and they will trust you and will be faithful to you. Under the
impression that you have paid enough attention to their major necessities and
wants, do not close your eyes to their minor requirements and needs because
small favours often bear better fruits though careful attention to major
necessities is very important. Among the military officers those should receive
your highest respect and consideration who pay most attention to the needs of
the soldiers under their command who come forward to help the soldiers with
their personal means and property so that the soldiers may lead a happy and
contented life and may have full confidence of the future of their families and
children.
If the soldiers are thus satisfied and are free from anxieties and care then
they will bravely and wholeheartedly face the conflicts. Your constant attention
towards the officers and soldiers will make them love you more and more.
The thing which should most gladden the heart of a ruler is the fact that his
State is being ruled on the principles of equity and justice and that his
subjects love him. And your subjects will only love you when they have no
grievance against you. Their sincerity and loyalty will be proved if they gather
around you to support your government, when they accept your authority without
considering it an unbearable burden on their heads and when they do not secretly
wish your rule to come to an end. So let them have as many justifiable hopes in
you as they can and fulfil as many as you reasonably can. Speak well of those
who deserve your praise. Appreciate the good deeds done by them and let these
good actions be known publicly.
The correct and timely publicity of noble actions and golden deeds creates
more zeal in the minds of the brave and emboldens the cowards and the weaklings.
You must know and realize the good deeds done by every single individual so that
the credit of noble deeds done by one may not be given to another. Do not
underestimate and underpay the good work done. Similarly do not overpay a work
simply because it has been done by a very important person and do not let his
position and prestige be the cause of overvaluation of the merit of his work and
at the same time do not undervalue a great deed if it is done by a very ordinary
person or a commoner. Let equity, justice and fair play be your motto.
When you are faced with problems which you cannot solve or with a difficult
situation from which you cannot escape or when uncertain and doubtful
circumstances confuse and perplex you, then turn to Allah and the Holy Prophet
(s) because Allah has thus ordered those whom He wants to guide. The way to turn
to Allah is to act diligently according to the clear and explicit orders given
in His Holy Book and to the turn to the Holy Prophet (s) means to follow those
of his orders about which there is no doubt and ambiguity and which have been
generally accepted to be correctly recorded.
Justice
So far as dispensing of justice is concerned, you have to
be very careful in selecting officers for the same. You must select people of
excellent character and high calibre and with meritorious records. They must
possess the following qualifications: Abundance of litigations and complexity of
cases should not make them lose their temper.
When they realize that they have committed a mistake in judgement they should
not insist on it by trying to justify it. When truth is made clear to them or
when the right path opens up before them, they should not consider it below
their dignity to correct the mistake made or to undo the wrong done by them.
They should not be corrupt, covetous or greedy. They should not be satisfied
with ordinary enquiry or scrutiny of a case, but should scrupulously go through
all the pros and cons, they must examine every aspect of the problem carefully,
and whenever and wherever they find doubtful and ambiguous points, they must
stop, go through further details, clear the points, and only then proceed with
their decisions. They must attach the greatest importance to reasoning,
arguments and proofs. They should not get tired of lengthy discussions and
arguments. They must exhibit patience and perseverance in scanning the details,
in testing the points presented as true, in sifting facts from fiction and when
truth is revealed to them they must pass their judgements without fear, favour
or prejudice.
They should not develop vanity and conceit when compliments and praises are
showered upon them. They should not be mislead by flattery and cajolery. But
unfortunately they are few persons having such characteristics. After you have
selected such men to act as your judges, make it a point to go through some of
their judgements and to check their proceedings. Pay them handsomely so that
their needs are fully satisfied and they are not required to beg or borrow or
resort to corruption. Give them such a prestige and position in your State that
none of your courtiers or officers can overlord them or bring harm to them. Let
judiciary be above every kind of executive pressure or influence, above fear or
favour, intrigue or corruption. Take every particular care of this aspect
because before your appointment this State was under the sway of corrupt,
time-serving and wealth-grasping opportunists who were lewd, greedy and vicious
and who wanted nothing out of a State but a sinful consent of amassing wealth
and pleasures for themselves.
Then come the officers of your State. You must supervise their work. They
must be appointed after a careful scrutiny of their capabilities and characters.
These appointments must be made originally on probation without any kind of
favouritism being shown or influence being accepted otherwise tyranny,
corruption and misrule will reign in your State. While selecting your officers
take care to select experienced and honourable persons, members of respectable
families who had served Islam during its early days because these are usually of
noble character and good repute. They are not greedy and cannot be easily
bribed. They mostly have before them the ultimate result of their thoughts and
their deeds. Keep them also well-paid so that they may not be tempted to lower
their standard of morality and may not misappropriate the cash of the State
which they hold in their trust and if after being paid handsomely they prove
dishonest, then you will be right to punish them. Therefore keep a careful watch
over their system of work and rule.
You may also appoint trustworthy and honest men to keep a watch over the
activities of these officers. The knowledge that they are being watched secretly
will keep them away from dishonesty, misrule, malpractice and tyrannizing the
subjects. Protect your government from dishonest officers. If you find any of
them dishonest and your confidential intelligence service submits acceptable
proofs of his dishonesty, then you must punish him. This may be corporal
punishment besides dismissal from service and taking back from him all which he
has dishonestly collected. He must be humiliated and must be made to realize the
infamy of his wicked deeds. His humiliation and punishment must be given
publicly so that it may serve as a lesson and a deterrent to others.
Revenues
and Taxes
So far as collection of land revenues and taxes are concerned you must always
keep in view the welfare of the tax-payers which is of primary importance than
the taxes themselves because these taxes and the tax-payers are the original
sources on which the welfare of your State and its subjects depend.
A State really lives upon the revenues collected from the tax-payers.
Therefore, more importance should be attached to the fertility of land than to
the collection of taxes because actual taxable capacity of people rests upon the
fertility of the land. The ruler, who does not pay attention to the prosperity
of his subjects and fertility of the land but concentrates only on collection of
revenues, lays waste the land and consequently ruins the State and brings
destruction to the creatures of Allah. His rule cannot last for long.
If the tax-payers complain to you of the heavy incidence to taxation, of any
accidental calamity, of the vagaries of the monsoons, of the recession of the
means of irrigation, of floods or destruction of their crops on account of
excessive rainfall and if their complaints are true, then reduce their taxes.
This reduction should be such that it provides them opportunities to improve
their conditions and eases them of their troubles.
Decrease in State-income due to such reasons should not depress you because
the best investment for a ruler is to help his subjects at the time of their
difficulties. They are the real wealth of a country and any investment on them
even in the form of reduction of taxes, will be returned to the State in the
shape of the prosperity of its cities and improvement of the country at large.
At the same time you will be in a position to command and secure their love,
respect and praises along with the revenues. Will that not be a lasting
happiness?
Not only this, but your benign rule and humane treatment will so affect them
that they will come to your help at the time of your difficulties and you will
be able to rely on their support. Your kindness, your clemency and your justice
will be a kind of moral training to them, and the contented, happy and
prosperous life, for which they will be grateful to you, will be the best
support, strongest protection and the greatest treasury for you. Later if such circumstances arrive that you find yourself in need of their
support, their help, their confidence, their wealth and their man-power, then
they will have no grudge against you.
Remember, Maalik! If a country is prosperous and if its people are well-to-do
then it will happily and willingly bear any burden.
The poverty of the people is the actual cause of the devastation and
ruination of a country and the main cause of the poverty of the people is the
desire of its ruler and officers to amass wealth and possessions whether by fair
or foul means. They are afraid of losing their posts or positions and sway or
rule and want to make the most during the shortest time at their disposal. They
never learn any lesson from the history of nations and never pay any attention
to the commands of Allah.
You will also have to be very careful about your secretaries. You should
entrust your work only to those who are the best among them.
State
Secrets
Specially the affairs which are of confidential nature and which deal with
secrets, and the security of the State should be entrusted only to men of noble
character because men who are intoxicated with power, position and prestige
carry on propaganda and speak against the government in public, they openly
misbehave with you and consider themselves so important as to ignore you or your
orders in financial transactions essential to the State, they avoid placing
necessary papers before you or attending to important correspondence.
Particular care should be taken that when the officers make contracts on
behalf of the government or sign agreements, these contracts and agreements are
not defective or harmful to the State, if they are negotiating any treaties and
alliances they do not overlook or forsake the interests of the State or if they
find the State in a weak and embarrassing position on account of unfavourable
terms of treaties or due to intrigues, they should be able to find sensible ways
out of them. See that they know and realize their proper place and rank, because
he who does not realize his place and position will never understand those of
others.
One more thing about these officers: You must remember not to select them for
very important posts and not to trust them completely simply because you have
found them honest, diligent, trustworthy and intelligent and have formed a good
opinion about them because there are some people who, when it suits them,
pretend honesty, diligence and fidelity and can put on the garb of piety and
virtue and thus find their ways in the hearts of the rulers, though actually
they are neither honest nor diligent nor wise nor sagacious. Therefore, you must
always look to the record or reputation of the services of such men during
previous regimes; more importance should be attached to their good reputation.
This kind of selection and supervision will prove that you are faithful to Allah
and that you wish your Imam well.
Thus you must appoint one officer as the Head of each important branch of
your government. He should have knowledge and wisdom enough to cope successfully
with all the intricate problems of his department and should be diligent enough
to cope with extensive work. Remember well that if there is any defect in your officers and you are
tolerating it, then you and only you are responsible for all those evils.
Business
I want to advise you about your businessmen and industrialists. Treat them
well, and order your officers to follow the same policy. There may be local businessmen carrying on their trade in certain places or
those who send their merchandise from one place to another. There may even be
those who import and export goods. Similarly there may be industrialists and
manufacturers as well as industrial labour or men engaged in the handicrafts.
They all deserve sympathy, protection and good treatment.
They all are the sources of wealth to the country. They provide goods for the
consumers. Most of these traders carry and convey these goods from across
deserts, seas and over open lands and mountains, their consignments are brought
from distant lands, often from places which are not easy to approach and where
usually people do not care or do not dare to go. These businessmen are usually
peace-loving people, not given to mischievous disturbances and seditious
fomentation. You must look after their interest and protect them whether they
are trading in your cities or towns or whether they are travelling over the
countries carrying goods from place to place.One more thing about these traders and industrialists. While treating them
most sympathetically you must keep an eye over there activities as well.You know they are usually stingy misers, intensely
self-centred and selfish,
suffering from the obsession of grasping and accumulating wealth. They often hoard their goods to get more profit out of them by creating
scarcity and by indulging in black-marketing. Such a condition is extremely
injurious to the public on one hand and disgraceful to the ruler on the other.
You must put a stop to all such practices because the Holy Prophet (s) has
explicitly prohibited such practices. Remember that trade should go on between
the buyers and sellers according to correct measures and weights and on such
reasonable terms that neither the consumers nor the suppliers should have to
face losses. But even with all the sympathetic treatments accorded to them and
with all the facilities provided to them, if the traders and industrialists
carry on hoarding and black-marketing, then you must punish them according to
the intensity of their crime.
The
Underprivileged
Then I want to caution you about the poor. Fear Allah about their conditions
and you attitude towards them. They have no support, no resources and no
opportunities. They are poor, they are destitute and many of them are cripples
and unfit for work. Some of them come out begging and some (who maintain
self-respect) do not beg, but their conditions speak of their distress, poverty,
destitution and wants. For the sake of Allah, Maalik, protect them and their
rights. He has laid the responsibility of this upon your shoulders. You must fix
a share for them from Baytul Mal (the Government Treasury). Besides this
reservation in cash, you must also reserve a share in kind of crops etc. from
government granaries in cities where food-grains are stored as are cultivated on
State-owned land because in these storage the share of those living far away
from any particular city is equal to the share of those living nearby.
Let me remind you once again that you are made responsible for guarding the
rights of the poor people and for looking after their welfare. Take care that
the conceit of your position and vanity of wealth may not deceive you to lose
sight of such a grave and important responsibility. Yours is such an important
post that you cannot claim immunity from the responsibility of even minor errors
of commission or omission with an excuse that you were engrossed in the major
problems of the State which you have solved diligently.
Therefore, be very careful of the welfare of the poor people. Do not be
arrogant and vain against them. Remember that you have to take particular care
of those who cannot reach you, whose poverty-stricken and disease-ridden sight
may be hateful to you, and whom society treats with disgust, detestation and
contempt. You should be a source of comfort, love and respect to them. Appoint a
respectable, honest and pious person - a person who fears Allah and who can
treat them honourably, order him to find out everything about them and to submit
a report to you.Then treat these poor people in such a way that on the Day of Judgement you
can plead your case successfully before Allah because of all classes of your
subjects this class deserves more of your attention, sympathy and fair-deal.
Though everyone of these poor persons deserves your sympathy and you will
have to do justice to His cause to achieve His favour, yet you should pay more
attention to young orphans and old cripples. They neither have any support nor
can they conveniently come out begging. They cannot reach you; therefore, you
must reach them.
Remember that the fulfilment of this obligation and duty is considered as a
tiresome burden by most of the rulers but to those who desire to achieve His
Blessings and to enter into His Realm, even this work seems light and congenial.
They bear it happily, dutifully and sincerely. They find pleasures in it and
they believe in the promise made by Allah.
Grievances
Out of your hours of work, fix a time for the complainants and for those who
want to approach you with their grievances. During this time you should do no
other work but hear them and pay attention to their complaints and grievances.
For this purpose you must arrange public audience for them during this audience,
for the sake of Allah, treat them with kindness, courtesy and respect. Do not
let your army and police be in the audience hall at such times so that those who
have grievances against your regime may speak to you freely, unreservedly and
without fear.
All this is a necessary factor of your rule because I have often heard the
Holy Prophet (s) saying, "That nation or regime, where that rights of the
depressed, destitute and suppressed are not guarded and where the mighty and
powerful persons are not forced to accede these rights, cannot achieve
salvation". You must remember that in those audiences the most common men
will gather. therefore, if you find them misbehaving, becoming unmannerly or if
you feel that their talk is irrelevant, tolerate them; do not be rude and do not
insult them, so that Allah may be kind and merciful to you and may reward you
for obeying His commands explicitly. Treat them courteously, hear their
grievances patiently and if you are forced to reject their demands then reject
them in such a way that your rejection may please them as much as your grants.
Then there are certain duties which only you will have to perform and which
none of your officers can carry out. Among them are replies to the letters of
your commissioners and governors and are beyond the jurisdiction or preview of
your secretaries. If you find that your officers are not attending as much to
the complaints of the public as they should, then you should personally attend
to them. You must finish a day's work on that day only because each day will
bring its own special work for you. Reserve your best time for prayers to Allah,
though every work of the State is the work of Allah, especially, if you are
sincere and honest, and if your subjects are happy with your rule and are safe
from your oppression.
Among those duties that you are to perform diligently must be your daily
prayers. These should be offered sincerely and persistently. You must fix times
for this during days and nights. You must tax your bodily strength for this duty
though it may tire you. Your observance of prayers should be sincere and
faultless and should neither be so long as to tire out those who follow you in
these prayers nor so short as to be faulty and defective because amongst those
who follow you during the prayers, there may be some sick persons, while others
may have to attend to some important work. When the Holy Prophet (s) sent me to
Yemen I asked him how to lead the prayers. He advised me, "Offer prayers
like a weak and old person and be kind to the faithful" (so that weak and
old persons may follow your prayers easily and happily).
You must take care not to cut yourself off from the public. Do not place a
curtain of false prestige between you and those over whom you rule. Such
pretensions and show of pomp and pride are in reality manifestations of
inferiority complex and vanity. The result of such an attitude is that you
remain ignorant of the conditions of your subjects and of the actual cases of
the events occurring in the State.
You will fail to realize comparative importance of events taking place and
may attach great significance to minor events and may slip over important facts,
similarly you may attach importance to mediocre or insignificant people and may
ignore real men of consequence; and what is more, you may lose the power of
distinction between good and bad and may take one for the other or hopelessly
mix up the two. After all a ruler is as much a human being as any other man and
he may remain ignorant of facts of which his officers want to keep him in the
dark (and on which the public may throw light). Thus truth may get mixed up with
falsehood and may not be distinguished because there are no birthmarks on the
forehead of truth that it may be easily differentiated from falsehood, one has
to search for facts and sift realities from fictions, only then can one reach
the truth. Think for yourself, there are only two categories of rulers and you
may belong to one of them.
You may either be a pious, sincere and diligent ruler, doing the right thing
at the right moment and following the principles of justice and equity and you
may be protecting rights of others and doing your best to fulfil your
obligations, in that case why hide from the public, why draw a curtain around
yourself! Or you may be a miser refusing to be generous to anyone, in that case
people will gradually come to know of this trait of your character and will
gradually give up asking for favours from you but do not overlook the fact that
most of their demands will have nothing to do with your private purse, they will
be about the rights of people, obligations of the State, complaints against the
State, oppressions, and solicitations of justice, then why try to avoid hearing
these requests!
You should never overlook the fact that around the rulers there usually are
certain privileged persons (relatives and friends). They may often try to take
advantage of their status and may resort to selfishness, intrigues, fraud,
corruption and oppression. If you find such people around you then do away with
them (however closely connected they may be with you), immediately bring an end
to the scandal and clear your surroundings of all such moral and spiritual
filth.
Corruption
You must never give lands in permanent lease with all proprietary and
ownership rights to your friends and relatives. You must never allow them to
take possession of the source of water-supply or lands which have special
utility for the communes. If they get possession of such holdings they will
oppress others to derive undue benefits and thus gather all the fruits for
themselves leaving for you a bad reputation in this world and punishment in the
next.
Be fair in dispensing justice. Punish those who deserve punishment even
though he may be your near relation or a close friend and even if such an action
may give you pangs of sorrow and grief. Bear such a sorrow patiently and hope
for Divine reward. I assure you this will bear good fruits.
If on account of your strict measures people get suspicious of your behaving
like a tyrant and oppressor, then come out openly before them and explain to
them the reasons of your actions and let them see the facts for themselves and
realize the truth. This will give training to your mind, will be an act of
kindness to the subjects and the confidence thus reposed in them will make them
support justice and truth while you will achieve the end you have in view of
obtaining their support in the cause of truth.
Peace
Treaties
If your enemy invites you to a Peace Treaty that will be agreeable to Allah,
then never refuse to accept such an offer because peace will bring rest and
comfort to your armies, will relieve you of anxieties and worries, and will
bring prosperity and affluence to your people. But even after such treaties be
very careful of the enemies and do not place too much confidence in their
promises because they often resort to Peace Treaty to deceive and delude you and
take advantage of your negligence, carelessness and trust. At the same time be
very careful, never break your promise with your enemy, never forsake the
protection or support that you have offered to him, never go back upon your
words, and never violate the terms of the treaty. You must even risk your life
to fulfil the promises given and the terms settled because of all the
obligations laid by Almighty Allah upon man (in respect to other men) there is
none so important as to keep one's promises when made.
Though people may differ in their religions and ideologies and may have
divergent views upon various problems of State, yet they all agree that promises
when made must be fulfilled. Even the heathens take care to keep the promises
made among themselves because they have seen and realised the evil effects of
breaking promises. Therefore, take very particular care of promises made, never
go back upon the words given, never go into the offensive without previously
challenging and giving an ultimatum. Deception and fraud even against your enemy
is a deception against Allah and none but a wretched sinner would dare do that.
Allah has given promises and treaties the high rank of being messengers of
peace and prosperity and through His Kindness and Mercy has made them a common
desire (of keeping promises) in the minds of all men and a common requirement
for all human beings. He has made them such a shelter and asylum that everybody
desires to be under their protection.
Therefore, there should be no mental reservation, no fraud, no deception and
no underlying meanings in between the lines when you make a promise or conclude
a treaty. Do not use such words and phrases in your promises and treaties as
have possibilities of being translated in more than one way or as may have
various interpretations and many explanations, let there be no ambiguity in
them, and let them be clear, precise and to the point. And when once a treaty
has been finally concluded, do not try to take advantage of any ambiguous word
or phrase in it. If you find yourself in a critical situation on account of the
treaty made in the cause of Allah, then try to face the situation and bear the
consequences bravely and do not try to back out of the terms that account,
because to face such perplexing situations as may gain His Rewards and Blessings
is better than to break your promises on that account and earn that about which
you feel nervous and for which you will have to answer Allah and which may bring
down His Wrath upon you in this world and damnation in the next.
Beware of the sin of shedding blood without religious justification and
sanction because there is nothing quicker to bring down the Wrath of Allah, to
take away His Blessings, to make you more deserving of His Wrath and to reduce
the span of your life than to shed innocent blood. On the Day of Judgement Allah
will first attend to sins of bloodshed carried out by man against man.
Therefore, never try to strengthen your power, position and prestige by shedding
innocent blood. Such murders instead of making your position strong will not
only considerably weaken it but may also transfer your power totally, taking it
away from you and entrusting it to somebody else.
If you have intentionally murdered a man then no excuse shall be acceptable
to Allah or to me because punishment of such a crime is necessary.
And if you kill a man by mistake without any intention or motive of killing
or while delivering legal penalties, your whip, sword or hand unintentionally
and inadvertently deals a fatal blow because even a forcefully delivered slap or
box on the ear may cause death, then do not, on account of your prestige and
position, refuse paying the compensation to the heirs.
Beware and do not develop the trait of self-admiration and self-appreciation.
Do not get conceited of the good points that you find in your good character or
good deeds that you have done. Do not let flattery and cajolery make you vain
and egoist. Remember that of all the cunning ruses of the devil to undo good
deeds of the pious people and to affect their piety, flattery and false praises
are the ones on which it relies the most.
Do not boast of the favours and kindnesses that you have done to your
subjects and do not try to make them realise this, do not think too much of the
good that you have done to them, and do not go back upon the promises made, all
these three habits are very ugly features of one's character. The practice of
boasting over the favours done undoes the good done, the habit of exaggerating
and thinking very highly of our good actions will make us lose the guidance of
Allah, and the habit of breaking one's promises is disliked both by Allah and by
man.
The Merciful Allah says, "It is most hateful in the sight of Allah, to
say something and not to practice it." [ Qur'an, 61:3 ].
Do not be hasty and do not precipitate your decisions and actions, when the
time comes for an action to be done, or a decision to be taken, then do not be
lazy and do not waste time and do not show weakness. When you do not find a true
way to do the thing on hand, then do not persist on the wrong way and when find
a correct solution, then do not be lethargic in adopting it.
In short do everything at a proper time and in a proper way and keep
everything in its proper place.
Do not reserve for yourself anything which is a common property of all and in
which others have equal rights. Do not close your eyes from glaring malpractice
of the officers, miscarriage of justice and misuse of rights because you will be
held responsible for the wrong thus done to others. In the near future your
wrong practices and misadministration will be exposed and you will be held
responsible and punished for the wrong done to the helpless and oppressed
people. Take care and keep control over you temper, your anger and your desire
to be arrogant and vain. Take care of your hands when you are out to deliver
punishment and of the sharpness of your tongue when you are saying harsh things.
The best way to achieve this is not to be hasty in making remarks and to delay
in delivering punishment so that you may keep your temper under control and are
not overexcited. And you cannot achieve this unless you constantly remember that you have to
return to Allah and unless His fear overcomes every other sentiment.
You must always try to remember the good and useful things done in the past,
activities of a just and benign regime, good deeds done by it, good laws
promulgated, instructions of the Holy Prophet (s), commands of Allah given in
His Holy Book and things that you have seen me doing or have heard me saying.
Follow the good actions and advice found therein. Similarly, follow carefully
the pieces of advice contained in these orders. Through them I have tried to
teach you all that can be taught about a good regime. I have done my duty
towards you so that you may not go astray and your mind may not crave for base
desires. If it does then you will have no excuse before Allah.
I beseech Allah that by His Limitless Mercy and by His Supreme Might He may
grant our prayers, that He may lead both of us to the Divine Guidance of
achieving His Pleasure, of successfully pleading our cases before Him,
justifying our deeds before man, of gaining good repute, of leaving good results
of our benign and just rule with ever expanding prosperity and ever increasing
welfare of the State and of meeting our ends as martyrs and pious persons, as
our return is towards Him only.
May the peace of Allah be upon the Holy Prophet
('s) and His chosen descendants ('a).
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