Preface

This book is the result of several years’ study of the Pseudo-Māwardian text known as Naṣīḥat al-mulūk, ‘Counsel for Kings’. When I began my research for this project, I intended to produce an annotated translation of Pseudo-Māwardī's book, a tenth-century Arabic mirror for princes. Work on the translation necessarily involved close attention to the text's Sitz im Leben, and the project developed into a broader study of the text's relationship to the milieu in which it was composed. On account of its early date, its distinctive intellectual-cultural setting and its presentation of a multifaceted mentality, Naṣīḥat al-mulūk is a mirror of very considerable interest. This book, in which large sections of translation still appear (especially in the second volume), constitutes an attempt to evoke this mentality and to situate Naṣīḥat al-mulūk in its historical and literary contexts.

I am deeply grateful to Nicola Ramsey, Commissioning Editor, and to Edinburgh University Press for accepting the book for publication. I owe a particularly deep debt of gratitude to Julia Bray, Laudian Professor of Arabic at Oxford University, and Wen-chin Ouyang, Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies, co-editors of the Edinburgh University Press series Studies in Classical Arabic Literature. I am profoundly grateful to them for their willingness to accept a two-volume work into the series, their meticulous reading of the manuscript, their exceptional generosity with their time and knowledge, and their numerous and invaluable suggestions for improvement. Their critical advice has saved me from many errors; I am responsible, of course, for all remaining mistakes and infelicities.

I have incurred many debts in the course of my years of study of Pseudo-Māwardī's Naṣīḥat al-mulūk. My first and primary debt is to Patricia Crone, who with unerring discernment recognised the interest and importance of the text, and was kind enough to bring it to my attention. It is a pleasure and a privilege to thank the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton for the opportunity to spend a term there as Willis F. Doney Member in 2012.