ShahWaliAllahtheMughalsandtheByzantines20141 PDF

An Early Modern South Asian Thinker on the Rise and Decline
of Empires: Shh Wal Allh of Delhi, the Mughals, and the Byzantines
Vasileios Syros
Journal of World History, Volume 23, Number 4, December 2012, pp.

793-840 (Article)
Published by University of Hawai'i Press

DOI: 10.1353/jwh.2012.0138
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An Early Modern South Asian Thinker
on the Rise and Decline of Empires:
Shāh Walı̄ Allāh of Delhi, the Mughals,
and the Byzantines *
vasileios syros
Finnish Center of Political Thought
and Conceptual Change/
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Ihuman
n the eighteenth century, Western intellectual history witnessed
the production of a rich body of writing on the origins and decay of
civilization and the emergence and fall of empires, exemplified
by such monumental works as Baron de Montesquieu’s (1689–1755)
Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur déca-
dence (Reflections on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and
Their Decline, 1734), Giambattista Vico’s (1668–1744) Scienza Nuova
(New Science, 1745), and Edward Gibbon’s (1737–1794) History of
the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–1788). The quest to
identify the forces that shape social evolution and the factors involved
in the formation and decline of the state is not a phenomenon unique
to the Western intellectual scene, however. In the eighteenth-century
Mughal context, Shāh Walī Allāh Dihlawī (1703–1762), an emi-
nent Sufi and theologian, propounded a theory of civilization and the
* Thanks are due to Muzaffar Alam, Razi Aquil, Christos Baloglou, Jonathan Har-
ris, Anthony Kaldellis, Dimitris Krallis, and Niketas Siniossoglou for reading drafts of the
paper and offering valuable feedback. I would also like to acknowledge the financial support
provided by the Centre of Excellence in Political Thought and Conceptual Change of the
Academy of Finland (2008–2011) and the Marty Martin Center for the Advanced Study of
Religion at the University of Chicago (2010/2011).
Journal of World History, Vol. 23, No. 4

© 2013 by University of Hawai‘i Press
793
794 journal of world history, december 2012
o rigins and downfall of social organization that has much in common

with Montesquieu’s, Vico’s, and Gibbon’s models and lends itself, as I
will show, to a cross-cultural study of ideas on imperial formation and
decay.1
Shāh Walī Allāh’s father, Shah ‘Abd ar-Rahīm (1646–1719),
was one of the founders and teachers of the Madrasah-i-Raḥīmīyah
in Delhi.2 Shāh Walī Allāh received his early education in the tafsīr,
hadīth, Qu’ranic sciences, and logic from his father. He subsequently
taught at his father’s school and then left for Arabia in 1730 to pursue
higher education. When he returned to Delhi in 1732, he worked to
spread knowledge about Islam, attracted a number of illustrious disci-
ples, and produced a number of writings in Persian and Arabic. While
the bulk of his oeuvre is devoted to theological questions, in certain
sections of his principal philosophical works, notably the Ḥujjat Allāh
al-Bālighah (The Conclusive Argument from God) 3 and his Al-Budūr
1
For an intriguing comparison of Shāh Walī Allāh’s and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s
(1712–1778) ideas, see Jacques Berque, L’islam au temps du monde (Paris: Sindbad, 1984),
chap. “Un contemporain islamo-indien de Jean-Jacques Rousseau,” pp. 113–146. Early
modern European perceptions of the Mughal Empire are surveyed in Frederick G. Whelan,
Enlightenment Political Thought and Non-Western Societies: Sultans and Savages (New York:
Routledge, 2009), esp. chap. “Burke, India, and Orientalism,” pp. 103–129.
2
On Shāh Walī Allāh’s life and works, see Mawlavi M. Hidayat Husain, “The Persian
Autobiography of Shāh Walīullah bin ‘Abd al-Raḥīm al-Dihlavī: Its English Translation
and a List of His Works,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 8 (1912): 161–175; as well
as Jens Bakker, Šāh Walīy Allāh ad-Dihlawīy (1703–1762) und sein Aufenthalt in Mekka und
Medina: Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung des islamischen Reformdenkens im frühen 18. Jahrhundert
(Berlin: EB-Verleg, 2010); Ghulam H. Jalbani, Life of Shah Waliyullah (Lahore: Sh. Muham-
mad Ashraf, 1978); Fazle Mahmud, “An Exhaustive Study of the Life of Shah Wali Allah
Dehlavi,” Oriental College Magazine 33 (1956): 1–45; as well as the following articles in
M. Ikram Chaghatai, ed., Shah Waliullah (1703–1762): His Religious and Political Thought
(Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 2005; henceforth SWRPT): Marcia K. Hermansen,
“Shāh Walī Allāh” (pp. 11–14); A. S. Bazmee Ansari, “Shah Wali Allah al-Dihlawi” (pp.
15–18); Bashir A. Dar, “Wali Allah: His Life and Times” (pp. 19–50; first published in Iqbal
Review 6, no. 3 [1965]: 1–36); Abdul H. Siddiqi, “Shah Wali Allah Dihlawi” (pp. 51–77;
first published in Mian M. Sharif, ed., A History of Muslim Philosophy: With Short Accounts of
Other Disciplines and the Modern Renaissance in Muslim Lands [Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz,
1966], 2:1557–1579); and Alessandro Bausani, “Note su Shāh Walīullāh di Delhi (1703–
1762),” Annali dell’ Istituto Orientale di Napoli, n.s., 10 (1960): 93–147. Also broadly on the
intellectual climate in Shāh Walī Allāh’s time, consult Saiyid A. A. Rizvi, Shāh Walī-Allāh
and His Times: A Study of Eighteenth Century Islām, Politics and Society in India (Canberra:
Ma’rifat Publishing House, 1980), esp. pp. 111–202; and, in general, Peter J. Marshall, ed.,
The Eighteenth Century in Indian History: Evolution or Revolution? (New Delhi: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2003); Seema Alavi, ed., The Eighteenth Century in India (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2002).
3
Shāh Walī Allāh ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥīm, Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bālighah, 2 vols. (Cairo: Dār
al-Turāth, 1978); English trans.: The Conclusive Argument from God: Shāh Walī Allāh of
Delhi’s Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bāligha, trans. Marcia K. Hermansen (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996; repr.,
Syros: The Rise and Decline of Empires 795
al-Bāzighah (The Full Moon Rising on the Horizon),4 he formulates an

intriguing theory about the genesis of human civilization and the decay
of social organization.
A substantial body of literature on Shāh Walī Allāh’s political doc-
trines exists. But his theory of empire has been much misunderstood
or neglected, due to a persistent tendency of previous scholarship to
extrapolate and reconstruct Shāh Walī Allāh’s ideas on the “decline”
of the Mughal Empire by focusing on his vitriolic polemic against the
proliferation of Hindu practices as expressed in his letters and portray
Shāh Walī Allāh as an ardent apologist of jihād in the South Asian
context.5
One of the main purposes of this paper is to show that Shāh Walī
Allāh’s position is much more complex than has been hitherto assumed.
I propose to challenge the standard reading of Shāh Walī Allāh’s pri-
vate writings as mere jeremiads against Hindu influences or part of a
program designed to invigorate or revivify Islamic rule in a state ener-
vated by constant conflicts. In particular, I call attention to certain
aspects of his political theory as set forth in his philosophical treatises,
and I argue that he pursues an agenda that is not confined to the politi-
Islamabad: International Islamic University, Islamic Research Institute, 2003). I have relied
on the English translations of some of the Arabic, Persian, and Byzantine sources mentioned
throughout this paper with some amendments not indicated due to space limitations. On
the Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bālighah, see the following chapters in SWRPT: Marcia K. Hermansen,
“Shah Wali Allah’s Hujjat Allah al-Baligha” (pp. 529–552); Hermansen, “Shāh Walī Allāh
of Delhi’s Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bāligha: Tension between the Universal and the Particular in an
Eighteenth-Century Islamic Theory of Religious Revelation” (pp. 597–614; first published
in Studia Islamica 63 [1986]: 143–157); Sabih A. Kamali, “The Concept of Human Nature
in Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bālighah and Its Relation to Shāh Walīy Allāh’s Doctrine of Fiqh” (pp.
553–596; first published in Islamic Culture 36, no. 3 [1962]: 207–224; 36, no. 4 [1962]:
256–274); as well as Fazle Mahmud, “Shah Wali Allah’s Hujjatullahil balighah,” Journal of
the Arabic and Persian Society of the Panjab University 5, no. 4/6:1 (1960/61): 1–28.
4
Shah Waliyullah, Al-Budur al-Bāzighah, trans. Ghulam N. Jalbani, 2nd ed. (New
Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 2005); Full Moon Appearing on the Horizon: English Translation of Shah
Wali Allah (Al-Budur al-Bazighah), trans. Johannes M. S. Baljon (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad
Ashraf, 1990). On the Al-Budūr al-Bāzighah as a source of Shah Walī Allāh’s political ideas,
see Saeeda Khatoon, “Shāh Walī Allāh’s Philosophy of Society—an Outline,” Hamdard
Islamicus 7, no. 4 (1984): 57–67, repr. in SWRPT, pp. 421–431; Ghulam N. Jalbani, Teach-
ings of Shāh Walīyullāh of Delhi (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1967; repr., New Delhi:
Nusrat Ali Nasri Lor Kitab Bhavan, 1988), pp. 126–147; Muhammad ‘A. Baqi, “Theories
of State and Problems of Sociology as Expounded by an Indian Muslim Divine of the Eigh-
teenth Century,” Islamic Review 38 (1950): 9–14. A comparative study of the Ḥujjat Allāh
al-Bālighah and Al-Budūr al-Bāzighah remains a desideratum.
5
Ayesha Jalal, Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 2008), pp. 40–57. Consider also Muhammad T. Mallick, “Rationale of Jihād
as Expounded by Shāh Walī Allāh of Delhi,” Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society 34
(1986): 14–25.
cal and social realities that prevailed in late Mughal India. Although
I do not mean to dissociate Shāh Walī Allāh’s private writings from
his philosophical works and will occasionally include references to
his letters, my goal is to uncover the broader political program that
he articulates, one that extends beyond Mughal political realities. As
such, my analysis contrasts sharply with the traditional image of Shāh
Walī Allāh as the representative of a rabid trend of anti-Hinduism and
the harbinger of revivalist movements in South Asia.6 I show that his
rationalistic approach to the dynamics of social life and mechanics of
power reflects a nuanced understanding of the process of state 7 forma-
tion that heretofore has not found its due place in modern narratives
of imperial state building and decline.8
6
See, for example, Mahmood A. Ghazi, Islamic Renaissance in South Asia 1707–1867:
The Role of Shāh Walī Allāh and His Successors (Islamabad: Islamic Research Institute/Inter-
national Islamic University, 2002); Ahmad Dallal, “The Origins and Objectives of Islamic
Revivalist Thought, 1750–1850,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 113 (1993): 341–
359; Muhammad al-Faruque, “Some Aspects of Muslim Revivalist Movements in India
During the 18th Century: The Activities of Shāh Walī-Allāh of Delhi,” Islamic Culture 63
(1989): 19–41; Shafi A. Khan, “Nationalist ‘Ulama’s Interpretation of Shāh Walī Allah’s
Thought and Movement,” Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society 37 (1989): 209–248;
Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Muslim Revivalist Movements in Northern India in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries (Agra: Agra University Press, 1965; repr., New Delhi: M. Manoharlal,
1993).
7
Shāh Walī Allāh uses the Arabic term madīnah, which literally means “city” and is
roughly equivalent to the Greek polis, in the sense of a political entity that encompasses a
number of cities and is characterized by an administrative and governmental organization
similar to that of the modern state. Accordingly, Shāh Walī Allāh envisions the caliphate as
incorporating a multiplicity of existing states and political units. On the meaning of madīna
and its derivatives in medieval Arab political writing, see Soheil M. Afnan, A Philosophical
Lexicon in Persian and Arabic (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1969; repr., Tehran: Nashr-i
Nuqrih, 1362 [1983]), s.v. madīna (278–279); Dimitri Gutas, “The Meaning of madīnah in
al-Fārābī’s ‘Political’ Philosophy,” in The Greek Strand in Islamic Political Thought, ed. Emma
Gannagé et al. (= Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph; 57; Beirut: Dār el-Machreq, 2004),
pp. 259–279. For a useful orientation to the various definitions of the concept of “empire,”
consult Kathleen D. Morrison, “Sources, Approaches, Definitions,” in Empires: Perspectives
from Archaeology and History, ed. Susan E. Alcock et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001), pp. 1–9, esp. 1–3.
8
Given the enormous amount of scholarship on imperial ascendancy and decline, I
confine myself to mentioning some of the most important studies I consulted in the process
of writing this paper: Niall Ferguson, “Complexity and Collapse: Empires on the Edge of
Chaos,” Foreign Affairs 89, no. 2 (2010): 18–32; Peter Turchin, Historical Dynamics: Why
States Rise and Fall (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003); Alexander J. Motyl,
Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2001); Motyl, “Thinking about Empire,” in After Empire: Multiethnic Societies and
Nation-Building: The Soviet Union and the Russian, Ottoman, and Habsburg Empires, ed. Karen
Barkey and Mark von Hagen (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997), pp. 19–29; Charles
Tilly, “How Empires End,” in Barkey and von Hagen, After Empire, pp. 1–11; Emil Brix et
al., eds., The Decline of Empires (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik; Munich: Olden-
In the first section of my article, I discuss how Shāh Walī Allāh’s

theory of the state relates to a broader scheme about the emergence and
evolution of civilization. In particular, I focus on his ideas on the origin
of communal life, the constituents of efficient rulership, the duties and
attributes of a rightful ruler, the modes of conduct necessary to preserve
social order, and the conditions for strong and lasting imperial rule. I
will also identify potential sources and explore how Shāh Walī Allāh’s
theory relates to previous Islamic accounts of social origination—par-
ticularly the akhlāq tradition as represented by Ṭūsī and Dawwānī—as
well as Indo-Islamic political literature, notably Baranī’s, Abū’l-Faẓl’s,
and Najm-i Sānī’s works.9 In the second part of the article I engage in a
detailed analysis of Shāh Walī Allāh’s views on the decline of the state
and empire/caliphate and investigate how they relate to the political
and social realities that prevailed in late Mughal India.
In the concluding section, I suggest ways in which the findings of
bourg Verlag, 2001); Richard Lorenz, ed., Das Verdämmern der Macht: Vom Untergang grosser
Reiche (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer TB Verlag, 2000); Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the
Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Ran-
dom House, 1987); Joseph A. Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1988); Michael W. Doyle, Empires (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 1986); Carlo M. Cipolla, ed., The Economic Decline of Empires (London: Methuen,
1970); Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, ed., The Decline of Empires (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-
Hall, 1967); Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, The Political Systems of Empires (London: Free Press of
Glencoe, 1963; repr., New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1993); and Geir Lundestad,
ed., The Fall of Great Powers: Peace, Stability, and Legitimacy (Oslo: Scandinavian Univer-
sity Press, 1994). For stimulating reflections on the history of empires and its relevance to
current debates on the role of the United States as a global power, see Craig Calhoun et
al., eds., Lessons of Empire: Imperial Histories and American Power (New York: New Press,
2006). The phenomenon of state failure is discussed in Robert I. Rotberg, ed., When States
Fail: Causes and Consequences (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004). On the
theme of decline, consult, e.g., Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail:
The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty (New York: Crown Publishers, 2012); Rein-
hart Koselleck and Paul Widmer, eds., Niedergang: Studien zu einem geschichtlichen Thema
(Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1980); Peter Burke, “Tradition and Experience: The Idea of Decline
from Bruni to Gibbon,” in Edward Gibbon and the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
ed. Glenn W. Bowersock et al. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977), pp.
87–102; Randolph Starn, “Meaning-Levels in the Theme of Historical Decline,” History
and Theory 14 (1975): 1–31.
9
On the sources of Shāh Walī Allāh’s political ideas, see the remarks by Muzaffar
Alam, The Languages of Political Islam: India 1200–1800 (London: Hurst, 2004), pp. 50,
171–173; as well as Muhammad al-Ghazali, The Socio-Political Thought of Shāh Walī Allāh
(Islamabad: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Islamic Research Institute,
2001; repr., New Delhi: Adam Publishers and Distributors, 2004), pp. 33–43; and Saiyid A.
A. Rizvi, “The Political Thoughts of Shāh Walī Allāh,” Abr-Nahrain 16 (1975/76): 91–107,
91–92, repr. in SWRPT, pp. 277–308. A general treatment of Shāh Walī Allāh’s political
theory can be found in Mahmood A. Ghazi, “State and Politics in the Philosophy of Shah
Waliy Allah,” Islamic Studies 23 (1984): 353–371, repr. in SWRPT, pp. 225–241.
this article might be of more than historical relevance for the study of
Shāh Walī Allāh’s political thought. I specifically examine how Shāh
Walī Allāh uses the examples of the Sassanians and Byzantine empires
as heuristic devices to illustrate the process of decay of Mughal power.
I also point to parallels between Shāh Walī Allāh’s ideas on the eco-
nomic dimensions of imperial decay and the ways in which Byzantine
statesmen and literati theorized remedies for the weaknesses of Byzan-
tine society in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
I. The Rise of the State

The Origins of Social Life
The pivot point of Shāh Walī Allāh’s social theory is the concept of
irtifāq. The term bears connotations that cannot be adequately ren-
dered by any single English term, but it generally refers to various stages
in the process of social genesis.10 In the first irtifāq, people engage in
tillage, create languages, learn how to cook food, and a man chooses
one woman as his partner. The second irtifāq witnesses the emergence
and evolution of sciences acquired through experience, elegance, deli-
cate living, and comprehensive view (al-ra’y al-kullī).
Shāh Walī Allāh names five types of wisdom: (1) the wisdom of
living (al-ḥikmah al-ma‘ashiyah), which deals with human conduct and
practical knowledge about eating, drinking, dressing, and so forth;
(2) the wisdom of domestic life (al-ḥikmah al-manziliyah), which con-
cerns the organization of the household; (3) the wisdom of earning a
livelihood (al-ḥikmah al-iktisabiyah), which refers to functional special-
ization and the various crafts and professions which people practice
according to their skills; (4) the wisdom of mutual dealings (al-ḥikmah
al-ta‘amuliyah), which pertains to commercial operations (mu‘āmalāt);
and (5) the wisdom of cooperation (al-ḥikmah al-ta‘awuniyah), which
deals with partnership and commercial enterprises.11 But social evils
10
For a similar interpretation, see Johannes M. S. Baljon, “Social and Economic Ideas
of Shah Wali Allah,” in Readings in Islamic Economic Thought, ed. Abul Hasan M. Sadeq and
Aidit Ghazali (Dhaka: Islamic Foundation Bangladesh, 2006), pp. 356–368, 358. The term
irtifāq (literal meaning: support) derives from the Arabic root r.f.q., which signifies kindness
or gentleness. For further discussion, see Hermansen, The Conclusive Argument from God,
pp. xviii–xix.
11
Waliyullah, Al-Budūr al-Bāzighah, pp. 48–49; Baljon, Full Moon Appearing on the
Horizon, pp. 56–58. See further Abdul A. Islahi, “Shah Wali Allah’s Concept of Al-Irtifaqat
(Stages of Socio-Economic Development),” Journal of Objective Studies 1–2 (1990): 46–63,
51 (repr. in Fazlur R. Faridi, ed., Aspects of Islamic Economics and the Economy of Indian
such as avarice and envy soon creep in, giving rise to social tensions
and disputes, and some men seek to overpower others or are naturally
inclined to plunder and kill. Hence, the members of the community
feel compelled to appoint a ruler, who possesses abundant resources and
is able to attract wise men from other countries, to correct and punish
evildoers and collect taxes. In the fourth irtifāq a caliph is appointed to
merge together and rule over preexisting states and kingdoms.12
All men need food, drink, and shelter. In Shāh Walī Allāh’s view,
every species has a law implanted into the breasts of its individuals, and
all creatures strive to meet their needs. But man has three capacities
that are not found in other animals. First, he possesses a comprehensive
view: while animals are directed to an objective perceived through the
senses or to an imagined objective driven by their physical needs such
as hunger, thirst, and lust, man is uniquely endowed with the ability to
perceive and strive after a rational benefit that has no motivation in his
physical nature. This prompts human beings to establish a social order,
perfect their character, and seek mutual affection. Second, while ani-
mals desire things such as food to fulfill their needs and protect them-
selves against the cold, man has been equipped with aesthetic sensibil-
ity (zarāfah). He thus tries to move beyond the level of bare necessity
and aspires to aesthetic and emotional delight and elegance, a beautiful
partner, delicious food, good clothing, and a comfortable house. Third,
man is characterized by takāmul, that is, an inner drive toward self-
perfection. Men of intelligence discover and develop the appropriate
supports of civilization, look for water resources or dig wells and store
water, learn which seeds are edible and figure out how to cook or store
them; those who are unable to discover those supports on their own
perceive their utility and follow what the “wise” propose to them.13
Shāh Walī Allāh comes very close to Montesquieu when he
acknowledges that differences in temperaments and social mores exist
Muslims [New Delhi: Institute of Objective Studies, 1993], pp. 73–93); as well as Sabih A.
Kamali, “Shah Waliy Allah’s Doctrine of Irtifaqat,” Iqbal 11, no. 3 (1963): 1–17, repr. in
SWRPT, pp. 401–420.
12
Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bālighah, 1:39; Hermansen, The Conclusive Argument from God, pp.
117–118.
13
115–116; Waliyullah, Al-Budūr al-Bāzighah, pp. 22–23; Baljon, Full Moon Appearing on the
Horizon, p. 32. See also the discussion in Johannes M. S. Baljon, “The Ethics of Shâh Walî
Allâh Dihlawî (1703–62),” in Akten des VII. Kongresses für Arabistik und Islamwissenschaft,
ed. Albert Dietrich (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1976), pp. 66–73, 67–69, repr.
in SWRPT, pp. 397–405.
among various peoples and explains that the three capabilities unique
to men are not found in equal measure in all nations. On one level,
he explains, are primitive societies such as the Bedouins, who live on
mountain peaks and in regions far from sound climates. On another,
higher level are settled populations and the urban centers of healthful
regions that are inhabited by people endowed by nature with superior
virtues and produce wise men.14
The Emergence and Evolution of Human Civilization

Science takes root during the second irtifāq, as men explore ways to go
beyond the mere satisfaction of needs. It specifically examines and tests
developments of the first irtifāq and lays down criteria for the selec-
tion of attitudes that bring benefit. People with the best temperaments
are predisposed toward superior virtues, and they communicate these
virtues and morals to one another through social interaction. The
refinement of morals concerns the proper manner of drinking, walk-
ing, sitting, and clothing, and every nation develops a style and set of
manners and habits according to its own temperament and habits.15
Language serves as a means of expressing and designating acts,
attitudes, and bodily movements associated with a particular sound
through onomatopoeia and causal connection. Sounds are imitated
and then used to derive forms that correspond to various meanings.
Arts and crafts follow, such as agriculture, digging wells, cooking, mak-
ing pots, domesticating and taming animals, creating shelter from heat
and cold in caves and huts, and producing clothing from animal skins
or trees.16 A male is guided to select a mate and not share her with
anyone else in order to alleviate his lust, perpetuate his lineage, and
receive assistance in domestic needs and in raising and educating chil-
dren. He is also guided to create tools for cultivating, planting, digging
wells, and domesticating animals, and soon the exchange of goods and
cooperation take place. The wisest and strongest men subjugate others
and become leaders, and people need to devise methods for settling
quarrels and disputes, restraining malefactors, and repelling external
enemies. The members of every nation contribute differently to the
14
Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bālighah, 1:39; Hermansen, The Conclusive Argument from God, p. 117.
15
16
Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bālighah, 1:39–40; Hermansen, The Conclusive Argument from God,
p. 119; Waliyullah, Al-Budūr al-Bāzighah, pp. 53–54; Baljon, Full Moon Appearing on the
Horizon, pp. 61–63.
evolution of civilization: one might love beauty and luxury; another

might excel in such qualities as courage, magnanimity, eloquence, or
intelligence; and others might aspire to fame or higher ranks.17
The second phase of social development signals the emergence of
the art of economic transactions, that is, the science that concerns
the exchange of products, cooperation, and the means of earning. As
people become more refined and seek pleasures and luxury, the crafts
and professions expand and become more diverse. Every man pursues
a single occupation that suits his natural disposition and skills.18 For
example, a courageous person enters the military and an intelligent
man with a good memory goes into accounting. Sometimes coinci-
dence plays a role, as when a son or neighbor of a smith finds the art
of smithing easier or when a person who lives by the sea practices the
art of fishing. However, some people lead parasitic lives or engage in
activities harmful to society, such as robbery, gambling, and begging.19
Men exchange property for property or property for usufruct, that is,
hire and lease. Goodwill and mutual affection among the members of
society are essential conditions for domestic stability and prosperity.
They develop practices for contracts and conventions and establish
guidelines for share-cropping, partnerships, and hire and lease. They
also lay down rules for borrowing and entrusting money and redress-
ing financial fraud; subsequently, witnessing, the composition of legal
documents, and mortgages take place and a monetary system comes
into being.20
The second irtifāq gives rise to division of labor and aesthetics
as well. People agree among themselves that each one will pursue a
distinct occupation and will attain expertise in the use of its tools.
When many people simultaneously desire the same object, it becomes
necessary to develop conventions for commissioning and paying for
goods, and gold and silver are used as means of exchange because of
their small size, portability, homogeneity, and suitability to adorn the
human body and be used as currency. Following the emergence of the
main occupations—that is, agriculture, herding, and distribution of
products, and crafts, such as carpentry, iron smithing, and weaving—
17
119–120.
18
Compare Plato, Politeia, 372A–374E.
19
p. 127.
20
p. 128.
trade evolved into distinct professions, as did the administration of the

affairs of the city.21
Shāh Walī Allāh’s discussion of the third irtifāq—that is, the sci-
ence that investigates ways to preserve and strengthen the bonds
among the inhabitants of the city—is his longest. Pursuant to his
notion that human society arises from the aggregation of persons who
live in proximity to one another and engage in mutual collaboration
although they dwell in separate houses, Shāh Walī Allāh conceives of
the state as a single individual composed of distinct parts that share a
common attitude and work together toward a common purpose. But as
the equivalent of a living organism, human society also suffers from dis-
orders, disturbances, and illnesses. Shāh Walī Allāh sees strife and con-
flict as endemic to social life: because human society comprises a large
number of individuals, agreement on how to maintain the just practice
is elusive. Moreover, it is difficult for one man to rebuke others unless
he is distinguished by rank; anything else risks infighting and killing.
Thus, the majority of influential people agree to obey a person who has
his own circle of supporters and enough force to contain disorder and
punish those who are greedy, violent, or prone to anger and killing.22
The Ideal Ruler

Shāh Walī Allāh elaborates on the practicalities of government, the
qualities required in the paradigmatic ruler, and the relations between
the sovereign and his subjects, staff, and subordinate officials. A ruler
who lacks courage, valor, and fortitude in combat and prowess to con-
front those who attempt to subvert his rule will incur the contempt of
his subjects. At the same time, if he is not forbearing and lenient, he
will crush them through his strength, and if he lacks wisdom, he will
be unable to discover the best ways to administer the affairs of the city.
The ruler should be in full possession of his mental faculties, of mature
age, free, and male, and have the senses of sight, hearing, and speech
intact. People must agree on his nobility and that of his ancestors; he
should display praiseworthy skills and must convince the people that
he will not spare any effort to uphold order in his realm.23
Shāh Walī Allāh devotes particular attention to the skill sets nec-
essary for a ruler to gain the confidence of his people. The exemplary
21
22
23
ruler is expected to epitomize superior leadership virtues such as cour-

age, wisdom, generosity, forgiveness for malefactors and evildoers, and
should be driven by the desire to promote the public welfare. He should
also have a keen insight into human nature, exhibit sagacity and the
ability to discern the secrets in men’s hearts, and refrain from procras-
tinating, especially if he detects animosity toward himself or attempts
to undermine his position and erode his power. To illustrate how the
sovereign ought to deal with his subjects, Shāh Walī Allāh employs the
metaphor of the hunter who studies a gazelle in the forest and deliber-
ates on the best strategy, remaining in his position and lying in wait
until he sees that his quarry is not paying attention, at which moment
he quietly crawls toward it or tries to lure it with music and throw it
a fine decoy. Similarly, the ruler ought to cultivate bonds of love with
the people and display the attitude that people like in clothing, speech,
and manners. He should approach them humbly, offer them advice,
and show affection in a way that is not frivolous. But until he feels that
they are convinced of his superiority and preeminence and commands
their loyalty and respect, he must constantly remind them that no one
is equal to him. Then he should strive to keep them in this condition
and grant them favors.24
Shāh Walī Allāh also discusses how the sovereign should deal with
animosity and threats to his rule. He should compel obedience and
punish the unruly. He should also raise the rank or increase the salary
of those who excel in war or in the collection of taxes or management
and shun and reprimand those who display treachery, opposition, or
disobedience by reducing their salaries and demoting them. Although
the ruler is entitled to lead a more comfortable or luxurious life than
the people, he should not assign them too difficult tasks, such as culti-
vating wasteland or guarding a remote district. He should not hesitate
to punish malefactors, but only after there is sound evidence adduced
by officials and for the sake of the common good.25
A substantial part of Shāh Walī Allāh’s treatment of the principles
of effective leadership is devoted to the criteria for the selection of the
various officials: the ruler needs people to assist him in fulfilling his
tasks and administering financial resources to sustain the military and
24
pp. 132–133; Waliyullah, Al-Budūr al-Bāzighah, pp. 79–81; Baljon, Full Moon Appearing on
the Horizon, pp. 86–88.
25
remunerate his aides.26 Able and loyal administrators protect the ruler
from evil just as the hands carry weapons and protect the entire body.
They also proffer advice to the ruler just like the mind and the senses
provide information to the human organism. The ruler’s ministers must
be trustworthy, carry out orders, and bear goodwill both in private and
in public. The ruler must be quick to dismiss any official who strays
from these principles.27
Shāh Walī Allāh enumerates five principal aides and court func-
tionaries: (1) the judge (qāḍī); (2) the commander of the armed forces
(‘amīr) in charge of selecting and training soldiers, deploying spies, and
gathering intelligence about the plans of potential enemies; (3) the
governor of the city (sā‘īs), who is in charge of appointing a leader
for each group; (4) the revenue collector (‘āmil); and (5) the minister
(wakīl), whose function is to administer the income and expenditure
and minister to the ruler’s daily needs.28 In the al-Budūr al-Bāzighah,
Shāh Walī Allāh provides an expanded list that includes another two
offices: (1) the head of religious affairs (shaikh-ul Islām) in charge of
propagating religion and providing spiritual guidance, and (2) the sage
(ḥakīm) who possesses expertise on medicine, poetry, astrology, history,
mathematics, and letter writing.29
The ruler should have the ability to distinguish between those who
pretend to love him out of fear or greed and those who genuinely sup-
port his rule. He should also be able to discern each person’s merits,
monitor the conduct and activities of the state officials, and keep
abreast of new developments. He must select a number of assistants
proportionate to the needs and the size of the state and must deter-
mine their salaries. Shāh Walī Allāh recommends that the ruler adopt
a just system of collecting land taxes without burdening the people;
taxes should be levied on those who possess large property and wealth
derived from husbandry, agriculture, and commercial pursuits.30
In his exposition of the modes conducive to stable and lasting rule,
26
Horizon, pp. 85–86.
27
28
pp. 135–136; Waliyullah, Al-Budūr al-Bāzighah, pp. 94–96; Baljon, Full Moon Appearing on
29
Horizon, p. 100.
30
134–135.
Shāh Walī Allāh devotes special attention to the ruler’s relationship

with the military, using the analogy of a skilled and experienced rid-
ing master who knows all of his horse’s gaits and bad habits, and the
best way to train it: the trainer closely observes the horse and, when
it displeases him or disobeys his orders, he tames its impetuousness
in a way consistent with the horse’s nature. He does not aim to per-
plex the horse’s mind, for the horse cannot understand the trainer’s
motives; instead, he seeks to engrave the image of what he teaches
in the mind and heart of the horse. Once he has made sure that the
horse will perform the right acts and refrain from reprehensible ones,
the trainer continues his training until he is sure that the desired
mode of behavior is habitual for the horse, so that even without his
whips the horse will desist from actions that do not conform to the
desired goal. Likewise, the ruler as the trainer of the military must
know the best methods for taking action and for using the things that
will serve as a warning to them.31
The Caliphate
The fourth irtifāq signals the apex of political organization. In each
city a ruler is appointed, courageous persons gather around him,
and wealth is collected in the form of taxes. The differences in the
temperaments and abilities of the kings elicit friction: certain rulers
attempt to conquer another’s territory or fight one another for unim-
portant reasons, such as desire for wealth or land or due to envy, greed,
resentment, and malice. Thus, the kings were compelled to appoint a
caliph or to obey a single ruler who has the authority of the caliph-
ate (khilāfah). The true caliph holds undisputed sway over his realm
and possesses so much military might and equipment that it is almost
impossible for another person to challenge him. Just as the head of the
state soothes or remedies social tensions, the fourth irtifāq is the sci-
ence that examines the policies of the cities and their rulers and the
means whereby collaboration among people of various regions can be
fostered. And just as political authority within the first political com-
munities originates in a primordial compact the caliph is appointed
upon the consent of the rulers of existing states. The caliph must be
on guard against all factors that can jeopardize his authority: emergen-
cies, natural calamities, disarray and factious commotion, the expen-
diture of large amounts of money, and wicked individuals who plunder
31
the property of the people, incarcerate their sons, and dishonor their
wives.32
One of Shāh Walī Allāh’s novelties is that he offers one of the most
analytically refined accounts of the origin, nature, and function of the
caliphate. Shāh Walī Allāh goes beyond previous Islamic writers such
as al-Fārābī, who envisage the caliphate as the pinnacle of a constant
process of associational evolution starting from the creation of sim-
ple types of political organization.33 As al-Fārābī puts it, the increase
of human needs leads to more complex forms of social organization
and culminates in the creation of a universal state encompassing all
existing nations. In order to secure the means for his subsistence, man
by nature needs various things that he cannot acquire by himself, so
he relies on mutual aid and is compelled to live in association with
others. The increase of men results in the formation of communities,
some of which are perfect, some of which are imperfect. The imperfect
types include the union of people in a village, a quarter, a street, or in
a house. The perfect types can be classified into small, medium, and
great: the small one is the union of the inhabitants of the city in the
territory of any nation, the middle one results from the formation of
one nation in a certain region, and the great one signals the union of
all the communities of the inhabited world.34 Just as people living in a
city strive for those things that allow them to attain ultimate perfection
through mutual collaboration, the excellent nation is one in which
all of its cities aspire to felicity. Accordingly, the excellent universal
state can come into being when all the nations that compose it work
together to reach felicity.35
32
Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bālighah, 1:45; Hermansen, The Conclusive Argument from God, p.
137. See also Waliyullah, Al-Budūr al-Bāzighah, pp. 97–98; Baljon, Full Moon Appearing on
33
On the reception of al-Fārābī’s political ideas in the Indo-Islamic world as medi-
ated by Ṭūsī’s Nasirean Ethics, see Saiyid A. A. Rizvi, Religious and Intellectual History of
the Muslims in Akbar’s Reign, with Special Reference to Abuʾl Fazl (1556–1605) (New Delhi:
M. Manoharlal Publishers, 1975), pp. 355–357.
34
Al-Farabi on the Perfect State: Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī’s Mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila.
A revised text with introduction, translation, and commentary by Richard Walzer (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1985; repr., Chicago: KAZI Publications, 1998), Arabic text p. 228,
English trans. p. 229. Consider also Al-Farabi, The Political Writings: Selected Aphorisms and
Other Texts, trans. Charles E. Butterworth (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001),
pp. 23–26, 46. For further discussion, see Patricia Crone, God’s Rule: Government and Islam
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), pp. 177, 260–261, 343; Shlomo Pines, “The
Societies Providing for the Bare Necessities of Life According to Ibn Khaldūn and to the
Philosophers,” Studia Islamica 34 (1971): 125–138, repr., in Pines, The Collected Works of
Shlomo Pines, vol. 3, Studies in the History of Arabic Philosophy, ed. Sarah Stroumsa (Jerusa-
lem: Magnes Press, 1996), pp. 217–230.
35
Al-Farabi on the Perfect State, p. 230/231, as well as pp. 424, 432–433, 497.
Shāh Walī Allāh provides a more detailed distinction among three

types of caliphate: 36 caliphate in a special sense (khilāfat-i khāṣṣa);
caliphate in the general sense (khilāfat-i ‘āmma); and tyrannical caliph-
ate (khilāfat-i jābira).37 When humankind was in a state of sin and anar-
chy, God sent the Prophet Muḥammad for its guidance, and the func-
tion of the first four special caliphs was to complete the mission of
the Prophet. The general caliphate is a human-made institution that
emanates from human agreement and the opinion or judgment (rā’y)
of a particular group of men. The caliph in the general sense, then, is
an ordinary human being and as such he is susceptible to human weak-
nesses; therefore his rule can easily slide into tyranny. As I will discuss
later, Shāh Walī Allāh refers to the Sassanian and Byzantine empires
as exempla of the caliphate in the general sense. The tyrannical caliph-
ate comes into being when the caliph breaks his obligation to enforce
religious precepts and fails to wage jihād and apply the sharī‘a or, when
he applies Islamic law, does so erroneously.
The caliph ought to determine the purpose of war, suppress inter-
state conflict, restrain malefactors, repel enemies, and crush those
who ignite seditious activities by intimidating them, assassinating or
arresting their leaders, or seizing their property. But at the same time,
Shāh Walī Allāh cautions against the caliph’s setting goals beyond
his capacity and resources or seeking to acquire wealth by murdering
his supporters. The caliph should try to gain support from resourceful
people and the notables. In war, he should inspire awe in his enemies
and attempt to erode their power. In case he suspects that his former
enemies engage in intrigues, he should levy heavy land and poll taxes,
36
The following account is based on Abdur R. Bhat, Political Thought of Shah Waliul-
lâh (An Analytical Study) (New Delhi: Delhi, Rightway Publication, 2002), chap. “Shah
Waliullah’s Political Theory in Islamic Context,” pp. 65–73; Aziz Ahmad, “An Eighteenth-
Century Theory of the Caliphate,” Studia Islamica 28 (1968): 135–144. Consider also
Johannes M. S. Baljon, Religion and Thought of Shāh Walī Allāh Dihlawī, 1703–1762 (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1986), pp. 121–125, 195–196.
37
A precedent of this distinction can be found in the Fatāwā-i-Jahāndārī (Precepts on
[World] Rulership) of Ziyā’ al-Dīn Baranī (1284–1356), a confidant of the sultan of Delhi
Muḥammad bin Tughluq (ca. 1300–1351, r. 1325–1351) and major historian of fourteenth-
century India: Baranī distinguishes two forms of justice, one that aims at general equal-
ity (‘adl-i musāwāt-i talabī-yi ‘ām) and one concerned with special equality (adl-i musāwāt-i
talabī-yi khāss). The former is the ideal form of justice, can be realized only in the Islamic
setting, and was exemplified by Caliph ‘Umar (ca. 586–644, r. 634–644). The latter was
applied by the Persian king Anūshirwān (Chosroes I, r. 531–579) and presupposes the exis-
tence of a ruler acting as an arbitrator and settling disputes. For further references and com-
ment, see Alam, The Languages of Political Islam, pp. 38–39.
destroy their strongholds, and take all possible measures to neutralize

their power.38
Medieval and Early Modern Islamic Sources

on the Emergence of Social Life
It will be instructive here to briefly explore Islamic accounts of the
origins of social life and identify possible sources of Shāh Walī Allāh’s
thought. One such source might be Nasīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī’s (1201–1274)
Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī (The Nasirean Ethics), an ethical-political treatise that
had an enduring influence on Syriac, Persian, and Indo-Islamic politi-
cal writing. Affinities to Shāh Walī Allāh’s ideas may also be found in
the writings of Dawwānī, especially in his Jalalian Ethics, as well as in
Abū’l-Faẓl’s Institutes of Akbar and Najm-i Sānī’s Admonition of Jahāngīr.
Ṭūsī operates on the Aristotelian idea that humans are political by
nature 39 but also stresses that they need crafts to meet their needs. He
reckons that divine wisdom has ordained disparity in the aspirations
and opinions of the members of society and that each person is inclined
to a different occupation. The diversity of the aptitudes and interests of
the members of human society generates internal disorder and division.
Since mutual aid depends on a diversity of crafts, which results from
the diversity of ends, the perpetuation of social life is contingent on the
existence of a set of rules and a ruler in charge of enforcing justice and
suppressing internecine strife.40
In keeping with his idea that man is by nature formed to live in a
society, Ṭūsī holds that man by nature needs a “civilized life.” But the
motives and ends of human actions differ. So, if men are left to their
own natures, no cooperation can result, because the powerful will seek
to exploit and oppress the others and the greedy will covet the property
of the others. As soon as strife sets in, men engage in mutual destruc-
tion and injury. Ṭūsī infers from this that government is a certain type
of management that is required to render what is deserved to each
38
pp. 138–139.
39
Aristotle, Politics 1253a1–3. On the following, see also Vasileios Syros, “Shadows in
Heaven and Clouds on Earth: The Emergence of Social Life and Political Authority in the
Early Modern Islamic Empires,” Viator 43, no. 2 (2012): 377–406.
40
Naṣīr al-Ṭūsī, Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī (Lahore: Punjab University, 1952), p. 242; The Nasirean
Ethics by Naṣīr ad-Dīn Ṭūsī, trans. from the Persian George M. Wickens (London: Allen and
Unwin, 1964), p. 189. See also Guang-Zhen Sun, “Nasir ad-Din Tusi on Social Coopera-
tion and the Division of Labor: Fragment from The Nasirean Ethics,” Journal of Institutional
Economics 5 (2008): 403–413.
individual, to restrain each individual from encroaching upon the

rights or disturbing the function of the others, and to ensure that each
member of the society carries through the specific duty at which he is
adept by nature.41
Ṭūsī’s narrative of social genesis was reproduced in Muḥammad
Dawwānī’s (1426/7–1512/3) Akhlāq-i Jalālī (The Jalalian Ethics), a
revised and expanded version of the Nasirean Ethics that enjoyed wide
dissemination in the Mughal world.42 Like Ṭūsī, Dawwānī holds that
humankind’s sustenance depends on food, clothing, shelter, arms, and
the ability and methods to acquire the tools essential to the crafts, such
as carpentry and blacksmithing. Men need to live together in such a
way that each individual pursues a distinct task and engages in coop-
eration with others so as to obtain all things necessary to sustain life.43
Dawwānī restates Ṭūsī’s doctrine that man is by nature inclined to
civilization, which is derived from the term “city” (madīnah).44 At the
same time, however, he warns of the danger of social havoc and disrup-
tion, should a central authority within human society cease to exist.
Dawwānī’s justification of political authority rests on the idea of dispar-
ity in the dispositions and claims of the members of human society. Men
cannot be left to their own natures, because each one of them would
pursue his own interest and would cause injuries to the other. Hence,
some provision must be made for rendering all individuals content with
their rightful portion and restraining them from causing mutual harm.
This provision is a government, and to this end there must be rules, an
executive, and a currency.45 The ruler is a person endowed with divine
41
Al-Ṭūsī, Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī, p. 243; The Nasirean Ethics, pp. 190–191.
42
[Jalāl al-Dīn Dawwānī], Practical Philosophy of the Muhammadan People, trans. W. F.
Thompson (London: W. H. Allen, 1839; repr., Karachi: Karimsons, 1977); The English Trans
lation of the Akhlak-i-Jalali: A Code of Morality in Persian composed by Jalal-ud-Din Moham-
mad Alias Allama Dawwani, trans. S. H. Deen (Lahore: Sh. Mubarak Ali, 1939). Scholarly
discussions of Dawwānī’s political ideas include Erwin I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought in
Medieval Islam: An Introductory Outline (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958),
chap. “Al-Dawwāni: Application and Integration,” pp. 210–223; Mohammed-Taqi Dan-
ishpazhouh, “An Annotated Bibliography on Government and Statecraft,” trans. Andrew
Newman, in Authority and Political Culture in Shi‘ism, ed. Said Amir Arjomand (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1988), pp. 213–239, esp. 221–222; Muhammad A. Haq,
“A Critical Study of Jalāl al-Dīn al-Dawwāni’s Contribution to Social Philosophy” (PhD
diss., Aligarh Muslim University, n.d.).
43
Practical Philosophy of the Muhammadan People, pp. 318–320, 245–250; Deen, The
English Translation of the Akhlak-i-Jalali, pp. 161–162, 126–128.
44
Practical Philosophy of the Muhammadan People, p. 321; Deen, The English Translation
of the Akhlak-i-Jalali, p. 163.
45
of the Akhlak-i-Jalali, p. 163.
support in order to satisfy the interests of the various segments of the

body politic and uphold domestic stability and order.46
Ṭūsī’s and Dawwānī’s views on social genesis had a distinguished
Nachleben in the Indo-Islamic context and penetrated Mughal politi-
cal discourse through the circulation of copies of the Jalalian Ethics by
former students of Dawwānī in the Deccan and Gujarat.47 Similar ideas
occur in the Ā’īn-i Akbarī (The Institutes of Akbar), written by Abū’l-
Faẓl ‘Allāmī (1551–1602), the famous vizier of the Mughal emperor
Akbar (1542–1605; r. 1556–1605). By Abū’l-Faẓl’s time the influence
of the old Aristotelian doctrine about human sociability seems to have
withered away: in his exposition of the genesis of social life, Abū’l-Faẓl
builds on the akhlāq tradition 48 but dispenses with the standard formula
that man is by nature a gregarious creature destined to live in asso-
ciation with others. He highlights instead the diversity characterizing
human nature and sets forth the vision of the state as consisting of het-
erogeneous parts. These considerations form the basis for Abū’l-Faẓl’s
vindication of kingship as the guarantee of social stability: pād stands
for stability and shāh indicates that the ruler is the source of stability.
The absence of authority gives rise to strife and selfish ambitions, caus-
ing humankind to lapse into a state of anarchy and lust. By the light of
imperial justice, Abū’l-Faẓl argues, some men follow with cheerfulness
the path of obedience, whereas others abstain from violence through
fear of punishment.49
Shāh Walī Allāh’s more immediate precursor was Muḥammad
Bāqir Najm-i Sānī (d. 1637), who served as governor in various parts
of the Mughal Empire under Jahāngīr (1569–1627, r. 1605–1627) and
Shah Jahān (1592–1666, r. 1628–1658). According to Najm-i Sānī’s
Mau‘iẓah-i Jahāngīrī (Admonition of Jahāngīr or Advice on [the Art]
of Rulership, 1612/13), the defining characteristics of royal rule are
46
Practical Philosophy of the Muhammadan People, pp. 324–325; Deen, The English Trans-
lation of the Akhlak-i-Jalali, pp. 164–165.
47
Alam, The Languages of Political Islam, p. 50; Alam, “State Building under the
Mughals: Religion, Culture and Politics,” in L’Héritage timouride: Iran-Asie centrale-Inde
XVe–XVIIIe siècles, pp. 105–128, 111–117; Rizvi, Religious and Intellectual History of the Mus-
lims in Akbar’s Reign, pp. 355–356, 366–369.
48
In the administrative manual (dastūr al-‘amal) issued by Akbar in 1594, the Nasirean
Ethics was included in the standard readings for Mughal officials—see Mukātabāt-i-‘Allāmī
(Inshā’i Abu’l Faẓl) Daftar I: Letters of the Emperor Akbar in English Translation, ed. Mansura
Haidar (New Delhi: M. Manoharlal Publishers, 1998), p. 79.
49
Abū’l-Faẓl ‘Allāmī, Āīn-i Akbarī, trans. Henry Blochmann, 2nd ed. (Calcutta: Asi-
atic Society of Bengal, 1927), p. 2.
exalted rank and high station. Unless the ruler regulates the affairs of
the people and acts as the refuge of the vulnerable members of human
society, clandestine rebels and insurgents, who are driven by tyrannical
feelings and engage in contumacious and aberrant conduct, will seek to
disturb the nobility and the common people.50
A salient theme in Shāh Walī Allāh’s theory of the state is the
variety of ways whereby domestic balance can be maintained and har-
monious interaction among various social groups can be ensured. Shāh
Walī Allāh evokes the “circle of justice” formula in medieval Islamic
political literature. And these ideas are rooted even further back in
history, in the works of ancient political thinkers, such as Plato, and
Iranian ideals of rulership.
According to Shāh Walī Allāh, the various parts of the state are
interrelated; the preservation of balance and harmony is like salt sea-
soning food.51 The third irtifāq necessitates the appointment of a ruler
in charge of maintaining social balance and domestic tranquillity; with
the multiplication of cities and states, in the fourth irtifāq a caliph is
appointed to erase interstate conflicts.52 Shāh Walī Allāh is particularly
emphatic about the caliph’s function in maintaining balance among
opposing and conflicting elements and purging the body politic of
excesses. The ideal caliph ought to be on his guard against revolution-
ary activities and subversive tendencies, must create an extensive net-
work of spies and informers, and must effectively employ perspicacity
about human character. As soon as he sees a faction forming among his
men, he should swiftly form another group and ensure that it will not
connive with the rebels. It is vital that this new group obey the caliph’s
commands, show goodwill toward him, and pray for him, acclaiming
his glory in large assemblies and on coins bearing his name.53
The ruler’s duty to uphold the delicate equilibrium among the vari-
ous segments of the body politic is compared in medieval Islamic writ-
ing to the physician’s function in maintaining the equilibrium (i‘tidāl)
50
Muḥammad Bāqir Najm-i Sānī, Advice on the Art of Governance: An Indo-Islamic Mir-
ror for Princes (Mau’iẓah-i Jahāngīrī), ed. and trans. Sajida S. Alvi (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1989), Persian text p. 147/English trans. p. 45.
51
129–130. See also Waliyullah, Al-Budūr al-Bāzighah, pp. 85–86; Baljon, Full Moon Appearing
on the Horizon, pp. 91–93.
52
Horizon, p. 58.
53
in the human body.54 Moderation is important both as a means for

moral perfection but also in the context of the ruler’s role as the healer
of the social organism who, like a skilled physician, diagnoses diseases
and applies remedies.55 As Shāh Walī Allāh phrases it, the city is not
merely the presence of walls, markets, and high buildings but consti-
tutes a bond among the various orders of human society. In the progress
of civilization, different groups engage in mutual dealings and become
woven together like a single body. Shāh Walī Allāh deduces from this
the need for a physician (i.e., ruler) to preserve the healthy condition
of the city and to treat maladies. By the same token, on a transnational
level, the caliph is the physician of states that suffer from corruption
and factional discord.56
Shāh Walī Allāh here stands in a philosophical tradition that can
be traced back to the “circle of justice” concept in medieval Islamic
political writing. The “circle of justice” or “circle of power” maxim 57
has its roots in two popular dicta imputed to Aristotle and Ardashīr,
king of Persia (r. 224–241 c.e.) and founder of the Sassanid dynasty.58
In the saying ascribed to Aristotle, the world is parallel to a large gar-
54
For further discussion on the use of medical metaphors in early modern Islamic
political writing, see Vasileios Syros, “Galenic Medicine and Domestic Stability in Early
Modern Florence and Islamic Empires,” Journal of Early Modern History 17, no. 1 (2013,
forthcoming).
55
Alam, The Languages of Political Islam, pp. 47, 57–58, 61, 140; A. J. Halepota, Philoso-
phy of Shah Waliullah (Lahore: Sind Sagar Academy, [197-?]), p. 166.
56
Horizon, p. 58. See also Alam, The Languages of Political Islam, p. 173.
57
Antony Black, The West and Islam: Religion and Political Thought in World History
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 58, 104–105; Black, The History of Islamic
Political Thought: From the Prophet to the Present (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press;
New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 53–54, 111.
58
My discussion of the “circle of justice” is based on the following studies by Linda T.
Darling: “Islamic Empires, the Ottoman Empire and the Circle of Justice,” in Constitutional
Politics in the Middle East: With Special Reference to Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, ed.
Saïd Amir Arjomand (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2008), pp. 11–32; “Political Change and
Political Discourse in the Early Modern Mediterranean World,” Journal of Interdisciplinary
History 38 (2008): 505–531; “Medieval Egyptian Society and the Concept of the Circle of
Justice,” Mamlūk Studies Review 10 (2006): 1–17; “‘Do Justice, Do Justice, For That Is Para-
dise’: Middle Eastern Advice for Indian Muslim Rulers,” Comparative Studies of South Asia,
Africa and the Middle East 22 (2002): 3–19; as well as Jennifer A. London, “The ‘Circle of
Justice,’” History of Political Thought 32 (2011): 425–447; Maria E. Subtelny, Le monde est un
jardin: Aspects de l’histoire culturelle de l’Iran médiéval (Paris: Association pour l’avancement
des études iraniennes, 2002), chap. “Le cercle de justice: l’éthique dans le gouvernement,”
pp. 53–76; Joseph Sadan, “A ‘Closed-Circuit’ Saying on Practical Justice,” Jerusalem Studies
in Arabic and Islam 10 (1987): 325–341; Ann K. S. Lambton, “Justice in the Medieval Per-
sian Theory of Kingship,” Studia Islamica 17 (1962): 91–119, repr. in Lambton, Theory and
Practice in Medieval Persian Government (London: Variorum, 1980), no. 4.
den which is administered by the state; the state signifies authority

founded on the law; the law is a way of ruling applied by the king,
who acts like a shepherd; the king is supported by the army, the suste-
nance of which depends on tax revenues; tax revenues are sustenance
procured by the subjects; the subjects are slaves procured by justice,
which is the element that guarantees the proper function of the world.
Ardashīr is reported to have said that government is contingent on the
existence of men, men in their turn need money, money comes from
cultivation of the land, and cultivation can take place only if there is
justice and salutary rule.59 The “circle of justice” concept assumes that
the ideal social organization can be achieved by ensuring that each part
of society confines itself to its allocated duties and does not encroach
upon the functions of the others. Integral to the “circle of justice” is
the notion that the state encompasses diverse functional groupings
with competing interests. The satisfaction of these varied desires and
interests is seen as a prerequisite to social stability, and often the vari-
ous social groups are perceived as analogous to the four elements and
humors of the natural body.
The “circle of justice” had a pervasive influence on the akhlāq and
Indo-Islamic political writing. Ṭūsī, in the Nasirean Ethics, takes his
cue from the old Irano-Islamic division of social groups and sets forth
a scheme of social organization based on four main parts: (1) men of
the pen, such as the masters of the sciences, jurists, judges, secretar-
ies, accountants, geometers, astronomers, physicians, and poets, who
correspond to water; (2) men of the sword, that is, soldiers, who are
the counterpart of fire; (3) men of transactions, merchants, masters of
crafts and professions, and tax collectors, who are like air; and (4) farm-
ers, who correspond to earth. Ṭūsī describes the ruler’s principal func-
tion as upholding the balance among these groups, just as a balanced
temperament depends on the equilibrium of the four elements. Ṭūsī
also points out that just as the domination of one element over the
others is likely to upset the equilibrium of the human body, in similar
fashion the predominance of one segment over the rest would upset the
equilibrium of the body politic.60
In his Jalalian Ethics, Dawwānī follows Ṭūsī and proposes a four-
59
Ihsān ‘Abbās, ed., ‘Ahd Ardashīr (Beirut: Dār al-Ṣādir, 1967), p. 98; Mario Grignaschi,
“Quelques spécimens de la littérature sassanide conservés dans les bibliothèques d’Istanbul,”
Journal Asiatique 254 (1966): 1–142, 46–90. For another set of maxims on rulership that
bears the title Ā‘īn-i Ardashīr and has been ascribed to Ardashīr, see Grignaschi, “Quelques
spécimens de la littérature sassanide,” pp. 91–133.
60
Naṣīr al-Ṭūsī, Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī, p. 303; The Nasirean Ethics, p. 230.
fold division of the populace into: (1) men of knowledge—theologians,

jurists, secretaries, fiscal officials, geometry experts, astronomers, phy-
sicians, and poets, whose task is to perform religious duties; (2) war-
riors; (3) merchants, artisans, and craftsmen, who procure the needs of
life; and (4) farmers, who produce food.61 Like Ṭūsī, Dawwānī points
to the detrimental effects of the domination of one of these groups
over the others. As long as every class retains its proper place, carries
out the specific tasks assigned to it, and receives the merits and rank
due to it, the temperament of the social organism remains in a state
of equilibrium. But as soon as one passes beyond its proper measure,
domestic balance is disturbed, leading eventually to the disintegration
of the state.62 Just as the equipoise of bodily temperament depends on
the proper mixture of the four elements, the equipoise of a well-formed
body politic is contingent on the balance among the four classes.63 And
just as a physician must be acquainted with the causes of disease and
their proper treatment and must seek to preserve the equilibrium of the
human temperament, one of the first duties of the king as the world’s
physician is to know the reasons and remedies for the political and
social maladies and emergencies or misfortunes that might befall his
domain.64
The impact of the “circle of justice” is discernible in the politi-
cal literature of the Delhi Sultanate period too. Baranī proposes in
his Fatāwa-i Jahāndārī (Precepts on [World] Rulership) a social divi-
sion among farmers, traders, soldiers, and government officials. Baranī
advocates the strict regimentation of the populace and warns of the
potential hazards deriving from mobility among the various social
groupings. A prime condition for the stability of the state for Baranī
is that each person confines himself to his assigned profession. Baranī,
like Shāh Walī Allāh, emphasizes the economic factors that account
for the devolution of the state. He specifically advocates low prices so
that each occupational group can devote itself to its prescribed tasks.
He also maintains that high prices can create social chaos because they
61
lation of Akhlak-i-Jalali, pp. 201–203. See also Black, The History of Islamic Political Thought,
p. 185.
62
lation of Akhlak-i-Jalali, pp. 199–200.
63
of Akhlak-i-Jalali, p. 201.
64
Practical Philosophy of the Muhammadan People, pp. 325–326, 383–384; Deen, The
English Translation of Akhlak-i-Jalali, pp. 165, 199.
compel people to abandon their own profession and station, leading

soldiers to turn to agriculture, farmers to take up trade activities, traders
to aspire to high offices, shopkeepers to try to become officers, men of
noble birth to become merchants, and merchants to seek government
and army posts.65
In like manner, Abū’l-Faẓl reckons division of labor to be the hall-
mark of a well-ordered society and defines the principal duty of the
ruler as entrusting the citizens with specific functions and monitoring
the operation of the segments of the body politic. The ruler should put
each of these in its proper place. Drawing on the “circle of justice,”
Abū’l-Faẓl outlines a scheme of four occupational classes that corre-
spond to the four elements: (1) warriors, who represent the element of
fire and combat rebellions and strife; (2) artisans and merchants, who
may be compared to air; (3) the learned—philosophers, physicians,
scholars of arithmetic, geometricians, and astronomers—who resemble
water; and (4) farmers and laborers, who are the equivalent of earth.66
II. The Decline of States and Empires

The Disorders of the State
Shāh Walī Allāh does not confine himself to mapping out the vari-
ous developmental stages of civilization; he also offers an extensive
account of emergencies:
a. A number of wicked individuals who possess power form a group and
pursue their interests; they subvert just practice either out of desire to
usurp the wealth of others or to harm others out of hostility, malice, or
the desire to dominate.
65
Mohammad Habib and Afsar U. S. Khan, The Political Theory of the Delhi Sultanate
(Including a Translation of Ziauddin Barani’s Fatāwā-i Jahāndārī, Circa, 1358–9 a.d.) (Alla-
habad: Kitab Mahal, [1961]), pp. 38, 97. On Baranī’s ideas on social organization, see also
Iqtidar A. Khan, “Medieval Indian Notions of Secular Statecraft in Retrospect,” Social Sci-
entist 14 (1986): 3–15, 6–7. Baranī’s views on price control are discussed in Najaf Haider,
“Justice and Political Authority in Medieval Indian Islam,” in Justice: Political, Social, Juridi-
cal, ed. Rajeev Bhargava et al. (New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2006), pp. 75–93; Irfan
Habib, “Ziya Barani’s Vision of the State,” Medieval History Journal 2 (1999): 19–36; and
Habib, “The Price Regulations of ‘Alā’ uddīn Khaljī—A Defence of Ziā’ Baranī,’ Indian
Economic and Social History Review 21 (1984): 393–414.
66
Abū’l-Faẓl ‘Allāmī, Āīn-i Akbarī, p. 2. On Abū’l-Faẓl’s use of medical analogies, see
also the discussion in Peter Hardy, “Abul Fazl’s Portrait of the Perfect Padshah: A Political
Philosophy for Mughal India—or a Personal Puff for a Pal,” in Islam in India: Studies and
Commentaries, vol. 2, Religion and Religious Education, ed. Christian W. Troll (New Delhi:
Vikas Pub. House, 1985), pp. 114–137, 133–135.
b. An offender injures another person or abuses his family by molesting

his wife, daughters, or sisters or tries to tamper with his property by
violence or secret theft; or one person impugns the honor of another
person by slandering or offending him.
c. Persons engage in activities that disrupt social order, such as using
black magic or poisons, spreading evil habits, fomenting dissent and
discontent, or encouraging people to challenge the ruler, servants to
plot against their masters, and wives against their husbands.
d. The propagation of noxious habits, such as homosexuality and bestial-
ity, and modes of conduct that can give rise to disputes and friction,
such as a number of men desiring the same woman or addiction to
wine. This results in disregard for the necessary supports of civilization.
e. Persons engage in transactions harmful to the city, such as gambling,
lending at interest, bribery, cheating in the sale of commodities, high
prices, and hoarding commodities.
f. People get embroiled in controversies and vacillate between different
positions as long as the situation has not been clarified.
g. The community reverts into nomadic life or a condition similar to the
first irtifāq, when people migrate to other cities or engage in activities
harmful to the city, as is the case when most people turn to trade or
make their living through warfare and agriculture declines.
h. The stampede of wild animals and the spread of vermin.67
In addition to proposing special measures for each of the emergen-

cies mentioned above, Shāh Walī Allāh recommends a series of general
measures intended to enhance the defense of the state. For example, he
counsels the construction of walls, forts, and bridges; the appointment
of border garrisons; and the creation of markets. He also recommends
securing water supplies, discovering water springs, building wells, and
facilitating the transportation of merchandise through the construc-
tion of docks at the shores of rivers. Shāh Walī Allāh’s program for
dealing with extraordinary circumstances is not confined to prescrip-
tions of practical nature but extends to the moral aspects of domestic
unity and the modes of interaction between the ruler and his subjects.
The sovereign should cultivate bonds of friendship among the people
and interact in a friendly manner with merchants and foreigners; this
67
129–130; Waliyullah, Al-Budūr al-Bāzighah, pp. 85–86; Baljon, Full Moon Appearing on
the Horizon, pp. 91–93. For earlier Indo-Islamic ideas on emergencies, see Vasileios Syros,
“Indian Emergencies: Baranī’s Fatāwā-i Jahāndārī, the Diseases of the Body Politic, and
Machiavelli’s accidenti,” Philosophy East and West 62, no. 4 (2012): 545–573.
will prompt them to visit his realm more often. He should also make
sure that farmers do not leave the land uncultivated and should offer
incentives for artisans to improve their work. Finally, the ruler should
encourage the people to acquire skills such as calligraphy, arithmetic,
history, medicine, and methods of advancing knowledge. Protective
measures include being able to distinguish immoral from moral habits,
identify which citizens are in need of support, and employ the best
craftsmen.68
Imperial Decline
Shāh Walī Allāh’s theory about the caliphate in the general sense
revolves around the two major factors which, in his view, account for
imperial decline in his own day: (1) the depletion of the public trea-
sury, and (2) parasitism, or the fact that many people seek to secure
income by serving as soldiers or by becoming ‘ulamā’ (religious schol-
ars), ascetics, and poets and by receiving gifts from the rulers. The lat-
ter causes heavy taxation on farmers and traders, then the constant
increase of taxes leads to the ruin of the productive classes and incites
those who survive to stand up against taxation and rebel against the
government.69
In his private writings and letters, Shāh Walī Allāh berates the fact
that wealth came to be concentrated in the hands of Hindus.70 But,
more importantly, he construes the malfunction of the Mughal govern-
ment as a sign of moral decadence and overall failure to implement the
teachings of Islam. In an eleventh-hour attempt to save the Mughal
state from ultimate downfall, Shāh Walī Allāh called on the Afghan
ruler Aḥmad Shāh Abdālī (d. 1772) to invade India. He offers fulsome
praise of the Afghan warlord for his bravery and foresight and urges
him to launch a full-scale operation against the Marathas and Jats and
to wipe out polytheistic practices.71
Shāh Walī Allāh’s epistles on Mughal political disintegration
should be read against the background of a series of events that led to
68
pp. 130–131.
69
Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bālighah, 1:40; Hermansen, The Conclusive Argument from God, p.
131.
70
Khalid A. Nizami, ed., Shāh Valī Dihlavī ke siyāsī maktūbāt (Delhi: Nadvat al-Musan-
nifin, 1969), pp. 102–105.
71
Nizami, Shāh Valī Dihlavī ke siyāsī maktūbāt, pp. 15, 52. See also Jalbani, Teachings of
Shāh Walīullah of Delhi, pp. 114–117.
the gradual decay of Mughal rule:72 the incursions by Maratha, Jat, and
Sikh forces;73 the invasion of the army of the Iranian ruler Nādir Shāh
(1688–1747, r. 1736–1747) in 1739, which struck a blow to the stature
of the emperor and strained the Empire economically and militarily; a
devastating military debacle of the Mughal forces at the battle of Kar-
nal on 24 February 1739 and the massive slaughter of residents of Delhi
perpetrated by soldiers that gave rise to popular resentment; and the
constant plots and intrigues of the nobles and courtiers. The situation
came to a head when, after the death of the Mughal ruler Muḥammad
Shāh (d. 1748), his son and successor Aḥmad Shāh Bahādur (1725–
1775, r. 1748–1754) became a pliant tool in the hands of influential
ministers and nobles, which rendered the Empire’s capital vulnerable
to assaults by rebels.
Shāh Walī Allāh reproves the imperial administration for its inabil-
ity to suppress sedition. He points to the Jats’ taking over Gujarat and
Malwa; the rulers’ luxurious way of life, profligate spending, and self-
aggrandizement; the irregular and disrupted flow of revenues from the
provinces; the corruption of local governors and tax agents in the col-
lection and administration of revenue; and the oppression of the lower
social strata of the population. In addition to the letters which he sent
to Aḥmad Shāh Abdālī, Shāh Walī Allāh made a direct appeal to the
emperor and the nobles and spelled out an elaborate program intended
to ensure the stability and continued existence of the Empire:74
72
On Mughal “decline,” see, e.g., Douglas E. Streusand, Islamic Gunpowder Empires:
Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2011), pp. 283–287;
Muzaffar Alam, The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh and the Punjab, 1707–48
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986; repr., 1997); Andrea Hintze, The Mughal Empire and
Its Decline: An Interpretation of the Sources of Social Power (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997); Karen
Leonard, “The ‘Great Firm’ Theory of the Decline of the Mughal Empire,” Comparative
Studies in Society and History 21 (1979): 151–167; John F. Richards, “The Imperial Crisis in
the Deccan,” Journal of Asian Studies 35 (1976): 236–256, repr. in Richards, Power, Adminis-
tration and Finance in Mughal India (Aldershot: Variorum, 1993), no. 12; M. Athar Ali, “The
Passing of Empire: The Mughal Case,” Modern Asian Studies 9 (1975): 385–396, repr. in Ali,
Mughal India: Studies in Polity, Ideas, Society, and Culture (New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 2006), pp. 337–349; Saiyid A. A. Rizvi, “The Breakdown of Traditional Society,” in
The Cambridge History of Islam, vol. 2A, The Indian Sub-continent, South-East Asia, Africa and
the Muslim West, ed. Peter M. Holt et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970;
repr., 1980), pp. 67–96.
73
See, in general, Catherine B. Asher and Cynthia Talbot, India before Europe (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), chap. “Challenging Central Authority, 1650–
1750,” pp. 225–255.
74
The following account is based on Islahi, “Shah Wali Allah’s Concept of Al-Irtifaqat
(Stages of Socio-Economic Development),” pp. 48–49; Fazl-e-Mahmud Asiri, “Shah Wali
Allah as a Politician,” Islamic Literature 7 (1955): 35–41.
a. He cautions against the policy of appointing a large number of jagirs

(fief lords) who end up shirking their duties to the army and rent out
their lands. He recommends assigning large pieces of land to nobles
and reintroducing Shāh Jahān’s practice of paying the lower members
of the nobility in cash.
b. He impresses upon the government the need to ensure that soldiers
receive a regular salary, because delays in paying salaries compels sol-
diers to rely on loans at high rates of interest and neglect their duties.
c. He exhorts the emperor to expand the state property (khāliṣa) to the
region surrounding Delhi, Hisar, and Sirhind.
d. He suggests that the central administration reassert its authority and
regain its capacity to gather revenues.
e. He urges the emperor and nobles to give up their extravagant and
luxurious way of life.
Shāh Walī Allāh stands forth as an intimate observer of the politi-

cal events of his time.75 His interest in Mughal politics can partly be
explained by his affiliation with the Naqhsbandi order.76 The order
advocated the active involvement of leading Sufi figures in politics,
with the aim to influence the policies and decisions of rulers and
thereby affect the lives of Muslims.77 In the context of the central
75
For a similar interpretation, see A. J. Halepota, “Shāh Waliyullāh and Iqbāl, the Phi-
losophers of Modern Age,” Islamic Studies 13 (1974): 225–233, repr. in SWRPT, pp. 649–656;
Halepota, “Affinity of Iqbāl with Shāh Walī Allāh,” Iqbal Review 15 (1974): 65–72; Fazlur
Rahman, “The Thinker of Crisis Shah Waliy-Ullah,” Pakistan Quarterly (1956): 44–48.
76
Shāh Walī Allāh’s political activities are discussed in A. Sattar Khan and Zulfiqar
Anwar, “The Movement of Shah Waliullah and Its Political Impact,” Journal of the Research
Society of Pakistan 32, no. 4 (1995): 13–23; Freeland Abbott, “The Decline of the Mughal
Empire and Shah Waliullah,” Muslim World 52 (1962): 115–123; Aziz Ahmad, “Political
and Religious Ideas of Shāh Walī-Ullāh of Delhi,” Muslim World 52 (1962): 22–30, esp.
28–30, partly repr. in Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1964), pp. 201–209; Franco Coslovi, “Osservazioni sul ruolo di ‘Šāh
Walīullāh Dihlawī’ e ‘Šāh ‘Abd al-‘Azīz’ nella ‘Naqšbandiyya’ Indiana,” Annali dell’ Istituto
Orientale di Napoli, n.s., 29 (1979): 73–84, esp. 73–81; Irfan M. Habib, “The Political Role
of Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi and Shah Waliullah,” in Indian History Congress: Proceedings of
the Twenty-third Session Aligarh—1960, pt. I (Calcutta, 1961), pp. 209–223; Sh. Muhammad
Ikram, “Shah Waliullah (I) (Life and Achievements in the Religious Sphere),” in A History
of the Freedom Movement (Being the Story of Muslim Struggle for the Freedom of Hind-Pakistan,
1707–1947), vol. 1, 1707–1831 (Karachi: Pakistan Historical Society, 1957), pp. 491–511;
Khaliq A. Nizami, “Shah Waliullah (II) (His Work in the Political Field),” in A History of
the Freedom Movement, 1:512–541; Nizami, “Shah Wali-Ullah Dehlavi and Indian Politics
in the 18th Century,” Islamic Culture 25 (1951): 133–145, repr. in SWRPT, pp. 143–157;
‘Ubaidullah Sindhi, Shah Wali Allah and His Political Movement [in Urdu] (Lahore: Sindh
Sagar Akademy, 1952).
77
On the history of the order, see Butrus Abu-Manneh, The Naqshbandiyya-Khâlidiyya
Sufi Order (Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient, 2008); Itzchak Weismann, The Naqsh-
bandiyya: Orthodoxy and Activism in a Worldwide Sufi Tradition (London: Routledge, 2007);
and eastern Islamic empires, rulers often had to muster the support of
the order to legitimize and consolidate their rule and secure popular
support.78
Shāh Walī Allāh on Byzantine Decline

What gives particular poignancy to Shāh Walī Allāh’s theorizing about
imperial decline is his use of the Persian and Byzantine paradigms as a
heuristic device to trace the root causes of the decay of Mughal power.
Shāh Walī Allāh castigates the Sassanian (‘ajam)79 and Byzantine
(rūm) empires, noting that their failure to collect sufficient revenues
and build up necessary defenses was the principal factor that led to
their collapse. Their rulers had passed on hereditary kingship for many
Sajida S. Alvi, “The Naqshbandī Mujaddidī Sufi Order’s Ascendancy in Central Asia
through the Eyes of Its Masters and Disciples (1010s–1200s/1600s–1800s),” in Reason and
Inspiration in Islam: Theology, Philosophy and Mysticism in Muslim Thought, ed. Todd Lawson
(London: I. B. Tauris, 2005), pp. 418–431; Elisabeth Özdalga, ed., Naqshbandis in Western
and Central Asia: Change and Continuity (Istanbul: Svenska Forskningsinstitutet Istanbul,
1999); Marc Gaborieau et al., eds., Naqshbandis: Cheminements et situation actuelle d’un ordre
mystique musulman (Istanbul: Isis, 1990); Richard Foltz, “The Central Asian Naqshbandī
Connections of the Mughal Emperors,” Journal of Islamic Studies 7 (1996): 229–239; Hamid
Algar, “The Naqshbandi Order: A Preliminary Survey of Its History and Significance,” Stu-
dia Islamica 44 (1976): 123–152. A number of seminal essays dealing with Sufi influences on
medieval Indian society have been reprinted in Raziuddin Aquil, ed., Sufism and Society in
Medieval India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010). Consult also Raziuddin Aquil’s
introduction to Sufism and Society, pp. ix–xxiv.
78
Jürgen Paul, Die politische und soziale Bedeutung der Naqšbandiyya in Mittelasien im
15. Jahrhundert (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1991), chap. “Politische Tätigkeit,” pp. 208–244;
and Jo-Ann Gross, “Khoja Ahrar: A Study of the Perceptions of Religious Power and Pres-
tige in the Late Timurid Period” (PhD diss., New York University, 1982). The role of the
Naqshbandi order in Mughal political life is discussed in Muzaffar Alam, “The Mughals,
the Sufi Shaikhs and the Formation of the Akbari Dispensation,” Modern Asian Studies 43
(2009): 135–174; David W. Damrel, “The ‘Naqshbandī Reaction’ Reconsidered,” in Beyond
Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia, ed. David Gilmar-
tin and Bruce B. Lawrence (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000), pp. 176–198;
Arthur F. Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet: The Indian Naqshbandiyya and the Rise of the
Mediating Sufi Shaykh (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998); Muhammad
Farman, “Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi,” in A History of Muslim Philosophy, ed. Mian M. Sharif
(Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1966), 2:873–883; Khaliq A. Nizami, “Naqshbandi Influence
on Mughal Rulers and Politics,” Islamic Culture 39 (1965): 41–52; Rizvi, Muslim Revivalist
Movements in Northern India in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, “The Naqshbandis,”
pp. 176–201; and Wilfred Cantwell Smith, “The ‘ulamā’ in Indian Politics,” in Politics and
Society in India, ed. Cyril H. Philips (London: Allen and Unwin, 1963), pp. 39–51.
79
The Arabic term ‘ajam generally refers to a foreigner (non-Arab), but is often used to
designate an Iranian/Persian as is the case with Shāh Walī Allāh’s discussion of Sassanian
political history. See, in general, Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, “Contested Memories of Pre-
Islamic Iran,” Medieval History Journal 2 (1999): 245–275.
generations and had become so engrossed in the pleasures of this world

that they neglected the next world. They became deeply immersed
in comforts and derived pride from possessing them; in fact, scholars
came from far lands to learn the arts associated with fine living. The
Persians and Byzantines pursued life’s pleasures with increasing enthu-
siasm; their rulers competed and showed off to one another until they
used to rebuke those rulers who did not wear beautiful clothes or who
wore a girdle or crown whose value was less than a hundred thousand
dirhems or who did not reside in a lofty palace that included bathtubs,
bathing pools, gardens, swift riding animals, and handsome servitors,
or those who were not generous in distributing food. This emphasis
on luxury and pleasure penetrated their lives to such an extent that
it was like an incurable disease that caused their markets and cities to
perish.80
Luxurious living papered over mounting expenditures, and to make
up for draining the state budget, rulers imposed exorbitant taxation
on the peasantry and traders and oppressed them to the point that if
they refused to pay taxes they were subjected to torture, and if they
obeyed they became like donkeys and cattle, which are used for farm-
ing according to their master’s needs and whims. Consequently, greed
and luxury set in, and the people were so desperate in such a state of
depredation and misery that they totally neglected religion; they were
concerned solely with material comforts, and they abandoned the prin-
ciples of the professions upon which the order of the world is based.
Some people ingratiated themselves with the rulers; others emulated
the habits of their leaders but did not perform what was necessary and
tried instead to merely subsist; still others engaged in parasitic activities
by becoming poets, ascetics, and Sufis, relying on gifts and financial
aid from the emperors; and some of these groups ended up oppressing
and exploiting others and sought to make their living by befriending or
flattering the rulers.81
Shāh Walī Allāh’s statements on Byzantine decline point to a
80
Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bālighah, 1:105; Hermansen, The Conclusive Argument from God,
p. 306. For references to Byzantine and Sassanian political history and royal practices in
earlier Indo-Islamic political literature, consider, e.g., Afsar Afzal ud-din, “The Fatawa-i-
Jahandari of Zia ud-din Barni, Translation with Introduction and Notes” (PhD diss., School
of Oriental and African Studies, 1955), pp. 107, 152–153, 417–418, 424–429, 450–451,
466, 484–491.
81
pp. 306–307.
major lacuna in scholarship. Previous studies rarely address medieval

and early modern Islamic views of the political organization of the
Byzantine Empire and the ways in which Byzantine historiography and
political writing perceived the rise of Mongol rule and the spread of
Islam in central and south Asia.82 Medieval Islamic literature is char-
acterized by the tendency to refer to political leaders and methods of
government before the advent of Islam or in non-Muslim lands in the
context of discussions on the conditions for salutary rule according to
82
Byzantine views on the Mongols and the emergence of the Islamic empires of central
Asia are discussed in, e.g., Antonis K. Petrides, “Georgios Pachymeres between Ethnog-
raphy and Narrative: Συγγραφικαὶ Ἱστορίαι 3.3–5,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 49
(2009): 141–164, esp. 295–296, 316–317; Nikolaos Nikoloudes, “Byzantine Historians on
the Wars of Timur,” Journal of Oriental and African Studies 8 (1996): 83–94; Alexis G. K. [C.]
Savvides, “The Knowledge of the Byzantines about the Turkish-Speaking World of Asia,
the Balkans and Central Europe through Name Giving,” in Communication in Byzantium,
ed. Nikos G. Moschonas (Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation/Institute for
Byzantine Research, 1993), pp. 711–727 [both in Greek]; Savvides, Byzantium in the Near
East: Its Relations with the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum in Asia Minor, the Armenians of Cilicia and
the Mongols, A.D. c. 1192–1237 (Thessalonike: Center for Byzantine Studies/University of
Thessaloniki, 1981); John W. Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus (1391–1425): A Study in Late
Byzantine Statesmanship (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1969), Appendix
XVIII: “Byzantine Relations with Timur,” pp. 504–509. Also of note are John S. Langdon,
“Byzantium’s Initial Encounter with the Chinggisids: An Introduction to the Byzantino-
Mongolica,” Viator 29 (1998): 95–139; Angeliki E. Laiou, “On Political Geography: The
Black Sea of Pachymeres,” in The Making of Byzantine History, ed. Roderick Beaton and
Charlotte Roueché (Aldershot: Variorum, 1993), pp. 94–121, 112–121; Bruce G. Lippard,
“The Mongols and Byzantium, 1243–1341” (PhD diss., Indiana University, 1983); Maria-
Mathilde Alexandrescu-Dersca, La campagne de Timur en Anatolie (1402) (Bucharest:
Monitorul Oficial şi Imprimeriile Statului, Imprimeria Naţionalǎ, 1942; 2nd ed., London:
Variorum Reprints, 1977); Andreas Graf, “Die Tataren im Spiegel der byzantinischen Lit-
eratur,” in Jubilee Volume in Honour of Prof. Bernhard Heller on the Occasion of His Seventieth
Birthday, ed. Alexander Scheiber (Budapest, 1941), pp. 77–85; Fedor I. Uspensky, “Byz-
antine Historians on the Mongols and the Egyptian Mamluks,” Vizantiysky Vremmenik 24
(1923–1926): 1–16 (in Russian); Ottokar Intze, “Tamerlan und Bajazet in den Literaturen
des Abendlandes” (Erlangen: E. Th. Jacob, 1912), pp. 5–9. On Byzantine perceptions of
Islam and the Arabs, see Wolfram Brandes, “Der frühe Islam in der byzantinischen Histo-
riographie: Anmerkungen zur Quellenproblematik der Chronographia des Theophanes,” in
Jenseits der Grenzen: Beiträge zur spätantiken und frühmittelalterlichen Geschichtsschreibung,
ed. Andreas Goltz et al. (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2009), pp. 313–343; Elizabeth M. Jef-
freys, “The Image of the Arabs in Byzantine Literature,” in The 17th International Byzantine
Congress: Major Papers (New Rochelle, N.Y.: A. D. Caratzas, 1986), pp. 305–323; Spe-
ros Vryonis Jr.,“Byzantine Attitudes toward Islam during the Late Middle Ages,” Greek,
Roman and Byzantine Studies 12 (1971): 263–286, repr. in Vryonis, Studies on Byzantium,
Seljuks, and Ottomans: Reprinted Studies (Malibu: Undena Publications, 1981), no. 8; Alain
Ducellier, “Mentalité historique et realités politiques: L’Islam et les Musulmans vus par les
Byzantins du XIIIème siècle,” Byzantinische Forschungen 4 (1972): 31–63; John Meyendorff,
“Byzantine Views of Islam,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 18 (1964): 114–132; and Wolfgang
Eichner, “Die Nachrichten über den Islam bei den Byzantinern,” Islam 23 (1936): 133–162
and 197–244.
the tenets of Islam. The earliest references to pre-Islamic rulers occur

in the Qu’rān, in which the term malik (king) 83 is applied to the pha-
raohs of ancient Egypt to signify unrighteous political conduct and
arbitrary and unjust rule,84 although later Arab authors took a more
favorable stance toward ancient Egyptian kingship and commended
83
For medieval Islamic ideas on kingship, see, e.g., Anne F. Broadbridge, Kingship and
Ideology in the Islamic and Mongol Worlds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008);
Aziz al-Azmeh, Muslim Kingship: Power and the Sacred in Muslim, Christian, and Pagan Polities
(London: I. B. Tauris, 1997); Saiyid A. A. Rizvi, “Kingship in Islam: Islamic Universalism
through the Caliphate,” in Patterns of Kingship and Authority in Traditional Asia, ed. Ian
Mabbett (London: Croom Helm, 1985), pp. 108–130; Rizvi, “Kingship in Islam: A Histori-
cal Analysis,” in Kingship in Asia and Early America, ed. Arthur L. Basham (Mexico City:
El Colegio de México, 1981), pp. 29–82; Tilman Nagel, Staat und Glaubensgemeinschaft im
Islam: Geschichte der politischen Ordnungsvorstellungen der Muslime, 2 vols. (Zurich: Arte-
mis, 1981); Roy P. Mottahedeh, “Some Attitudes towards Monarchy and Absolutism in the
Eastern Islamic World of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries A.D.,” Israel Oriental Studies
10 (1980): 86–91.
84
For further discussion, see the following studies by Bernard Lewis: The Political Lan-
guage of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), pp. 55, 93, 96–97; “Malik,”
Cahiers de Tunisie 35 (1987): 101–109; “Usurpers and Tyrants: Notes on Some Islamic
Terms,” in Logos Islamikos, ed. Roger M. Savory and Dionisius A. Agius (Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984), pp. 259–267, both repr. in Lewis, Political Words and
Ideas in Islam (Princeton, N.J.: M. Wiener Publishers, 2008), pp. 77–86 and 49–58, respec-
tively. Note also Fred Halliday, “Monarchies in the Middle East: A Concluding Appraisal,”
in Middle East Monarchies: The Challenge of Modernity, ed. Joseph Kostiner (Boulder, Colo.:
Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000), pp. 289–303, 292–293; Ami Ayalon, Language and Change
in the Arab Middle East: The Evolution of Modern Political Discourse (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1987), chap. “Sultans, Kings, Emperors,” pp. 29–42; Ayalon, “Malik in Modern
Middle Eastern Titulature,” Die Welt des Islams 23/24 (1984): 306–319, esp. 307–312; Herib-
ert Busse, “Herrschertypen im Koran,” in Die Islamische Welt zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit,
ed. Ulrich Haarmann und Peter Bachmann (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1979), pp. 56–80, esp.
67–71; Arent J. Wensinck-[Georges Vajda], s.v. “Fir‛awn,” in Encyclopedia of Islam, new
ed. (Leiden: E. J. Brill; London: Luzac, 1965), vol. 2, pt. 2: 917–918. Medieval Islamic per-
ceptions of ancient Egypt are surveyed in Konrad Hirschler, “The ‘Pharaoh’ Anecdote in
Pre-Modern Arabic Historiography,” Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 10 (2010): 45–74;
Ulrich Haarmann, “Medieval Muslim Perceptions of Pharaonic Egypt,” in Ancient Egyptian
Literature: History and Forms, ed. Antonio Loprieno (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), pp. 605–627;
Haarmann, “Das pharaonische Ägypten bei islamischen Autoren des Mittelalters,” in Zum
Bild Ägyptens im Mittelalter und in der Renaissance, ed. Erik Hornung (Freiburg [i. Ü.]: Uni-
versitätsverlag Freiburg Schweiz, 1990), pp. 29–58; Hans R. Roemer, “Der Islam und das
Erbe der Pharaonen: Neuere Erkenntnisse zu einem alten Thema,” in Ägypten—Dauer und
Wandel (Mainz am Rhein: P. v. Zabern, 1985), pp. 123–129; Michael Cook, “Pharaonic
History in Medieval Egypt,” Studia Islamica 57 (1983): 67–103. Consider also Adam Silver-
stein, “The Qur’ānic Pharaoh,” in New Pespectives on the Qur’ān: The Qur’ān in Its Historical
Context 2, ed. Gabriel Said Reynolds (London: Routledge, 2011), pp. 467–477; and Reuven
Firestone, “Pharaoh,” in Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān, ed. Jane D. McAuliffe (Leiden: Brill,
2004), 4:66–68. For a general treatment of medieval Islamic views of the pre-Islamic era, see
Monika Springberg-Hinsen, Die Zeit vor dem Islam in arabischen Universalgeschichten des 9.
und 12. Jahrhunderts (Würzburg: Echter; Altenberge: Telos-Verlag, 1989).
the pharaohs for such virtues as generosity, piety, and dedication to the
welfare of their subjects.85
One of the first references to Byzantium (al-rūm) appears in the
Qur’ān in the context of the Byzantine-Sassanid war at the beginning
of the seventh century.86 Just like Shāh Walī Allāh, a number of Arab
writers saw Byzantine emperors (qayṣar) and Sassanian kings (kisrā) as
exemplifying a form of royal rule incompatible with the principles of
Islam.87 However, whereas the Persian Empire proved very vulnerable
to Muslim attacks and quickly fell under the sway of Islam, Byzantium
in the aftermath of the Arabs’ efforts to capture Constantinople, espe-
cially in the tenth century, came to be widely perceived as a resilient
political and military power that posed a formidable and lasting chal-
lenge to its Arab neighbors and that would perish only with the coming
of the Day of Judgment.88 Al-Jāḥiẓ (781–869) notes that Mu‘āwiyah’s
(602–680, r. 661–680) ascension to power as the first Caliph of the
Umayyad dynasty marked a period of oppression and violence in which
the imamate mutated into a kind of kingdom as the one during Chos-
roes’s reign and the caliphate degenerated into a tyranny that only per-
tained to a caesar (≈ Byzantine emperor).89
85
Okasha El-Daly, Egyptology: The Missing Millennium: Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic
Writings (London: UCL Press, 2005), pp. 122–126.
86
On the etymology and use of the term rūm and its derivatives in medieval Arabic
writing, see Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs (Cambridge, Mass.:
Center for Middle Eastern Studies of Harvard University, 2004), pp. 21–33; as well as Niko-
lai Serikoff, “Rūmī and yūnānī: Towards the Understanding of the Greek language in the
Medieval Muslim World,” in East and West in the Crusader States: Context—Contacts—Con-
frontations, ed. Krijnie Ciggaar et al. (Leuven: Peeters, 1996), pp. 169–194, esp. 172–183.
87
El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, pp. 86–87. On Byzantium’s image in
medieval Islam and Byzantine-Arab relations, see in addition to El Cheikh: Olof Heilo,
“Seeing Eye to Eye: Islamic Universalism in the Roman and Byzantine Worlds, 7th to 10th
Centuries” (diss., University of Vienna, 2010); Ulrike Koenen and Martina Müller-Wiener,
eds., Grenzgänge im östlichen Mittelmeerraum: Byzanz und die islamische Welt vom 9. bis 13.
Jahrhundert (Wiesdaben: Reichert Verlag, 2008); Michael Bonner, ed., Arab-Byzantine Rela-
tions in Early Islamic Times (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004); Ahmad M. H. Shboul, “Arab Islamic
Perceptions of Byzantine Religion and Culture,” in Muslim Perceptions of Other Religions:
A Historical Survey, ed. Jacques Waardenburg (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999),
pp. 122–135; Shboul, “Arab Attitudes towards Byzantium: Official, Learned, Popular,” in
ΚΑΘΗΓΗΤΡΙΑ: Essays Presented to Joan Hussey for her 80th Birthday (Camberley, Sur-
rey: Porphyrogenitus, 1988), pp. 111–128; and Speros Vryonis Jr., “Byzantium and Islam,
Seven–Seventeenth Century,” East European Quarterly 11 (1968): 205–240, repr. in Vry-
onis, Byzantium: Its Internal History and Relations with the Muslim World: Collected Studies
(London: Variorum Reprints, 1971), no. 9.
88
El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, p. 70; David Cook, “Muslim Apocalyptic
and Jihād,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 20 (1996): 66–104, esp. 83–96.
89
Ḥasan al-Sandūbī, ed., Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiz: Wa-hiya rasāʾil muntaqāt min kutub lil-Jāḥiẓ
lam tunshar qabl al-ān (Cairo: Yuṭlab min al-maktabah al-Tijārīyah al-Kubra, 1933), p. 117;
Arab authors also denounced luxury, wasteful extravagance, pomp,

and overtaxation as symptoms of the devolution of Byzantine author-
ity. The geographer and traveler Ibn Ḥawqal (tenth century) reports
that in an effort to cover the expenses of his military expeditions
against the Muslims Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas (912–969, r. 963–
969) imposed heavy taxes instead of using his own funds and provoked
popular discontent and agitation which led to his assassination.90 Such
an assessment persisted down to the fourteenth century as indicated by
the characterization of the Byzantines as ungenerous and self-conceited
in al-Nuwayrī’s (d. 1333) history of the Mongol conquest of Syria.91 Ibn
Khaldūn (1332–1406) likewise observes that whereas Muslims were
originally averse to royal decorum and pomp, the caliphate gradually
mutated into royal rule and Muslims paid increasing attention to splen-
dor and developed a penchant for luxury, especially after interacting
and mingling with Persians and Byzantines who displayed to them
their ways of ostentation and luxury.92 Finally, an interesting precedent
to Shāh Walī Allāh’s ideas on the Byzantine practice of imperial power
may be found in the Talkhīṣ kitāb al-khiṭābah li-Arisṭū (Middle Com-
mentary on Aristotle’s Rhetoric) of the famous Arab philosopher Ibn
Rushd (Averroes, 1126–1198): elaborating on Aristotle’s typology of
the various regime types, Ibn Rushd distinguishes between cities that
are ruled according to fixed and immutable laws, as is the case with the
Islamic law, and cities whose laws change according to what is most
expedient, as is the case with many of the laws in Byzantium.93
Assessing the veracity of Shāh Walī Allāh’s account of Byzantine
decline would require a closer survey of the image of the Byzantine
Empire in medieval and early modern Islamic writing, especially in the
central and eastern lands of Islam, that exceeds the scope of this arti-
Charles Pellat, “La Nâbita de Djâhiz: Un document important pour l’histoire politico-reli-
gieuse de l’Islâm,” Annales de l’Institut d’Études Orientales 10 (1952): 302–325, 314. See also
El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, p. 87; Lewis, The Political Language of Islam, p. 55.
90
Abī al-Qāsim ibn Ḥawqal al-Naṣībī, Kītāb ṣūrat al-ard (Beirut: Manshurat Dar Mak-
tabat al-Hayāh, [1963]), p. 181; Ibn Hauqal, Configuration de la terre (Kitab Surat al-ard),
trans. Johannes H. Kramers and G. Wiet (Paris: G. P. Maisonneuve et Larose, 1964), 1:194.
91
El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, p. 197.
92
Ibn Khaldûn, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. Franz Rosenthal
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1958), 2:50.
93
Averroès (Ibn Rušd), Commentaire moyen à la Rhétorique d’Aristote, ed. and French
trans. Maroun Aouad (Paris: Vrin, 2002), 2:70. For further discussion, see Commentaire
moyen à la Rhétorique, 3:35; as well as Rémi Brague, The Legend of the Middle Ages: Philosophi-
cal Explorations of Medieval Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, trans. from the French Lydia G.
Cochrane (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), pp. 122–123.
cle.94 It is possible that Shāh Walī Allāh’s intention is to alert Mughal

rulers to the imminent fall of the empire by invoking Byzantium as a
negative example of a great imperial state that collapsed due to an eco-
nomic crisis very similar to the one that afflicted eighteenth-century
India.95 Even so, Shāh Walī Allāh’s statements attest to a keen aware-
ness and appreciation of the economic factors involved in the decline
of Byzantine power and the affinities between Mughal and Byzantine
political realities and calls for a comparative study of Mughal and
Byzantine reactions to the phenomenon of imperial decline.
As noted earlier, a number of medieval Islamic accounts of the
Byzantine Empire centered around excessive taxation as one of the
major flaws of Byzantine imperial administration. Just like Ibn Ḥawqal,
94
General accounts of the decline of the Byzantine Empire include Jonathan Harris,
The End of Byzantium (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010); John F. Haldon,
“The Byzantine Empire,” in The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to
Byzantium, ed. Ian Morris and Walter Scheidel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp.
205–254; Motyl, Imperial Ends, pp. 59–61; Franz Georg Maier, “Byzanz: Selbstbehauptung
und Zerfall einer Großmacht,” in Das Verdämmern der Macht: Vom Untergang großer Reiche,
ed. Richard Lorenz (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2000), pp. 44–59; Peter
Schreiner, “Schein und Sein: Überlegungen zu den Ursachen des Untergangs des byzan-
tinischen Reiches,” Historische Zeitschrift 266 (1998): 625–647; Donald M. Nicol: “Der Fall
von Byzanz,” in Das Ende der Weltreiche: Von den Persern bis zur Sowjetunion, ed. Alexander
Demandt (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1997), pp. 61–73; Nicol, “Der Niedergang von Byzanz,”
in Byzanz, ed. Franz G. Maier (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 1973; repr., Augsburg: Weltbild-
Verl., 1998), pp. 348–406; Nicol, Church and Society in the Last Centuries of Byzantium:
The Birkbeck Lectures, 1977 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979; repr., 1993);
Klaus-Peter Matschke, “Der Untergang einer Großmacht. Thesen und Hypothesen zur Stel-
lung von Byzanz in einer vergleichenden Niedergangsgeschichte von Staaten und Gesell-
schaften,” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 37 (1989): 890–904; Franz Tinnefeld, “Zur
Krise des Spätmittelalters in Byzanz,” in Europa 1400: Die Krise des Spätmittelalters, ed. Fer-
dinand Seibt and Winfried Eberhard (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1984), pp. 284–294; as well as
Ivan Dujčev, “Die Krise der spätbyzantinischen Gesellschaft und die türkische Eroberung
des 14. Jahrhunderts,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 21 (1973): 481–492; Peter Cha-
ranis, “Economic Factors in the Decline of the Byzantine Empire,” Journal of Economic His-
tory 13 (1953): 412–424, repr. in Charanis, Social, Economic and Political Life in the Byzantine
Empire, no. 9; Dionysios A. Zakythinos, Crise monétaire et crise économique à Byzance du XIIIe
au XVe siècle (Athens: L’Hellénisme contemporain, 1948); Rodolphe Guilland, “Vénalité
et favoritisme à Byzance,” Revue des Études Byzantines 10 (1952): 35–46; and, in general,
Warren Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford
University Press, 1997); Donald M. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261–1453,
2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). A detailed discussion of the role of
the Byzantine Empire in Mediterranean trade appears in Angeliki E. Laiou [-Thomadakis],
“The Byzantine Economy in the Mediterranean Trade System; Thirteenth–Fifteenth Cen-
turies,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 34–35 (1980/81): 177–222, repr. in Laiou, Gender, Society
and Economic Life in Byzantium (Hampshire: Variorum, 1992), no. 7. Consider also Lazaros
Houmanidis, Byzantine Commerce, the Impact on It of Arab Expansion and of the Rise of the
Italian Cities (Thessalonike, 1968).
95
I am grateful to Professor Anthony Kaldellis for discussions on this point.
who ascribed the social tensions that arose during Nikephoros Pho-
kas’s reign to high taxation and the exploitation of the people, John
Skylitzes (late eleventh century) mentions in his Synopsis Historiōn (A
Synopsis of Histories) that Phokas, who was vilified by some of his
contemporaries as a belligerent ruler, incurred the hatred of his subjects
by imposing excessive taxation and turning a blind eye to the abuses
of the military and the plundering and pillage of the people’s prop-
erty. Skylitzes denounces Phokas’s policies to create additional sources
of revenues and raise supplement taxes: in particular, he criticizes the
Byzantine emperor for abrogating some of the financial benefits of the
members of the senate on the pretext of lacking funds to sustain the
war effort, terminating the financial aid offered to religious houses and
churches, and passing a law that prohibited the expansion of ecclesias-
tical property. Last but not least, the emperor caused the devaluation
of the existing currency (nomisma) by introducing an additional form
of currency, the tetarteron.96
The degeneration of Byzantine political strength was visible as
early as the eleventh century,97 as evidenced by Michael Attaleiates’s
(1020/1030–1085) references to misgovernment and venality in the
imperial administration as the prime causes of Byzantine decadence
especially in the aftermath of the Byzantine army’s defeat by Seljuq
96
Hans Thurn, ed., Ioannis Scylitzae Synopsis historiarum (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1973),
pp. 273–274; John Skylitzes, A Synopsis of Byzantine History, 811–1057, trans. John Wortley
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Presss, 2010), pp. 262–264. Skylitzes’s views on Pho-
kas’s reign are discussed in Eirene-Sophia Kiapidou, John Skylitzes’ Synopsis of Histories and
Its Sources (811–1057): A Contribution to Byzantine Historiography during the 11th Century [in
Greek] (Athens: Kanakes, 2010), pp. 345–359. See, in general, also Rosemary Morris, “The
Two Faces of Nikephoros Phokas,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 12 (1988): 83–115.
On the tetarteron in particular, consult Cécile Morrisson, “Monnayage et monnaies,” in
Économie et société à Byzance (VIIIe–XIIe siècle): Textes et documents, ed. Sophie Métivier
(Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2007), pp. 157–165, 163; Michael F. Hendy, Studies in
the Byzantine Monetary Economy, c. 300–1450 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1985), pp. 506–508; Hendy, “Light Weight Solidi, Tetartera, and The Book of the Prefect,”
Byzantinische Zeitschrift 65 (1972): 57–80, repr. in Hendy, The Economy, Fiscal Administra-
tion and Coinage of Byzantium (Northampton: Variorum Reprints, 1989), no. 9; Hélène
Ahrweiler[-Glykatzi], “Nouvelle hypothèse sur le tétartèron d’or et la politique monétaire
de Nicéphore Phocas,” Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta 8 (1963): 1–9, repr. in Ahrwei-
ler, Etudes sur les structures administratives et sociales de Byzance (London: Variorum Reprints,
1971), no. 3. Gustave Schlumberger’s Un empereur byzantin au dixième siècle, Nicéphore Pho-
cas (Paris: Librairie de Firmin-Didot et cie, 1890) is an older study, but still valuable for its
insights into Byzatine-Arab relations during Phokas’s reign.
97
An extensive treatment of critiques of Byzantine leadership as articulated in Byz-
antine historiography in the period between the sixth and thirteenth centuries appears in
Franz Hermann Tinnefeld, Kategorien der Kaiserkritik in der byzantinischen Historiographie von
Prokop bis Niketas Choniates (Munich: W. Fink, 1971).
forces at the battle of Mantzikert (Malazgirt, 1071) and the Turkish

occupation of a large part of Asia Minor.98 In his Historia (History)
Attaleiates berates the Byzantine rulers and court officials for engaging
in impious and illicit activities in the name of the public welfare. Atta-
leiates also outlines the process whereby Byzantine military fortunes
reached a low ebb as the army leaders were concerned solely with mak-
ing profit and shirked their duties and the soldiers imitated the conduct
of their commanders, behaving in an unjust and cruel manner toward
the people and seeking to destroy, usurp, or plunder their property as if
they were the enemies of their own country.99
98
For further discussion, see Paul J. Alexander, “The Strength of Empire and Capital as
Seen through Byzantine Eyes,” Speculum 37 (1962): 339–357, 356–357, repr. in Alexander,
Religious and Political History and Thought in the Byzantine Empire (London: Variorum, 1978),
no. 3. The process of economic decline in twelfth-century Byzantium has been studied by
Alan Harvey, “Economy,” in Palgrave Advances in Byzantine History, ed. Jonathan Harris
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 83–99, esp. 91–96; Harvey, Economic Expansion in
the Byzantine Empire 900–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Michael F.
Hendy, “Byzantium, 1081–1204: An Economic Reappraisal,” Transactions of The Royal His-
torical Society, ser. 5, 20 (1970): 31–52, repr. in Hendy, The Economy, Fiscal Administration
and Coinage of Byzantium, no. 2. For other aspects of the decay of Byzantine power during
the same period, see Vassiliki N. Vlyssidou, ed., The Empire in Crisis (?): Byzantium in the
11th Century (1025–1081) (Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation/Institute for
Byzantine Research, 2003); Judith Herrin, “The Collapse of the Byzantine Empire in the
Twelfth Century: A Study of Medieval Economy,” University of Birmingham Historical Jour-
nal 12 (1970): 188–203; Speros Vryonis Jr., “Byzantium: The Social Basis of Decline in the
Eleventh Century,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 2 (1959): 157–175, repr. in Vryonis,
Byzantium: Its Internal History and Relations with the Muslim World, no. 2. On the erosion of
Byzantine identity and the spread of Islam in Asia Minor, see Speros Vryonis Jr., The Decline
of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through
the Fifteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971; repr., 1986); and, in
general, Manzikert to Lepanto: The Byzantine World and the Turks 1071–1571 [= Byzantinische
Forschungen 16 (1991)], ed. Anthony Bryer and Michael Ursinus (Amsterdam: A. M. Hak-
kert, 1991); Alexis G. Savvides, The Turks and Byzantium, vol. 1, Pre-Ottoman Tribes in Asia
and in the Balkans [in Greek] (Athens: Domos, 1996). For the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, see George Georgiades Arnakis, The Early Osmanlis: A Contribution to the Problem
of the Fall of Hellenism in Asia Minor (1282–1337) [in Greek] (Athens: N. Frandjeskakis,
1947; repr., Athens: Archipelagos, 2008). Finally, Muslim reactions to the Byzantine defeat
at Mantzikert are covered in El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, pp. 178–181. Also
of value are the following studies by Speros Vryonis Jr.: “A Personal History of the History
of the Battle of Mantzikert,” in Byzantine Asia Minor (6th–12th cent.) (Athens: National
Hellenic Research Foundation/Institute for Byzantine Research, 1998), pp. 225–244; “The
Greek and Arabic Sources on the Battle of Mantzikert, 1071 A.D.,” in Byzantine Studies:
Essays on the Slavic World and the Eleventh Century, ed. Speros Vryonis Jr. (New Rochelle,
N.Y.: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1992), pp. 125–140; as well as Claude Cahen, “La campagne de
Mantzikert d’après les sources musulmanes,” Byzantion 9 (1934): 613–642.
99
Miguel Ataliates, Historia, ed. and parallel Spanish trans. Immaculada Pérez Martín
(Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2002), pp. 144–145; Wladimir
Brunet de Presle and Immanuel Bekker, eds., Michaelis Attaliotae historia (Bonn: Weber,
1853), pp. 195–198. An English translation of Attaleiates’s History by Anthony Kaldellis
The steady increase of costs for the administration and sustenance

of the Byzantine army, for luxury, finery, and pomp, coincided with
Venice’s and Genoa’s dominance in Mediterranean trade. With the
Turkish menace looming large in the mid thirteenth century, some of
the protagonists of late Byzantine intellectual and religious life engaged
in sustained reflection on the causes and effects of the factional strife
that raged through the empire. Tirades against profit making, injustice,
and rampant corruption were common. Similar to Shāh Walī Allāh,
who identified tax burdens laid on the peasantry and the parasitic
activities of religious figures as two of the major reasons for imperial
decline, a number of Byzantine political theorists blamed the economic
problems of the empire on the exploitation of the productive classes
and on the tax privileges of the monasteries.100
and Dimitris Krallis for the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library series is currently in prepa-
ration. On Attaleiates’s views on the military disintegration of the Byzantine Empire, see
Speros Vryonis Jr., “The Eleventh Century: Was There a Crisis in the Empire? The Decline
of Quality and Quantity in the Byzantine Armed Forces,” in Vlyssidou, The Empire in Crisis
(?), pp. 17–43, 18–34. Attaleiates’s political ideas are discussed in Dimitris Krallis, Michael
Attaleiates and the Politics of Imperial Decline in Eleventh-Century Byzantium (Tempe: Ari-
zona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2012); Krallis, “‘Democratic’ Action
in Eleventh-Century Byzantium: Michael Attaleiates’s ‘Republicanism’ in Context,” Viator
40 (2009): 35–53; Anthony Kaldellis, “A Byzantine Argument for the Equivalence of all
Religions: Michael Attaleiates on Ancient and Modern Romans,” International Journal of the
Classical Tradition 14 (2007): 1–20; and Alexander Kazhdan, Studies on Byzantine Literature
of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Paris: Édi-
tions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1984), “The Social Views of Michael Atta-
leiates,” pp. 23–86.
100
The economic aspects of Byzantine decay are examined in Angeliki E. Laiou and
Cécile Morrisson, The Byzantine Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007),
pp. 228–230; and, in general, the studies by Angeliki E. Laiou, “Economic Thought and
Ideology,” and “The Byzantine Economy: An Overview,” both in The Economic History of
Byzantium: From the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century, ed. Angeliki E. Laiou (Washing
ton, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2002), pp. 1123–1144 and
1145–1164, respectively. Consider also Christos P. Baloglou, “Economic Thought in the
Last Byzantine Period,” in Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice,
ed. S. Todd Lowry and Barry Gordon (Leiden: Brill, 1998), pp. 405–438; Alexander N. Dio-
medes, “Economic Vicissitudes of the Decaying Byzantium,” Revue des Sciences Économiques
et Financières 8 (1939): 277–303 [in Greek]. For heavy taxation as a cause of Byzantium’s
fall, see notably Peter Schreiner, “Zentralmacht und Steuerhölle. Die Steuerlast im Byzan-
tinischen Reich,” in Mit dem Zehnten fing es an: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Steuer, ed. Uwe
Schulze, 2n ed. (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1986), pp. 64–73. Critiques of monastic property
are discussed in Peter Charanis, “The Monastic Properties and the State in the Byzantine
Empire,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 4 (1948): 53–118, repr. in Charanis, Social, Economic and
Political Life in the Byzantine Empire: Collected Studies (London: Variorum Reprints, 1973),
no. 1. On tax exemptions, see Nicolas Oikonomidès, Fiscalité et exemption fiscale à Byz-
ance (IXe-XIe s.) (Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation/Institute for Byzantine
Research, 1996). Consider also Emili[o] Herman, “Zum kirchlichen Benefizialwesen im
Byzantinischen Reich,” Studia et Documenta Historiae et Iuris 3 (1937): 253–264. For late
Amidst a famine in Constantinople in the 1300s, the then Patri-

arch of Constantinople (1289–1293 and 1303–1309), Athanasios I
(1230/35–ca. 1323), addressed a number of letters to the Byzantine
emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos (1259–1332; r. 1282–1328) in
which he makes an impassioned plea for the fair distribution of food
supplies:101 just as the sun radiates warmth, so too is one of the emper-
or’s prime tasks to uphold security and justice. Athanasios specifically
calls upon the emperor to restrain those who, driven by greed, seek to
profiteer by hoarding for themselves public revenues and inflict pov-
erty 102 and recommends drastic measures against those who receive
Byzantine debates on decline, see, e.g., Speros Vryonis Jr., “Crises and Anxieties in Fifteenth
Century Byzantium: The Reassertion of Old, and the Emergence of New Cultural Forms,”
in Islamic and Middle Eastern Societies, ed. Robert Olson (Brattleboro, Vt.: Amana Books,
1987), pp. 100–125; Jan-Louis van Dieten, “Politische Ideologie und Niedergang im Byzanz
der Palaiologen,” Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 6 (1979): 1–35; Ihor Ševčenko, “The
Decline of Byzantium Seen through the Eyes of Its Intellectuals,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers
15 (1961): 169–186, repr. in Ševčenko, Society and Intellectual Life in Late Byzantium (Lon-
don: Variorum Reprints, 1981), no. 2; Franz Dölger, “Politische und geistige Strömungen
im sterbenden Byzanz,” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinisischen Gesellschaft 3 (1954):
3–18; Hans-Georg Beck, Theodoros Metochites, die Krise des byzantinischen Weltbildes im 14.
Jahrhundert (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1952).
101
The factors that led to the famine are surveyed in Angeliki Laiou, “The Provision-
ing of Constantinople during the Winter of 1306–1307,” Byzantion 37 (1967): 91–113. On
Andronikos’s rule in general, see Angeliki Laiou, Constantinople and the Latins: The Foreign
Policy of Andronicus II, 1282–1328 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972);
Ursula Victoria Bosch, Kaiser Andronikos III. Palaiologos: Versuch einer Darstellung der byzan-
tinischen Geschichte in den Jahren 1321–1341 (Amsterdam: A. M. Hakkert, 1965).
102
The Correspondence of Athanasius I, Patriarch of Constantinople: Letters to the Emperor
Andronicus II, Members of the Imperial Family, and Officials, ed., trans., and comm. Alice-
Mary Maffry Talbot (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies,
1975), Letter 93 (Greek text p. 242, English trans. p. 243). On Athanasios, see Correspon-
dence of Athanasius I, “General Introduction,” pp. xv–xxxi; as well as Emmanuel Patedakis,
“Athanasios I Patriarch of Constantinople (1289–1293, 1303–1309): A Critical Edition
with Introduction and Commentary of Selected Unpublished Works” (PhD diss., University
of Oxford, 2004); John L. Boojamra, The Church and Social Reform: The Policies of the Patri-
arch Athanasios of Constantinople (New York: Fordham University Press, 1993); Boojamra,
“Social Thought and Reforms of Athanasios of Constantinople (1289–1293; 1303–1309),”
Byzantion 55 (1985): 332–382; Boojamra, Church Reform in the Late Byzantine Empire: A
Study of the Patriarchate of Athanasios of Constantinople (Thessalonike: Patriarchal Institute
for Patristic Studies, 1982); Demetrios J. Constantelos, “Life and Social Welfare Activ-
ity of Patriarch Athanasios I (1289–1293, 1303–1309) of Constantinople,” in Byzantine
Ecclesiastical Personalities, ed. Nomikos M. Vaporis (= The Byzantine Fellowship Lectures;
2) (Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1975), pp. 73–88; Klaus-Peter Matschke,
“Politik und Kirche im spätbyzantinischen Reich: Athanasios I., Patriarch von Konstanti-
nopel 1289–1293; 1303–1309,” Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig:
Gesellschafts- und Sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe 15 (1966): 479–486, repr. in Matschke, Das
spätbyzantinische Konstantinopel: Alte und neue Beiträge zur Stadtgeschichte zwischen 1261 und
1453 (Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovač, 2008), pp. 89–113; and with an eye to the relations
between Athanasios and Andronikos, Joseph Gill, “Emperor Andronikos II and the Patri-
bribes and slander the Church.103 He advocates tight central control

over the purchase of grain and bread 104 and the judicious selection of
revenue collectors.105 He also calls for strict monitoring of the bakers
and of the transportation and delivery of grain so that cargoes do not
end up in the hands of grain dealers and profiteers but are distributed to
those who are in need of food,106 and he threatens to excommunicate
all grain dealers.107
Economic inequities and the outbreak of the Zealot revolution in
Thessalonike, the empire’s second most important city after Constan-
tinople, provoked intense debates on the political and social maladies
that afflicted the Byzantine state in the first half of the fourteenth cen-
tury.108 Following Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos’s (1296–1341,
arch Athanasius I,” Byzantina 2 (1970): 13–19; and Nicolae Bănescu, “Le patriarche Atha-
nase Ier et Andronic II Paléologue: État religieux, politique et social de l’empire,” Académie
roumaine. Bulletin de la section historique 23 (1942): 28–56. Consider also Joseph Kalothetos’s
(fl. 1336–1341) biography of Athanasios: “Vios kai politeia tou en agiois patros ēmōn archi-
episkopou Kōnstantinoupoleōs Athanasiou,” in Ioseph Kalothetou Suggramata, ed. Demetrios
G. Tsames (Thessalonike: Center for Byzantine Studies, 1980), pp. 453–502.
103
The Correspondence of Athanasius I Patriarch of Constantinople, Letter 65 (152/153).
104
Ibid., Letter 93 (242/243).
105
Ibid., Letter 68 (160 and 162/163 and 165). On the transportation of grain supplies
and food provisions in the Byzantine Empire, see Johannes Koder, “Maritime Trade and the
Food Supply for Constantinople in the Middle Ages,” in Travel in the Byzantine World, ed.
Ruth Makrides (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 109–124; John L. Teall, “The Grain Supply
of the Byzantine Empire, 330–1025,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 13 (1959): 87–139; Georges
I. Brătianu [Bratianu], “Nouvelles contributions à l’étude de l’approvisionnement de Con-
stantinople sous les Paléologues et les empereurs ottomans,” Byzantion 6 (1931): 641–656;
Brătianu, “La question de l’approvisionnement de Constantinople à l’époque byzantine et
ottomane,” Byzantion 5 (1929/30): 83–107.
106
The Correspondence of Athanasius I Patriarch of Constantinople, Letter 100 (256/257).
See also ibid., Letter 106 (266/267).
107
Ibid., Letter 106 (266/267).
108
Vasileios Syros, “Between Chimera and Charybdis: Byzantine and Post-Byzantine
Views on the Political Organization of the Italian City-States,” Journal of Early Modern
History 14 (2010): 451–504, 467–472; Angeliki E. Laiou, “Economic Concerns and Atti-
tudes of the Intellectuals of Thessalonike,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 57 [= Symposium on Late
Byzantine Thessalonike] (2003): 205–223; Laiou, “Social Justice: Exchange and Prosperity in
Byzantium,” Proceedings of the Academy of Athens 74 (1999): 107–132 [in Greek]; Peter Cha-
ranis, “On the Social Structure and Economic Organization of the Byzantine Empire in the
Thirteenth Century and Later,” Byzantinoslavica 12:94–153, repr. in Charanis, Social, Eco-
nomic and Political Life in the Byzantine Empire, no. 4. On the Zealot revolution, see John W.
Barker, “Late Byzantine Thessalonike: A Second City’s Challenges and Responses,” Dumbar-
ton Oaks Papers 57 (2003): 5–33, esp. 14–21; Donald M. Nicol, The Reluctant Emperor: A
Biography of John Cantacuzene, Byzantine Emperor and Monk, c. 1295–1383 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 45–83; Konstantinos Kotsiopoulos, “The Zealots
of Thessalonike and their Popular Basis,” Ta Vyzantina 18 (1995/96): 277–284 [in Greek];
Klaus-Peter Matschke, “Thessalonike und die Zeloten: Bemerkungen zu einem Schlüssel-
ereignis der spätbyzantinischen Stadts- und Reichsgeschichte,” Byzantinoslavica 55 (1994):
r. 1328–1341) death in June 1341, his chief minister, John Kanta
kouzenos (1292–1383), served as the effective regent for John V (1332–
1391), Andronikos’s infant son, and proclaimed himself emperor four
months later. In 1342, a political group that called themselves Zealots
and were led by the grand duke (= commander-in-chief of the Byzan-
tine navy) Alexios Apokaukos (late thirteenth century–1345) set up
a popular regime in Thessalonike. The conflict touched off a series of
revolts in other cities, with the nobility backing Kantakouzenos and
the middle and lower classes supporting John V and the Zealots. The
Zealot regime came to an end when Kantakouzenos recovered Thes-
salonike in 1350.
Nikephoros Choumnos’s (1250/55–1327) speech Thessalonikeusi
sumvouleutikos peri Dikaiosunēs (Exhortatory Oration on Justice) pro-
vides intriguing insights into the background of the events surrounding
the Zealot movement and a vivid description of the poverty conditions
19–43; Matschke, Fortschritt und Reaktion in Byzanz im 14. Jahrhundert: Konstantinopel in der
Bürgerkriegsperiode von 1341 bis 1354 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1971); Daphne Papadatou,
“Political Associations in the Late Byzantine Period: The Zealots and Sailors of Thessa-
lonica,” Balkan Studies 28 (1987): 3–23; Peter Charanis, “Internal Strife in Byzantium during
the Fourteenth Century,” Byzantion 15 (1941): 208–230, repr. in Charanis, Social, Economic
and Political Life in the Byzantine Empire, no. 6; Oreste Tafrali, Thessalonique au quatorzième
siècle (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1913; repr., Thessalonike: Idryma Meleton Hersonesou tou Aimou,
1993); and in general Günter Weiss, Johannes Kantakuzenos—Aristokrat, Staatsmann, Kaiser
und Mönch—in der Gesellschaftsentwicklung von Byzanz im 14. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden: O.
Harrassowitz, 1969); Franz Dölger, “Johannes VI. Kantakuzenos als dynastischer Legitimist,”
Seminarium Kondakovianum 10 (1938): 19–30, repr. in Dölger, Παρασπορα: 30 Aufsätze zur
Geschichte, Kultur und Sprache des byzantinischen Reiches (Munich: Buch-Kunstverlag Ettal,
1961), pp. 194–207. On the intellectual life of late Byzantine Thessalonike, consult Costas
N. Constantinides, “The Origin of the Flourishing of Learning in Thessaloniki during the
Fourteenth Century,” Dodonē 21 (1992): 133–150 [in Greek]; Daniele Bianconi, Tessalonica
nell’età dei Paleologi: Le pratiche intellettuali nel riflesso della cultura scritta (Centre d’études
byzantines, néo-helléniques et sud-esteuropéennes, École des Hautes Études en Sciences
Sociales, 2005); Franz Tinnefeld, “Intellectuals in Late Byzantine Thessalonike,” Dumbarton
Oaks Papers 57 (2003): 153–172; Vassilis Katsaros, “Literary and Intellectual Life in Byzan-
tine Thessaloniki,” in Queen of the Worthy: Thessaloniki, History and Culture, ed. Ioannes K.
Hassiotis (Thessalonike: Paratiritis, 1997), pp. 305–332; Constantine N. Constantinides,
“The Beginnings of the Intellectual Acme in Thessalonike in the 14th Century,” Dōdōnē 21
(1992): 133–150 [in Greek]; Ioannes E. Anastasios, “Education in Thessalonike in the 14th
Century,” Vuzantina 13 (1985): 909–921 [in Greek]; Donald M. “Thessalonica as a Cultural
Centre in the Fourteenth Century,” in Ē Thessalonikē metaxu Anatolēs kai Duseos (Thessa-
lonike: Etaireia Makedonikōn Spoudōn, 1982), pp. 121–131, repr. in Nicol, Studies in Late
Byzantine History and Prosopography (London: Variorum Reprints, 1986), no. 10; as well as
the articles in Macedonia during the Palaeologan Era (Thessalonike: Aristotle University of
Thessalonike, 1992), esp. Basiliki Papoulia, “Intellectual Currents in Macedonia during the
Fourteenth Century” (pp. 63–73) and Alkmini Stavridou-Zafraka, “The Physiognomy of
Thessalonike as the Second City of the Byzantine Empire during the Palaeologan Era” (pp.
75–84) [both in Greek].
and inequality in late Byzantine Thessalonike.109 Choumnos, a distin-

guished scholar and prime minister (mesazōn) of Emperor Andronikos
II, served as governor of Thessalonike in 1309/10.110 The speech, writ-
ten most probably around 1284/85,111 was originally intended for the
citizens of Thessalonike, but it was never delivered in public and circu-
lated within Choumnos’s circle of friends and associates.112 Choumnos
castigates the rich for contriving to take over the property and houses
of the poor in order to build their luxurious multi-storey residences and
points out that the poor in their turn, though initially trying to nego-
tiate, become desperate and succumb to the demands of those who,
driven by covetousness and cupidity, seek to seize their property.113
Similar sentiments are echoed in Tois Thessalonikeusi peri omonoias
([Oration] to the Citizens of Thessalonike on Concord),114 an exhorta-
tory speech composed by Thomas Magister (or Magistros, also known
by his monastic name Theodoulos, ca. 1280–1350/51), an eminent
classical scholar and theologian.115 The speech draws to some extent
109
Jean F. Boissonade, Anecdota græca e codicibus regiis (Paris: Excusum in Regio Typog-
rapheo, 1830; repr., Hildesheim: Olms, 1962), 2:137–187.
110
On Choumnos, see Ihor Ševčenko, Études sur la polémique entre Théodore Métochite
et Nicéphore Choumnos: La vie intellectuelle et politique à Byzance sous les premiers Paléologues
(Brussels: Byzantion, 1962); and Jean Verpeaux, Nicéphore Choumnos: Homme d’État et
humaniste byzantin (ca 1250/1255–1327) (Paris: A. et J. Picard, 1959).
111
Verpeaux, Nicéphore Choumnos, p. 35.
112
Tinnefeld, “Intellectuals in Late Byzantine Thessalonike,” p. 165.
113
Boissonade, Anecdota græca e codicibus regiis, 2:168–169. See also Zakythinos, Crise
monétaire et crise économique à Byzance, pp. 46–47.
114
The text was first edited by Vasileios Laourdas, “Thoma Magistrou Tois Thessaloni-
keusi peri omonoias,” Epistēmonikē Epetēris Scholēs Nomikōn kai Oikonomikōn Epistēmōn Aris-
toteleiou Panepistēmiou Thessalonikēs 12 (1969): 751–775, 753–768, and has been reprinted
with facing modern Greek translation (pp. 66–115) and commentary (pp. 116–140) in
Sotiria Triantari-Mara, The Political Thought of Fourteenth Century in Thessaloniki: Oration to
the Thessalonicans on Concord by Thomas Magistros; an Approach on the Contribution of Politi-
cal Philosophy to Modern Times (Athens: Herodotos, 2002). Surveys of Magister’s life and
oeuvre include Sotiria A. Triantari, Politics, Rhetoric and Communication in the Fourteenth
and the Twenty-first Century: Oration about Kingdom and about State of Thomas Magistros
[in Greek] (Thessalonike: A. Stamoulis, 2009), pp. 17–37; Bianconi, Tessalonica nell’età dei
Paleologi, pp. 72–90; and Stephanos K. Skalistes, Thomas Magistros: His Life and Œuvre [in
Greek] (Thessalonike: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 1984).
115
For Magister’s contribution to the reception and study of the classical legacy,
see Niels Gaul, Thomas Magistros und die spätbyzantische Sophistik: Studien zum Humanis-
mus urbaner Eliten in der frühen Palaiologenzeit (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 2011); Gaul,
“Moschopulos, Lopadiotes, Phrankopulos (?), Magistros, Staphidakes: Prosopographisches
und Methodologisches zur Lexikographie des frühen 14. Jahrhunderts,” Super alta perennis
4 (2008): 163–196, 184–190; Gaul, “The Twitching Shroud: Collective Construction of
Paideia in the Circle of Thomas Magistros,” Segno e Testo 5 (2007): 263–340; Vasileios Laour-
das, “Classical Philology in Thessalonike in the Fourteenth Century,” Etaireia Makedonikōn
Spoudōn. Idruma Meletōn Hersonesou tou Aimou 37 (1960): 5–20 [in Greek]. On late
on ancient Greek models, especially Aelius Aristides’s (117 c.e.–after

181) orations, and captures the sense of anguish and the political dec-
adence that prevailed in Thessalonike in the wake of the civil wars
between Andronikos II and his grandson Andronikos III over the
succession to the throne during the years 1321–1328 and on the eve
of the Zealot revolution.116 Magister also wrote two treatises on the
proper qualifications for kingship (Peri vasileias [On Kingship]) and the
duties of citizens (Peri politeias [On the Commonwealth]),117 in which
he makes an urgent appeal to the civic body of Thessalonike to restore
unity and uphold justice, and alerting readers to the deleterious effects
of sedition and factional discord (stasis).
The theme of economic injustice was seconded by Alexios Makrem-
volites (d. after 1349), who offers a prescient analysis of the fall of
the Byzantine state as the result of a decision of the world-governing
Byzantine philologists in general, see Sophia Mergiali, L’Enseignement et les Lettrés [sic] pen-
dant l’époque des Paléologues (1261–1453) (Athens: Société des Amis du Peuple, Centre
d’Études Byzantines, 1996), pp. 49–59.
116
There is no scholarly consensus as to which of the two events Magister is referring
to. I am inclined to the view that Magister alludes to both the conflict between Andronikos
II and his grandson Andronikos III and the events that precipitated the Zealot revolt. For
a similar interpretation and review of previous scholarship, see Triantari-Mara, The Political
Thought of Fourteenth Century in Thessaloniki, pp. 37–53. On the conflict between Androni-
kos II and his grandson, see Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, chap. “The Question
of the Succession and the First Civil War,” pp. 151–166; as well as Leonidas Mavrommatis,
The First Palaiologoi: Problems of Political Praxis and Ideology (Athens: Syllogos pros Diadosin
ton Hellenikon Grammaton, 1983), pp. 52–78; Konstantinos P. Kyrris, Byzantium in the 14th
Century (Nicosia: Lampousa, 1982) [both in Greek].
117
Patrologia Græca; 145, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne (Paris: J.-P. Migne and Garnier,
1904), pp. 447–495 and 495–547; partial English trans. in Social and Political Thought in
Byzantium, from Justinian I to the Last Palaeologus; Passages from Byzantine Writers and Docu-
ments, trans. Ernest Barker (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), pp. 163–168 and 168–173,
respectively; modern Greek trans. and commentary in Triantari, Politics, Rhetoric and Com-
munication in the Fourteenth and the Twenty-First Century, pp. 166–403; Italian trans. Toma
Magistro, La regalità, ed. and trans. Paola Volpe Cacciatore (Naples: M. D’Auria, 1997).
Scholarly treatments of Magister’s political ideas include: Sotiria [A.] Triantari[-Mara], Poli-
tics, Rhetoric and Communication in the Fourteenth and the Twenty-first Century, pp. 75–164;
Triantari, The Political Views of Byzantine Thinkers from Tenth to Thirteenth Century (Thessa-
lonike: Herodotos, 2002), pp. 167–257; Triantari, “Political Views in Thomas More’s Utopia
and Thomas Magistros’s On Kingship and On the State,” Parnassos 44 (2002): 317–338 [all
in Greek]; Christos P. Baloglou, “Thomas Magistros’ Vorschläge zur Wirtschafts- und Sozi-
alpolitik,” Byzantinoslavica 60 (1999): 60–70; Ioannis G. Leontiadis, “Untersuchungen zum
Staatsverständnis der Byzantiner aufgrund der Fürsten- bzw. Untertanenspiegel (13. bis 15.
Jahrhundert)” (PhD diss., University of Vienna, 1997), pp. 107–149; Léon-Pierre Raybaud,
Le gouvernement et l’administration centrale de l’empire byzantin sous les premiers Paléologues
(1258–1354) (Paris: Sirey, 1968), pp. 24–35. For a study that situates Magister in the history
of late Byzantine advice literature, see Konstantinos D. S. Paidas, The Byzantine Mirrors of
Princes of the Late Period (1254–1403): Expressions of the Byzantine Royal Ideal [in Greek]
(Athens: Grigoris, 2006).
Providence that causes the fluctuations in the affairs of the world and
transfers sovereignty from one people to another. In the fictional Dialo-
gos plousiōn kai penētōn (Dialogue [between] Rich and Poor, ca. 1344),
Makremvolites captures the feverish strife and social rifts that con-
vulsed the Byzantine world in the thirteenth century and points to the
suffering of the poor, who were at the mercy of the wealthy.118
Another major late Byzantine intellectual who witnessed the reper-
cussions of the Zealot episode and got embroiled in contemporary
debates on the economic and social ills that plagued the empire was
Nikolaos Kavasilas (ca. 1322–ca. 1390), a cleric and scion of a promi-
nent noble family from Thessalonike. In his Peri tokou (On Interest),
an oration addressed to Anna of Savoy (Palaiologina, 1306–ca. 1365)
that was written around 1351, he expresses unqualified disdain for the
rich who, as he observes, engage in unjust actions, seek profit by ruin-
ing others, and behave like robbers, thieves, and wild animals.119
In his Logos kata tokizontōn (Oration against Usurers), Kavasilas
118
Ihor Ševčenko, “Alexios Makrembolites and His Dialogue between the Rich and the
Poor,” in Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta 6 (1960): 187–228, 213, 225, repr. in Šev
čenko, Society and Intellectual Life in Late Byzantium (London: Variorum Reprints, 1981),
no. 7. Makrembolites’s social ideas are discussed also in Dimitrios G. Magriplis, “Sociologi-
cal Approaches to Byzantine History: Conclusions from the Study of Alexios Makremvoli-
tis’ Dialogue between the Rich and the Poor (14th Century),” Vyzantinos Domos 15 (2006):
107–124 [in Greek]; Klaus-Peter Matschke and Franz Tinnefeld, Die Gesellschaft im späten
Byzanz: Gruppen, Strukturen und Lebensformen (Cologne: Böhlau, 2001), pp. 344–347; Eva
de Vries-van der Velden, L’élite byzantine devant l’avance turque à l’époque de la guerre civile
de 1341 à 1354 (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1989), pp. 251–289; and Costas P. Kyrres, “Elé-
ments traditionnels et éléments révolutionnaires dans l’idéologie d’Aléxios Makrembolitès
et d’autres intellectuels byzantins du XIVe s.,” in Actes du XIVe Congrès International des
Etudes Byzantines (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1975),
2:177–188.
119
Rodolphe Guilland, “Le Traité inédit ‘sur l’usure’ de Nicolas Cabasilas,” in Eis
mnēmēn Spyridōnos Lamprou (Athens: Epitropē Ekdoseōs tōn kataloipōn Spyridōnos Lam-
prou, 1935), pp. 269–277, 274; Laiou, “Economic Concerns and Attitudes of the Intellectu-
als of Thessalonike,” p. 217; Matschke and Tinnefeld, Die Gesellschaft im späten Byzanz, pp.
347–349. See further Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, “Hésychasme et palamisme,” in Histoire
du christianisme, vol. 6, Un temps d’épreuves (1274–1453) (Paris: G. Beauchesne, 1990), pp.
557–563, 508–510; Christos P. Baloglou, “Kavasilas’ Economic Thought,” Byzantiaka 16
(1996): 191–213 [in Greek]; as well as Niketas Siniossoglou, Radical Platonism in Byzantium:
Illumination and Utopia in Gemistos Plethon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011),
pp. 359–369; Peter Charanis, “Observations on the ‘Anti-Zealot’ Discourse of Cabasilas,”
Revue des Etudes Sud-Est Européennes 9 (1971): 369–376, repr. in Charanis, Social, Economic
and Political Life in the Byzantine Empire, no. 7. For Kavasilas’s life and works, consult Marie-
Hélène Congourdeau, Correspondance de Nicolas Cabasilas (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2010),
pp. xi–xvii; Yannis Spiteris and Carmelo G. Conticello, “Nicola Cabasilas Chamaetos,” in La
Théologie byzantine et sa tradition, vol. 2, XIIIe–XIXe s., ed. Carmelo G. Conticello and Vassa
Conticello (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), pp. 315–410; Yannis Spiteris and Patrizia Morelli,
Cabasilas, teologo e mistico bizantino: Nicola Cabasilas Chamaetos, e la sua sintesi teologica (Rome:
Lipa, 1996); Constantine N. Tsirpanlis, “The Career and Writings of Nicolas Cabasilas,”
offers an extensive treatment of lending at interest and hoarding of

resources onto which he has grafted patristic and legal definitions
of usury. He also points to the moral dimensions of usury, which he
equates with other kinds of crimes such as adultery, murder, and theft,
with the only difference that these crimes entail a certain degree of
risk, whereas usury is a more detestable form of crime because it is free
of risks.120 Kavasilas specifically denounces laws that associate interest
rates and the character of the lender and forbid clerics from loaning
at interest or allow nobles to charge only low rates while permitting
wicked and morally corrupt individuals to charge high interest rates.121
If the Zealot rebellion was construed by both pro- and anti-Zealot
intellectuals as a portent of Byzantium’s fall, in the first half of the
fourteenth century the political disintegration of Byzantine rule due
to the wrongs and injustices perpetuated by the imperial administra-
tion, a long series of economic crises, and the advances of the Turk-
ish forces came to be broadly regarded as a fait accompli. A number
of Byzantine thinkers felt despondent about the process of Byzantine
decline, explaining it as a manifestation of divine wrath for misrule or
a divine punishment for the Byzantines’ refusal to endorse the union
of the churches.122 But George Gemistos Plethon (d. 1452), a towering
Byzantion 49 (1979): 414–427; George T. Dennis, “Nicholas Cabasilas Chamaëtos and His
Discourse on Abuses Committed by Authorities against Sacred Things,” Byzantine Studies/
Études Byzantines 5 (1978): 80–87, repr. in Dennis, Byzantium and the Franks, 1350–1420
(London: Variorum Reprints, 1982), no. 11; Horst Müller-Asshoff, “Beobachtungen an den
Hauptschriften des Gregorios Palamas und Nikolaos Kabasilas,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 70
(1977): 22–41; Athanasios A. Angelopoulos, Nikolaos Kavasilas Chamaetos, His Life and
Work (A Contribution to Macedonian Byzantine Prosopography) [in Greek] (Thessalonike:
Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies, 1970); Sévérien Salaville, “Quelques précisions
pour la biographie de Nicolas Cabasilas,” in Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of
Byzantine Studies (Athens: Myrtides, 1958), 3:215–226; as well as the following studies by
Ihor Ševčenko: “Nicolas Cabasilas’ ‘Anti-Zealot’ Discourse: A Reinterpretation,” Dumbar-
ton Oaks Papers 11 (1957): 81–171; “The Author’s Draft of Nicolas Cabasilas’ ‘Anti-Zealot’
Discourse in Parisinus Gr. 1276,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 14 (1960): 181–201; “A Postcript
on Nicolas Cabasilas’ ‘Anti-Zealot’ Discourse,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 16 (1962): 403–408,
all three repr. in Ševčenko, Society and Intellectual Life in Late Byzantium, nos. 6, 5, and 4,
respectively. A survey of Byzantine attitudes to interest appears in Lazaros T. Houmanidis,
“On Usury during the Byzantine Era,” Vuzantinai Meletai 6 (1995): 104–122 [in Greek].
120
Patrologia Graeca 150: 727–750. See also Laiou, “Economic Concerns and Attitudes
of the Intellectuals of Thessalonike,” p. 213; Matschke and Tinnefeld, Die Gesellschaft im
späten Byzanz, pp. 349–355.
121
Laiou, “Economic Concerns and Attitudes of the Intellectuals of Thessalonike,” p.
215.
122
For further references and discussion, see Jonathan Harris, “Laonikos Chalkokon-
dyles and the Rise of Ottoman Turks,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 27 (2003): 153–
170; Harris, “The Influence of Plethon’s Idea of Fate on the Historian Laonikos Chalko-
kondyles,” in Proceedings of the International Congress on Plethon and His Time, Mystras, ed.
figure of late Byzantine intellectual life and purveyor of ancient Greek

and Byzantine learning in Renaissance Italy, pinned his hopes for sur-
vival on the organization of the Peloponnese as an autonomous politi-
cal entity that would serve as the last refuge for Byzantines of “Hellenic”
stock, as shown in the two memoranda which he addressed to Theodoros
II Palaiologos (1396–1448, r. 1407–1443), Despot of Mystra, in 1416,123
Linos G. Benakis and Christos P. Baloglou (Athens: International Society of Plethonian

and Byzantine Studies, 2003), pp. 211–217. Eschatological interpretations of Byzantine
decay are discussed in Siniossoglou, Radical Platonism in Byzantium, pp. 356–361; Paul Mag-
dalino, “The End of Time in Byzantium,” in Endzeiten: Eschatologie in den monotheistischen
Weltreligionen, ed. Wolfram Brandes and Felicitas Schmieder (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2008),
pp. 119–133, esp. 132–133; Magdalino, “The History of the Future and Its Uses: Proph-
ecy, Policy and Propaganda,” in The Making of Byzantine History, ed. Roderick Beaton and
Charlotte Roueché (Aldershot: Variorum, 1993), pp. 3–34; Marie-Hélène Congourdeau,
“Byzance et la fin du monde. Courants de pensée apocalyptiques sous les Paléologues, in
Les traditions apocalyptiques au tournant de la chute de Constantinople, ed. Benjamin Lellouch
and Stéphane Yerasimos (Paris: Harmattan, 2000), pp. 55–97; Agostino Pertusi, Fine di
Bisanzio e fine del mondo: Significato e ruolo storico delle profezie sulla caduta di Costantinopoli in
Oriente e in Occidente, ed. Enrico Morini (Rome: Nella Sede dell’Istituto Palazzo Borromini,
1988); Gerhard Podkalsky, “Der Fall Konstantinopels in der Sicht der Reichsechatologie
und der Klagelieder. Vorahnungen und Reaktionen,” Archiv für Kulturgeshichte 57 (1975):
71–86; Podkalsky, Byzantinische Reichseschatologie: Die Periodisierung der Weltgeschichte in den
vier Grossreichen (Daniel 2 und 7) und dem tausendjährigen Friedensreiche (Apok. 20): Eine
motivgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Munich: W. Fink, 1972); C. J. G. Turner, “Pages from Late
Byzantine Philosophy of History,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 57 (1964): 346–373; and Alex-
ander A. Vasiliev, “Medieval Ideas on the End of the World: West and East,” Byzantion 16
(1942/3): 462–502.
123
Exhortatory Address to Despot Theodore about the Peloponnese—Spyridon P. Lam-
pros, Palaiologeia kai Peloponnēsiaka (Athens: V. N. Gregoriades, 1972), 4:113–135—par-
tial English trans. in Barker, Social and Political Thought in Byzantium, pp. 207–212. Com-
pare the nineteenth-century English translation by the Scottish historian George Finlay
(1799–1875) in Christos P. Baloglou, “George Finlay and Georgios Gemistos Plethon. New
Evidence from Finlay’s Records,” Medioevo greco 3 (2003): 23–42, 26–35, repr. in Baloglou,
Meletēmata peri Geōrgiou Gemistou-Plēthōnos (Athens: Eptalofos, 2011), pp. 100–119. For
further discussion of Pletho’s memoranda, see Siniossoglou, Radical Platonism in Byzantium,
part 3, “Mistra versus Athos,” pp. 327–392; Giorgio Gemisto Pletone, Trattato delle virtù,
intro., Italian trans., notes, and apparatuses Moreno Neri (Milan: Bompiani, 2010), pp.
47–73; Peter Garnsey, “Gemistus Plethon and Platonic Political Philosophy,” in Transfor-
mations of Late Antiquity, ed. Philip Rousseau and Manolis Papoutsakis (Farnham: Ash-
gate, 2009), pp. 327–340, esp. 334–338; Christos P. Baloglou, Georgiou Gemistou Plēthōnos
peri Peloponnēsiakōn pragmatōn (Athens: Eleftheri Skepsis, 2002), pp. 97–127; Proceedings
of the International Congress on Plethon and His Time, esp. Savvas P. Spentzas, “The Mili-
tary Organization of the Peloponnese: G. Gemistos Plethon’s Economic, Social and Fis-
cal Proposals,” (pp. 243–265) [in Greek]; Anastassios D. Karayiannis, “Georgios Gemistos
Plethon on Economic Policy,” (pp. 306–310); Christos P. Baloglou, “The Institutions of
Ancient Sparta in the Work of Pletho,” (pp. 311–326; first published as “The Institutions of
Ancient Sparta in the Work of Pletho,” Antike und Abendland 51 [2005]: 137–149); Yannis
Smarnakis, “A Contribution to the Archaeology of Modern Utopian Thought: History and
Utopia in Plethon’s Oeuvre,” Historein 7 (2007): 103–113, esp. 106–109; Vryonis, “Crises
and Anxieties in Fifteenth Century Byzantium,” pp. 120–122; Christopher M. Woodhouse,
and Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (1350–1425, r. 1391–1421) in

1418.124
The ideal form of regime envisioned by Plethon is one with a strong
monarch with a moderate number of educated men drawn from the
middle class acting as his advisers. Plethon also advocates abolition
of private property, regulation of commercial activities with an eye to
local needs, and strict currency control.125
Conclusion
In this article, I elucidated the central premises of Shāh Walī Allāh’s

theory of the state and human civilization and engaged in a closer
discussion of the ways in which his political ideas relate to previous
Islamic political discourse, notably the akhlāq (Ṭūsī, Dawwānī) and
Indo-Islamic strands of political thought (Baranī, Abū’l-Faẓl, Najm-i
Sānī). I demonstrated that Shāh Walī Allāh articulates a naturalistic
approach to the phenomenon of social genesis and posits the goal of
meeting human needs as the prime motivating force behind the forma-
tion of human society.
I also reconstructed Shāh Walī Allāh’s theory about the factors that
account for the decline of the state and the empire and of his program
for dealing with a broad range of emergencies. I argued that Shāh Walī
George Gemistos Plethon: The Last of the Hellenes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986; repr.,
2000), pp. 92–109; N. Patrick Peritore, “The Political Thought of Gemistos Plethon: A
Renaissance Byzantine Reformer,” Polity 10 (1977): 168–191; Johannes Irmscher, “Die
Wandlungen der Staatsidee im ausgehenden Byzanz,” Rivista di cultura classica e medioevale
19 (1977): 446–450; J. Duncan M. Derret, “Gemistus Plethon, the Essenes, and More’s
Utopia,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 27 (1965): 579–606; John Mamalakis,
“The Impact of Contemporary Events on George Gemistos’ Ideas,” in Proceedings of the
Ninth International Congress of Byzantine Studies, ed. S. Kyriakides et al. [in Greek] (Athens:
Typographeion Myrtidi, 1956), 2:498–532, esp. 504–511; Johannes Draseke, “Plethons und
Bessarions Denkschriften über die Angelegenheiten im Peloponnes,” Neue Jahrbücher für
das klassische Altertum, Geschichte und deutsche Literatur 27 (1911): 102–119; and Henry F.
Tozer, “A Byzantine Reformer,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 7 (1886): 353–380.
124
Georgios Gemistos to Manuel Palaeologus concerning the Affairs in the Peloponnese—
Lampros, Palaiologeia kai Peloponnēsiaka, 3:246–265—partial English trans. in Barker, Social
and Political Thought in Byzantium, pp. 198–206. Consider also Finlay’s translation in Balo-
glou, “George Finlay and Georgios Gemistos Plethon,” pp. 36–42.
125
Lampros, Palaiologeia kai Peloponnēsiaka, 3:263. Plethon’s economic ideas are dis-
cussed in Christos P. Baloglou, “Economic Thought in the Last Byzantine Period,” pp.
405–438, 424–430; Baloglou, Georgios Gemistos-Plethon: Ökonomisches Denken in der spät-
byzantinischen Geisteswelt (Athens: Historical Publications St. D. Basilopoulos, 1998); Sav-
vas P. Spentzas, G. Gemistos Plethon, the Philosopher of Mystra: His Economic, Social and Fiscal
Views [in Greek] (Athens: Ekdoseis M. Kardamitsa, 1987).
Allāh’s statements on the causes of Mughal decay open a window into

the intellectual atmosphere in the last centuries of Mughal rule, but
also bear intriguing affinities to the ideas expressed by earlier thinkers
on the economic aspects of imperial decline. Shāh Walī Allāh’s use of
the Byzantine paradigm as an instrument of analysis of the sociopo-
litical conditions that prevailed in his contemporary India brings him
close to a number of Byzantine authors who perceived the eclipse of
Byzantine rule as the outcome of social inequalities, oppression of the
lower strata of society, and overtaxation.
Moreover, the findings of the preceding analysis of Shāh Walī
Allāh’s political thought call for a reassessment of Bernard Lewis’s the-
sis that the decline of the Islamic world occurred due to intrinsic flaws
in the Islamic tradition, notably the status of slaves, women, and unbe-
lievers,126 and cultural obstinacy and aversion to secularization.127 Shāh
Walī Allāh is in substantial agreement with Byzantine thinkers on the
primacy of economic factors in the process of imperial decline. His ref-
erences to the Byzantine and Sassanian empires reflect a vivid aware-
ness of the importance of maladministration and financial corruption
as universal causes for the decay of any type of state organization that
extends well beyond the Islamic context.
While previous scholarly attempts to study the history of the
Mughal Empire from a cross-cultural perspective have primarily
focused on comparisons with the Roman and Ottoman empires,128 the
126
Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? The Clash between Islam and Modernity in the
Middle East (New York: Perennial, 2003), chap. “Modernization and Social Equality,” pp.
82–95.
127
Lewis, What Went Wrong?, chap. “Secularism and the Civil Society,” pp. 96–116.
128
See, for example, the following two collections of essays edited by Peter F. Bang and
Christopher A. Bayly: Tributary Empires in Global History (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmil-
lan, 2011) and Tributary Empires in History: Comparative Perspectives from Antiquity to the
Late Medieval [= The Medieval History Journal 6, no. 2 (2003)]. The comparative study of the
Roman, Mughal, and Ottoman empires is the subject of the international research project
“Tributary Empires Compared” at the SAXO Institute at the University of Copenhagen. A
comparative investigation of the decline of the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires can
be found in Rohan D’Souza, “Crisis before the Fall: Some Speculations on the Decline of
the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals,” Social Scientist 30 (2002): 3–30. See also in general:
Stephen F. Dale, The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010); Francis Robinson, “Ottomans-Safavids-Mughals:
Shared Knowledge and Connective Systems,” Journal of Islamic Studies 8 (1997): 151–184;
Halil Berktay, “Three Empires and the Societies they Governed: Iran, India and the Otto-
man Empire,” Journal of Peasant Studies 18 (1992) [= New Approaches to State and Peasant
in Ottoman History, ed. Halil Berktay and Suraiya Faroqhi]: 247–263; İ. Metin Kunt, “The
Later Muslim Empires: Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals,” in Islam: The Religious and Political
Life of a World Community, ed. Marjorie Kelly (New York: Praeger, 1984), pp. 113–136.
results of this article highlight the need for a detailed investigation

of Indo-Islamic attitudes toward the political history of the Byzantine
Empire and a comparative study of the Byzantine and Mughal pat-
terns of imperial organization. They also call for a critical reevaluation
of Shāh Walī Allāh’s political ideas and philosophy of history that
will help place him in conversation with eighteenth-century Western
thinkers (Montesquieu, Vico, Gibbon) and revisit the relevance of his
ideas to ongoing debates on the economic dimensions of state decline.

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An Early Modern South Asian Thinker on the Rise and Decline

Journal of World History, Volume 23, Number 4, December 2012, pp.

Published by University of Hawai'i Press

For additional information about this article

Journal of World History, Vol. 23, No. 4

o­ rigins and downfall of social organization that has much in common

al-Bāzighah (The Full Moon Rising on the Horizon),4 he formulates an

In the first section of my article, I discuss how Shāh Walī Allāh’s

I. The Rise of the State

The Emergence and Evolution of Human Civilization

evolution of civilization: one might love beauty and luxury; another

trade evolved into distinct professions, as did the administration of the

The Ideal Ruler

ruler is expected to epitomize superior leadership virtues such as cour-

Shāh Walī Allāh devotes special attention to the ruler’s relationship

Shāh Walī Allāh provides a more detailed distinction among three

destroy their strongholds, and take all possible measures to neutralize

Medieval and Early Modern Islamic Sources

i­ndividual, to restrain each individual from encroaching upon the

support in order to satisfy the interests of the various segments of the

in the human body.54 Moderation is important both as a means for

den which is administered by the state; the state signifies authority

fold division of the populace into: (1) men of knowledge—theologians,

compel people to abandon their own profession and station, leading

II. The Decline of States and Empires

b. An offender injures another person or abuses his family by molesting

In addition to proposing special measures for each of the emergen-

a. He cautions against the policy of appointing a large number of jagirs

Shāh Walī Allāh stands forth as an intimate observer of the politi-

Shāh Walī Allāh on Byzantine Decline

generations and had become so engrossed in the pleasures of this world

major lacuna in scholarship. Previous studies rarely address medieval

the tenets of Islam. The earliest references to pre-Islamic rulers occur

Arab authors also denounced luxury, wasteful extravagance, pomp,

cle.94 It is possible that Shāh Walī Allāh’s intention is to alert Mughal

forces at the battle of Mantzikert (Malazgirt, 1071) and the Turkish

The steady increase of costs for the administration and sustenance

Amidst a famine in Constantinople in the 1300s, the then Patri-

bribes and slander the Church.103 He advocates tight central control

and inequality in late Byzantine Thessalonike.109 Choumnos, a distin-

on ancient Greek models, especially Aelius Aristides’s (117 c.e.–after

offers an extensive treatment of lending at interest and hoarding of

figure of late Byzantine intellectual life and purveyor of ancient Greek

Linos G. Benakis and Christos P. Baloglou (Athens: International Society of Plethonian

and Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (1350–1425, r. 1391–1421) in

In this article, I elucidated the central premises of Shāh Walī Allāh’s

Allāh’s statements on the causes of Mughal decay open a window into

results of this article highlight the need for a detailed investigation

You might also like

o rigins and downfall of social organization that has much in common

individual, to restrain each individual from encroaching upon the

b. An offender injures another person or abuses his family by molesting

a. He cautions against the policy of appointing a large number of jagirs