Abstract:
The authorship of the Naṣīḥat al-mulūk of Pseudo-Māwardī has attracted considerable attention since Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Munʿim Aḥmad refuted its attribution to al-Māwardī in the introduction to his edition of 1988 and at greater length in a subsequent dedicated monograph. In the former publication, Aḥmad tentatively suggested the authorship of Abū Zayd al-Balkhī (d. 322/934). In a recent article, Hassan Ansari, returning to the question of the mirror’s authorship, has proposed its composition by a student of the Muʿtazilī theologian Abū l-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī (d. 319/931). The present article proposes that the mirror, produced in Balkh, reflects close associations with both Abū Zayd and Abū l-Qāsim, who studied together in their youth and remained friends and colleagues throughout their lives. Both men served in the brief administration of the dihqān and commander Aḥmad b. Sahl (d. 307/920), appointed governor of Khurasan, and both spent the latter periods of their lives in Balkh. The article argues for the book’s participation in the Kindian tradition, in which writings on the subject of siyāsa featured prominently. Pseudo-Māwardī’s Naṣīḥat al-mulūk provides one of the few extant sources for this body of writings, and illuminates the intellectual-cultural trajectory that passes from al-Kindī to al-ʿĀmirī.
© De Gruyter
