Chapter 1 Mirrors for Princes in Europe and the Middle East: A Case of Historiographical Incommensurability

Mirrors for Princes and Sultans: Advice on the Art of Governance in the Medieval Christian and Islamic Worlds

“…We find the existence of similar emphases across European and Islamic texts, in the aggregate, to be reassuring as this suggests that the broad comparability of the cases. This is consistent with arguments offered by Darling (2013b), who finds that although there is no evidence that the two literatures strongly influenced one another, there do appear to be important similarities in their content and development.…”

“…Advice books also reflected these changes. Monarchy became the assumed form of government and writers of advice books came to increasingly focus on the consolidation of power in the hands of the king (Darling, 2013b). For example, famed Seljuk vizier and author of the Book of Government (1110 CE) -Nizam al-Mulk -treated kingship as a "focal point of the Muslim community," assigning functions which previously belonged to the caliph or other societal actors, increasingly to the sultan (Black, 2008, 26).…”

“…SeeDarling (2013b) andBroadbridge (2008) for more on this. 23 However, the exact dimensions of this change would have to be confirmed with closer analysis of texts from the immediate aftermath of the Mongol invasion.…”

The People of the Pen: Self-Perceptions of Status and Role in the Administration of Empires and Polities

“…Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (d. 1274), for example, referred in his Akhlaq-i Nasiri (Nasirean Ethics) to Platonic, Neoplatonic, Aristotelian, Achaemenid, and Sassanian political theories. 111 A wasiyya has the connotation of a testamentary advice of a father to his son or an administrator to his heir. A well-known wasiyya is, for example, the treatise Tahir b. al-Husayn (r. 775-822) wrote on the accession of his son as provincial governor in eastern Iran.…”

Mirror Reflections: Louis XIV, Phra Narai, and the Material Culture of Kingship

“…While drawing upon a global iconography of absolute power, one that was used in Mughal and Safavid royal architecture in addition to European palaces, they were also capable of evoking the Islamic and European 'mirrors for princes' tradition as well as Buddhist ideas of enlightenment. 38 In fashioning his mirrored audience halls, Narai, who adopted many Persian infl uences at his court, was probably more inspired by the use of mirrors in Safavid palaces, or perhaps in Buddhist temples, than he was by the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. 39 Yet another appeal of mirrors was their association with the emergent system of global capitalism, of which Siam was a major entrepôt.…”