İlahiyat Akademi

Abstract

In the early 7th/13th century the Ādāb al-ḥarb wa’l-shajāʿa authored by Fakhr al-Dīn Mubārak Shah (Fakhr al-Mudabbir) and presented to the Sultan Iltutmūs, contains a wealth of information on the medieval art of warfare. Despite its wealth of information on military organisation and war strategies, the work belongs entirely to the siyāsatnāma (Mirrors of Princes) literature in terms of its composition and method. However, it has not been studied extensively as a political treatise. Rather than discussing the text's place in Islamic political thought, this study focuses on evaluating the text's sources and method of textual construction through the political and personal context. As is often seen in political treatises, the author used parables and historical anecdotes to support his arguments based on moral advice. The volume of hadiths used for the same purpose distinguishes this text from other political treatises. Through comparative readings, we have determined that the text's sources consist largely uncited collections of hadiths, as well as predecessors of the genre. However, there is a high degree of authorial discretion in its quotations and adaptations. Although the anecdotes quoted and produced often discuss historical events and figures, these non-original narrations are generally ‘hagiographised’ and cannot be corroborated by contemporary sources. A similar approach is evident in the utilisation of hadiths. Many interventions have been identified, such as attributing words that do not belong to the Prophet Muhammad to him, either directly or indirectly via interpretations. Although the author had sufficient knowledge, it has been determined that the hadiths he instrumentalised were taken from texts written in later periods for the benefit of the public and criticised for the authenticity of the narrations they contained. Popular texts on asceticism and morality, particularly Abū al-Lays al-Samarqandī's (d. 373/983) Tanbīhu al-gāfilīn, as well as some older political treatises, appear to have influenced not only the content but also the structure of the text. Another important factor that influenced the content and style of the Ādāb al-ḥarb wa’l-shajāʿa was undoubtedly the political turmoil in the region where the author lived. Therefore, the writing of the text is not independent of the collapse of the Ghaznavids, to whom the author was connected through family ties, the rapid rise of the Ghūrids, and finally the formation of the Delhi Sultanate, a Muslim Turkish state established in North India. His attempt to support his negative attitude towards women's rule with obscure hadiths is closely related to the accession of Sultan Iltutmish's daughter, Raziya Begum, to the throne. Some of his interpretations of hadiths and parables, as well as his stylistic preferences, clearly indicate the author's inclination towards Shiism. But the most important factor in this context is that, despite all the military successes in Hind and the massive migration caused by Mongol expansionism, the Muslim Turkish population remained a minority in North India. The composition of voluminous literary works containing parables and hadiths from Islamic history, written in a language comprehensible to the public by Fakhr al-Mudabbir and his contemporaries, seems to have been the result of their desire to respond with a cultural demarche to the population problem, which was always on the agenda of their patrons, the Delhi Sultanate. The image of Muslim Turks in contemporary Sanskrit sources and the nature of the sultanate's relationship with the Chishtiyya Sufis, who played a significant role in the Islamisation of the region, also reinforce this possibility. All these elements indicate that the Ādāb al-ḥarb wa’l-shajāʿa belongs to the genre of siyāsatnāma and that its historical value should be evaluated in this context.