The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

Dawani, Jalal al-Din (1427–1502)

A major philosopher of the Timurid period, Jalal al-Din Dawani wrote a number of works on ethics and politics for his patrons, following the model of the akhlāq (ethics and statecraft) literature established by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. Dawani studied with important philosophers in Shiraz, and early in his career he became a courtier to the Turkmen Qara Quyunlu rulers. Later he sought the patronage of various rulers in the turbulence of 15th-century Persia, writing books for the Aq Quyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan (d. 1478), the Timurid sultan Abu Sa‘id (d. 1469), the Ottoman sultan Bayazid II (d. 1512), and Sultan Mahmud I of Gujarat (d. 1511). He served in major roles as the head of the religious establishment (ṣadr) under the Qara Quyunlu and as chief qadi (judge) of Fars under the Timurid sultan Ya‘qub (d. 1490). Dawani engaged in polemics and scholarly debates with his major rivals in Shiraz, such as the philosophers Mir Sadr al-Din (d. 1497) and his son Mir Ghiyath al-Din Dashtaki (d. 1542); they were also rivals for patronage. The Dashtaki family later rose to prominence under the new Shi‘i Safavid rulers, and the stigmatization and marginalization of Dawani might be due to their condemnation of him as a Sunni thinker. Dawani’s views on the Safavids were ambiguous, and his death in 1502 before they conquered Shiraz prevented any disambiguation.

Dawani’s political views are found primarily in the Lawami‘ al-Ishraq fi Makarim al-Akhlaq (Flashes of illumination on the excellence of conduct), popularly known as Akhlaq-i Jalali (The Jalalian ethics), written for Uzun Hasan, whom he describes in terms of the Sunni and Iranian consensus in medieval Islamic political thought as the “shadow of God on Earth” and as the caliph and successor to the Prophet. His Sunni political views are clear in the short work ‘Arznama (Testament), written for Uzun Hasan’s son, Khalil, in 1478, and in his commentary on the creed of Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Nasafi and its supercommentary by ‘Adud al-Din al-Iji written in 1499. However, before his death, and perhaps to prevent repercussions from the impending Safavid conquest of Shiraz, he wrote a short work, Nur al-Hidaya (The light of guidance), on a Shi‘i conception of political authority while setting aside the more messianic claims of the Safavid shahs.

The Akhlaq-i Jalali was popular in the Safavid and Mughal periods and was the conduit for the dissemination of the ideas of Tusi in the Akhlaq-i Nasiri (Nasirean Ethics). The text differs little from Tusi’s text: the section on moral psychology was omitted and more aphorisms were added in the final section from the Persian tradition as well as from Aristotle (including pseudo-Aristotelian sayings from works such as the Liber de Pomo, the alleged testament to Alexander). The main difference between his and Tusi’s work (and this probably accounts for its greater dissemination and fame) is stylistic: Dawani’s work became a model for Persian composition and was even used for training in epistolary writing in India and subsequently in Persia. Dawani also arguably practiced the role of the philosopher-ethicist-vizier in a more effective manner with a wider range of patrons than Tusi had done before him.

See also Timurids (1370–1506)