Nahj al-Balagha on Justice and Power

Nahj al-Balagha on Justice and Power

In 38 AH, Imam Ali (a.s.) appointed Malik al-Ashtar as governor of Egypt and sent him a letter of instruction. It runs to several thousand words and it is, without much competition, the most detailed statement on the ethics of governance produced in the first Islamic century. The United Nations has cited it as a model of administrative ethics; it is studied in Muslim and non-Muslim faculties alike.

What follows is its architecture.

It begins with the ruler's own soul

The letter does not open with policy. It opens with the governor's interior condition: "Command your soul to abstain from desires, and restrain it when it runs wild."

The logic is that an administrator who cannot govern himself will govern others in his own image. Every failure of state described later in the letter is traced back to a defect in the person holding the office.

Mercy is the operating principle

"Instil in your heart mercy for the subjects, love for them, and kindness towards them. Do not be a ravenous beast over them, seizing their wealth — for they are of two kinds: either your brother in religion, or your equal in creation."

That last clause is the most quoted sentence in the letter, and it is worth reading slowly. The non-Muslim subject is not a tolerated foreigner. He is your equal in creation, and his claim on justice is not lesser.

Justice must be visible to the weakest

"The one whose claim on justice is greatest in your eyes should be the one whose claim is greatest in truth, whether he is strong or weak."

The letter then instructs Malik to set aside time in which he personally sits with ordinary petitioners, with the guards and the officials removed from the room — because "I have heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, more than once: 'No nation is sanctified in which the weak cannot take their right from the strong without trembling.'"

That is a testable standard. Not whether the courts exist, but whether a poor claimant can use them without fear.

Who to appoint, and who to avoid

The letter is unusually specific on personnel.

Avoid the veterans of corrupt regimes. "The worst of your assistants are those who were assistants to the wrongdoers before you."

Appoint on record, not on charm. Choose those from established households of good repute, who have prior experience, and who are least likely to be flattered into error.

Pay them properly. "Be generous with their provision, for that strengthens them to reform themselves and frees them from consuming what is under their charge." Underpaying officials is described as a cause of corruption, not a saving.

Watch them. Send trusted, discreet inspectors, because "knowing that honest observers are present will restrain them."

The economy

Malik is told to look after the merchants and craftsmen — but also warned that among them are the hoarders and the price-fixers, and that hoarding is a harm to the public which the ruler must prohibit and punish.

On taxation, the letter is emphatic: "Let your concern for the cultivation of the land be greater than your concern for collecting from it, for revenue cannot be had without cultivation." A ruler who taxes the land into ruin has, in the letter's terms, destroyed his own state.

Consultation, war and peace

Malik is warned against two categories of advisor: the miser, who will pull him from generosity, and the coward, who will weaken his resolve — and above all the flatterer, since "a habit of flattery destroys any confidence, and leaves the ruler ignorant of his own conduct."

On peace: "Do not reject a peace to which your enemy calls you and in which there is the pleasure of Allah — for in peace there is rest for your soldiers and security for your lands." But immediately after: be extremely wary after concluding it, and never break a treaty you have signed, "for no obligation of Allah is more universally agreed upon among people, despite all their differences, than the keeping of covenants."

The final warning

The letter closes by reminding Malik that he holds authority over people who are themselves under an authority infinitely greater, and that the state's power will be measured against a standard it did not write.

"Beware of comparing yourself to Allah in greatness, or resembling Him in power, for Allah humbles every tyrant and degrades everyone who is proud."

Why read it now

Because it is astonishingly concrete. It does not say "be just" and stop. It says: pay your officials enough, invest in the land before you tax it, sit with the poor without your guards present, refuse advisors who flatter you, honour treaties even with those you distrust, and never appoint the servants of the previous tyranny.

Fourteen centuries later, most states still fail this checklist. That is not a comment on the letter.