The Ethics of Ali

Introduction

Kınalızade Ali Çelebi wrote “The Ethics of Ali” (Ahlâk-ı Alâî) in Turkish in 1564, while serving as judge in Damascus, and dedicated it to the governor of Syria, Semiz Ali Pasha, whose name gave the book its title. Calling it a work of “practical wisdom”, he follows the arrangement of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi’s Nasirean Ethics and draws on al-Dawani and Husayn Vaʿiz Kashifi: an introduction on the soul, then the ethics of the individual, the household and the state. The last part insists that a realm endures only through justice and ends with a diagram of the circle of justice. Copied in more than seventy manuscripts in Istanbul alone and printed at Bulaq in 1832/33, it was the main Turkish handbook of practical philosophy in the Ottoman empire.

Connections

Builds on

• The Nasirean Ethicsc. 1235 · Nasir al-Din al-Tusi
• Jalalian Ethicsc. 1475 · Jalal al-Din al-Dawani