Let them not be among your retinue...

Let them not be among your retinue, for they are aides of the sinners and brothers of the wrongdoers. You will find the best of substitutes for them from among those who possess the like of their ideas and effectiveness but are not encumbrance by the like of their sins and crimes; who have not aided a wrongdoer in his wrongs nor a sinner in his sins. These will be a lighter burden upon you, a better aid, more inclined toward you in sympathy and less intimate with people other than you.

So choose these men as your special companions in privacy and at assemblies. Then let the most influential among them be he who speaks most to you with the bitterness of the truth and supports you least in activities which God dislikes in His friends, however, this strikes your pleasure. Cling to men of piety and veracity.

Then accustom them not to lavish praise upon you nor to (try to) gladden you by (attributing to you) a vanity you did not do, (4) for the lavishing of abundant praise causes arrogance and draws (one) close to pride. Never let the good-doer and the evil-doer possess an equal station before you, for that would cause the good-doer to abstain from his good-doing and habituate the evil-doer to his evil-doing. Impose upon each of them what he has imposed upon himself.

(5) Know that there is nothing more conducive to the ruler’s trusting his subjects than that he be kind towards them, lighten their burdens and abandon coercing them in that in which they do possess not the ability. So in this respect, you should attain a situation in which you can confidently trust your subjects, for trusting (them) will sever from you lasting strain.

(6) And surely he who most deserves your trust is he who has done well when you have tested him, and he who most deserves your mistrust is he who has done badly when you have tested him. Abolish no proper custom (sunnah) which has been acted upon by the leaders of this community, through which harmony has been strengthened and because of which the subjects have prospered.

Create no new custom which might in any way prejudice the customs of the past, lest their reward belongs to him who originated them, and the burden be upon you to the extent that you have abolished them. Study much with men of knowledge (‘ulama’) and converse much with sages (hukama’) concerning the consolidation of that which causes the state of your land to prosper and the establishment of that by which the people before you remained strong. (7) To be continued!