The Third Principle
Do not content yourself with merely lifting your own hand from injustice. Refine instead the conduct of your pages, companions, officials, and deputies, never approving of oppression on their part; you will be called to account for their wrongdoing just as you will be questioned about your own.
A point worth noting: ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may God be pleased with him, once wrote to his governor Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī, “The happiest of rulers is the one through whom his subjects find happiness, and the most wretched of rulers is the one through whom his subjects suffer. Beware of self-indulgence, for your subordinates will imitate you. Your case is like that of a beast that chances upon a verdant pasture, gorges itself until it grows fat, and whose very fatness becomes the cause of its slaughter and consumption.” It is recorded in the Torah that every act of oppression a ruler knows his agents to have committed yet remains silent about is imputed to him; he will be held liable and punished for it.
The governor must realize that none is more deluded than one who barters his religion and his Hereafter for another man’s worldly gain. Most people are in bondage to their desires: they invent ruses to reach the objects of their craving. In the same way, officials—seeking their share of worldly profit—seduce the ruler, varnish injustice before him, and hurl him into the Fire so they might secure their own interests. What enemy could be more hostile than the one who strives for your ruin—and his own—in exchange for a paltry dirham he hopes to pocket?
In sum, whoever aims to safeguard justice among the subjects must first train his servants and officials to uphold it, watch over the condition of the populace, and examine their affairs just as he would the affairs of his own family, children, and household. This will never be achieved unless he first preserves justice within himself: he must not let appetite and anger dominate his intellect and religion. Rather, let his intellect and religion hold appetite and anger captive, not the reverse.
He must also know that the intellect is of the substance of the angels and forms part of the army of the Creator—exalted is His power—whereas appetite and anger belong to the army of Satan. If someone allows God’s army and His angels to be taken captive by the army of Satan, how can he administer justice to anyone else? The first place where the sun of justice rises is the breast; from there its light spreads to the family and the ruler’s closest associates, and its rays reach