EDUCATION BASED JUSTICE IN NIZAMI GENCEVI’S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY: THE STATE AND THE HEAD OF STATE

SÜLEYMAN DOĞAN

ABSTRACT

Nizami Gencevi (pronounced as “ganjavî), whose real name was İlyas was born in Gence (Ganja),
Azerbaijan in 1141, he also died in this city in 1209. As a result of his strong interest in science, art
and his knowledge of many languages, he dealt with different scientific fields, (philosophy, literature,
astronomy, medicine, geometry, …) world civilization, basically Greek, Arabic, Persian and also the
history of Caucasian public at the same time. His work called Hamse (five books) is very famous. It
is possible to see a great number of references to Nizami and his works in Mevlana Celalettin Rumi’s
works. Starting from the works of Nizami Gencevi, first of all, I shall triy to unify the head of state
model with justice in my education based report. Nizami compares the cruel emperor in power to ‘a
donkey that got into hayloft’ and says, ‘it is a pity for the straw not for the donkey.’ Nizami Gencevi
points out that the main principle in a society that is awake is the social harmony and justice. Secondly,
I shall try to explain justice, by examples and concerning the current aspects again starting from the
works of Nizami. Government is in power not to leave the community that it represents to the ferocity
of the enemy groups, fighting each other. Its most important mission – the reason of its existance – is to
maintain public security and to spread justice. Justice is an ideal that Nizami blessed, like he worshiped
God. Idealizing the state established on justice, Gencevi finds this ideal in Turkish State type. Thus, in
his didactic work Mahzan al-Asrar he talks from the mouth of an old persecuted woman, addressing
Senjer (written as Sencer in Turkish), the Sultan of the Great Seljucks; ‘If you can put up with injustice,
then you are not a Turk.’ Nizami, in his work Husrev and Shirin talks about the Sassanid Emperor
Hormuz, who punished his most beloved son Hüsrev fiercely, for a comperatively trivial crime to
bring justice and as a warning to the others. Reminding this event, Nizami, as if unexpectedly, directs
his word from the situation of Zoroastrianism in history to the reality of Islam in his time; the poet
is remorseful for ‘a thief did not have a nosebleed whereas a thousand innocent people were being
hurt’. Thirdly, Nizami, the artist, as if modelling the state by examples, wrote a great refined poem
‘Heft-Peyker’ in order to suggest that the state is an institution in power to bring justice. An emperor
or a head of a state is not a shepherd responsible from the herd, much more than this, he is a dog
responsible from the security of the herd. There is no difference between the ruler who leaves his
mission to barbarians, forgetting his duty and his work, and ‘the dog paring with the teacherous wolf’
in the story. To Behram, enlightened, as he saw the shepherd punishing the dog that neglected its duty
on the desert, Nizami immediately ‘by making the seven climate beauties that were given to them on
the seven weekdays leave, he makes him jump on ‘beauty of justice’s’ lap. The philosopher and poet
Nizami Gencevi expresses justice with these lines shortly, and to the point: “Oppression, disgrace are
not conquerors of the Earth, Justice is the only Victor of the Earth!”