Some Precautions and Aplications by the Ottoman Intellectuals Towards the Idea of Ibn Khaldun That Power Corrupts the Government

Abstract

Ibn Khaldun advocated that every political entity should be born, grown, developed and finally died through various like human beings. Ibn Khaldun argues that prosperity, comfortable and calm lives is came from the nature of state order. Since people who have these things would prefer comfort, prosperity, luxury and peace; the aging and collapse dynasties in power in the long run is inevitable. The idea that power will eventually degenerate and corrupt the government and lead the country into degeneration is clearly expressed by Ibn Khaldun. This basic assumption has played a very important role in shaping liberalism in the modern western political thought. In the Turkish thought, the Ottomans defended the idea of regulating power with laws and customs visa vie make references to ancient laws (kanun-i kadim) and Sharia. The authors of Ottoman advice books (nasihatnames) such as Veysi, Gelibollu Mustafa Ali and Hasan Kafi Akhisari clearly included Ibn Khaldun's political and social theories into their works. According to Ottoman authors, legal structures and regulations have made possible for the states to live eternally. When we look at the last two centuries of Turkish political history, it can be stated that the "Sened-i İttifak", "Tanzimat", "Constitutional Monarchy" and finally the "Republic" were permanent answers to the problem of the degeneration of power expressed from Ibn Khaldun.