Reading the Nahj al-Balagha as Advice Literature: Understanding Islamic Political Language

Author: J. Elizabeth Proctor

Advisor: Dr. Neguin Yavari

“It is this paper's aim to examine the well-known, but understudied eleventh century Shi'i text, the Nahj al-Balagha in an attempt to call into question some of the basic assumptions upon which current interpretations of the text rest... it may be more useful to assume the angle of examining the Nahj as a piece of advice literature. Authentic or not, the Nahj has been considered a religious decree, sermon, and so forth, but rarely has it been understood in terms of the most "secular" of medieval genres, namely advice literature."