Wisdom, Ethics, and the Nature of Man: A Translation of Dawānī’s Opening Prelude to Akhlāq-i-Jalālī

Dawānī’s Jalalean Ethics (Akhlāq-i-Jalālī) represents one of the most mature expositions of ethics in Muslim history. A masterwork synthesizing Quran, ḥadīth, and Aristotelian, Galenic, Avicennan, and Persian philosophy, Dawānī presents ethics in its most universal form. And yet, its true brilliance shines in its opening, Dawānī's prolegomenon to the rest of the work as a whole. Here, he discusses the nature of wisdom, the higher purpose of ethics, the primacy of ethics in human pedagogy, and the nature of man in relation to his own supernal existence. In a beautiful, exquisite chapter combining prosaic rhetoric, poetic aesthetics, and canonical truth, Dawānī endeavors to answer the question: what is the wise man, and how does he come to be the very most quintessential version of himself?