An essay on the history and hermeneutics of nasihat al-muluk by Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Tusi

A hermeneutic analysis of the Oriental Philosophers' writings is invariably a matter of great challenge and difficulty. It is always full of allegory and literary divagations which intersperse a smooth flow of argumentation. This paper is written by Marklen Konurbaev, Professor of Literature at Moscow State University and his son Salavat, a student of Arabic Philosophy. The paper consists of four parts and attempts to reveal the hidden message of a famous extract from the renowned book Ihya Ulum Al Din by a Persian philosopher Ghazali, Abu Hamid Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Al-Tusi, devoted to the analysis of the notion of "fairness" in the doings of a ruler. The hermeneutic analysis was performed based on the methodology propounded by Roland Gerard Barthes - a French literary theorist, philosopher, linguist and critic. This is the first ever attempt to put together the methodological efforts of a Western scholar and profoundly oriental piece of philosophy. Results of the hermeneutic study are stunning and elucidating. The paper could be recommended to the students of literature and philosophy at universities and colleges.