A scholar and political theorist, Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Asʿad Ṣiddīqī Davvānī served as the
qādī of Fars (province of South Western Iran) and also as a teacher at Dār al-Aytām madrasa in Shiraz. He composed many works, particularly commentaries on philosophical and mystical works and treatises. However, it is his work on politics, ethics, and economics entitled
Aḫlāq-i Jalālī (also known as
Lavāmiʿ al-Ishrāq fi makārim al-Aḫlāq) for which he is mostly known.
Aḫlāq-i Jalālī is often considered a ‘popularized’ version of the
Aḫlāq-i Nāṣirī by Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Ṭūsī (see author 168), which Jalāl al-Dīn composed at the command of the Ak Konyunlu ruler Uzun Ḥasan. “Djalal al-Din, like Naṣīr al-DīnṬūsī, argues the necessity of supreme law, a governor, and a monetary currency. The law he interprets to be the Sharia and the governor that person distinguished by the support of God and possessing such qualities as would enable him to lead individual men to perfection. Government was either righteous, in which case it was the imamate, or unrighteous in which the case it was the rule of force”. Additionally, much like Ṭūsī and al-Farabi, Jalāl al-Dīn divides men into different classes according to profession and moral nature in an effort to “preserve the equipoise of civilization”. He died in
908/1502-3.