Adab al-mulûk as a Work on the Formation of Sufism and Its Source Value

Sufism literature that compiles and systematically presents the Sufism heritage with its issues, methods and purposes has been formed in the period between fourth and sixth centuries AH, which can be seen as formation period of Sufism. The literary works of Abû Mansûr al-Isfahânî, who was a Sufi who lived in this period, also contributed to the period. One of these works is Adab al-mulûk. Abû Mansûr set forth the issues he dealt with in his own way of expression, with thoughts that could be considered completely original. In addition, he examined every issue he dealt with in terms of the duality of zahir-bâtın. With these aspects, Adab al-mulûk has an important place among other Sufism works. In our study, the contributions of Adab al-mulûk to this period will be dealt with in a comparative way with other works. In the first part of our study, which we divided into three parts, we tried to determine the author, history, sources and content of Adab al-mulûk. In the second part, we tried to touch upon the main issues such as the position of Sufism in the hierarchy of sciences, addresses, subject, method and some controversial issues according to Adab al-mulûk. In the third part, while we present the importance, originality and contributions of Adab al-mulûk among the works of Sufism and other works in comparison with the works we have chosen, again in this section, we tried to cover some subjects that reflect the original writing tradition of Adab al-mulûk.