Justice As Fairness In Yusuf Has Hacib’s Wisdom Of Royal Glory

This paper examines how Yusuf Has Hacib, in his work Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutadgu bilig), contributed the concept of justice and inequality in the 11th century at a time when society was undergoing a political, cultural, and historical transition. During the formation of a new society and its governance, such circumstances mostly damage the notion of justice in a society. In his book, Yusuf Has Hacib highlights justice as the right of a person who is being governed and the unavoidable duty of the ruler. This paper addresses whether absolute rights of the ruler and the individual are possible or not while bringing examples from the works of two authors who discuss how the governing body of a state can be fair to its subjects, which Rawls terms “fairness of justice”. This paper discusses only norms which might cause injustice such as equality, equity, power, need, and responsibility. The paper also focuses on the discourse of this remarkable work of Yusuf while observing that the Turkish and English translations need to be revised.