MORALITY AND POLITICAL ETHICS, AN INEVITABLE NECESSITY FOR SOVEREIGNS AND STATES: KHUSHAL KHAN KHATTAK, S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF ROLE OF MORALITY IN POLITICS

Abstract

Politics and ethics are co-related to each other. As politics and statecraft are the conduct of humans, so the issue of ethical and moral concerns regarding political decisions and discussions automatically becomes important. Political leaders and decision-makers need to be bound by ethical and moral concerns and constraints regarding their political life and decision-making. Political Philosophers like Aristotle and Plato highly regarded Ethics as a key ingredient of Politics. Plato considered Ethics as a branch of Politics. Islam also emphasizes ethics to play a central role in Politics. Muhammad (SAW) was the best example of an ideal political leader with a profound and high standard of ethical and moral values in his personality as well as in his political decision-making coupled with the system he introduced in the State of Medina. Khushal Khan Khattak has highly emphasized ethics and morality in Politics. He explains it with the perspective of proposing his ideal ruler as the symbol of ethics and politics. He on one hand establishes certain moral standards and qualities for his ideal sovereign, on the other hand, praises Kings with high moral standards by narrating their stories in his book Dsataar Nama. The study is qualitative in nature and content analysis, thematic and discourse analysis of different data has been done according to the need of the topic. The main argument of the study is that in Khushal Khan Khattak, s perspective ethics are inevitable and indispensable in political affairs, conduct of states, governance process, state affairs and concerned with the personality and decisions of rulers. The study is a significant contribution to political thought, academia, think tanks and policy making.