Dürrî Mehmed Efendi is a statesman who entered the bureaucratic class (kalemiye) at the age of approximately seventeen, served in various positions, rose to the highest rank, and, in his own words, became privy to the state's overt and covert secrets. He is also a statesman who personally witnessed the severe and, beyond its severity, humiliating defeat suffered by the Ottoman Empire against Russia between 1768 and 1774. In the introduction to his work, Dürrî Mehmed Efendi states that he could not erase what he witnessed during said war from his mind, that he feared the military class, the subjects (reaya), the treasury, and other elements sustaining the state would become chronically ill if not reformed immediately, and that the opportunity for treatment would be lost; thus, he wrote this work, entitled Nuhbetü'l-Emel fî Tenkîhi'l-Fesâdi ve'l-Halel, containing the causes of this decay and his proposed solutions. This work, which is extremely important in terms of reflecting the hesitant mentality of the statesmen of its era between the kanûn-ı kadîm (ancient law) and the nizâm-ı cedîd (new order), also serves as a significant source for reflecting the political thought of our civilization.