Medieval Persian diplomatic correspondence of the Ilkhans: language, sources, and problems of attribution
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Abstract
This article analyzes a specimen of diplomatic correspondence between the Mongol Ilkhanate (more precisely, with the rulers of the post-Ilkhanid state, though the distinction is immaterial in this context) and the early Ottomans. The first part examines the multilingual nature of the Ilkhanid chancellery: Middle Mongolian (Uyghur script) as the primary language of original letters, Persian as the lingua franca of Middle Eastern diplomacy, Arabic for correspondence with the Mamluks, and Latin for Western recipients. Special attention is paid to the role of Christian translators (notary Richard, Ugeto). The second part presents a textological investigation based on the letter of the Ottoman ruler Orkhan Gazi (741 AH / 1341 CE), preserved in the Ottoman collection “Munsheʼ atu-s-salatin” by Feridun Bey (1574). The author refutes the attribution of the addressee to the Golden Horde khan Jani Beg, which has been persistent in historiography since İsmail Hikmet Ertaylan. Through philological analysis of the titulature (“possessor of the Ilkhanid throne”, “sovereign of the Turks and Daylamites”), dating (1341 CE, before Jani Beg’s accession), geographical horizon (only Anatolian toponyms), and language (highly rhetorical Persian, alien to steppe diplomacy), it is demonstrated that the real addressee was a representative of the postIlkhanid world – most likely Sheikh Hasan Jalayir (Hasan Buzurg) or Hasan Kuchak Chobanid. The replacement of the addressee with Jani Beg was a deliberate act by the compiler Feridun Bey, who, as head of the Ottoman chancellery (nishandji), was guided by didactic and panegyric aims: to create a model textbook of epistolary art (insha) and to exalt the antiquity of Ottoman diplomacy. The conclusion formulates practical recommendations for textual scholars and translators of Persian diplomatic documents preserved in later compilations.
Keywords:
Chobanids, diplomatic etiquette, diplomatic language, Feridun Bey, Ilkhanate, Jalayirids, Jani Beg, Mongol chancellery, Munsheʼatu-s-salatin, Orkhan Gazi, Persian epistolography, source studies, textology, translation
For citation
Khamidova Ch.I. Medieval Persian diplomatic correspondence of the Ilkhans: language, sources and problems of attribution // Bulletin of the Bolgar Islamic Academy, 2026, no. 1 (13), pp. 54-66.
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