A New Source on the Saljūqs of Rūm and their Persian Chancery: Manuscript 11136 of the Marʿashī Library (Qum)

Abstract

Abstract At the end of the twentieth century, the Ayatollah Marʿashī Najafī Library (Qum) acquired a fourteenth-century manuscript of munshaʾāt previously held in a private collection. This composite multitext manuscript contains about two hundred letters sent by or to officials of the Rūm Saljūq sultanate in the thirteenth century. The letters include official (sulṭāniyyāt) and private (ikhwāniyyāt) correspondence as well as decrees of nomination (taqrīrāt al-manāṣib). They are all in Persian. This article is a first study of the codicological features, structure, and contents of this manuscript. It suggests a production process that unfolded in several stages over a period of seventy years, from the reign of Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kay-Khusraw II (d. 644/1246) to the second decade of the fourteenth century. The Marʿashī manuscript expands considerably the volume of documents available on Saljūq Anatolia during the beginning of Mongol period. It is poised to become a major source on the political history of the period and will also help to understand the integration of Anatolia into the Persianate sphere.