Persian Inshāʾ from Khurasan to Anatolia: A Glimpse through the Mar‘ashī Manuscript 11136
Online ZOOM lecture by Dr. David Durand-Guédy | University of Hamburg
Abstract Persian inshāʾ, flourishing in Khurasan during the 6th/12th century, spread rapidly to Anatolia where the chanceries of new Turkish states exclusively used Persian. The oldest manuscripts copied in Anatolia date back to the Mongol period. Since the 1950s, collections of official and private correspondence have been edited, following Osman Turan’s work on decrees contained in the manuscripts of Paris and Leiden.
This presentation will introduce a new source, Mar‘ashī 11136, preserved in Iran, which has largely gone under the radar. this manuscript is the oldest example of Anatolian inshāʾ. The earliest part of this manuscript was evidently written in the 1240s by a secretary of the Saljuq state. It starts as a writing manual before transforming into a haphazard collection of letters, ending abruptly without a colophon. In the early 14th century, after the disappearance of the Saljuq sultans, a scribe from Aqsaray added a new section to the codex. The complex history of this manuscript allows us to trace the decline of the Rum Sultanate, shedding unprecedented light on the transitional period from the independent Sultanate to Mongol suzerainty after 1243. As for the texts included in this manuscript, they offer a triple interest for the study of diplomatic norms, the political history of the regions concerned, and the social history of “Persography.”
Please register with: https://oeaw-ac-at.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gpXv6mdsSxm9yOeIrhxJMQ
Poster (PDF)
This is the 5th lecture in the webinar series for the academic year 2023-24 - organised by the NoMansLand research project (FWF Y 1232) dedicated to the study of Islamic manuscripts in pre-modern Iran and Central Asia.
Convenor: Project team "Nomads' Manuscripts Landscape"
For a list of upcoming lectures in the webinar series, please see Webinar series "Pre-modern Islamic manuscripts"