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Imperium and Officium Working Papers (IOWP)

Strong Letters at the Mamluk Court

Version 01

March 2013

Lucian Reinfandt (University of Vienna, Department of Oriental Studies) Written letters were, together with oral messages and gifts, decisive elements in diplomatic encounters. For the later medieval period, here: the Mamlūk sultanate, there is an abundance of sources, be it original documents preserved in library collections and archives or copies of documents preserved in administrative manuals and chronicles. Previous diplomatic research on administrative letters in both fields – original documents and literary sources – has mostly concentrated on the textual contents of documents. Material aspects, like support, script, format, or folding of documents have been meticulously recorded in editions as secondary information relevant to the specialist only, while aspects of writing and reading techniques, transportation, and archiving have been left over more or less to social historians not directly engaged in the editing of documents. Only recently has the intrinsic, indeed indispensable, nexus been realised between textual and non-textual aspects of documents (John Wansbrough; Tamer El-Leithy). The paper addresses the share of textual and ceremonial aspects in Arabic administrative letters on the basis of original letters from the Mamlūk period.

© Lucian Reinfandt 2013 [email protected]

1 Lucian Reinfandt

NFN Imperium and Officium. Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom

Strong letters at the Mamluk court1

Documents played a key role in Mamluk diplomatic practice. More prominent than gifts

perhaps2, the exchange of writings was a fundamental component of, and not uncommonly

the main cause for, diplomatic encounters. Consequently, the presentation and receipt of

letters occupied not an insignificant part of the protocol and surely belonged to the more

delicate moments of the whole event. If, on the surface, human envoys, office holders and

dignitaries were the actors of the scene, their underlying paperwork was the real protagonist.

‘No step without documents’ seems to have been the motto, not very different from the

principle of scripturality (Aktenmäßigkeit)3 prevalent in modern public administration.

A Naṣrid mission to the sultan in Cairo

Reports of foreign missions to the Mamluk rulers emphasise the role of documents in

diplomatic encounters. These documents possessed a substantial ‘power of the written word’,

as is evident from the eyewitness account of an Andalusian delegation appearing before aẓ-

1 Research for this article was conducted under the auspices of the project “The Language of Power II: Official Epistolography in Islamic Egypt (642-969)” funded by the FWF Austrian Science Fund. The project is part of the National Research Network (NFN) “Imperium and Officium: Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom” http://imperiumofficium.univie.ac.at. The quotation of documentary texts follows the conventions of the ISAP Checklist of Arabic Documents www.ori.uzh.ch/isap/isapchecklist.html and the and the Arabic Papyrology Bibliography www.ori.uzh.ch/research/papyrology/bibliography.html [all accessed 28 Dec. 2012]. 2 On the role of gifts in diplomatic encounters, especially the rationality of keeping records of incoming gifts in special registers (siǧillāt) and scrupulously maintaining the equality in value cf. the study by Maḥāsin Muḥammad al-Waqqād, “al-Hadāyā wa-t-tuḥaf zaman salāṭīn al-mamālīk al-baḥriyya, 648-784 h./1250-1382 m.”, Ḥawliyyāt Kulliyyat al-Ādāb, Ǧāmiʿat ʿAyn Šams 28, 2000, p. 185-240, cited in Bauden 2007: 13 n. 77. 3 Aktenmäßigkeit is a technical term from public administration in the continental tradition and is difficult to translate into English. It basically means that every single act of administrative action has to be documented in files and that the state of an affair has at any moment to be tracked from the files (“das Prinzip fordert, dass sich der Stand einer Angelegenheit jederzeit aus der Akte ergibt”); cf. Art. “Schriftlichkeit (Aktenmäßigkeit)” in the German online encyclopaedia of public administration olev.de, http://www.olev.de/s/schriftlichkeit.htm [accessed 24 Aug. 2012] Scripturality (Aktenmäßigkeit) forms a key concept in Max Weber’s model of bureaucratisation; cf. Weber 1978: 988 (“Increasingly, all order in public and private organizations is dependent on the system of files and the discipline of officialdom, that means, its habit of painstaking obedience within its wonted sphere of action. The latter is the more decisive element, however important in practice the files are.”), being the English translation of Weber 51980: 570 (“Die ‘Akten’ einerseits und andererseits die Beamtendisziplin, das heißt die Eingestelltheit der Beamten auf präzisen Gehorsam innerhalb ihrer gewohnten Tätigkeit, werden damit im öffentlichen wie privaten Betrieb zunehmend die Grundlage aller Ordnung. Vor allem aber – so praktisch wichtig die Aktenmäßigkeit der Verwaltung ist – die ‘Disziplin’.”); and Weber 1978: 219 (“Administrative acts, decisions, and rules are formulated and recorded in writing, even in cases where oral discussion is the rule or is even mandatory. This applies at least to preliminary discussions and proposals, to final decisions, and to all sorts of orders and rules.”), being the English translation of Weber 51980: 126 (“Es gilt das Prinzip der Aktenmäßigkeit der Verwaltung, auch da, wo mündliche Erörterung tatsächlich Regel oder geradezu Vorschrift ist: mindestens die Vorerörterungen und Anträge und die abschließenden Entscheidungen, Verfügungen und Anordnungen aller Art sind schriftlich fixiert.” [italics in the original]).

Strong Letters at the Mamluk Court 2


Ẓāhir Ǧaqmaq in Cairo in 844/1440.4 The delegation had been sent from the Naṣrid court of

Granada to call on the Mamluk sultan for helping the pressed Muslims of Andalusia against

the Christian reconquest. One member of the delegation later wrote down from his memory

the particulars of the audience:

“So my aforementioned kinsman broke the envelope and took out from it the letter. The

(sultan’s) confidential secretary, who was in those days the qāḍī Kamāladdīn Abū ʿAbdallāh

Muḥammad al-Bārizī al-Ḥalabī ‒ may God protect him! ‒, accepted it and, after studying it

for a while, informed (the sultan about the contents): ‘My Lord ‒ may God give you victory!

‒, this is a letter from the ruler of Andalusia in which he complains to you about the hardships

he is suffering from his Frankish neighbours. He seeks supporting help from you!’ Thereat

(the sultan) turned his face towards us and declared: ‘I will charge Ibn ʿUṯmān with the

procurement of your help, God willing!’”5

The head of delegation opened the envelope (ǧaʿba) and delivered the letter to the sultan.6

The sultan did not take delivery of the letter himself of course but left it to his confidential

secretary (kātim as-sirr) who was in fact the head of the bureau of documents.7 The secretary

read and studied it and, after getting clear about the text, communicated the content to the

sultan, notabene not by reading the letter aloud but by paraphrasing it with his own words.8 It

is as if a letter to the sultan from outside the court needed a kind of filtration, the material

letter not being touched by the addressee himself but by a deputy, and the text not being read

4 al-Ahwānī 1954. This text has also been used by Frédéric Bauden, cf. Bauden 2007: 12-13. I am very grateful to Anne Broadbridge who has drawn my attention to this text and subsequently provided me with a copy of it already in 1997. 5 al-Ahwānī 1954: 103 (my translation). The passage in the Arabic original reads: fa-fakka ṣihrunā l-maḏkūru l-ǧaʿbata wa-staḫraǧa l-kitāba minhā fa-ʾaḫaḏahu minhu kātimu sirrihi ḥīnaʾiḏini l-qāḍī kamālu d-dīni ʾabū ʿabdi llāhi muḥammadunu l-bāriziyyu l-ḥalabiyyu ḥafiẓahu llāhu fa-taṣaḥḥafahu sāʿatan ṯumma qāla lahu yā mawlānā naṣṣarakumu llāhu hāḏā l-kitābu min ṣāḥib ǧazīrati l-ʾandalusa yaštakī laka mā ʾaṣābahu mina l-ʾifranǧi l-muǧāwirīna lahu wa-yaṭlubu minka naǧdatan tuʿīnuhu bi-hā fa-ltafata ʾilaynā wa-qāla sa-ʾabʿaṯu ʾilā bni ʿuṯmāna yuʿīnukum ʾin šāʾa llāhu. 6 The basic meaning of ǧaʿba is a quiver for arrows; cf. Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, p. 428. Dozy, Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes, vol. 1, p. 197 gives the more general meanings “étui, coffret” and “tube, tuyau”. From the latter especially is reasonable to assume that ǧaʿba in the case at hand denotes a tubelike container, made of wood or stiff leather, for the transport and protection of rolled-up documents. The verb fakka mentioned in the connection with this container alludes to either untie or beak something. Both is possible here, fakka either meaning the untying of laces of a leather bag or the breaking of a seal. The latter seems to me more plausible to me, however, fakka l-ǧaʿbata here actually meaning the breaking of a sealed letter tube. 7 The term kātim as-sirr is synonymous with kātib as-sirr with the meaning of a “confidential secretary called sometimes also intendant or controller of the bureau of documents (dīwān al-inšāʾ, or al-mukātabāt), with the duty of reading to the Sultan official correspondence, supervising and assigning to the proper bureaus the drafting of replics, securing the Sultan’s signature thereto and dispatching them … He also attended the Sultan in the Palace of Justice to hear the reading of petitions and sign decisions thereon, and sometimes himself took action without recourse to the Sultan.” (Popper 1955: 97). 8 Bauden 2007: 12.

3 Lucian Reinfandt


unfiltered but in a quasi predigested version from the mouth of a trusted courtier. The sultan

then decided principally in favour of the Andalusians and delegated further proceedings to a

certain Ibn ʿUṯmān. Only now started a conversation between the sultan and the guests, and

the human envoys of the letter came into play. Also the letter text by its precise wording and

its details must have played a role in subsequent proceedings. But there is the striking fact that

the sultan’s decision of yes or no, which was the crucial moment of success or failure of the

entire mission, had been taken on the basis of the secretary’s paraphrase.

The letter must have been sufficiently trenchant though, in regards of both appearance and

content, to cut its way through local potentates to Cairo and, once in Cairo, through the hands

and by the tongue of the sultan’s secretary to the sultan himself. How is the fact to be

explained that written letters could make rulers comply with requests of considerable degree

and faraway and perhaps obscure backgrounds? First of all, letters were elaborate artworks.

Their extraordinary appearance guaranteed sovereignty. Additionally to this more material

aspect of the matter, letters conveyed a whole range of textual and visual information that was

meeting a reference frame intelligible to the addressee. And finally, letters were designed to

meet their recipients’ expectations and to appeal to their emotions. Thus materiality,

formulary, and rhetorics all constituted basic factors of letter-writing. On pain of discussing it

to death: as products of complex interpersonal relations, letters contained information many

times exceeding their texts proper.

Still, the effectiveness of the Andalusian letter is striking. There must have been something

emblematic in official letters that was beyond words and yet was ‘readable’ for recipients

even without knowing the exact content of the letter. These were signs that guaranteed the

recipient about the authenticity of the writing and the authority of its originator without

having to verify the backgrounds. The phenomenon of paper money comes to mind, the

nominal value of which is never questioned by its owner on grounds of the banknote paper’s

insignificant material value. Seals and watermarks (the insignia of genuineness) as well as a

general acceptance and the certainty that one can divest oneself of it anytime (the common

reference frame) are sufficient proof of its value.



Strong letters

In respect of documents, a telling if perhaps extreme parallel from the modern world is the

decisive role that writings played inside the Comintern of the 1930s.9 Despotic in the best

sense of the word, Stalin’s mood had absolute power. At the same time, there was a

remarkable belief in the power of paper, not all of the writings containing Stalin’s own words

but those of his apparatus. This is an astonishing breaking down of individual short-term

caprice into bureaucratic slowness. Whatever the reasons were, envoys smuggled writings

containing the latest resolutions at the risk of their life. Veteran party secretaries burst into

tears when learning about the contents of a certain document. And, best of all for its

proximity to the subject of this study, letters of consignment opened the doors for their

owners, whoever they were and whenever they came. In a system where everything was

controlled top-down, any document from the top was Stalin in person. Arthur Koestler spoke

of ‘strong letters’ in this connection.10

One should not overstate too much the parallels between Comintern party bureaucracies and

the Mamluk court. But there were at least some similar features underlying the role and

function of ‘strong letters’ in running political affairs. It is as if a writing was temporarily

loaded with the physical power of its issuer, like a battery. The phenomenon is well known of

course in the context of legal deeds, where the issuing and subsequent validation of writings

already imposes law. A dispositive deed is substituting the real but irreproducible legal act,

thereby ensuring prolonged legal validity. Two kinds of restrictions are imposed: legal

validity is guaranteed only as long as the paper deed is on-hand; and, second, the issuing of

the deed cannot be done by everybody but needs professional notaries and witnesses of good

reputation, in other words, authorised persons and generally accepted institutions to serve its

purpose.11

9 A possible history of the Comintern is Schumacher 1979 (apologetic). 10 Crossman 1949: 56 (“The Executive Committee of the Communist International, in its turn, provided me with a so-called “strong” letter asking all Soviet authorities to help me to accomplish my mission … A letter of this kind carries in Soviet Russia the weight of a decree.”). 11 Cf. the definition of dispositive deeds on the website of the University of Hamburg: Dispositive deeds create law by their issuance and supplant the real legal act. The effectiveness of dispositive deeds, however, is reliant on an adequate authority on behalf of the issuer. („Eine dispositive Urkunde schafft durch ihre Ausstellung das Recht. Sie tritt an die Stelle der eigentlichen Rechtshandlung. Für die Wirkung einer dispositiven Urkunde ist jedoch eine ausreichende Autorität des Ausstellers von Nöten.“), http://www.phil-gesch.uni-hamburg.de/edition/Diplomatik/glossardiplomatik.htm#D [accessed 24 August 2012].

5 Lucian Reinfandt


Official letters were connatural. On a textual level, letters were first and foremost information

containers keeping on paper what could not be kept in mind. The textual content could also

authenticate the otherwise more detailed oral message by the courier who was delivering the

letter. The textual content could also serve as future proof in those cases where letters were

kept in archives. Moreover could letters bridge spatial distances. The king could not travel all

the way to the Nubians himself – the letter could; the king could not travel to the Nubians and

the Tatars at one go – the letter could when sent in copies. Above all, writings were

instrumental in creating a physical presence of the letter-writer at the addressee’s, by means

of material, artistry of script, professionalism of formulary, authenticity of validation, and

impressiveness of style and rhetorics. Letters were not only the king’s extension (that was the

messenger) but the king himself.

Hence the striking power of the written word in diplomatic encounters. Admittedly the

courier was also of importance by submitting the letter in proper ceremony, taking care of

eventualities when the letter had to be flanked by additional oral information, or by bringing

himself into additional negotiations in case the mission of the letter turned out fruitless.

Although we know something about how letters were presented to their recipients, the whole

issue of written letters and human messengers, of oral and written delivery of information

remains a vexed question.12 It may be true that Eva Grob has maintained the important role of

couriers in official high-level correspondence for the first centuries of Islam, the message

being entrusted to the courier and his speech being the main event.13 But this seems to have

diminished over time and the writings having overshadowed their couriers by an apparent

sophistication of form. Why not, then after half a millennium? What we know from the later

Middle Ages is that a well-drafted letter most likely served its purpose, with or without

human support.

On a technical level at least, one could learn the trade of drawing up strong letters. In fact, the

whole medieval genre of scribal manuals, the inšāʾ literature, served this one purpose.14 The

Kitāb at-Taʿrīf fī al-muṣṭalaḥ aš-šarīf by Šihābaddīn Ibn Faḍallāh al-ʿUmarī (d. 749/1349),

the Kitāb at-Taṯqīf fī at-Taʿrīf by Taqīaddīn Ibn Nāẓir al-Ǧayš (d. 786/1384) and the Kitāb

12 For the procedures of submitting letters cf. the detailed information in Gully 2008. For the distinction of written (mukātabāt) and oral (mušāfahāt) messages and the role of couriers cf. Bauden 2007: 11-12. 13 Grob 2010: 99. 14 Classical overviews of inšāʾ and the genre of inšāʾ literature are Veselý 1979; Roemer 1986; Bosworth 1990; Veselý 1992. For recent discussion of scribal manuals from the Mamluk era cf. Bauden 2007; Favereau 2007. Introductions into the genesis of Arabic epistolography are Latham 1983; Hachmeier 2002.



Ṣubḥ al-aʿšā fī ṣināʿat al-inšāʾ by Abū l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad al-Qalqašandī (d. 821/1418), to name

but a few from a far wider genre, are well-known examples from the Mamluk period. It was

these three that served the main basis for two important recent studies, Marie Favereau’s

analysis of how scribal manuals influenced the art of drafting, and Anne Broadbridge’s study

of Mamluk courtly procedures.15 In the following, Qalqašandī’s formal instructions will be

confronted with a choice of original documents from the internal Mamluk administration that

have been published in the last two decades only. These documents are a nice complement to,

and reference material for, the diplomatic letters of international format and from the top layer

of Mamluk administration.16 They make evident the high degree of formality already in

writings from the middle-level bureaucracy inside Egypt. Moreover, they show how official

writings in general conveyed messages that were of a twofold nature, one being information

of a factual nature, the other one being markers of hierarchy and dominion. The more the

portion of hierarchy and dominion in the texts, the higher the degree of formality in the

design. In these cases, the medium (material, format, script) was not less important than the

text itself.

Theoretical guidelines and actual chancery practice

Qalqašandī’s Ṣubḥ contains, broadly speaking, two strings of information, one being

encyclopaedic knowledge of historical and geographical facts, the other practical instructions

of how to draft writings.17 The latter shall be of interest here. The information provided can be

subdivided into four categories according to systematic considerations18: (1) narrative aspects

15 Favereau 2007; Broadbridge 2007. 16 About the documents and the studies done so far cf. the exhaustive overview in Bauden 2005: 27-32. 17 Björkman 1928: 75; Van Berkel 1997: 162. Qalqašandī traces back his own knowledge of Islamic chancery culture as early as the 7th c CE, thus strongly emphasising the idea of continuity and evolution of the Islamic chancery tradition; cf. Wansbrough 1996: 85. Qalqašandī himself had attained knowledge of contemporaneous bureaucracy and documents by working as clerk in the Egyptian administration. When mentioning his own sources of knowledge, he shows substantial transparency. For information about conditions in the past he built on existing scribal manuals, especially Ibn Faḍlallāh al-ʿUmarī’s K. Masālik al-abṣār (for historical and geographical details) and the same author’s K. at-Taʿrīf bi-l-muṣṭalaḥ aš-šarīf, (for documents). Both Ibn Faḍlallāh and al-Qalqašandī were born into families of scholars and administrators, Ibn Faḍlallāh being an offspring of the Banū Faḍlallāh family of secretaries (for Ibn Faḍlallāh, Hartmann 1916: 7 has put it in those words: gained in practice, for use in practice (“für die Praxis bestimmt und aus der Praxis entstanden”). For an overview of Qalqašandī’s literary oeuvre cf. Bosworth 1978. Qalqašandī’s sources are worked out in detail by Björkman 1928: 75-86. An excellent study of the internal structure of Qalqašandī’s Ṣubḥ is Van Berkel 1997. The relation of Qalqašandī’s model descriptions and actual documentary practice is analysed by Favereau 2007; cf. also Bauden 2007. 18 The third maqāla in the Ṣubḥ (al-Qalqašandī 1913-22, vol. 5: 399 to vol. 6: 262) “is an introduction to the more technical aspects of the art of composing documents and explains the technical terms associated with it”, while the fourth through ninth maqālas (vol. 6: 263 to vol. 14: 123) contain “information on specific genres of official documents illustrated by examples” and “the relatively small tenth maqāla“ (vol. 14: 124-410) discussing “other types of writing, not connected with secretarial writing” (Van Berkel 1997: 161-162).

7 Lucian Reinfandt


of the texts of documents; (2) the formulary of the texts of documents; (3) aspects of

materiality and layout of documents; (4) everything related to subsequent documentary

procedure. It is of some interest to contrast this programme with actual documents either

preserved as copies in scribal manuals or as originals in different Western or Middle Eastern

library collections and archives. This approach is promising insofar as the number editions of

original documents has in the last twenty years considerably increased and now forms a basis

not available for earlier research. In the following a few examples are taken by which an

application of the aforementioned categories shall be highlighted.

(1) The first category makes facts, rhetorics and style of letters a subject of discussion. Apart

from the correct use of grammar and lexicon, more subtle aspects of a rhetorical nature and all

narrative aspects are addressed here, in short: everything indispensable for an adequate

account in words that a human courier could deliver orally as well.19 An often used element in

this regard is the expression “his brother” (ʾaḫūhu) in Mamluk edicts for emphasising the

bonds and friendship with the addressee and for reducing status distinctions. Often this word

is written in isolation and at a prominent position inside the document.20 This may be taken as

an argument for considering it to be a matter of formulary or layout (categories two and three)

rather than content, and indeed there is a certain systematic overlap. But there are cases where

the visual accentuation is less conspicuous, the word definitely being part of the narrative.21

Another common element is the verbalisation of bodily gestures, like the sender’s prostration

before the addressee or his kissing of the addressee’s hands.22 All this is ritualised speech and

again with some overlap to formal matters (category two). But they must have had an effect

19 A challenge for letter writers was how to convey textual information that was comprehensible but protected against the curiosity of readers other than the addressee. Qalqašandī in vol. 9 of his Ṣubḥ brings a number of anecdotes and examples of how letter writers conveyed messages of encoded information by means of indirect or symbolic allusions. And how these allusions were sometimes misunderstood by the recipients, either because of mistakenly taken literally and thus not recognised as such, or simply because they were unintelligible. Cf. Bosworth 1963 with English translation. Another problem especially prevalent in societies of limited literacy was the question of how to formulate a letter that was destined to be read not only by the addressee but by other people helping the addressee to read. For examples of how to address illiterate women intimately in letters cf. Goitein 1988: 218. 20 P.Vind.Arab. III 12, 3: ʾaḫūhu mūsā bnu ʾariqṭāy “his brother Mūsā b. Ariqṭāy”; P.Vind.Arab. III 5, 1-3: ʾaḫūhu ḥasan al-ʿānī “His brother Ḥasan al-ʿĀnī”. ‒‒ Diem 1996: 26 interprets the use of ʾaḫ as an attempt to diminish the distance in status between sender and addressee. The same has been observed already by Stern 1964: 158 in connection with the use of ʾaḫ in the ʿalāmas of sultans. 21 P.Vind.Arab. II 19; 22. 22 An example for the prostration is P.Vind.Arab. III 44, 1: al-mamlūku ʾuzdamuru … yuqabbilu l-ʾarḍa wa-yunhī … “the slave Özdämür kisses the ground and makes known …”. Qalqašandī discusses this expression in al-Qalqašandī 1913-22, vols. 6: 339-340 and 7: 119-120. Examples for the kissing of hands are P.Vind.Arab. III 43, 4-6: mamālīku dīwānayi l-ʾišrāfi wa-l-ʿamali … yuqabbilūna yadayhimā wa-yunhū (sic) ʾilayhimā … “The slaves of the offices of control and financial administration … kiss their hands and make known …”; and P.Vind.Arab. III 67, 2: al-mamlūku yuqabbilu ʾayādi sayyidinā l-qāḍī … “The slave kisses the hands of the Kadi N.N.”.



on the addressee stronger than the courier himself could have evoked by his gestures. By

verbalising the bodily gestures on the part of the sender, the letter did nothing less than

convey the sender’s physical presence at the addressee’s.23

(2) To the second category belong all matters of formulary, like titles, phrases, and rhymed

prose. These are elements extrinsic to the narrative of the text yet are part of the textual

information. In view of the courier one could say by analogy: everything expressed not

verbally but with gestures and behaviour. How had correspondence (mukātabāt) to be drafted

for particular addressees, be they Muslim or non-Muslim, high or low in rank, or for

particular occasions, be they exceptional and urgent or rather routine matters?24 There are

interesting cases where Christian clerks were using the formulary typical for Islamic

documents even when addressing coreligionist colleagues working inside the same

administration. The formularies applied resemble those outlined in scribal manuals.25 Another

aspect was how to address the recipient with appropriate titles and how to master the subtle

gradations of phrases of politeness.26 A decree issued by a local Mamluk official to country

dwellers features all the elaborate epithets that were emphasising the letter writer’s high

rank.27 These served the deliberate self-display of the government agency and were typical for

writings that were to leave the administrative body and were directed to the populace. In

23 About the historical development of this formula in petitions cf. Khan 1990. 24 In his fourth maqāla Qalqašandī gives examples of letters sent from Mamluk rulers to Byzantine and Frankish rulers in the north (al-Qalqašandī 1913-22, vol. 8: 43-53; translated into French by Lammens 1904) and to the Pope of Rome (ibid., vol. 8: 42-43; translated by Lammens 1903) and infidel rulers in the western lands (ibid., vol. 8: 33-38; translated by Lammens 1904) as well as examples of non-Arabic letters from infidel rulers arriving in Cairo in 814/1411 (ibid., vol. 8: 121-125; translated by Lammens 1904). Cf. for all of them also Bosworth 1972: 62-64. 25 Diem 1996: 70. A good example is P.Vind.Arab. III 20, the relevant elements being here the basmala (l. 1), the duʿāʾ (l. 9) and the ḥasbala (l. 10). The fact that the addressee is Christian as well is neither explicitly mentioned in the text itself nor explicitly stated in Diem’s edition, seems evident however by the fact that the letter writer informs the addressee of intimate Christian circumstances (taking the Holy Communion in a monastery as excuse for slowdown of arrival). 26 The order of names in addresses, choice of titles and uses of salutation formulae and polite eulogies for Muslim correspondents are explained in al-Qalqašandī 1913-22, vol. 6: 197-365 (translated into English by Bosworth 1972: 60-61). For titles of Christian and Jewish religious dignitaries in general cf. ibid., vol. 5: 472-474 (translated by Bosworth 1972: 66-71) and ibid., vol. 6: 121-172 as well as their use in phrases and addresses ibid., vol. 6: 173-174 (translated by Bosworth 1972: 71-74). Examples for letters of appointment (tawāqīʿ, sg. tawqīʿ) and letters of recommendation (waṣāyā, sg. waṣiyya), both addressed to leaders of the ḏimmīs in Egypt, display the respective honorific titles (ibid., vol. 11: 385-405; translated by Bosworth 1972: 72-74; 199). One of them is a letter of appointment of the new Jacobite Patriarch of Egypt, which contains the Patriarch’s honorific titles in exactly the same wording as is recommended in ibid., vol. 6: 173; cf. Bosworth 1972: 205. 27 P.Vind.Arab. III 2, 3-5: al-marsūmu bi-lʾamri l-karīmi l-ʿāliyyi l-ʾamīriyyi l-kabīriyyi s-sayyidiyyi l-mālikiyyi l-maḫdūmiyyi s-sayfiyyi yašbaka l-muḥammadiyyi ad-dawādāri š-šarqiyyi l-malikiyyi l-ʾašrafiyyi ʾaʿazzahu llāhu taʿālā ʾilā l-mašāyiḫi wa-l-fallaḥīna bi-nāḥiyati šaybati šaqqādaha bi-š-šarqiyyati waffaqahumu llāhu taʿālā … “(This) decree containing the high and noble order from the great Amīr, the imperious and possessing master Sayfaddīn Yašbak al-Muḥammadī), who is the secretary of (the province of) aš-Šarqiyya for al-Malik al-Ašraf ‒ may God the Most High strengthen him! ‒ has been issued to the heads and farmers of the district of Šaybat Šaqqāda in (the province of) aš-Šarqiyya – may God the Most High give them success! …”.

9 Lucian Reinfandt


marked contrast stand internal writings, that is those destined for operating inside the

administrative body. Here is no splendour of the word but mere routine. Only in cases of

hierarchical difference can one find reminiscences to self-display, like a marked ʿalāma on

the right margin that was giving a writing some official character.28 Such reminiscences are

completely absent in writings between members of the bureaucracy of more or less equal

rank. Here a sparse use of titles and phrases is prevalent, the formulary being of minor

importance and the emphasis clearly put on the narrative content.29

(3) Into the third category fall matters of support, size, colour of ink, script, and layout of the

document. These are aspects extrinsic to the textual content yet with documentary

information, or as to the courier: his status, dress and gifts. Again there are substantial

parallels between Qalqašandī’s renowned section about script types, paper qualities, and size

of documents on the one hand and original documents on the other.30 An example is the

directive sent by a high Mamluk to an only slightly subaltern correspondent. It is written on

paper of conspicuously fine quality and with a skilful and experienced chancery script, the

lavish layout of with document and the large spaces between the lines revealing the high rank

of the sender. A heavily vocalised basmala served purely decorative purposes and stands in

contrast to the remaining lines that go without vowel signs and even punctuation, the

seemingly well-versed addressee not being in need of them.31 A private letter, by comparison,

could have been written by a skilful hand alike and brought on paper in a similarly lavish

way, but the script could be more lax and feature ligatures that were rather inappropriate for

chancery letters.32 Here the writing served no official and ceremonial purpose but the

transmission of narrative information. Accordingly the script was used not as an emblem of

power but to record contents.

28 An example is P.Vind.Arab. III 10, 1 (order by a superior to a subaltern official): šarḥu hāḏā l-ʾamri l-mubāraki wa-tawqīʿihi huwa … “The exposition of this blessed order and the related decree is …”. 29 P.Vind.Arab. III 16, 2-4: kitābī ʾaṯāla llāhu baqāʾaka wa-ʾadāma ʿizzaka wa-saʿādataka wa-salāmataka wa-ʾatamma niʿmatahu ʿalayka wa-zāda fī ʾiḥsānihi ʾilayka wa-faḍlihi ʿindaka ʿan salāmatin wa-l-ḥamdu li-llāhi rabbi l-ʿālamīn kaṯīran dāyiman ʾabadan “I am writing ‒ may God prolong your life and make permanent your honour, happiness and well-being! He may complete His mercy on you and increase His benevolence and favour against you! – while I am safe and sound – praise be to God the lord of all mankind, many times, always and forever!”. 30 Script type, paper size (maqādīr qaṭʿ al-waraq), and format of letters emanating from the Mamluk chancery are explained in al-Qalqašandī 1913-22, vol. 8: 20, translated into French by Lammens 1904: 159-160; ibid. vol. 3: 51-226; vol. 6: 189-196; vol. 11: 385-405; Ibn aṣ-Ṣayrafī 1990: 100. 31 P.Vind.Arab. III 12. 32 A good example is P.Philad.Arab. 113r (= P.DiemMamlūkischerBrief) that features repeated ligatures of the letters ر ,د ,ا, and و to the left (following letter) as well as ligatures between words. Common phrases are written in a particular sketchy way, at times more or less omitting entire letters. Cf. Diem 1986: 131.



(4) The last category concerns the authentication, validation and subsequent documentary

procedure, like signatures and seals, registration marks, dockets and individual handmarks.

These were extrinsic to the document as a whole yet containing additional information. Seals,

notes and marks were applied to the document after the text had been drawn up or even after

the document had been received by the addressee. Such were documents of a secondary

nature. They were not expressing the issuer’s will but its subsequent legal treatment. Petitions

are a good genre to study these processes.33 A model case is the complaint by a mosque

employee in al-Ušmūnayn in Middle Egypt to the sultan in Cairo. The text of the petition, as

the starting point and the central part of the document, is displayed on the recto of the sheet

and is drawn up in conventional form. The writing was directed to the sultan, but the factual

recipient had been the commander-in-chief and grand emir (atābak al-ʿasākir) as the sultan’s

deputy. The grand emir on his behalf had initiated proceedings by writing a vertical notice of

receipt on the then blank verso. Afterwards he had turned his attention to the petition on the

recto again and, after studying the case, prepared his suggestion for the sultan, here in favour

of the complainant. The suggestion was positioned on the left upper corner of the recto and

written in diagonal direction to make it eye-catching, no doubt. The sultan then received the

document, and by following the suggestion of his grand emir on the recto, he made his

official answer be written on the verso of the sheet that was still blank with the exception of

the short notice of receipt that had been endorsed on it by the grand emir. As a last step in the

procedure, the sultan wrote his signature by his own hand on top of the verso.34 The petition-

plus-answer document then went back to the complainant who used it to assert his claims

against the local authorities on the spot.35 More than any text written on the document it was

the impressive conglomerate of official remarks and glosses, the more the better, that

guaranteed the document’s effectiveness before the local authorities.

About the semiotic value of documents

Official administrative letters from the Mamluk period served a double purpose of informing

and affecting their addressees. They informed about occurrences that were related to the

senders, and they appealed to the addressees to comply to the intentions of their senders.

33 Diem 1996: 231. About registration marks on late medieval chancery documents cf. Veselý 1972; 1971-77; 2011. 34 P.Vind.Arab. III 48, the answer being issued in the name of, and the signature written by, Baybars I. (r. 658-676/1260-1277). 35 Cf. El-Leithy 2011: 397-398; 408; 422-425 about the importance of documents, here especially the responses to petitions, for citizens and their efforts to find a voice and gain their rights in the Mamluk era.

11 Lucian Reinfandt


Letters conveyed both textual and non-textual information that interacted toward a complex

yet intelligible message for the addressee. Annabel Teh Gallop has coined it the ‘look of the

letter’, while John Wansbrough has spoken of a semiotic value of documents.36 Both allude to

the multilayered composition of material, format, script and content that proved the written

word equal, if not superior, to the oral message. Letters conveyed messages exceeding the

immediate textual content of the writings. These supra-textual messages were bound to the

medium and intelligible for addressees.37 They could unlock their potential however only on

the basis of a common reference frame. To take up the metaphor of paper money mentioned

before, the value of the banknote is guaranteed on grounds of a general acceptance and the

certainty that one can divest oneself of it anytime. It is this common reference frame, the

common rules of the game, that were prevailing in the Mediterranean and that were shared by

all neighbours in the Mediterranean region and that were indispensable for diplomatic

coexistence that has been coined, again by John Wansbrough, the lingua franca: a meta-

language of conventions applicable for encoding and decoding complex semiotic contents of

written messages.38

The semiotic value of documents may indeed be one of the reasons for the fact that scribal

manuals tend to focus on writings rather than procedures. Qalqašandī speaks of the asserting

of sovereignty that is the most important object of official correspondence.39 Writings were

emblems of power, and in the hands of chanceries lay the responsibility of exploiting this

potential. Accordingly, Qalqašandī in his Ṣubḥ al-aʿšā provides ample information about the

making of writings. At the same time he is sparing with words when describing their

ceremonial treatment. Almost nothing is to be found about the etiquette of handing over

letters or about how to read them aloud in public, although this would deserve a good deal of

treatment. Genre and split of labour surely had a hand in that, for it was the making of

writings that was the main concern of chancery manuals, while the use of documents in

practice was a subject of chronicles, travel accounts, and mirrors for princes.40 But suspicion

remains that administrative letters were per se strong and not in need of ceremonial support

and that ceremonial aspects had not to be treated in chancery manuals.

36 Gallop 2007: 42; Wansbrough 1996: 79. 37 Ibid.; Brett 2001: 3. 38 Wansbrough 1996: vii. I am grateful to Jo van Steenbergen for having reminded me of Wansbrough’s book. 39 Cf. al-Qalqašandī 1913-22, vol. 8: 233. 40 Examples are Ibn al-Farrāʾ (d. 425/1034), K. Rusul al-mulūk; al-ʿAbbāsī (d. after 708/1308), Āṯār al-uwal, ch. 7; both cited in Bauden 2007: 11 n. 67-68.



To bring it back to the Andalusian delegation in Cairo mentioned before: the salient point of

the audience story is the fact that the letter eclipsed the human delegation as main actor on the

scene. The journey of a delegation bringing a letter to Cairo turned into a journey of a letter

that was accompanied by the delegation. Everywhere on its road the letter had enjoyed status

and had been treated with respect, not only in regards of its content (and the possible

consequences arising from the content) but also in regards of its material appearance. This is

evident from an earlier passage in the same account that paints the moment when the

delegation was passing through Alexandria on its way to Cairo. The Mamluk governor there

was receiving the Andalusians and interrogated them about their mission. Presumably he was

even shown the letter tube with its seal as a kind of passport. From the eyewitness’ account

one gets the impression of a cheerful encounter with sugared rose lemonade served. But the

letter tube was not opened and the writing not shown.41 This is an episode presumably

paradigmatic for similar receptions earlier on the road to Egypt. The letter was shown to local

rulers but not opened. It spoke by appearance and was read as an emblem: ‘I am for the sultan

of Egypt and not for you. I am sovereign. Let my men pass!’. Only after reaching the sultan

was the letter opened, thereby unlocking its full potential and making its originator speak

before the addressee. It was a strong letter fulfilling its task without human intervention, as it

seems. In those diplomatic encounters, it was the letter that did the job.

41 al-Ahwānī 1954: 101.

13 Lucian Reinfandt


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