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A Letter from Iran to Celebrate the Reconquest of Jerusalem. The Khwārazm-Shāh’s tahniyat-nāma to Saladin, Copied in the inshāʾ Work Qiṣṣa-yi salāṭīn (Mid-13th Century)

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Published/Copyright: April 11, 2026
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Der Islam
From the journal Der Islam Volume 103 Issue 1

Abstract

The Qiṣṣa-yi salāṭīn, an inshāʾ collection compiled in the Sultanate of Rum in the mid-7th/13th century, places at its forefront a letter from the Khwārazm-Shāh Tekish to Saladin, congratulating him on the reconquest of Jerusalem in 583/1187. This is a rare example of a tahniyat-nāma found in an inshāʾ work that includes readily identifiable contextual elements. The text itself, composed in exceptionally complex Persian, is presented here in an edited version, followed by an English translation and a line-by-line commentary. The article then addresses the central question of the letter’s authenticity. Several factors – ranging from its internal coherence and historical context to the absence of any clear motive for forgery – suggest that it may indeed be genuine, and therefore written in the chancery of Tekish. It might hint at a potential alliance envisaged by Tekish with the aim of dividing the Nile-to-Oxus region – a plan that ultimately did not come to fruition.

Keywords: Jerusalem; Crusades; Saladin; Khwārazm-Shāh Tekish; inshāʾ; forged letters
Published Online: 2026-04-11
Published in Print: 2026-04-09

© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelseiten
  2. Articles
  3. The Proto-Apocalyptic Muḥammad: The Imminence of Yahweh’s Day in the Qurʾān’s Three-Stage Eschatology
  4. Sakīnah, shekhinah, and a Dead Cat’s Head: The Evolution of an Islamic Exegesis
  5. Early Islamic Theological Debates on Asmāʾ and Aḥkām: The Epistle of Khalaf b. Ziyād al-Baḥrānī
  6. A Letter from Iran to Celebrate the Reconquest of Jerusalem. The Khwārazm-Shāh’s tahniyat-nāma to Saladin, Copied in the inshāʾ Work Qiṣṣa-yi salāṭīn (Mid-13th Century)
  7. The Spirit of God’s Laws: The Diffusion of Distilled Liquors in the East Mediterranean Through Hanafi Normative Texts
  8. L’épître d’as-Suyūṭī sur les eunuques
  9. Archival Practices and the Codex: A Mamlūk Protocol on Regulating Markets in Damascus and Its Ottoman Afterlife
  10. Debīrī: The 17th-Century Jewish Poet who Translated the Psalms into Ottoman Turkish
  11. Reviews
  12. Ali Anooshahr, Slavery in the Early Mughal World: The Life and Thoughts of Jawhar Aftabachi (1520s–1580s), Oxford: Oxford University Press 2025, 176 pp., ISBN 9780198937456
  13. Haroon Bashir, Slavery, Abolition, and Islam: Debating Freedom in the Islamic Tradition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025, 208 pp., ISBN: 978-0-19-287474-0 (hardcover)
  14. Majid Daneshgar, Reconstructing Erpenius’ Library. The First Collection of Oriental Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library, Leiden: Brill, 2025, xxxiii + 248 pp. ISBN 978-90-04-71259-7.
  15. EOTHEN VIII, ed. by Werner Joseph Pich, Max Leonhard, and Vorstand der Gesellschaft der Freunde Islamischer Kunst und Kultur e. V., 680 pages, 428 figures, Munich: Kunstverlag Josef Fink, 2022, ISBN 978-3-95976-337-0.
  16. Damien Janos and Muhammad Fariduddin Attar, A Comprehensive, Annotated, and Indexed Bibliography of the Modern Scholarship on Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1 The Near and Middle East, Volume: 171, 242 pp., Leiden: Brill, 2023.
  17. Ahmad Khan, Heresy and the Formation of Medieval Islamic Orthodoxy. The Making of Sunnism, from the Eighth to the Eleventh Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023, 434 pp., ISBN 9781009093033.
  18. Geoffrey Khan, Arabic Documents from Medieval Nubia, Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers 2024, xiv+840 pp., ISBN 978-1-80511-231-0.
  19. Felicitas Opwis, Ethics and Analogy (Qiyās) in 5th/11th-Century Islamic Legal Theory, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2025, 201 pp., ISBN: 978-90-04-72077-0
  20. A.C.S. Peacock (ed. and trans.), The Memoirs of Shah Tahmasp I. Safavid Ruler of Iran. Translated by A.C.S. Peacock, London: I.B. Tauris, 2024, 169 pp., ISBN 978-0-7556-5355-3
  21. Paul E. Walker, The Fatimids. Select Papers on Their Governing Institutions, Social and Cultural Organization, Religious Appeal, and Rivalries, Handbook of Oriental Studies/Handbuch der Orientalistik. Section I: The Near and Middle East, Volume 172), Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2023, 459 pages, ISBN 978-90-04-54861-9.
https://doi.org/10.1515/islam-2026-0004
Keywords for this article
Jerusalem; Crusades; Saladin; Khwārazm-Shāh Tekish; inshāʾ; forged letters

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelseiten
  2. Articles
  3. The Proto-Apocalyptic Muḥammad: The Imminence of Yahweh’s Day in the Qurʾān’s Three-Stage Eschatology
  4. Sakīnah, shekhinah, and a Dead Cat’s Head: The Evolution of an Islamic Exegesis
  5. Early Islamic Theological Debates on Asmāʾ and Aḥkām: The Epistle of Khalaf b. Ziyād al-Baḥrānī
  6. A Letter from Iran to Celebrate the Reconquest of Jerusalem. The Khwārazm-Shāh’s tahniyat-nāma to Saladin, Copied in the inshāʾ Work Qiṣṣa-yi salāṭīn (Mid-13th Century)
  7. The Spirit of God’s Laws: The Diffusion of Distilled Liquors in the East Mediterranean Through Hanafi Normative Texts
  8. L’épître d’as-Suyūṭī sur les eunuques
  9. Archival Practices and the Codex: A Mamlūk Protocol on Regulating Markets in Damascus and Its Ottoman Afterlife
  10. Debīrī: The 17th-Century Jewish Poet who Translated the Psalms into Ottoman Turkish
  11. Reviews
  12. Ali Anooshahr, Slavery in the Early Mughal World: The Life and Thoughts of Jawhar Aftabachi (1520s–1580s), Oxford: Oxford University Press 2025, 176 pp., ISBN 9780198937456
  13. Haroon Bashir, Slavery, Abolition, and Islam: Debating Freedom in the Islamic Tradition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025, 208 pp., ISBN: 978-0-19-287474-0 (hardcover)
  14. Majid Daneshgar, Reconstructing Erpenius’ Library. The First Collection of Oriental Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library, Leiden: Brill, 2025, xxxiii + 248 pp. ISBN 978-90-04-71259-7.
  15. EOTHEN VIII, ed. by Werner Joseph Pich, Max Leonhard, and Vorstand der Gesellschaft der Freunde Islamischer Kunst und Kultur e. V., 680 pages, 428 figures, Munich: Kunstverlag Josef Fink, 2022, ISBN 978-3-95976-337-0.
  16. Damien Janos and Muhammad Fariduddin Attar, A Comprehensive, Annotated, and Indexed Bibliography of the Modern Scholarship on Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1 The Near and Middle East, Volume: 171, 242 pp., Leiden: Brill, 2023.
  17. Ahmad Khan, Heresy and the Formation of Medieval Islamic Orthodoxy. The Making of Sunnism, from the Eighth to the Eleventh Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023, 434 pp., ISBN 9781009093033.
  18. Geoffrey Khan, Arabic Documents from Medieval Nubia, Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers 2024, xiv+840 pp., ISBN 978-1-80511-231-0.
  19. Felicitas Opwis, Ethics and Analogy (Qiyās) in 5th/11th-Century Islamic Legal Theory, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2025, 201 pp., ISBN: 978-90-04-72077-0
  20. A.C.S. Peacock (ed. and trans.), The Memoirs of Shah Tahmasp I. Safavid Ruler of Iran. Translated by A.C.S. Peacock, London: I.B. Tauris, 2024, 169 pp., ISBN 978-0-7556-5355-3
  21. Paul E. Walker, The Fatimids. Select Papers on Their Governing Institutions, Social and Cultural Organization, Religious Appeal, and Rivalries, Handbook of Oriental Studies/Handbuch der Orientalistik. Section I: The Near and Middle East, Volume 172), Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2023, 459 pages, ISBN 978-90-04-54861-9.
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