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)

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.