Fragment of a Marriage Contract in Early New Persian in the Manuscript from Beijing/Taibei and its Context

The following article presents a hitherto unknown kābı̄n (marriage contract) text in the New Persian language from a manuscript originally kept in Beijing, now held in Taipei. The text is both an important monument of the Christian Early New Persian linguistic community and a testimony of the social life of such communities along the Silk Road in the pre-Mongol period. Arabic borrowings could be a clue that dates the text to the tenth or eleventh centuries. The text represents an important witness to the permanence of the Iranian custom of the dowry payment combined with the Syriac Christian wedding ritual of the Church of the East. The New Persian in the fragment points to the history of early language forms functioning in pre-Mongol non-Muslim communities.