An Issue of Intercultural Communication: An Unknown Letter from the “Sultan of Babylon” to Pope Innocent VIII

Abstract

Abstract In the University of Glasgow Library’s copy of Pius II’s Epistolae familiares (Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 16 Sept. 1481), recorded on leaf 1–1v one can find a copy of a letter addressed to Pope Innocent VIII that starts with the heading “Soldanus pontifici Romano pro Restauracione Iunioris filii senioris Turchi”. The letter’s sender, who is referred to in the text as the “Sultan of Babylon”, was the Caliph of Cairo, al-Mutawakkil II (Abdul Aziz ibn Yaʿqub ibn Muhammad). The present text discusses the content of the letter and the issues regarding the question of its authorship. To ensure a comprehensive presentation of the argumentation, the paper not only discusses the content of the letter but also explores the wider context in which it was produced, situating it against the wider history of the Mamluk state and Mamluk diplomacy as well as the late medieval tradition of the exchange of correspondence (both real and fictitious) between the Christian and Muslim worlds. It needs underlining that not only has the content of the letter in question hitherto been substantially unknown to scholars, but the letter is furthermore the first discovered correspondent from an ʿAbbasid Caliph sent to the head of Western Christianity. The paper offers a contribution to research on intercultural communication. The paper comes with three appendices: a transliteration and a translation of the letter and a facsimile of the original record.