How widespread was authorship among rulers in the premodern Islamic world? The writings of different types of rulers in different regions and periods are analyzed, shedding light on the role that authorship had in the construction of the rulers' authority and legitimacy.

List of Figures List of Tables Notes on Contributors Introduction  Maribel Fierro, Sonja Brentjes and Tilman Seidensticker Part 1 The Early Period 1 Rulers as Authors: ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and the Other Twelver Imams  Teresa Bernheimer 2 Eloquent Exchange: Asceticism and Shirāʾ in the Poetry of Qaṭarī b. al-Fujāʾa  Adam Gaiser 3 A ‘Rediscovered’ Letter of the Umayyad Caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (r. 99–101/717–720) Caliphal Authorship and Legal Authority in al-Risāla fī l-fayʾ  Sean W. Anthony 4 Abbasid Rulers and Their Standing as Authors  Letizia Osti Part 2 Caliphs and Messianic Figures 5 Zaydī Rulers as Authors: A Quest for Legitimacy  Maher Jarrar 6 The Caliph al-Qādir bi-llāh and the Qādirī Creed  Livnat Holtzman 7 Do Caliphs Write? The View from the Islamic West  María Luisa Ávila † and Maribel Fierro 8 Authority, ijāzāt and Politics: Caliph al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh’s Kitāb Rūḥ al-ʿārifīn (7Th/13th Century, Baghdad)  Angelika Hartmann † 9 The Pen and the Sword: The Case of the Sudanese Mahdi (1844–1885)  Ahmed Ibrahim Abushouk and Robert S. Kramer Part 3 Emirs and Sultans 10 Entre l’épée et le calame : Abū l-Fidāʾ, prince et savant ayyoubide  Anne-Marie Eddé 11 The Quatrains of Toghrïl III. Some Reflections about the Literacy and Culture of the Saljuqs  David Durand-Guédy 12 Royal Quatrains: Rulers of the Anūshteginid Line of Khwārazmshāhs as Poets  Jürgen Paul 13 Rulers as Authors in 13th-Century Yemen: the Oeuvre of al-Ashraf ʿUmar  Petra Schmidl 14 Non-caliphal Rulers and Their Writings in the Islamic West (2nd–9th/8th–15th Centuries)  Maribel Fierro 15 Legitimating Sultanic Rule in Arabic, Turkish and Persian—Late Mamluk Rulers as Authors of Religious Poetry  Christian Mauder Part 4 The Great Empires: Timurids-Mughals, Ottomans, Safavids 16 The Ottoman Ruler Poet Sultan Süleyman I, His Third Divan, and His Reception beyond the Palace Walls  Christiane Czygan 17 The Power of Poetry in the Ottoman Context  Fatma Sinem Eryılmaz 18 Timurid-Mughal Philosopher-Kings as Sultan-Scientists  Matthew Melvin-Koushki 19 Shah Ṭahmāsp and the Taẕkira: A Sixteenth-Century Ruler’s Justification of His Policies  Philip Bockholt Index