Diwan al-Insha' (the chancery)

The Diwan al-Insha' was the office from which the state's letters and appointments were issued. Al-Qalqashandi, one of its secretaries under the Turkish (Mamluk) state in Egypt, built his Subh al-a'sha around it, and devotes a chapter of the introduction to "the nature of the Diwan al-Insha', its origin in Islam and its later spread among the realms". ² It is distinct from the rhetorical term insha', though the name comes from it.

For him a diwan is the place where the secretaries sit; the d takes an i-vowel, and he quotes al-Nahhas that "a-vowel is a mistake". Its origin is disputed: some say it is Arabic, from dawwantuhu, "I recorded it"; others, among them al-Asma'i and al-Jawhari, that it is an Arabised Persian word. He reports two explanations from al-Mawardi, one of them that Khusraw looked in on the secretaries of his office as they calculated to themselves and said "diwana" — "madmen". ^{2 3}

Insha' is the verbal noun of ansha'a, "to originate". Linking the diwan to it may mean that the sultan's letters and appointments originate from it, or that the secretary composes a fresh text for every occasion. In earlier times it was called the Diwan al-Rasa'il (office of letters), after the commonest kind of document it issued, and sometimes the Diwan al-Mukatabat. ³

Al-Qalqashandi writes: "This diwan was the first diwan established in Islam", because the Prophet corresponded with his commanders and the leaders of his expeditions, and wrote to kings calling them to Islam — sending Amr ibn Umayya (may God be pleased with him) al-Damri (may God be pleased with him) to the Negus, Abd Allah ibn Hudhafa to Khusraw, Dihya al-Kalbi (may God be pleased with him) to Heraclius, Hatib ibn Abi Balta'a to the Muqawqis and others — and had the truce of al-Hudaybiya written down. ⁴ He distinguishes it from the army register (diwan al-jaysh), which Umar ibn al-Khattab (may God be pleased with him) set up during his caliphate. ⁴

He reports from "a biography by one of the later authors" that the Prophet had "thirty-odd secretaries", the most constant of them in writing being Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan and Zayd ibn Thabit (may God be pleased with him), and lists the secretaries of the Rightly Guided Caliphs: Uthman and Zayd ibn Thabit for Abu Bakr, Zayd ibn Thabit and Abd Allah ibn Khalaf for Umar, Marwan ibn al-Hakam for Uthman, and Abd Allah ibn Abi Rafi' and Sa'id ibn Najran al-Hamdani for Ali. ⁵

Under the Umayyads the diwan was entrusted to a secretary while the caliph signed the petitions himself; the best known of their secretaries was Abd al-Hamid ibn Yahya, secretary of Marwan ibn Muhammad. ⁶ Under the Abbasids the diwan was sometimes attached to the vizierate and sometimes given to a separate secretary who carried out the vizier's endorsements, until the end of the caliphate in Baghdad; among their famous secretaries were Yahya ibn Khalid, al-Hasan ibn Sahl, Amr ibn Mas'ada, Ibn al-Amid, al-Sahib ibn Abbad and Abu Ishaq al-Sabi. ⁶ After Hulagu's sack of Baghdad in 656 AH, he says, "the accepted art of writing lapsed", and most of what was written for the Tatar rulers was in Mongol or Persian. ⁷

Al-Qalqashandi holds that the state of the diwan in the dynasties of the Maghrib and al-Andalus "depended on how settled or nomadic they were": early dynasties close to desert life paid it no attention, and once a state became settled it turned its care to the diwan. He names among their secretaries Ibn Zaydun and Ibn al-Khatib, vizier of Ibn al-Ahmar. ^{7 8}

1. From the conquest to the Tulunids: the governors paid the diwan no attention, writing only to the caliph's court. ⁸
2. Tulunids and Ikhshidids: the diwan took shape and correspondence became regular; the first famous secretary was Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Mawdud, secretary of Ahmad ibn Tulun. ⁸
3. The Fatimids: they gave the diwan "their greatest care", and it was headed for them by secretaries "both Muslim and dhimmi", among them Ibn Khayran, Ibn Abi Usama al-Halabi and al-Muwaffaq ibn al-Khallal, "under whom al-Qadi al-Fadil was trained". ⁹
4. The Ayyubids: Salah al-Din entrusted both the vizierate and the chancery to al-Qadi al-Fadil; later heads followed until Baha' al-Din Zuhayr under al-Salih Ayyub, and then Fakhr al-Din ibn Luqman. ¹⁰
5. The Turkish state: Ibn Luqman continued under Aybak, Qutuz, Baybars and Qalawun; then came Fath al-Din ibn Abd al-Zahir, and then for a long period the Fadl Allah al-Umari family — Sharaf al-Din Abd al-Wahhab, Muhyi al-Din and his son Shihab al-Din, Ala' al-Din and Badr al-Din — until, under al-Zahir Barquq and al-Nasir Faraj, it passed to Fath Allah, whom al-Qalqashandi praises. ^{10 11 12 13}

The head of the diwan at the sultan's court was also "in charge of the barid and of carrying out its business, incoming and outgoing", and the barid's silver plaques were kept in the diwan under the confidential secretary, as told in the Diwan al-Barid. ¹⁴ Other matters connected with the diwan besides writing fill the conclusion of the book, among them the barid and the pigeon post. ¹⁵