A pre-Mongol New Persian legal document from Islamic Khurasan dated AH 608/1212 CE

Since the 1990s several caches of New Persian documents have come to light in Afghanistan. These documents, written on paper, are now the most significant sources for understanding how New Persian in Arabic script was used as an administrative and legal language in the eastern Islamic lands between the eleventh and early thirteenth centuries before the Mongol conquest of Khurasan. After a brief survey of the three main collections in which these New Persian paper documents are preserved today, this article presents a preliminary edition, translation and commentary on one of the New Persian documents held in the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art. The document, dated AH 608/1212 CE, is a record of court proceedings and the decision of a judge (qadi) in a lawsuit over water rights initiated by a woman.

Automated summary

The New Persian paper documents unearthed in Afghanistan since the 1990s provide significant sources for understanding the usage of New Persian in Arabic script as an administrative and legal language in the eastern Islamic lands before the Mongol conquest of Khurasan in the 11th and early 13th centuries. This article introduces the three main collections where these documents are preserved and presents a preliminary edition, translation, and commentary on one of the documents from the Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, which is a record of court proceedings and a judge's decision in a water rights lawsuit initiated by a woman, dated AH 608/1212 CE.