Compilation of Arabic letters by al-Waṭwāṭ, who was the court poet and chief secretary
of the Khwārazm-Shāhs ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Abū al-Muẓaffar Atsïz ibn Muḥmmad (ruled 521-551/1127–1156;
Clifford Edmund Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties. A chronological and Genealogical
Manual. Edinburgh 2012, p. 179) and Tāj ad-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ Īl-Arslān ibn Atsiz (ruled
551-568/1156–1172; Bosworth, p. 179) and therefore engaged in diplomatic correspondence
with the Abbasid caliphs and their officials. Like another of his works (the Maṭlūb
kull ṭālib min kalām amīr al-muʾminīn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib) this collection (of about
100 letters) is dedicated to Il-Arslan's son and successor Jalāl al-Dīn Abū al-Qāsim
Sulṭān-Shāh Maḥmūd (ruled 567-589/1172-1193; Bosworth, p. 179), whose full titles
are given on f. 1b. According to the introduction, the letters were collected by a
compiler, whose name is, however, nowhere to be found. f. 1a: Notes from the Nuzhat al-albāb wa-al-alqāb by Shihāb al-Dīn Abū al-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn
ʿAlī Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852/1449; EI2 III/776-779; GAL II/67-70 S II/72-76;
Kaḥḥālah II/20-22; Ziriklī I/178-179) concerning the death date of al-Waṭwāṭ.
