Documents of the embassy of the Persian Messenger Haji Muhammad-‘Ali to Russia in 1642-1643

Abstract

The paper aims to introduce four Persian documents (a farman and three petitions) from the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, Fund 77 Relations between Russia and Persia into scholarly discourse. These documents are directly related to the visit of Haji Muhammad-Ali, messenger from Iranian Shah Abbas II, to the Tsardom of Russia. He was delegated to travel to the Russian state in relation to Shah Safi Is death in order to meet with the kupchina (official Shahs tradesman) Bijan-bek in Moscow in 16411643 and hand over the gifts to the ruler of the Russian state on behalf of the new Iranian Shah. In this paper, the farman and petitions are translated into Russian; the Persian original and translation are preceded by a historical and linguistic commentary.