Hatt-i humayun

Hatt-i humayun (Ottoman Turkish: خط همايون ḫaṭṭ-ı hümayun, plural خط همايونلر, ḫaṭṭ-ı hümayunlar), also known as hatt-i sharif (خط شریف ḫaṭṭ-ı şerîf, plural خط شریفلر, ḫaṭṭ-ı şerîfler), was the diplomatics term for a document or handwritten note of an official nature composed by an Ottoman sultan. These notes were commonly written by the sultan personally, although they could also be transcribed by a palace scribe. They were written usually in response to, and directly on, a document submitted to the sultan by the grand vizier or another officer of the Ottoman government. Thus, they could be approvals or denials of a letter of petition, acknowledgements of a report, grants of permission for a request, an annotation to a decree, or other government documents. Hatt-i humayuns could also be composed from scratch, rather than as a response to an existing document.

After the Tanzimat era (1839–1876), aimed at modernizing the Ottoman Empire, hatt-i humayuns of the routine kind were supplanted by the practice of irade-i seniyye (Ottoman Turkish: اراده سنیه irâde-i seniyye; French: iradé or less standardly iradèh, meaning 'ordonnance'), in which the sultan's spoken response was recorded on the document by his scribe.

There are nearly 100,000 hatt-i humayuns in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul. Among the more famous are the Hatt-i Sharif of Gulhane (Ottoman Turkish: خط شریف گلخانه, also known as the Tanzimat Fermani [تنظیمات فرمانی]) of 1839 and the Imperial Reform Edict (اصلاحات خط همايونى) of 1856. The first one, which opened the Tanzimat era, is so called because it carries a handwritten order by the sultan to the grand vizier to execute his command.

The term hatt-i humayun can sometimes also be used in a literal sense, meaning a document handwritten by an Ottoman sultan.