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 and personally signed 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, as well as fermans, were supplanted by the practice of irade-i seniyye, or irade (Ottoman Turkish: اراده سنیه irâde-i seniyye; French: iradé or less standardly iradèh, meaning 'ordonnance'), in which the sultan's spoken response to his Grand Vizier's recommendations 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.