Governmental and Administrative Terms and Titles in the Chronicle Zubdat al-Āthār

Zubdat-al-āthār is a historical work which was written by Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Ali Nasrullāhī, in (Chagatai) Turkic, completed in 1525 and dedicated to Sultan Muhammad who was the son of Suyunch Khoja Khan. In the work the author mainly refers to primary sources to relate events which had occurred before his era. He also narrates some events that he personally witnessed and that he heard directly from eyewitnesses. The work’s original manuscript is missing; there are three copies which have survived. Information about a fourth copy of the work was announced to the scientific community by DeWeese in his work titled A note on manuscripts of the Zubdat al-āthār. As Zubdat-al-āthār is a chronicle, the author uses many governmental and administrative terms and titles which provide information about government organizations of the states of his period. In this study we will deal with the administrative terms that are attested in Zubdat-al-āthār with a focus on Timurid dynasty. Some of the terms we discuss in this paper are ınaḳ, ḳorçı, tovaçı, bitikçi.