The Application of Information from Ghiyath al-Din Naqqash’s Travelogue in Shah Rukh Timurid’s Foreign Policy

Abstract

The reign of Shah Rukh Timurid (1405–1447) constituted a turning point in relations between Iran and China. Whereas Timur pursued a policy of military confrontation, his successor adopted a course of diplomatic engagement. This strategic transformation raises the question of what factor prompted Shah Rukh to shift from confrontation to engagement with the Ming dynasty. The study hypothesizes that the information contained in the travelogue of Ghiyath al-Din Naqqash, Shah Rukh’s envoy to China, played a significant role in this strategic change. Employing a descriptive-analytical method and drawing on the theoretical framework of “intelligence diplomacy,” the study extracts and classifies six categories of information contained in the travelogue—geographical, military, economic, sociocultural, political-administrative, and religious—and analyzes their application in Shah Rukh’s foreign-policy decision-making. The findings indicate that, on the basis of this information, Shah Rukh conducted a cost-benefit assessment of confrontation versus engagement and concluded that war with China would be either unfeasible or prohibitively costly because of the considerable geographical distance, natural barriers, advanced fortifications, early-warning system, large numbers of disciplined troops, economic stability, and China’s highly developed civilization. He therefore replaced military confrontation with diplomatic engagement and commercial and cultural relations. Ultimately, the study demonstrates that Ghiyath al-Din Naqqash’s travelogue was not merely an ethnographic account but one of the principal informational foundations underlying Shah Rukh’s decision to pursue engagement with China.