Correcting a historical error: A study of the decree appointing Kamal al-Din Behzad Chief Librarian

The text of the decree assigning library superintendency to Kamal al-Din Behzad was for the first time published by Qazvini and Bouvat in 1914, copied from the MS of the Nāmeh-ye Nāmi kept in the National Library of Paris. The issuance date of the decree was reports to be 928 H./1522 by order of Shah Esma’il I. Since then, the unquestionability of this report, repeated in later researches, has been taken for granted.The purpose of the present study is to determine how many texts of the superintendence decree there exist and, at what times and by whom they have been issued. By examining the process of the publication of the text of the decree and the relation between Shah Esma’il and Khwandmir, and by comparing the dates of the decrees in the Nāmeh-ye Nāmi, this research, utilizing a descriptive-analytical method, attempts to find a reasonable answer for this question. Based of the findings of this study, there is only one decree text in Behzad’s name and that being dated 913 H./ 1507 and issued from the Timurid court.