Critical Stylistics of Shah Tahmasb Safavid Letter to Ottoman Sultan Suleiman With a critical discourse analysis approach

“Language” carries “Ideology”; and “Power” has always used “Language” in the direction of its domination. The present article is devoted to Stylistic analysis and study some parts of a letter from Shah Tahmasb Safavid to Sultan Suleiman the Ottoman from the perspective of Critical Discourse analysi. This letter is one of the most important letters that was sent from Iran to the Ottoman court during the peace of “Amasya” and around the year 962 A. The authors first corrected the text of this lengthy letter based on a manuscript called "Collection of Commands and Letters" preserved in the Library of Islamic Consultative Assembly No. 3349 and Then, a part of it has been analyzed and interpreted based on Fairclough's semiotic - social approach, as well as one of the components of sociological – semantic of Van Leeuwen’s model and with the help of Wendek's cognitive - social approach strategies and also with the help of critical stylistic tools. This study shows how “Power” has used language to promote and stabilize its ideology and goals.The high abundance of religion institution codes at the structural level as well as the quantity and quality of codes compounds at the process level indicate the ideological orientation of the Safavid system and the reliance of the institution of power on the institution of religion and religious discourse. In this letter, discourses such as the legitimacy and superiority of the Shiite school can also be seen in the linguistic element of the “Index”. The linguistic features of this text also indicate the political-military “Authority” of the Safavid system at the time of the signing the peace of Amasya.