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 'ordinance'), in which the sultan's spoken response to his Grand Vizier's recommendations was recorded on the document by his scribe.
