Within the field of diplomatic history, scholars are heeding calls to write a connected history of diplomacy across diverse political and temporal boundaries. Their efforts have fostered robust interest in studying early modern diplomacies in their own right. Analyses of more than the basic contours of early modern diplomatic relations in the ‘Islamicate’ world, however, remain limited. This paper aims to capture the sophistication and complexity of early eighteenth century diplomatic relations between two culturally related polities, and in so doing, contribute to broader initiatives intended to build a more global history of diplomatic relations across place and time. My paper takes as its object of study, Ottoman diplomatic relations with Iran on the eve of the collapse of the Safavid dynasty (1719), through the Hotaki interlude, and until the normalization of relations with Nadir Shah (1746). It focuses on Ottoman diplomatic ceremonial and ritual practices performed at the imperial capital and in Iran, through which Ottomans mediated relations with their Iranian counterparts. My analysis illuminates the symbolic meaning of these practices and the particular values and visions that underpinned them. It also characterizes certain continuities and changes in Ottoman-Iranian diplomatic relations throughout the rapid dynastic changes that occurred within Iran during the first half of the eighteenth century. Through critical reading of te?rifat defterleri (registers of protocol and etiquette) from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, sefaretnames (travel reports) and letters of Ottoman envoys to Iran throughout this period, and contemporary vak’anüvis tarihleri (official histories) that detail encounters with Iranian diplomats, I advance two main arguments. First, diplomacy was an essential component of Ottoman politics, as evidenced by the coherent and elaborate diplomatic etiquette and protocol to which they adhered. Through ceremony and ritual, Ottomans were able to simultaneously communicate their military might, cultural sophistication, and religious integrity to outsiders, while also engaging in the kind of self-imagining that was integral to their own identity. Second, each encounter -- whether for the purposes of delivering letters to the Iranian court, giving gifts, participating in entertainment activities, or permitting an audience with the Sultan -- was an arena for claiming relative status vis-à-vis their Iranian rivals. When scrutinized, the array of ceremonies and rituals associated with each of these encounters, indicate clearly that the last Safavids of the early eighteenth century, the Hotakis, and Nadir Shah all saw the Ottoman Sultan as the ultimate arbiter of trans-imperial affairs within the 'Islamicate' world.