Diplomatic exchange in the late medieval Muslim world was a complex process whose every step bears great significance for understanding relationships among powers. Medieval scholars themselves grasped the importance of such exchanges and wrote treatises intended for envoys and emissaries. The importance of embassies is also well-attested through the many accounts reported in chronicles that detail meticulously the arrival, the reception of embassies that came to a ruler to discuss business matters. If these matters were the most tangible motives of diplomatic exchanges, they were in fact only a minor part of a more complicated interaction. Indeed, the exchange of embassies was above all a pretext for a game of power in which rulers intended to show their supremacy over each other, but through such means, they also projected their own image and ambitions to their correspondents. This design was hidden within a highly nuanced nonverbal display attached to the letter the embassy brought. Beyond the written word was yet another message borne through a series of external and internal characteristics. In this paper, I will analyze a series of rules that belonged to the sphere of Mamluk diplomatics: these rules can help us read between the lines of Mamluk epistolary production. I will then show how Mamluk sultans pictured both world and themselves and how they intended to project their imperial ambitions to their correspondents. Examining extant administrative literature, I will first concentrate my study on those parts of these works which are dedicated to description of the world: the mas?lik wa’l-mam?lik. I will show how it established an original way of dividing and organizing the world. This initial analysis will thus present an accurate picture of that world, especially the Muslim world, as known and recognized by the Mamluks. In the second part of the presentation, I will then study how this theoretical knowledge was used in chancery practice. Knowing the addressees’ status was an essential condition for not only writing letters but also determing patterns of diplomatic exchange. I will demonstrate how and why these patterns were established by the Mamluk chancery and how they can help us draw a map of hierarchical distribution among the correspondents within the Muslim world. Finally, I will focus my attention on Mamluk self-representation and ambitions as displayed through these rules.