Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World

Cambridge University Press
9780521858687 - Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World - by Adam J. Silverstein
Frontmatter/Prelims

Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World

Adam Silverstein’s book offers a fascinating account of the official methods of communication employed in the Near East from pre-Islamic times through to the Mamluk period. Postal systems were set up by rulers in order to maintain control over vast tracts of land. These systems, invented centuries before steam-engines or cars, enabled the swift and efficient circulation of different commodities – from people and horses to exotic fruits and ice – and, of course, news and letters. As the correspondence transported often included confidential reports from a ruler’s provinces, such postal systems doubled as espionage networks through which news reached the central authorities quickly enough to allow a timely reaction to events. The book sheds light not only on the role of communications technology in Islamic history, but also on how nomadic culture contributed to empire-building in the Near East, and the ways in which the nascent Islamic state distinguished itself from the Byzantine and Sasanid empires that preceded it. This is a long-awaited contribution to the history of pre-modern communications systems in the Near Eastern world.

ADAM SILVERSTEIN is Lecturer in Islamic History at the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford.

---

Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilisation

Editorial Board
David Morgan (general editor)
Virginia Aksan, Michael Brett, Michael Cook, Peter Jackson, Tarif Khalidi, Chase Robinson

Published titles in the series are listed at the back of the book

---

Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World

ADAM J. SILVERSTEIN
The Oriental Institute, University of Oxford

---

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521858687

© Adam J. Silverstein 2007

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2007

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0-521-85868-7 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for
the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or
third-party internet websites referred to in this book,
and does not guarantee that any content on such
websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

---

In loving memory of my grandfather,
Harold Silverstein (1915–2000),
who taught me math

---

Contents

List of maps			page x
Acknowledgements			xi
List of abbreviations			xii
Introduction			1
PART I    THE PRE-ISLAMIC BACKGROUND			7
1	Pre-Islamic postal systems		7
		The East: Iranian postal systems from the Achaemenids to the Sasanids	7
		The West: the Cursus Publicus from Rome to Byzantium	29
		Communications in pre-Umayyad Arabia	42
PART II    CONQUEST AND CENTRALISATION – THE ARABS			53
2	al-Barīd: the early Islamic postal system		53
3	Dīwān al-Barīd: the Middle Abbasid period		90
PART III    CONQUEST AND CENTRALISATION – THE MONGOLS			141
4	The Mongol Yām and its legacy		141
5	The Mamluk Barīd		165
Conclusions			186
Appendix: distances and speeds of the Barīd			191
Bibliography			194
Index			209

---

Maps

1	Imperial routes in pre-Islamic Iran	page 14
2a	Routes of the Abbasid Barīd: the East	95
3b	Routes of the Abbasid Barīd: the West	96
4	Routes of the Mamluk Barīd	171

---

© Cambridge University Press