Posted by 
By Adam J. Silverstein
Adam Silverstein's booklet bargains a desirable account of the authentic equipment of conversation hired within the close to East from pre-Islamic instances in the course of the Mamluk interval. Postal structures have been manage by means of rulers to be able to retain keep watch over over big tracts of land. those platforms, invented centuries ahead of steam-engines or vehicles, enabled the speedy stream of other commodities - from letters, humans and horses to unique culmination and ice. because the correspondence transported usually incorporated exclusive studies from a ruler's provinces, such postal platforms doubled as espionage-networks during which information reached the imperative gurus quick adequate to permit a well timed response to occasions. The publication sheds mild not just at the position of communications know-how in Islamic heritage, but in addition on how nomadic tradition contributed to empire-building within the close to East. it is a long-awaited contribution to the heritage of pre-modern communications platforms within the close to jap global.
Read or Download Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World PDF
Similar middle east books
City of Oranges: Arabs and Jews in Jaffa
Jaffa - famed for its orange groves - used to be for hundreds of years a urban of investors, retailers, academics and directors, domestic to Muslims, Christians and Jews alike. that's, till the founding of the kingdom of Israel, which used to be at the same time a second of jubilation for the Jews and a catastrophe - the Naqba - for the 100,000 Arabs who fled Jaffa in 1948.
Post-Colonial Syria and Lebanon: The Decline of Arab Nationalism and the Triumph of the State
The advanced dating among Syria and Lebanon is the political fulcrum of the center East, and has ruled headlines because the withdrawal of French colonial forces from the Levant in 1943. one of many nice paradoxes of this dating is how such very diverse political structures emerged in what many Syrian and Lebanese humans see as one society.
A History of the Arabian Peninsula
The significance of this assortment lies in its origins: for the 1st time, prime Saudi Arabian historians have created a background of the Arabian Peninsula which analyzes that background from an inner Arabian standpoint. The publication explores the unique Bedouin payment of the quarter, the advance of the foremost city parts of Arabia throughout the Umayyad interval, the socio-political and fiscal advancements within the Hijad and Najd as much as the eighteenth century into the trendy period and the increase and improvement of the Saudi kingdom.
Commanding Syria: Bashar al-Asad and the First Years in Power
This can be the 1st significant paintings on Bashar al-Asad. It assesses the sturdiness of his father, Hafiz's legacy together with the chronic effect of the previous power-brokers, the effectiveness of Bashar's makes an attempt to maneuver clear of his father's shadow, and the customers for reform. notably, it evaluates Bashar's carrying on with carry on energy following Syria's humiliating retreat from Lebanon in Spring 2005 and the competitive American force to impose democracy within the center East.
Extra info for Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World
Sample text
99 That these runners are seen to operate alongside messengers mounted on camels and horses makes it clear that they are distinguishable from mounted couriers. Despatching mounted couriers was the most common method of communication in this period. Horses (t az an or sav ar an, ‘horse-riders’) appear fre101 ˇ quently,100 as do camels (hayv an or ustar). 104 It is likely that mules and donkeys were also used to transport royal correspondence. Evidence for the use of donkeys in the Sasanid postal system comes from the Babylonian Talmud.
Whitby), Liverpool, 1989, p. 185 (esp. n. 488), and p. 187. And see: A. , 2000, p. 31. PF 300, 1285, 1315, 1319, 1320, 1329, and 1335. On these references and the word pirradazisˇ ˇ see Hallock, Persepolis, p. 42. (pir-ra-da-zi-is), PF 1301, 1302, 1303, and 1559. abarı, Taprıkh, vol. I, p. 836, where the burud convey news of Shap ur II’s birth to the farthest lands; and vol. I, p. 1008, where Khusroˆ II sent a barıd to the Persians to announce the appointment of Farrukhan. , vol. I, p. 847.
131 Conclusions From the foregoing analysis of pre-Islamic Iranian postal systems three points of particular relevance to this study emerge. First, when Muslims conquered the Sasanid provinces of the Near East they were heirs to a region that was steeped in postal experience and traditions. Second, medieval Muslim authors were unapologetically conscious of the preIslamic Iranian provenance of the caliphal Barıd. Third, the fact that much of the Barıd’s terminology can be traced to pre-Islamic Iran attests to the considerable degree of direct continuity from pre-Islamic to caliphal times.