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-lslamic times through 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. --Book Jacket.