Description
Book SynopsisA fascinating account of the official methods of communication employed in the Near East from pre-Islamic times to the Mamluk period. This is a long-awaited contribution to the history of pre-modern communications systems in the Near Eastern world.
Trade Review"Adam Silverstein's work on postal systems (i.e., the barid) and communications in the medieval Islamic world goes a long way toward correcting one of the deficiencies in the field.... Silverstein is to be commended for this ambitious project; it is a welcome and much needed addition to the field. Students and scholars of the political, economic, and administrative history of medieval Islam will benefit greatly from the foundation he has provided." - International Journal of Middle East Studies
"The greatest value of this work to scholars and students interested in the premodern Islamic world is that Silverstein places this detailed description of postal systems into the broader picture of the political traditions of particular dynasties and rulers, notably the pre-Umayyads, Umayyads, Abbasids, Samanids, Chaznavids, Fatimids, Seljuks, Il-Khanids, and Malmuks." - The Historian
Table of ContentsList of maps; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Introduction; Part I. The Pre-Islamic Background: 1. Pre-Islamic postal systems; Part II. Conquest and Centralisation - The Arabs: 2. al-Barīd: the early Islamic postal system; 3. Dīwān al-Barīd: the Middle Abbasid period; Part III. Conquest and Centralisation - The Mongols: 4. The Mongol Yām and its legacy; 5. The Mamluk Barīd; Conclusions; Appendix: distances and speeds of the Barīd; Bibliography; Index.
