ديوان البريد

ديوان البريد

The postal diwan as Abu al-Faraj Qudama ibn Ja'far prescribes it in Kitab al-Kharaj wa-Sina'at al-Kitaba: a diwan unto itself receiving dispatches from every province and forwarding each to its destination, presenting the barid masters' reports from all regions to the caliph or composing their digests, overseeing the station-masters, timekeepers and clerks of the relay routes, disbursing their rations and commissioning the keepers of itineraries in every misr — its chief required to be a man of trust ¹.