ديوان الزمام والخاتم

ديوان الزمام والخاتم

Ibn al-Muqaffa' described the Persian chancery: a royal command stood before the sahib al-tawqi', his servant entered it in a monthly tadhkira which the king sealed and stored; the tawqi' passed to the sahib al-zimam — keeper of the seal — then to the sahib al-'amal, who wrote it as a royal letter, copied it into the register, returned it through the sahib al-zimam to be read against the tadhkira and sealed before the king or his most trusted. Ziyad ibn Abi Sufyan was the first Arab to take a zamam-diwan and a seal, imitating the Persians. The Persian king kept a seal for secrets, for envoys, for perpetuities — sijillat and iqta's and tashrif-letters — and a seal for the kharaj, all with the sahib al-zimam save the seal of secrets sometimes held by a royal intimate; and Khusraw Aparviz, bothered by the smell of the white sheets of accounts, ordered his kharaj-diwan's returns yellowed with saffron and rosewater.