The pigeon post

The messenger pigeon (al-hamam al-rasa'ili) is the pigeon "that kings keep to carry letters", also called al-hady; for al-Qalqashandi it is the most valuable and highest-ranking of pigeons. He devotes the second bab of the conclusion of Subh al-a'sha to its flight routes and the towers set up for it along the roads of Egypt and Syria, referring for its colours, feathers and the difference between cock and hen to what he wrote earlier in the fourth maqala. ¹

Al-Qalqashandi says the Abbasid caliphs cared for it in early times, such as al-Mahdi and al-Nasir, and that the notables of Iraq, especially Basra, competed over it; he quotes al-Rawd al-mi'tar that a fine bird reached seven hundred dinars, and one from the gulf of Constantinople reportedly a thousand, that the pair of eggs of a famous bird sold for twenty dinars, that they kept pedigree registers of pigeons like the genealogies of the Arabs, and that the people of Basra sent pigeons with trusted men to the judge Bakkar, judge of Egypt, asking him to release them himself, which he did. ²

He quotes Ibn Fadl Allah's al-Ta'rif that pigeons first came to Egypt and Syria from Mosul, that the first ruler to take an interest and bring them from Mosul was Nur al-Din ibn Zangi, lord of Syria, in 565 AH, that the Fatimids in Egypt went so far as to give them their own office and pedigree registers, and that Muhyi al-Din ibn Abd al-Zahir wrote a book on them, Tama'im al-hama'im. ² Al-Qalqashandi adds that Abu al-Hasan ibn Mula'ib al-Fawaris of Baghdad had preceded him with a book written for the caliph al-Nasir li-Din Allah, and thinks Ibn Abd al-Zahir's book "derives from its premise". ^{2 3}

He cites Ibn Sa'id's Haya al-mahall that the Fatimid caliph al-Aziz told his vizier Ya'qub ibn Killis that he had never seen the cherries of Baalbek; the vizier at once wrote a slip to Damascus ordering that the Egyptian pigeons there be gathered and a few cherries tied to each, and before the day was out the pigeons arrived in Egypt with them. ³ From the same author's al-Mughrib he reports that the vizier al-Bazuri sent pigeons from Tunis to Egypt, adding: "the responsibility for that is his". ³

The towers follow the barid stations and roads, though pigeon stages may be longer, and all start from the tower of the Citadel of the Mountain. ⁴ He quotes al-Ta'rif that relays from Egypt to Qus, Aswan and Aydhab had ceased, leaving only Cairo to Alexandria, Damietta, Suez and Bilbays, the last connecting to Syria. From the Citadel to Gaza: Bilbays, al-Salihiyya, Qatya, al-Warrada, Gaza; from Gaza to Hebron, Jerusalem and Nablus, then Lydda, Qaqun and Jenin, and from there to Safad, or to Baysan, Irbid, Tafas, al-Sanamayn and Damascus; from Damascus to Baalbek and al-Qaryatayn, or to Qara, Homs, Hama, Ma'arra and Aleppo; from Aleppo to al-Bira, Qal'at al-Muslimin and Bahasna. ^{4 5 6} Then al-Qalqashandi says: "the relaying of pigeons has now lapsed". ⁶

Al-Qalqashandi reasons that the barid brings news faster than anything else, the pigeon faster than the barid, and the beacons faster than the pigeon. ⁷ See also the postal diwan.