Discoveries that changed the world | Mail

Arab Weather - The means used to deliver messages have evolved from verbal notification to hand delivery or the use of birds, and even remote signaling via smoke or flags, until it reached in our time to e-mail and modern means of communication.

Mail innovation and how it was used

Our Muslim ancestors realized the importance of postal mail in times of peace and war, so they paved the roads and divided them into houses or stations. In every station there are animals prepared to carry the Caliph’s messages to various destinations, so they are handed over to the main post of the mail holder, who proceeds with them quickly even if he arrives at the first station. In the mail, to do his job as the first.

Thus, the letters reached the princes and workers in the fastest time, and the distance between each two stations was four leagues, or twelve miles, and this distance was called Buraida, and the first person to invent the mail was Caliph Muawiya bin Abi Sufyan, may God be pleased with them, because of his desire to speed the arrival of news Throughout the vast Islamic state, Abu Abdullah al-Mahdi allocated countless camels for mail, and in the era of the Abbasids, the mail was designated for government work.

The origin of the word mail

Linguists differed as to the origin of the word "bareed". Al-Zamakhshari said that the word "bareed" means the urgent messenger, and many expressed that it is (the messenger), and it has been said that it is an Arabic word and means the cloak because the mail messengers used to wear a red cloak, and it was said that it was of Persian origin, and it refers to the bear cut Tail, because the kings of Persia are their habit, if they appoint mail animals, they cut off their tails to distinguish them from others, and they call it "Buraidah Dam"

The mail was distinguished for Muslims by its speed and good organization

Despite the lack of modern means of transporting mail among the Muslims in the past, but their mail was characterized by speed, and among the oddities of what was said about the speed of the arrival of letters, that the mail carried to the Caliph Al-Mamun fresh fruits as if it was harvested at her hour, and was sent to him from the city of Kabul. The current capital of Afghanistan while the caliph was the ruler of "Khurasan", and when the essence of the Sicilians conquered Marrakesh (now Morocco) during the reign of the Fatimid al-Muizz and reached the Atlantic Ocean, he sent him from there fish in a bottle to prove that his king had reached the ocean.

Muslims also used homing pigeons to transport mail, and they took great steps in that, and Muslims were guided to mail before other peoples, so they managed and organized well, to the extent that other peoples admired what the Muslims had achieved, so they transferred from them this interest that benefited the world and the mail continued to evolve. Means of transportation and technological progress until we reached where we are now.

In conclusion - our history abounds with the names of thousands of Arab and Muslim scholars and their achievements and what they provided to humanity in terms of inventions and innovations that all science and knowledge have benefited from and some of them are still in use today. Throughout the blessed month of Ramadan, we review for you throughout the blessed month of Ramadan in the series " Discoveries that changed the world " some of the inventions and innovations made by Muslim scholars They changed the face of life over the ages.