ADMINISTRATIVE THEORY AND PRACTICE(Ar. katib) of the chieftain of the tribe of 'Amr.l31 There was nothing
unusual about the employment of those who could write Arabic by
early Islamic rulers, governors, or generals since it clearly reflects pre-
Islamic Arab, Persian, and Byzantine practices. The Arabic literature
is lavish with quotations of letters and other documents from the time
of 'Umar I or even earlier, and, whether or not all of these texts are
authentic, their presence reflects the general expectation that com-
munication was normally carried out in writing. It is more important
to point out that those who were employed earliest for their ability
to write Arabic in Iraq were mawati from Ta'if (as already noted in
connection with the division of booty) or local Iraqi Arabs. In 641
Bajala ibn 'Abda al-'Anbari, from the vicinity of Basra, served as
katib for Jaz' ibn Mu'awiya, who was collecting taxes in the districts
of Manadhir and Dast-i Maysan near Basra and handled the corre-
spondence with 'Umar I concerning the treatment of local Magians.^132
At about the same time we are told that, after Ziyad, al-I:Iu~ayn ibn
Abi l-I:Iurr al-'AnbarI became secretary for Abii Miisa at Basra.133
Third, the best explanation for the way Sasaniati methods of or-
ganizing c?rrespondence reappeared in Islamic administration lies in
the employment of Arabs in the Sasanian correspondence bureau. The
Sasanian chancellery was divided into departments, each of which dealt
with a separate foreign power. The scribes in each department were
bilingual in Rersian and the language of the power with which they
dealt: Greek, Turkish, Indian, etc. These foreign correspondence sec-
retaries (Ar. kuttab ar-rasa'il) were also royal translators and were
expected to maintain a high standard of accuracy in both form and
content in the translation of written and verbal messages for the mon-
arch. Candidates were examined at court by the chief secretaries, who
presented the names of those who passed to the monarch for possible
employment at court,134 'Ad! ibn Zayd of Hira (d. ca. 590) is supposed
to have been the first to write in Arabic for the Sasanian chancellery
13I Combe, Sauvaget, and Wiet, Repertoire chronologique d'epigraphie arabe (Cairo,
1931), I, 4-5.
132 Abii Yiisuf, Khariij, p. 199; Bukhiiri, al·Jiimi' a~-~a~/~ (Cairo, 1390/1971), V,
238.
133 Ibn Khallikan, lbn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, tr. de Slane (London,
1961), IV, 248.
134 JahshiyiirI, Wuzarii', pp. 3-4. The head of the secretarial staff was called dablrbadh
(N.P.); see Ya'qiihi, Ta'rlkh, I, 202. The head of the correspondence bureau (Ar. ra'ls
kuttiib ar-rasii'il) in 628 is supposed to have been an official called Yazdiin Gushnasp
(Dinawari, Akhbiir at-tiwiil, p. 112). For the ultimate derivation of dabtr from the
Sumerian dupsar, see Ebeling, "Frahang-i-Pahlavik," p. 34.