ADMINISTRATIONsay: "God preserve the amir! I am So-and-so the son of So-and-so."
Ziyad would then smile and reply: "You are known to me and I know
you better than you know your father. By God! I know you and I
know your father and your grandfather and mother and your grand-
mother and I know the garment you are wearing." The man would
be so amazed and terrified that he would shake and be visibly over-
whelmed. 'Abd al-Malik and al-I;Iajjaj are said to have done like-
wise.^234 Ziyad's son, 'Ubaydullah, used his own mawla as an under-
cover agent in Kufa in 680.^235
To the extent that such practices were institutionalized, this one
was carried out by the state post, which was also Assyrian in origin
and consisted of a network of relay stations along the major routes
with riding animals to transport messengers and officers on special
missions. By late antiquity, Byzantine and Sasanian postal officials
were military men and the system was used to convey other govern-
ment officials who needed transportation, as well as foreign envoys,
prelates, and personal friends of the ruler. In addition to communi-
cating and executing orders, Byzantine agentes in rebus (L.) gathered
information, spied on other officials and subjects whose loyalty was
suspect, and administered the imperial estates. Sasanian postal officials
seem to have been "trustworthy men," or shartre, who were employed
to carry messages and to enforce the monarch's commands. Khusraw
Anushirvan is said to have sent light messengers on swift horses
throughout all the provinces of his empire and to have used them to
arrest the Monophysite bishop Al:lOdemmeh. They were also used to
bring the Nestorian bishop, Sabhrisho', to court for his elevation as
catholicos in 596.^236
The Sasanian post stations are supposed to have been appropriated
by the victorious Muslims in Iraq along with the rest of the Sasanian
state property, but, if so, they were not maintained or used by the
Islamic state at first.^237 The earliest claim for the establishment of a
communication and transport service by Muslims was made for the
reign of Mu'awiya, when he reconstituted the bartd^238 (which comes
from the Greek form [beredous] of the Latin term [veredi] for the
government postal horses). Although there are no earlier claims for
234 Taj, p. 169.
235 Tabari, Ta'rlkh, 11, 229.
236 Nau, "Agoudemmeh," pp. 35-36; Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," 11(1), 485.
237 Baiadhuri, Futu~, pp. 272, 273.
238 Ibn Tabaraba, Fakhrl, p. 106.