State Mail and Chancellery in the Mamluk Sultanate

The Mamluk Sultanate ruled Egypt and Syria from 1250 to 1517. Its barid, or official state mail, carried reports and commands between Cairo and provincial authorities. Sultan Baybars organized a horse relay between Cairo and Damascus in 1261, during the Bahri period (1250–1382). A later manual from the Burji period (1382–1517) explains how riders, stations and homing pigeons carried urgent news. Use of relay horses required royal authorization.

Horse relays from Cairo to Syria

A relay post divided a long journey into stages. At each station, the rider changed to a fresh horse, while attendants managed the animals and their supplies. The early-fifteenth-century Egyptian chronicler al-Maqrizi’s road account says Baybars established the network in 1261. It gives four days for a message to travel from the Citadel in Cairo to Damascus and another four for the return; the sultan could receive provincial news twice a week and act on appointments and dismissals.

The route ran north from Cairo through Bilbays and across Sinai to Gaza, then branched toward Damascus and other Syrian centres. It also branched west toward Alexandria and south to Qus. There the horse posts ended; dispatches continued toward Aswan by camel. The chancery secretary al-Qalqashandi’s route list also traces branches toward the Red Sea. His Gaza-to-Damascus account names the stages and explains why stations did not always stand at equal intervals: water and nearby villages shaped where horses could be changed. Some posts needed a well or a nearby settlement; others supplied fodder and provisions for the journey. At a number of stations beyond Bilbays, Arab horse owners supplied mounts on a monthly rotation, while the sultan’s stables maintained the horses at other stops.

Grooms cared for the horses, while outriders accompanied authorized riders. Al-Maqrizi says use of the relay mounts required royal permission, which could also be granted to a notable. Al-Qalqashandi describes the rider’s route paper: clerks recorded his name, departure date, destination and assignment, and specified how many postal horses he could take. A silver plaque hung from a yellow silk tassel identified the courier at stations. After completing the journey, he gave the plaque back to the chancery.

The route’s condition could change with political events. Al-Maqrizi reports that after Timur captured Damascus in 1401, Syrian relay stations fell into decay; writing in 1415, he described the overland service as badly disrupted.

Pigeons for urgent dispatches

Carrier pigeons provided a second official channel along fixed routes. In his early-fifteenth-century manual, al-Qalqashandi describes pigeon towers at Cairo’s Citadel and at Bilbays on the Syrian road, as well as stations toward Alexandria. Each tower’s birds were moved to the next station, so a released pigeon would fly back to the tower it knew. A keeper could then attach the dispatch to a bird from the next tower and pass it onward.

For an urgent report, officials wrote duplicate notes and marked the hour and day. At intermediate towers, the keeper removed the note from the arriving bird and transferred it to the next bird in the chain. At Cairo, the keeper brought the pigeon with its note still attached to the senior dawādār, who removed it himself. This court official handled a routine matter; if the message required the sultan’s attention, he summoned the kātib al-sirr, the chief secretary, to read it aloud. Al-Qalqashandi says major Syrian deputy governments, including Damascus, Aleppo and Tripoli, had corresponding arrangements.

Drafting and receiving state letters

The dīwān al-inshāʾ, or chancery bureau, prepared official documents and oversaw their movement. Its clerks drafted appointments, commands and diplomatic letters in formal Arabic, choosing titles and wording to suit the sender’s rank, recipient and purpose. For diplomatic correspondence, the relative rank of sender and recipient shaped how the chancery framed the letter.

Al-Qalqashandi joined the Cairo chancery as a junior secretary in 1389, during the Burji period. He completed Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā, a vast handbook for secretaries, in 1412. The book offered models for letters and orders while also explaining the historical, geographical and rhetorical knowledge a clerk needed, including knowledge of countries and ranks.