A Middle East Mosaic by Bernard Lewis

Author:Bernard Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780307430427
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

Cutting Bureaucracy (Eighth Century)

[An official] wrote to the caliph ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-’Azz [717–720] asking for papyrus. ‘Umar replied, “Sharpen your pen and write less. It will be more swiftly understood.” The caliph also wrote to another official, who had written asking for papyrus and complaining that he had very little of it, “Cut your pen fine and your words short, and make do with what papyrus you have.”

—Al-Jahshiyr

A Letter to Secretaries (Eighth Century)

May God protect you, O you who practice the art of writing, and may He guard you and help you and guide you. For Almighty God has divided mankind, after the prophets and apostles, may God bless and save them all, and after the honored kings, into classes, these being in fact equal, and has disposed them among different kinds of crafts and sorts of endeavor, by which they gain their livelihood and earn their keep. He put you secretaries in the most distinguished positions, men of culture and virtue, of knowledge and discernment. By your means the excellences of the caliphate are well ordered, and its affairs uprightly maintained. By your counsel God fits government to the people, and the land prospers. The king cannot do without you, nor can any competent person be found, save among you. You are, therefore, for kings the ears with which they hear, the eyes with which they see, the tongues with which they speak, the hands with which they strike. May God let you profit from the merit of the craft which he has assigned to you, and may He not withdraw from you the grace which He has vouchsafed to you.

—Al-Jahshiyr

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.