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In this article it is argued that Jewish travellers to China between 850 and 950 CE contributed to—and were the products of—a Judeo-Islamic culture, both in their mercantile activity and in the literary output that it spawned. It is argued that events in the Near East and in China in the late 9th and early 10th centuries had an irreversible effect on trade relations between the Near East (from which most Jewish traders of the time emanated) and China. The decline in trade missions to the Far East coincided with an eruption of literary activity in the Islamic world that encouraged works of ‘fiction’ and marvels. The travelogue of Eldad ha-Dānī is considered within this Arabo-Islamic context and reinterpreted accordingly.

Adam Silverstein's book offers a fascinating account of the official methods of communication employed in the Near East from pre-Islamic times through the Mamluk period. Postal systems were set up by rulers in order to maintain control over vast tracts of land. These systems, invented centuries before steam-engines or cars, enabled the swift circulation of different commodities - from letters, people and horses to exotic fruits and ice. As the correspondence transported often included confidential reports from a ruler's provinces, such postal systems doubled as espionage-networks through which news reached the central authorities quickly enough to allow a timely reaction to events. The book sheds light not only on the role of communications technology in Islamic history, but also on how nomadic culture contributed to empire-building in the Near East. This is a long-awaited contribution to the history of pre-modern communications systems in the Near Eastern world.

This article seeks to reconsider the meaning(s) of the phrase al-shayṭān al-rajīm. It surveys the controversy surrounding the meaning of rajīm in this context and argues two points: first, that by the time the phrase was employed in the Qurʾan its original meaning had been forgotten, and second, that the original meaning of the term was related to Satan’s role as a heavenly accuser.

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