A Greek manuscript, which is now in the Vatican Library, is believed to be the oldest surviving document that was written on Arab paper. It contains several teachings of the early Christian Church Fathers. Dated to around 800 C.E., it was probably written in Damascus, a city controlled by the Muslims at that time. The Syrian Christians played an important part in the efforts of the government to translate and encourage commentary on ancient manuscripts, so many of the official documents of the era were composed by Christian administrators.

Another discovery indicates that an elaborate postal system was transferring documents across vast territories long before the Islamic empire spread across the Middle East and Asia. In 1907 the British-Hungarian explorer Sir Aurel Stein discovered a stash of documents from Soghdia that were abandoned in a watchtower. The tower was somewhere between Dunhuang, site...