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8/10/2019 Albin 1990 Early MME5
1/9
F,arly
Arabic
printing:
A
catalogue
of
attitudes
fu Michael . Albin
It is
not too
much to say hat the
Islamic
printed
book
has received scant attention
from cultural
historians
or even
from what used to be called Orientalists.
The
focus
of
book researchhas been on
the manuscript,
and scholars and even bibliographers
have expended
their energies on study of the
text rather than the
context of
books. As far as early
printed
books
are
concerned, here has been virtually
no scholarly
dis-
cussion of the
social, economic or literary
impact
of
printing
on
the Islamic world. General
histories
of
Islam written in the
West have,
of
course,mentioned n
passing
he
importance of eighteenth entury
printing
in Turkey
and
nineteenthcentury
printing
in Egyptl.
Some Mideastern
historians have fleshed out these
spectral
allusions
with books and
bibliographies2.
Nevertheless, he full social
impact of the
printing
press
on
the societies f Islam is a subject
hat
awaits
its historian.
In a n attempt
to help supply
this history as
well
as
to inject some
humanity nto a subject
which until now
has beendevoid
of reference
o the men
who
pioneered
the printing of books in the Islamic world. I have
chosen o concentrate
on the
life and thought of
four
key
figures
n the
years
of early
print.
By concentrating
on
personalities think I can
highlight the complexity
of responses
o
technology.
The traditional
ques-
tion directed at
Islamic
printing
is why did
Muslims
delay
so long in making use of
the
printing
press?
Le t
us turn
that
question
inside out to ask: Why, once
opposition
to the
press
was overcome,did Muslims
and others
n the
Muslim world
the books they
did?
Discussionof the
first
question
eadsus down th e
arid
path
traveled
by T homas Carter
n his ?./zenven-
tion oJ' Printing n China and lts Spread Westn'ard
wherein he says,
Though
Arab culture, which
pro-
foundly influenced
eawakenedEurope, knew of Chi-
nese
printing,
the refusal of its literary
men
to
profit
by the art made
Islam on the whole a barrier
rather
than
a
bridge or the transmission
f block
printing
to
Europe'3. do not intend to deal
with thi s topic in this
paper.
It is toward a response
o the second
question
that I woul d like to suggest ome
answers rawn from
the biographies f
the men who introduced
printing
to
the East.
Today's
ist of men ncludes wo
well-known names,
one name known only dimly by scholars and one
innovator who to this dav remains anonymous
(although
we have a
pretty good
idea who he is). To
give
a comparative
perspective
nd to emphasize he
cosmopolitannature of
l8th and l9th century slam, I
have chosen
to study two Muslims, one Christian
Arab, and one khatt'aja.
.e. European.
I
Among
the secular saints
of modernizaion
n the
Islamic
world Ibrahim
Mriteferrika
(16701-1754)
ccu-
pies
an archangelic
hrone. It was he, a Muslim not by
birth
but by conversion,
who Islamicized
he
printing
press,
hereby
guaranteeing
or himself a
place
n the
hagiocracyof
reform. Historians
have often marvelled
at
the lateness f
the
press's
arrival
East of Suez.As
recent lyas
1983. Daniel
Boorst in
pointed
out that
islam stood as an obstacl e
o
printing
by means of
metal type, standing
athwart the transferof
the inven-
tion in ninth century China
and the
rfteenth
century
breakthrough of Gutenberg
of Mainz.
I refer to the
views
of Carter and
Boorstin on the
resistance f Islam
to
technologyonly
to highlight the accomplish-
ment of lbrahim
Mriteferrika. No simple task
his
of
convincing he authorities
o abandon the
traditional
arguments
against he
press
and
reverse ourse oward
some unknown
destination. hus upsetting
he
power-
ful
religious class and undermining delicate
social
balances. n the end however
his major achievement
lay not as a
printer
but in the deploymentof
his
gifts
as
politician
and
polemicist.
He was no stranger o controversy.
By 1729,when
his first book came off the
press,
he had witnessed n d
participated
n the Reformation
n his native Transyl-
vania. Biographical details of his early life are hope-
lessly
garbled.
Legend,supplemented y
meagerhisto-
rical documentation.
ecounts hat he had taken
part
in the
Unitarian
protest
against
Habsburg
Catholicism
in Transylvania. Ibrahim, whose Christian name we
do not know.
is
said
to have converted to Islam
around 1692when he was taken
prisoner
by an Otto-
man army detachment.He begana successful areeras
a
quartermaster
of the Turkish army, but ordinary
success
id
not satisfy him. B y the time of the acces-
sion of
Ahmet III in 1703 new winds were blowing
through the serai, winds that came from the West.
Ibrahim had come to the notice of powerful court
figures,
hief among
them Sait Mehmet Paga,a
young
Manuscriptsfthe
MiddleEast
(1990-1991) (er
Ter LugtPress, onkersteeg
9,2312 A Leiden.
etherlands,99 3
ISSN0920-0401
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MICHAEL
W. ALBIN. EARLY ARABIC
PRINTING 1 1 5
ntellect who, no
less
han
his father,
Qelebi-zade
Mehmet Efendi. had blazed
led
westward to
Europe
and especially
o
Ahmet's
reign was marked by
indifferentmili-
success nd he felt the time was right for
peace
within the Ottoman state. This ch ange
n
the form of what
might
be called he
reform
of
Young
Mriteferrika smelled he new
sed t would b e possible o further the
of cultural
and
technicalopennesswhile
advan-
Possessing o
useful
pedigree
of his own he was
for
the advancement
of his
ideas on
These
came n the form
of the
Qelebis,
who
France. hei r heads ull
of ideas or
come o
be called
reform.'
They had
the
full
of Damat Ibrahim,
prime
minister
to Ahmet
the hazy documentary
evidencewe learn
became convinced that
Ottoman
was
as much a matter of cultural
purblind-
as stagnation in miltary armament or tactics.
was ready. In his memorandum
o the
grand
vezir and the religious
eaders
argued that
the
printing press
offered
numerous
o wit: it would
preserve
books from
such as occuredduring Mongol invasi ons,
place
Muslims
on a
par
with
Christiansan d
preservation
of their sacred
texts:
it would
books invulnerable o mistakes
by copyists: t
among Muslims; it would
ability to read, sincebooks would
become
everyone; t would remove
Christians
the businessof pr int ing Islamic books; and
the Turks the leaders of Is lamic
.
His arguments ound
their mark. The memorandum
the support
of
the
Sadrazam and reached the
Opposition though was
not long in
surfacing
according o traditional accounts,
of
guilds protesting
the sacrilege of using
producing
the word of God and in
the use of brushes made of
pig
bristles
n
the
platen.
Riots and
civil unrest ensued,
of the
period.
and
Ahmet
was
permission for the project until agree-
was reached
that no religious
works would be
by the new techniques nd tools
ofthe
innovator.
press
was at
last
imported and set into
pressmen
were trained, how
books
through
the
schools of Ahmet III 's
Mahmut
I
(r.
1730-1754) re beyond the
of this
paper
and in an y casemust be subjects
and analysis.There is l ittle
doubt
Mriteferrika, by the time his first book,
Van Kulu
dictionary, was
printed
had found his
From 1729 untll 1754 the quantity of books and
printed
did not
produce
the widespread
accep-
tanceof
printing
for
which
he had hoped. Nor did the
quality
of books
lead to
a
cultural revolution that
would have brought the Ottomans abreast of
the
Europe
of
Priestley,Montesquieu,Voltaire, Goethe or
Bentham. Ibrahim wrote
and
printed
only seventeen
books n the
years
between
publication
of
Van Kulu o
his
death
in 1754. Analysis of subjects shows an
emphasis
n
history
and the sciences. ied as t was to
the tenuous eforms of the moment, printing suffered
the fate
of the other innovations of the
early eight-
teenth century, and stopped entirely
after Mriteferri-
ka's
death. It was as if what Niazi Berkes has
called
the first invention
disappearedwithout
a trace.
Ibra-
him's
glory
restsnot
on
his
prowess
as a
printer
an d
publisher,
although he was
an adept craftsmanwhose
books
can still be admired as masterpieces
f design.
but rather in having
argued
his
casemasterfully n the
councils of the
Sultan. Never again would Muslim
reformers
have o
grapple
with the
problem
of reconci-
ling
this western nvention
with Islamic sensibilit ies
regarding the handmade book. Thanks to him the
debate
over the
printing
book l eft the realms
of theo-
logy
to those of literacy,
economicsand aesthetics.
I I
A turn
of the barrel of the kaleidoscope
eveals
another innovator.
one whose life stor.v s
as
weli
documented
as Mriteferrika's was
the contrary. Ali
Mubarak
(1823-1893),
atherof what we might
cal l he
mass
produced
book in Egypt, was
born of a shaykhly
family in the Egyptiandelta. His early yearsshow that
he could have
chosen he easyand established
ath
of
his fathers
who had beenkuttab nstructors
and imams
in the local mosques.
Mubarak tells us n his memoirs
that this was not the life for
him, and that he
actually
ran away from home
to avoid this fate. If I were to
write
Mubarak's biography
I
would
entitle it
'Ali
Mubarak: An Egypt ian
HuckleberryFinn. ' His
ear ly
years
were
a series f res tless chool eavings,
esultory
employments as clerk for minor
provincial
officials,
and even a stint in
jail
for
stealing
his
salary from a
miserly
empioyer,a local surveyor.
Despite hese nauspicious eginningsMubarak ha d
ambition
and a vision. He saw that
great
changeswere
taking
place
n Egypt.By 1839,
at
the
age of
16,
he
had
begun to attach his fortunes to the technocracy.
He
was admitted to the Engineering
School
in
that
year
and from there moved
progressively
hrough the
schools
and on to the highest evels of the Egyptian
administration.
It is
as an educator that Mubarak's impact on
printing
history is revealed.
He himself was the
pro-
duct of Muhammad Ali's
newfangled Kasr al-Ayni
school in which
'they
taught
handwriting,
mathe-
matics,and Turkish among other things.' He entered
Kasr
al-Ayni, in which he was very unhappy. n 1835,
8/10/2019 Albin 1990 Early MME5
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6
MANUSCRIPTS
F
THE
MIDDLE EAST
5
(1990-I991)
he
proceeded
to the
Engineering
School
At this
stage
we can
remark
two
on the teenage ad. The
profes-
who made the
greatest
mpact on him
at
the
School were Egyptians, and, second,he
obliged to copy their lessons
to
his
own abil ities in following what the
were ecturing
on.'
He was
such a successful
that he was selected or a study mission to
When Abbas come to the throne in
joined
his staff as an engineering
with
direct accesso the Khedive on matters
to
projects
and the technical
personnel
or
carrying them out.
In
effect,he was the
auditor
general
or engineeringworks.
In
1849,
the Frenchman Lambert suggeste d hat
of the schools
hat
were
closed after Muham-
death be reopened. Abbas agreed and
Mubarak to supervise his. It was at this
that he
made his mark on
printing
history. He
is tenureas schooladministrator nazir) : ' l
of the administration of the engineering
sic)
and their associated ffairs.
took charge
of
adjusted the curriculum.
he necessary
ooks. All
that
was
accom-
and during my tenure as na:ir I set out
with
some of the
created a letterpressand a lithographic
which
printed
around 60,000copies of
various
Schools
(Madaris
Harbt'ah) and
military
units
(al-Alyat
al-Jihadruh).
This was in
to the
books
in every discipline that were
on the lithographic press for the Muhandis-
and
the
supplemental
rinting
such as atlasses,
drawings and other things the
like
of which
been
printed
before. used only
students o
illustrations.'He follows this
of
his
accomplishments s
textbook author
printer
with
the statement
hat thesedutiesdid not
him from
attending
to the feeding, clothing
proper
housing
of
the students and watching
of thei r courseof
study.
Mubarak
graduated,
as
t were, rom
the
Muhandis-
n 1853,moving on to more
responsible
osts.
remarkable achievementwas to mass produce
for the new schools hat were allowed to ope-
under
Abbas
and
his successorMuhammad Sa'id.
Mubarak's tenure
as
nzir of the Muhands-
as short, his contrib ution
was critical in kee-
the
printing
of books alive
in Egypt during
a
when the school system
was n eclipse. urther-
to the introduction of
education
n Egypt in the
mid-nine-
Under
Abbas the school systemesta-
by Muhammad
Ali earlier n the century was
from
two directions. One
was the Islamic
of the Khedive himself,who immured him-
from
bureaucratic and
technical reform.
Second
was the Khedive's
parsimony.
His
administration was
ruled
by his dictum
' -ary'a'
x,a-la-yanfa'?' s it
worth it
or not? If the institution
in
question
did not measure
up,
it was
closed.Muhammad
Sa'id. for his
part,
was
a
profligate
spender
and
puppet
field marshal. Muba-
rak was
able to tie his advancement
o the idiosyn-
crasies
of these two very
different
potentates
and
Egypt
owes
him
much for
preserving
he technicaland
educationalenterprise hat had been cut adrift after
most
of Muhammad Ali's
schools were
closed. To
Mubarak
and a few
other
printer-educators
uch as
Husayn
Husnr and Ah
Jawd at the Bulaq Press
goes
the
credit for keepi ng he
printed
book
alive until the
florescence
f culture n the
reign of Khedive Isma'il8.
I I I
If
Miiteferrika was
barred from
printing
religious
books
under the terms
of
his license
nd Mubarak was
interested nly in producing technicalworks. who was
printing
religious
texts? Well, the
Christians of the
Ottoman Empire for
one.
It
is not my intention here
o
recount
the beginningsof Islamic
publishing
n Istan-
bul in the late eighteenth
century by Mtiteferrika's
successors.
or do I want
to
l ist
the rel igiousworks
published
n Egypt
during the reign
of Muhammad
Ali. A careful study
of the record
of
Khedives
Abbas
and Muhammad
Sa' idwil l reveal think
that
rel igious
works
came to
the fore during
these
reigns
(1849-
1863).
For instance
attempts were made
to
the
Qur'an;
the
Mathnavr
of
Rtmr was
published
in Tur-
kish and fourteen works by the 9th century Sui Abrl
al-Mawhib al-Sha'rnr were
published
during their
reigns.
Rather, my intention
has been to
provide
an
appreciation or the complexities,
social, ethnic, and
geographic
of the
early
years
of
printing.
For this
reason. et
us turn to the life of
an
Iraqi
Catholic
priest,
Y[suf
Da'ud, without reference
to whose
energyand
prodigious
output of books our
considera-
tion of mid-nineteenth
entury Arabic
printing
would
be incomplete.
In
the Ottoman Empire
at
mid-century
was there
a
region
more remote from the
concernsof the
geopoli-
tical hurly-burly than the province of Mosul in nor-
thern Iraq? The
city of Mosul, center
of the
n'ilay-ah,
had
been
governed
by a seriesof at best lackluster
governors
or
a century. t was home to ratatoui lle
of
Jews,Sunni Muslims, Yazidis, Kurds, Turkomans,and
Christiansof di vers sects, ome
uniate, somenot. Into
this unprepossessing
ilieu to minister o the needsof
the uniate Christians
and win over to Rome other
denominations ame he Capuchins
n the seventeenth
century, then,
in 1750, the Dominicans to open a
mission school. Here too, in the village of al-Ama-
dryah, was born in
1829
a
young
man who would
make a contribution not only to his church but to
educationand
Arabic culture in his native region and
8/10/2019 Albin 1990 Early MME5
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MICHAEL W. ALBIN.
EARLY ARABIC
PRINTING
n 1
Da'[d
was baptized
a Syrian
Catholic
his
grandfather
had
been slighted
by the
clergy.
He became
a
priest
because
e felt he
God to that vocation.He
was ordained
Rome in
1855
and remained
here or further
study.
most
of
the
years
between1855
and 1867
n
althoughhe
returned o Rome
n 1865
o take
in the First
Vatican
Council. No
less
than the
missionaries
operating
in Malta
in the
nd later in Beirut, he used he Arabic language
to spread
the Gospel
while spreading
hrough
the mission
school.
all accounts
Y[suf was
a stern cleric,
relentless
and indefatigable
uthor.
His biographer
notes
he almost
singlehandedly
orced
he Domi-
nto
a
position
of
preeminence
n the
printing
of
booksq.
The l ist
of his books
and translat ions
any
I know of
at t r ibutable
o an Arab
of the
nineteenth
century,
longer
than
al -
onger
than al-Shidiq's.
While
in Mosul
he
and translated
100
books
on numerous
subjects
several anguageslo.His religiouswritings nclude
a
of the
Bible into
Arabic
published
by the
between
1871-1877:t t
Catholic r i tes
of
and marriage
(Mosul
1874):
a 426
page
of Arabic
prayers
and songs ncorporat ing
of the faits; '
a 400
oas.e
Pe ir . 'Lbrese
e
ele I'Eglise
(Mosul
ftl:
j
-,*\
'- ;
- - ; ' j . . . . . . . ) r 2 .
I n o r he r
l e l d s e
p u b l i i h e d
volu=nq
rabrc
grammar
(Mosul
1869
& 1877
- ] r .a t
'3
d l i . r k . . . . . .
)13 .
a
grammar
of
and ts
cognates.
-vr iac
nd Chaldean
long
a comparison
to Hebrew.
Arabic.
and Babylo-
all of which was
accompanied
y a
'brief
history
the Aramean
anguage.
cr ipt
and l i terature'ra.
He
author
of elements
f arithmetic published
by
in 1865
n 300
pages.
n
the field
of
Fr.
Y[suf
prepared
an edition
of Kalila
n
1869,with
a second
dit ion
n 1876
nd a
in 1883.
He
alsocompiled
ollect ions
f
readings
the Arabic
classics or
students
ncluding
the
and sayings
of Luqmn.
was not himself
a
printer.
After
he had
his
training
at the Propaganda
n Rome
he
o
Mosul for
pastoral
and teachingduties.As
of his
interests
clearly
shows.
he supplied
a
stream
of
manuscripts
and revisions
to
the
of the
Dominicans
in Mosul,
with
whom
he
as
author,
translator
and correctorls.
It is
fair
hat Fr.
Yusuf
was
the
principal
supplier
of texts
press.
The
Dominican
press
was
established
y
Besson
n 1856-57
nd
continued
under
of Dominican
clerics
for
nearly
sixty
The
first
books
to come
from
the
press
were
'on
an
old
and
primitive
basis,'
hat is,
on a
Besson
nd his
superior
eplaced
n 1860with a typographicpress ro m
At
various
times in
the
early
vears
of
nrintins
the Dominicans
had technical
help from the
Jesuits n
Lebanon.
the Franciscans
n Jerusalem.
he Lazarists
in Iran
and even the Protestants
n Beirut.
who sold
them the
types hey
used
n
Fr. Ylsufs translation
of
the Biblel?. This
translat ion
nd
print ing project
l lu-
strates
he association
betweenYusuf
Da'[d
and the
press.
n
1868.
CardinalLuciano Bonaparte
n France
wrote
to Fr. Lion in Mosul
that the Eastern
Catholics
had
no Arabic
Bible
and suggestedhat
the Domini-
cans
prepare
a translat ion
at his
(Bonaparte's)
expense.n 1870,
ion'set
up a
press
hat
pr inted
bold
let ters
huruJ'bar izah) '
nd in l87l the
press
super-
intendent
traveled o Beirut
where he
acquired types
that had been
used
by the Protestants.
n a report
on
the
project
that
appeared n
L'Anne Dontirtit.ainne
(sic)
n 1873 t was
recounted
hat a Dominicanpriest
was
direct ing
he
press
and that
a
Brother
Brun
(sic)
was
responsible
or
the
'bold
let ters' .
There were
our
ordinary workers
at the
press.
nd
in
the bindery
one
Dominican
brother was
assisted
y one workman.
In
mid-1872
hey accomplished
wo
print ings
of the New
Testament
with
comments
or explanat ions,
ne
in
octavo
and the
other in
a smaller size.
This rvas
he
first
stage
of the
project
as directed
and
financed
by
the
Cardinal.The
translat ion
ad been
done by
Yusuf
Da' [d
w i th
the he lp
o f Behnam
Benni
(1831-1897) .
u'ho
later
became
Catholic
bishop of
Mosul.
Corres-
pondence
rom
Fr. Duval
in Mosul
to Par is
n 1875
gires
the fol louing
detai lsconcerningpress
admini-
strat ion.
Ti lo
Dominicans
devote
ali their
ef forts
o
the
press
s their
pr imarl
mission.
One s in
charge
of
hand workmen
and the
other of
technicalworkmen.
A
Dominican brother is occupied vith hur i: pr int ing
(rel ief
pr int ing
or engrar ing'?).
here
s one
translator
at the
press,
copyist
and a corrector.
There
s]
one
supervisor
of the
workers. Three
workers
do the
composing
(saff
al-hurilfl
and typesetting
tartb
wa-
tanzm).
One founder
(sani)
and a workman
take
care
of the
press.
At the
bindery there
are
one Dominican
priest
and two workers.
The
annual
wages
of the
workers
come to FR
4.500.'The letter
continued.
We
have to
import lrom
abroad the
paper
and everything
needed
or
engraving
hari:)
and casting
ype, so the
[annual]
expenditure
s FR 12,000.
We hope
to finish
the Old Testament his year and we will do a second
printing
of the Gospels,
because
we distributed
the
first
one without
charge
as Cardinal Bonaparte
wished,
and it is
now out
of stock. We
also hope
to finish
the
Lives
o.f he
Saints.The first
part,
covering he first
si x
months
of the
year,
is
completers.
We
printed
the
Bible,
that is,
the
Old Testament,
n
1,000
copies'1e.
The
Dominican press
n
Mosul,
tied
as it was
to
pedagogical
nd
pastoral
missions,
developed
he first
sustainedprinting
in
the Iraqi
provinces
of
the
Otto-
man
Empire.
Between
1856
and 1885
he
Dominicans
printed
6l Arabic
books,
en books
n
Chaldean,
eight
in Syriac,and fourteen n French20.
Little
or no
attention
has
been
paid
to this
vital
8/10/2019 Albin 1990 Early MME5
5/9
MANUSCRIPTS F
THE MIDDLE EAST5
(I990-199I)
1 8
, t '1
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r.:l t4
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jailie,-4,
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c.U
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ql'
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#d;liUg*r,.rtiat,
.rr
$t,*{a,ya-,1;,_Jl.r*rde.[-.1*;*e
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tpr;;rl$ib,,*r.sjl"r
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itJgl*.r./.
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qY9
*
Colophon of t he Turkish translation of Jawhan's
$il ltAft,
nown
as the
Van Kulu Dictionary, the first
book
from Miiteferrika's
press
n Istanbul,
1729.Slightly reduced original size22.5x 34cm). (Library of Congress)
neither o the contributionsof Yfisuf Da'[d to
nor to the technicalcontributions of the
bringing
the
press
to the
northern
of Iraq on the River Tigris. Ylsuf Da'ud had
Iraqi
colleagues gnatius lfram Rahmani, Jirjis
al-Yashu' Khayyat and Behnem Benni, all of
became
prelates
of the Church before the cen-
ended, were
the
first modern
patriarchs
of their
were, first
of all,
writing
for
and
a literate laity. For the first time in the
of the Church in the East t was expected hat
the rank-in-file
could read the
Scripture and devotional
books.
The
press
made
these works available n
the
quotidien
language
of
most Iraqi
Catholics:
Arabic.
Promulgating
hese exts as Fr. Y[suf
did demystified
both the
books themselves
and
liturgical
events for
uniate Christians
and
helped
beat the Protestants
at
their own
game
--
making the faith
accessible o the
faithful.
This was
the
intention
of
Cardinal Bonaparte
in making
the Bible
available n Arabic,
this was the
purposeof Fr. Yusuf and his Iraqi and French com-
panions
at the Dominican school
and the other
schools
8/10/2019 Albin 1990 Early MME5
6/9
MICHAEL
W. ALBIN, EARLY
ARABIC
PRINTING
1 1 9
Moreover,
Y[suf
Da'[d
and
the French
used he
press
o
increase he
accessibility
Christians
to
secular
or useful
knowledge:
the sciences,
history,
geography and
Here too the
printing
press
played
a
key role
between
the
new subjects
and
the new
boys
and
girls,
being
developed
n the
schools.
pupils
were the
first
Iraqis to
receivea
modern
As for Mosul itself, the government ook
minimal responsibility
or education.
Through
the
remained
only one
school at
primary
level
and one
for older
boys
(rushdl whose books
either from
Istanbul
or Baghdad
or,
in
non-religious
subjects,
probably
purchased
rom
Dominicans.
Thus the
impact of the
writings and
of
Y[suf Da'ud
went far beyond
he Catholic
of Mosul
and
its surrounding
villages.
1879,when he
lef t Mosul
to become
bishop of
he left an
impression
on his
native town
have been
possible
only
with the
printing
lsuf Da'[d died n 1890; he Domintcanpress
until
property
and equipment
were taken by
governmentn 1914.
IV
year
is 1856, the
year
in which
Fr. Besson
n Mosul and determined
hat
the Dominicans
a
printing press
o carry
out their
mission
n
the
place
is Tunis,
at the other
end
of the
world
from Mosul.
In that
year
Luigi Call igar is
n I tal ian mil i tary of f icer iving n ret ire-
career as a
dignified
soldier of
fortune.
anonymous
memorandum
to the
Tunisian
proposing
that
the
government ift its ban
the
pr int ing
of
books2l.
I t is
pret ty
certain
that
had himself
in mind
for director
of the
had
begun
his Mideastern
pere-
as an officer
and orientalist
at the
age of
2l
in 1829.Before
coming
to reside
n Tunis,
lived in
Syria,
where he began
his study
of
languagehe mastered
well enough o
trans-
L'Histoire des Guerresde l{apolon (Paris: Impri-
mpriale, 1856)and
end
his careeras
professor
at the University
of Turin.
letter n
question
was discovered
n the
Tunisian
and casts ertain
useful
ight on the
culture of
mid-century.
The anonymous
Arabic docu-
entitled
Letter
on
the Utility of
Establishing
a
or Arabic Books
in Tunis'( . .
. . i"J".
d
oJ|- ;
ur4.
Lt l l
:r
t -b, LlJ l . . . . . . . . . . .1
the writer nor
the recipient
s named in the
but research
y Andre
Demeerseman hows
can be none other
than Luigi Calligaris,
retired director of the Tunisian military school at
The
same
historian
supposes hat
the
addressee
s either
he
well-known
statesman
Khayr
al-
Din
Pasha
or the General
Hussayn,
a
high official
of
government
and
an alumnus
of
the
Bardo.
In opening
this
paper I mentioned
that Ibrahim
Mi.iteferrika's
upreme
achievement
was the argument
he
put
forward
in favor
of the
press
and
the advanta-
ges
that would
accrue
to
Muslim
governments
who
saw fit to
put
it to use.
Nowhere
is the
echo of
Miiteferrika's argument clearer than in this anony-
mous etter written
nearly
130
years
ater.
t is certainly
important
from
the viewpoint
of
this
paper
that a
foreigner,and a
non-Muslim
at that,
chose
o enter
he
debate on this
once-sensitive
ssue.
t shows
for one
thing that the
sensitivities
had
dissipated,
and an
outsider could
state the
case o
reform-minded
Mus-
lims without
lear of violating
taboos.
It may
be that
only
a foreigner
could
havedone so
with a clear
dea of
the
contemporary
circumstances
f
the country and
the advantages
hat would
follow
from a change
n
policy.
One
has only
to compare
he
brisk and to-the-
point suggestions f the letter writer with the later
essayof
Khayr al-Din
.
who felt
he had to
mount an
apologetic
or the
entire
reform movement
n his 1867
essay
Aqwam al-Masalik
fi
Ma'rifat
Ahwal al-Mama-
lik22. To
sense the
difference
in tone
between
the
foreigner's
view and
the insider's.
Our anonymous
correspondent
elt
no need
for such a
testament.
He
had merely
o
pique
the sense
f shame
n
government
officials
hat Christian
countries
of Europe
saw
fit to
Arabic classics uch
as lhe
Maqamal of
al-Harrrr
and advertize
heir
availability
o the
Arab reader
rom
booksellers
n Parisl
With European forthr ightness he epistoi istpro-
ceeds o appeal
o the
cupidity of
his correspondent.
Settingup
a
press,
he says.
would
be a
great
boon
to
the state
for
it would increase
evenuesby a
million
rials
per year,
or
perhaps
more, and
a large
group
of
people
would
make their
living from
it.' Rare books
could be
printed
and sold
n
all
the citiesof
Isiam and
in Europe as
well. He reckons
hat the
press
could sell
1.000 o
2,000copiesof
each itl e for at
least 30 rials
the volume,while
the cost o
produce
he books
would
be
ten rials or less.
Then he turns
from the financial
aspects o the economics
of
publishing,
saying,
The
reason a copy need cost about ten rials is that in
printing
books
we have already
set he type of a
single
kind and can
then
100,000copies of
it
[the
book].' He
refers o his own translation
nto
Arabic
of
Tabb Nafsa
(sic)
'Self-Doctoring',
which if it
were
properly
distributed would
sell housandsof
copies n
the Islamic countries and
he even estimatesa
sale of
4,000 copies
n Europe,
not
because
f its own merit
... but
for use as a
means
of
learning Arabic
by
comparisonwith the original,
which they
[the
students]
have n their own languages.'
On
the cultural contributions
he
press
can make
he
has this to say, All the valuablebooks of which not a
singlecopy
is found in a
given
city
[might
be
printed].
8/10/2019 Albin 1990 Early MME5
7/9
20
MANUSCRIPTS
F
THE MIDDLE EAST5
(I990-199I)
Bible
translated
nto
Arabic by Ytsuf
D'[d and
printed
at
the
Dominican
Press,
Mosul,
n 1875.
Catholic
University
f America)
here are the
history books and
number-
other
books. People
would buy them at
a low
price
benefit from their
having
been brought
to life
and from their wide distribution. Knowledge
spread n the world.
We could
translate nto
Arabic
certain of
the Christians'
books
which treat
science
and industry
so that
Islam could
profit
from
them.'
As to the famousobjection o the printing press ha t
it would
put
calligraphers
out of
work, our
writer
u,r:itr1
""1$*
p
ri}l
)rJ\
i_1
-;l*;c
J
*.'r."'lL
*y1
il
.i.
o
i
_n
*St
d
*.il1ar$}t
iYr
;
8/10/2019 Albin 1990 Early MME5
8/9
MICHAEL
W. ALBIN. EARLY
ARABIC PRINTING
:-:;Fa-ar_
Engraving
of locomotive
rom
vol. 2 of Ktah
Husn al-Sant'ah
'Ilm
al-Tabt'ah,
an
engineering
extbook
printed
a. he
Muhandiskhana
Press.Cairo
in
1270r1853-54.
Reduced
or ie inal
s ize21.5 32cm).
Author 's
col lect ion)
t2 l
.-;lr.._
Recommended