Albin 1990 Early MME5

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

print

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

print

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

print

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


2/9

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,


3/9

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

print

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


4/9

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


5/9

MANUSCRIPTS F

THE MIDDLE EAST5

(I990-199I)

1 8

, t '1

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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

print

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


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

print

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

print

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].


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

;


8/9

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.._

Documents

Albin 1990 Early MME5