Islamic Printing Press?

Faeelin

Banned
Suppose that around the year 900, a Muslim who presses olives for a living invents a printing press outside Toledo.

What happens now?
 
Probably little or nothing. The printing press being invented in Europe might have been simply a fluke. It was the success of the printing press that gave Europe so many advantages, and Islamic society was simply not capable of matching this innovation.

For one thing, it was illegal under Koranic law to copy the Koran through this medium, thus creating a prominent industry whose members would surely and correctly have seen the printing press as an inherent threat to them.

For another, the first efforts to introduce the printing press to Islam were universally disastrous. To give one example, in the 18th Century Istanbul was the pre-eminent city of Islam, and the first printing press did so well that it was actually shut down for more than half of the time it was in the city. I mean for more years than it was allowed to operate!
 
The Ummayad Caliphat is about to be proclaimed, it is the most brilliant era for muslims in the Iberian Peninsula. However it is going to last one very brief period of time from 929-1010 when civil wars begin and the Caliphat decays and disappears.

It is a very narrow window as soon as civil wars start I do not think there would be many people interested in such an idea there. I think there are two possibilities:

* The invention attracts the attention of the Caliph or some important functionary (it could be used to print poetry, history, alchemy... the ummayads were not ottomans). It soon spreads through Al-Andalus: a golden age for the Ummayad Caliphat. The invention could have spread through islamic north Africa and even Middle East but also through Europe as some Christian iberic kings were vassals of the Caliph or perhaps they could try to keep the exclusive...

* It does not attract the attention of the Caliph and is forgotten and rediscovered after Toledo is taken, perhaps by some erudite serving King Alfonso X. The Toledo's Translating School + Press could have been something great printing books in Castillian, hebrew and arabic.

* Of course it could be totally forgotten.
 
Grimm Reaper said:
Probably little or nothing. The printing press being invented in Europe might have been simply a fluke. It was the success of the printing press that gave Europe so many advantages, and Islamic society was simply not capable of matching this innovation.

For one thing, it was illegal under Koranic law to copy the Koran through this medium, thus creating a prominent industry whose members would surely and correctly have seen the printing press as an inherent threat to them.

For another, the first efforts to introduce the printing press to Islam were universally disastrous. To give one example, in the 18th Century Istanbul was the pre-eminent city of Islam, and the first printing press did so well that it was actually shut down for more than half of the time it was in the city. I mean for more years than it was allowed to operate!

Where in Islamic law does it say that the Koran cannot be printed? And even if Korans must be hand-copied, surely there are other books that could be mass-produced.

'Tis a pit about the printing press in Constantinople, though.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
Well, that was at a later time, when the printing press was associated with western innovations. If the Muslims had discovered it on their own, it would be a different matter.

Still, the Arabic script does not lend itself to printing. The old Orientalists' publications - those of Hammer von Purgestall and de Sacy, for example - show this. The Arabic in their publications is really quite odd looking and corresponds to no known form of the script.

Hebrew, on the other hand, does lend itself to printing. Considering that the Andalusian Jews were going through something of a literary revolution at this time (see, for example, the poems of Judah Halevy), I would imagine that they would put such a press to good use. Who knows, we might even see copies of the Qur'an printed in Hebrew script!

My university has a rare manuscript of one of Bar Hebraeus' polemical treatises in which he quotes from a Syriac copy of the Qur'an. This was back in the 13th century. Imagine - a Syriac Qur'an! If they can do it, so can the Jews.
 
Yeah, it would be odd for the Koran to outlaw something which was technologically impossible when it was written. Unless, of course, it really is the word of God, in which case, I'll be mildly annoyed. :cool:
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
I'm reminded of Tudor Parfitt's book on the Lemba, the "Jews" of South Africa and Zimbabwe, who are probably of Yemenite origin. They're endogomous and practice circumcision, as well as "koshering" their meat after a fashion.

Anyway, Parfitt went to Yemen to see if the Lemba's DNA matched that of the Yemenites. He and his team visited a madrasa and made an announcement to the students that they were taking blood samples to run a DNA test. One of the students stood, and proclaimed that the Qur'an forbids DNA testing. Then, one by one, the students exited.

Parfitt ran out and offered a polaroid picture to any student who was willing to give blood. Immediately, the entire student body stormed the madrasa, queuing up to donate their blood for the test - except for the one who tried to stop them in the first place.
 
Grimm Reaper said:
The printing press being invented in Europe might have been simply a fluke.
Just FYI, the printing press was invented by the Chinese. (Afaik, there's no evidence Gutenberg didn't invent it independently, though.) Which actually tends to prove your point.
 
Faeelin said:
Suppose that around the year 900, a Muslim who presses olives for a living invents a printing press outside Toledo.

What happens now?

He would have immediately been put to death by the extremely powerful scribal guilds.
 
JoanneMerriam said:
Just FYI, the printing press was invented by the Chinese. (Afaik, there's no evidence Gutenberg didn't invent it independently, though.) Which actually tends to prove your point.


Joanne,

Yes, the Chinese did invent the printing press... which their language then prevented them from using to any effect at all.

Thanks to their alphabetic languages, Europeans could simply carve a limited number of molds and churn out how ever many As, Bs, Cs, etc., as they need. The Chinese on the other hand would have to carve molds for each and every one of 10+ thousand symbols.

'Printing presses' were most likely invented and re-invented over and over again. Plenty of cultures had the precursor devices and techniques; the use of seals, wine/olive presses, felt manufacturing, wood carving, metal casting, etc. It's just that no one used printing and, more importantly, the media it created 'correctly' until the Europeans.

If memory serves, this century there was a very old baked clay disc found on Crete, Cyprus, or some such place. Various symbols that we cannot read are printed into it in a spiral pattern. Some of the symbols were repeated. Various 'flaws' in each of the repeated symbol reveals that they were made by the same punch. The disc dates from something like 1500 BCE.

So, somewhere back then, some fellow was pressing carved punchs into fresh clay and using one punch to make the same symbol over and over again. Who ever he was and whatever he was doing, he was periously close to printing. And nothing ever came of it.


Bill
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
That's the Phaistos Disk. It has yet to be translated, although various linguists have made efforts along those lines.

The first writing in Sumeria consisted of "stamps" (each representing a type of commodity) pressed into clay bullae - something like a manifest for a ship's cargo. Eventually these were applied to greater and greater semantic ranges, until the Sumerian ideographic writing system arose. The same thing goes for the Indus Valley "script" - it has yet to be deciphered, of course, but some scholars have suggested that the ideograms are actually sigils used by various trade unions or individuals. They have the look of ancient corporate logos. Most early texts, it seems (such as Sumerian or Linear B) consist of rather dull lists of goods.
 
Faeelin said:
Err, why?

Nobody put Gutenberg to death, after all.

Islam prohibits representation of living things, which led to calligraphy becoming the dominant artform of the Islamic world. Hence the scribes gained an enormous amount of power...
 

Hendryk

Banned
Bill Cameron said:
Joanne,

Yes, the Chinese did invent the printing press... which their language then prevented them from using to any effect at all.
I beg to differ. The use of printing in China did greatly facilitate the spread both of technical knowledge, Buddhist scriptures and the Confucian canon. The revival of Confucian orthodoxy under the Song dynasty probably couldn't have taken place without the printing press.
Besides, inventing the printing press won't do much good unless you also have paper. The Chinese did; by Gutenberg's time so did the Europeans. But the Andalus?

Here is some background info on the Chinese invention of the printing press:

The Chinese used paper for two or three centuries before CE 105, when Cai Lun, director of imperial arsenals under Emperor He of the later Han dynasty (25-220), officially reported the 'invention' of paper. The Chinese began the first printed newspaper, Jing Bao (originally Di Bao), in 713 under the Tang dynasty (618-907); and it continued until the collapse of the Manchu dynasty in 1911. In 868, Wang Jie printed the famous Diamond Sutra (Kumarajiva's Vajracchedika Prajna Paramita), the earliest printed book in existence. Xylography (block printing) was known in China for at least four centuries before 932, when Prime Minister Feng Dao supposedly 'invented' it by directing the printing of the 11 Confucian classics filling 130 volumes - a task that took 20 years. Alchemist Bi Sheng experimented with movable type for eight years from 1041, four centuries before Gutenberg. In 1313, Wang Zheng traced the development of movable type in his Nong shu, a treatise on agriculture. Chinese also made typography a fine art and produced numerous books. Printing from movable type reached its highest development in Korea from 1403 onwards.
 
Hendryk said:
I beg to differ. The use of printing in China did greatly facilitate the spread both of technical knowledge, Buddhist scriptures and the Confucian canon. The revival of Confucian orthodoxy under the Song dynasty probably couldn't have taken place without the printing press.
Besides, inventing the printing press won't do much good unless you also have paper. The Chinese did; by Gutenberg's time so did the Europeans. But the Andalus?

It was known and used in Al-Andalus since the second half of the tenth century. That leaves us a window of sixty-seventy years in which printing could be invented, just before the Caliphate falls. Toledo would be conquered on the beginning of the second half of the eleventh century. Maybe printing press could have been developed under the rule of Alfonso VI of Castille, by some Toledan jews following the designs of the muslim inventor or even the instructions of some of his disciples...
 

Faeelin

Banned
George Carty said:
Islam prohibits representation of living things, which led to calligraphy becoming the dominant artform of the Islamic world. Hence the scribes gained an enormous amount of power...

Once again, I'm confused. How does printing qualify as representing living things?
 
Faeelin said:
And printing encourages writing, so what's the problem?

It might put the calligraphers out of business...why have a very expensive set of calligraphy when you can have some cheap printed material?

Now, perhaps the calligraphers can get bought off by paying them to design the type, but that won't last...
 

Faeelin

Banned
Matt Quinn said:
It might put the calligraphers out of business...why have a very expensive set of calligraphy when you can have some cheap printed material?

Now, perhaps the calligraphers can get bought off by paying them to design the type, but that won't last...

Ah, but the introduction of printing didn't end the use of written books; they were still prestige items.
 
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