Printing
What
is Taught: Movable type and the printing
press was invented in the West by Johannes Gutenberg
of Germany during the 15th century.
What
Should be Taught: In 1454, Gutenberg developed
the most sophisticated printing press of the Middle
Ages. However, movable brass type was in use in Islamic
Spain 100 years prior, and that is where the West's
first printing devices were made, and the use of paper
started in the 7th century.
Like
the printing press, typewriter, and computer, paper
has been a crucial agent for the dissemination of information.
This engaging book presents an important new chapter
in paper’s history: how its use in Islamic lands
during the Middle Ages influenced almost every aspect
of medieval life. Focusing on the spread of paper from
the early eighth century, when Muslims in West Asia
acquired Chinese knowledge of paper and papermaking,
to five centuries later, when they transmitted this
knowledge to Christians in Spain and Sicily, the book
reveals how paper utterly transformed the passing of
knowledge and served as a bridge between cultures.
Jonathan
Bloom traces the earliest history of paper--how it was
invented in China over 2,000 years ago, how it entered
the Islamic lands of West Asia and North Africa, and
how it spread to northern Europe. He explores the impact
of paper on the development of writing, books, mathematics,
music, art, architecture, and even cooking. And he discusses
why Europe was so quick to adopt paper from the Islamic
lands and why the Islamic lands were so slow to accept
printing in return. Together the beautifully written
text and delightful illustrations (of papermaking techniques
and the many uses to which paper was put) give new luster
and importance to a now-humble material.
---from
a review of the book
PAPER BEFORE PRINT
The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World
by Jonathan M. Bloom
Paper,
originally, was brought by the Muslims from China.
It
followed the battle of Tallas (751) fought between Chinese
and Muslims, when the Chinese prisoners revealed the
secret of paper making to the Muslims. From an art,
the Muslims developed it into a major industry.
The
Muslims employed linen as a substitute to the bark of
the mulberry, which the Chinese used. Linen rags were
disintegrated, saturated with water, and made to ferment.
The
boiled rags were then cleared of alkaline residue and
much of the dirt, and then , the rags were beaten to
a pulp by a trip hammer was put to use; an improved
method of maceration invented by the Muslims.
In
Baghdad were built many paper mills, and from there,
the industry spread to various parts of the world. The
paper mills constructed in Damascus were the major sources
of supply to Europe, which as production increased,
became cheaper and more available, and better quality.
Paper
mills which first flourished in Iraq, Syria and Palestine,
made their way West. Africa saw its first paper mill
built in Egypt around 850. A paper mill was built in
Morocco, from there, of course, it was to reach Spain
in 950. The centre of fabrication was Xatiba. From Spain
and Sicily paper making spread to the Christians in
Spain and Italy.
The
first written reference to paper in the Christian West
seems to be in the pseudonymous Theophilus Presbyter's
"The Art of the Painter" (first half of the 12th century).
In 1293 was set up the first paper mill in Bologna.
In 1309 was the first use of paper in England. Then
Germany in the late stages of the 14th; though down
the close of the Middle Ages the most important paper
making centres were in North Italy.
Of
course, paper seems so ordinary today, but its use is
fundamental to modern civilisation. By making use of
this new material, paper, and manufacturing it on a
large scale, devising new methods for its production,
in the words of Pedersen: the Muslims: `accomplished
a feat of crucial significance not only to the history
of the Islamic book but also to the whole world of books.'
The
decisive impact of Muslim manufacture of paper was,
obviously, and directly to bring about a revolution
in prepare the way for the invention of printing.
by:
FSTC Limited, Fri 10 January, 2003
The
Arabs gave to a large part of the world not only a religion
- Islam - but also a language and an alphabet. Where
the Muslim religion went, the Arabic language and Arabic
writing also went. Arabic became and has remained the
national language - the mother tongue - of North Africa
and all the Arab countries of the Middle East.
Of
those people who embraced Islam but did not adopt Arabic
as their everyday language, many millions have taken
the Arabic alphabet for their own, so that today one
sees the Arabic script used to write languages that
have no basic etymological connection with Arabic. The
languages of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are all
written in the Arabic alphabet, as was the language
of Turkey until some fifty years ago. It is also used
in Kashmir and in some places in the Malay Peninsula
and the East Indies, and in Africa it is used in Somalia
and down the east coast as far south as Tanzania.
Another
significant difference is that the Arabic script has
been used much more extensively for decoration and as
a means of artistic expression. This is not to say that
the Roman alphabet (and others such as the Chinese and
Japanese, for instance) are not just as decorative and
have not been used just as imaginatively. Since the
invention of printing from type, however, calligraphy
(which means, literally "beautiful writing")
has come to be used in English and the other European
languages only for special documents and on special
occasions and has declined to the status of a relatively
minor art.
In
the countries that use the Arabic alphabet, on the other
hand, calligraphy has continued to be used not only
on important documents but for a variety of other artistic
purposes as well. One reason is that the cursive nature
of the Arabic script and certain of its other peculiarities
made its adaptation to printing difficult and delayed
the introduction of the printing press, so that the
Arab world continued for some centuries after the time
of Gutenberg to rely on handwriting for the production
of books (especially the Quran) and of legal and other
documents. The use of Arabic script has therefore tended
to develop in the direction of calligraphy and the development
of artistically pleasing forms of hand lettering, while
in the West the trend has been toward printing and the
development of ornamental and sometimes elaborate type
faces.
Another
and perhaps more important reason was a religious one.
The Quran nowhere prohibits the representation of humans
or animals in drawings, or paintings, but as Islam expanded
in its early years it inherited some of the prejudices
against visual art of this kind that had already taken
root in the Middle East. In addition, the early Muslims
tended to oppose figural art (and in some cases all
art) as distracting the community from the worship of
God and hostile to the strictly unitarian religion preached
by Muhammad, and all four of the schools of Islamic
law banned the use of images and, declared that the
painter of animate figures would be damned on the Day
of Judgment. Wherever artistic ornamentation and decoration
were required, therefore, Muslim artists, forbidden
to depict, human or animal forms, for the most part
were forced to resort either to what has since come
to be known as "arabesque" (designs based
on strictly geometrical forms or patterns of leaves
and flowers) or, very often, to calligraphy. Arabic
calligraphy therefore came to be used not only in producing
copies of the Quran (its first and for many centuries
its most important use), but also for all kinds of other
artistic purposes as well on porcelain and metalware,
for carpets and other textiles, on coins, and as architectural
ornament (primarily on mosques and tombs but also, especially
in later years, on other buildings as well).
---from
www.islamicity.com
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