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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