Early Muslim printing: a study of early Muslim experience/s with the printing press from 1700-1900

The adoption of the typographic printing press in Arabic script by Muslims took place in Istanbul in 1725. While the Christian and Jewish communities in Istanbul were utilizing the typographic press to print religious texts for 200 years, the Ottoman Muslim community was not allowed to print religious texts in Arabic script until after 1800. Measuring the timing of early Muslim printing against the Protestant Reformation, Islam has been characterized as a barrier to printing by some scholars. Narratives of conservative Islam which stands against progress are often invoked. My research shows these previous characterizations to be erroneous oversimplifications. In fact, there were many concurrent forces that shaped the story of early Muslim printing: European colonial expeditions into Muslim countries, Islamic values and book aesthetics, and the invention of lithographic printing techniques in 1795. I argue that early Muslim printing was a uniquely Islamic information revolution, one of many in the broader continuum of Islamic history.