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Hikayat Pandawa Jaya

bibliography

text notes

list of words

list of rhyme words
Bibliography
title:

Hikayat Pandawa Jaya

manuscript:

Raffles Malay 2, Royal Asiatic Society, London.

dates:

text:  perhaps 1350-1400 (Brakel), not later than early 1700s (Braginsky), 1700s (Khalid Hussain);
	manuscript:  between 1811 and 1815..

provenance:

text:   unknown;
	manuscript:   Batavia (or Java).

words:

00000 words.

references:

to the pages (1a-146a) and approximated lines of the manuscript,
	thus:   PandJ 146a:22.

This text was kindly provided by Lioubov Goriaeva

Editorial notes and bibliography

The underlying manuscript is part of Raffles’ manuscript collection in the Royal Asiatic Society, London.  It seems to be the longest of all the Malay narratives based on Mahabharata plot.  Its direct sources are the Old-Javanese kakawins Bharatayuddha and Ghatotkacasraya, framed by a number of wayang stories. Van der Tuuk, 1866 and 1866a, suggests on the basis of the language that the MS was probably written by a native of Java. English paper: Budgen & Wilmott 1811, 36.5 x 24 cm.

According to L.F.Brakel, this manuscript Raffles Malay 2 belongs to the same version of the Malay Mahabharata as manuscript Br.2 (from Brandes� collection, now stored at National Museum, Jakarta).  In preparing her edition, Lioubov Goriaeva has compared dubious readings with the version published by Khalid M. Hussain, more or less equating to Brandes 2.

pending

quote

References:

Braginsky V.I., The Heritage of Traditional Malay Literature: a historical survey of genres, writings and literary views, Leiden: KITLV Press, 2004. Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 214, pp.115, 144-152 (including a summary of the plot),

Brakel, L.F. "Two Indian Epics in Malay", Archipel 20, 1980. pp. 143-60.

Khalid M. Hussain (ed.), Hikayat Pandawa Lima, Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1992.

Liaw Yock Fang, Sejarah Kesusasteraan Klassik, rev. ed., Singapura: Pustaka Nasional, 1982, pp.58-64.

Ricklefs M.C., Voorhoeve P. Indonesian manuscripts in Great Britain. A catalogue of manuscripts in Indonesian languages in British collections, Oxford University Press, 1977, p.133.

Tuuk H.N. van der. “Geschiedenis des Pandawa’s naar een Maleisch handschrift van Royal Asiatic Society”, Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Batavia, 1875, deel XXI, blz. 1-90.

Tuuk, H. Neubronner van der. “Kort verslag der Maleische handschriften in het East-India House te Londen”, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 3rd series, 1866, vol. I, pp.409-70.

Tuuk, H. Neubronner van der. “Short Account of the Malay Manuscripts belonging to the Royal Asiatic Society”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, new series, 1866a,  vol. 2, pp.85-135. Reprinted in Miscellaneous Papers relating to indo-China and the Indian Archipelago, 2nd series, vol. 2 (1887), pp.1-56.

Winstedt  R.O., A History of Classical Malay Literature, 2nd ed., Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1969, pp.37-39, 208-226.

Preparation

Added:  January 2011.

The digital text was provided by Lioubov Goriaeva.
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Syair Kerajaan Bima

bibliography

text notes

list of words

list of rhyme words
Rhyme words
listed
alphabetically
and
by frequency
double-click on a word to see it in its rhyme context
reverse alphabetical
Raba

2

panjang

1

nafsi-nafsi

1

raji`un

1

teraba-raba

2

belakang

1

isi

1

tiba

2

pabulekang

1

Parisi

3

terjun

1

hamba

2

hulubalang

5

hati

3

berhimpun

2

rimba

1

lalang

2

berhati

1

turun

1

pencoba

1

disalang

1

Niati

1

bersusun-susun

1

tuba

3

walang

1

dimufakati

1

disusun

1

ada

11

helang

1

mati

5

bersusun

1

dada

3

selang

1

izzati

1

dibantun

1

pada

1

bilang

1

peti

1

nabiyun

1

perada

1

terbilang

5

bakti

1

Waworada

2

hilang

1

sakti

4

Parado

3

sabda

1

cemerlang

1

berganti-ganti

3

Bolo

2

berbeda

1

pulang

1

mengganti

1

berkida

1

sulang-menyulang

1

berganti

2

mengucap

1

ayahanda

2

memang

1

menanti

3

mengadap

3

kakanda

1

senapang

3

dinanti

2

hadap

1

anakanda

4

terapang

4

berhenti

7

dihadap

1

Wolanda

3

diterapang

3

pasti

2

sedap

2

tanda

1

tergelimpang

1

merebuti

1

bercakap

2

bersenda

1

sebarang

1

Mengawi

2

menangkap

1

baginda

7

garang

1

Betawi

1

lengkap

2

anakhoda

1

sekarang

1

membelayi

1

singkap

1

Muda

3

dikarang

3

nyanyi

1

harap

1

muda

8

larang

1

berbunyi

1

meniharap

1

garuda

2

melarang

1

sunyi

1

serap

1

tembaga

2

terlarang

1

meratap

2

berniaga

1

sarang

1

mendak

1

santap

2

menjaga

1

berderang-derang

1

budak

1

berjaga

1

berperang

1

berjejak

1

kabar

2

bernaga

1

terang

3

pijak

1

sabar

1

seraga

1

girang

3

kakak

1

muktabar

2

mega

1

orang

13

berarak

1

lebar

1

dewangga

1

seorang

1

bergerak

1

dikembar

1

berhingga

2

pisang

1

sorak

1

berkembar

3

harga

1

diusang

1

tersadar

1

terduga

1

batang

1

baik

7

bandar

1

juga

4

katang

3

naik

5

sahbandar

3

Petang

2

Mandar

1

ia

4

terbentang

1

sadik

1

tersandar

1

dia

4

bintang

1

cerdik

5

mengindar

1
frequency
hari

15

duka

2

bertindih

1

memburu

1

gaduh

2

bertindih-tindih

1

memenggal

1

alam

13

garuda

2

bertitah

1

memuatkan

1

besar

13

geta

2

bertuah

1

memuji

1

malam

13

gulita

2

berumbai

1

memuju´

1

orang

13

gundah

2

beterbangan

1

memujuk

1

haji

2

bicara

1

menahani

1

Allah

11

hamba

2

bilang

1

menanamkan

1

ada

11

hancur

2

bilau

1

menangkap

1

diri

11

hatinya

2

binasa

1

mencapai

1

menteri

11

hidangan

2

binasakan

1

mencari

1

hijau

2

bintang

1

mendak

1

isteri

10

hina

2

biru

1

mendakwa

1

rata

10

hutan

2

bodoh

1

mendengar

1

ibu

2

bosar

1

menerpa

1

istana

9

jari

2

buah

1

mengabarkan

1

negeri

9

jenis

2

buang

1

mengadu

1

selamat

9

kabar

2

budak

1

mengaduh

1

sempurna

9

kabut

2

buta

1

mengajarkan

1

sultan

9

kahar

2

cela

1

mengamuk

1

kaki

2

cemerlang

1

mengangkut

1

dalam

8

kalam

2

cindai

1

mengantar

1

itu

8

katakan

2

dapur-dapur

1

mengaruh

1

kiri

8

kelapa

2

darah

1

mengatakan

1

muda

8

kemas

2

daripadaku

1

mengaula

1

sekalian

8

kemenyan

2

daulat

1

mengembara

1

semua

8

kesakitan

2

dayang

1

mengepung

1

khali

2

dengki

1

mengerah

1

baginda

7

lagi

2

denting

1

mengeram

1

baik

7

laknat

2

dewa

1

mengeritik

1

berguna

7

lalang

2

dewangga

1

mengganti

1

berhenti

7

lari

2

dian

1

menghampiri

1

diangkat

7

lekas

2

diangan-angan

1

mengindar

1

mulia

7

lengkap

2

diarwahkan

1

mengiwari

1

serta

7

lepas

2

diatur

1

mengucap

1

tanah

7

lorong

2

dibalikinya

1

mengurung

1

luka

2

dibantun

1

meniharap

1

belaka

6

luluh

2

diberikannya

1

menimbun

1

habis

6

lupa

2

diberinya

1

menjaga

1

indah

6

masygul

2

dibongkar

1

menjelma

1

kata

6

melanggar

2

dibuang

1

menyala

1
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Warkah Buton

bibliography

text notes

list of words
Bibliography
title:

Warkah Buton

edition:

Suryadi,  “Warkah-Warkah Sultan Buton Muhyiuddin Abdul Gafur kepada Kompeni Belanda, Koleksi Universiteitsbibliotheek Leiden”, Sari 25 (2007): 187-239. — letters 1-5.

manuscripts:

as listed below.

dates:

texts & manuscripts:  1788 - 1821, as below.

provenance:

texts & manuscripts:   Buton.

words:

4739 words.

references:

to the letters (1-8), then lines within the letter;  h = exordium;   c = colophon;   m = marginalia.

These texts were kindly provided by Suryadi

List of letters:

1

Cod. Or. 2242-II (3), no.82, Leiden University Library.
From Sultan Muhyiuddin Abdul Gafur, dated 22 Muharam 1203 (≈23 October 1788).

“Warkah Sultan Buton”, p.197.

2

Cod. Or. 2240-Ia (15), no.81, Leiden University Library.
From Sultan Muhyiuddin Abdul Gafur, dated 22 Muharam 1206 (≈21 September 1791).

“Warkah Sultan Buton”, pp.197-200.  Reproduced p.207; includes marginalium added by the scribe.

3

Cod. Or. 2240-Ia (24) no. 127, Leiden University Library.
From Sultan Muhyiuddin Abdul Gafur, dated 8 Rabiulawal 1207 (≈24 October 1792).

“Warkah Sultan Buton” pp.200-202.

4

Cod. Or. 2240-Ia (38), no. 171, Leiden University Library.
From Sultan Muhyiuddin Abdul Gafur, dated 28 Rabiulakhir 1211 (≈31 October 1796).

“Warkah Sultan Buton” pp.202-205. Reproduced p.208.

5

Cod. Or. 2240-Ia (44), no.222, Leiden University Library.
From Sultan Muhyiuddin Abdul Gafur, dated 20 Rabiulakhir 1213 (≈1 October 1798).

“Warkah Sultan Buton” p.205-209.

6

Cod. Or. 2242-II (15),  no. 246, Leiden University Library.
From Sultan Dayyan Asraruddin, dated  21 Jumadilawal 1216  (≈29 September 1801).

“Surat-Surat Sultan Buton”. Reproduced in the paper.

7

Cod. Or. 2242-II (16), no. 399, Leiden University Library.
From Sultan Dayyan Asraruddin, dated 6 Rabiulakhir 1217 (≈6 August 1802).

“Surat-Surat Sultan Buton”. Reproduced in the paper.

8

Cod. Or. 2233 (55), Leiden University Library.
From Sultan  Kaimuddin I, dated 1 Safar 1237 (≈28 October 1821).

“Surat-Surat Sultan Buton”. Reproduced in the paper.

Editorial notes and bibliography

The letters have been carefully transcribed and annotated by Suryadi.  Where appropriate, his text notes have been retained.

References:

•  Suryadi, “Some notes on official Malay letters from the 18th century Sultanate of Buton”. [Paper presented at: Seminar Windows on the Malay world; Poetry Reading and Seminar on Malay-Indonesian Literature Navigating Convention in New Terrains: Writing in the 18th to Early 20th Centuries, IIAS Leiden, 20 October 2005].

•  Suryadi, “Warkah-Warkah Sultan Buton Muhyiuddin Abdul Gafur kepada Kompeni Belanda, Koleksi Universiteitsbibliotheek Leiden”, Sari, 25 (2007): 187-239,
available online
.

•  Suryadi, “Surat-Surat Sultan Buton, Dayyan Asraruddin dan Kaimuddin I, Koleksi Universiteitsbibliotheek Leiden, Belanda”, Makalah pada Seminar Internasional Menggali Khazanah Kebudayaan Melayu di Sulawesi Tenggara, yang diselenggarakan oleh Pusat Penelitian Budaya dan Pariwisata Lembaga Penelitian Universitas Haluoleo, Kendari, Sulawesi Tenggara, 23 Juli 2007. [Now published in Jurnal Humaniora, as above.]

•  Suryadi, “Surat-Surat Sultan Buton, Dayyan Asraruddin dan Kaimuddin I. (Koleksi Universiteitsbibliotheek Leiden, Belanda)”, Melayu Online (
http://melayuonline.com/
).

•  Zuhdi, Susanto, G.A. Ohorella dan M. Said D. 1996. Kerajaan tradisional Sulawesi Tenggara: Kesultanan Buton. Jakarta: Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan RI.

Preparation

Added:  October 2007

Digital texts were provided by Suryadi, and adapted to the MCP format.  There may be minor differences between the MCP text and the published text.  For A-E, prefer the MCP text;   for F-H, prefer the published text.   Suryadi carefully records the use of bold text in the letters. In the MCP text, this is indicated by underlining.
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ISLAM: ESSAYS ON SCRIPTURE,
THOUGHT AND SOCIETY

A Festschrift in Honour if Anthony H. Johns

EDITED BY

PETER G. RIDDELL AND TONY STREET

BRILL
LEIDEN . NEW YORK· KOLN

1997

MASS PRODUCING HOURI'S MOLES

or Aesthetics and Choice if Technology in Early Muslim Book Printing

!AN PROUDFOOT

Transmissions of Islam have been radically affected by the use of
print. Print has been as significant for Islam over the last two cen
turies as it has for Christianity over the past five centuries. In both
cases the fires of reform and fundamentalism have been stoked by
the new technology of communication. Muslims adopted his power
ful technology from the West by processes that are still little under
stood. If the initiation of this change were better understood, we
might also gain a better appreciation of why Muslims spurned print
for three centuries while it flourished in Christian Europe.

My argument· is that Muslims took up printing by two paths.

1. The First Book Printing in the Middle East

The Ottoman Government was consistently wary of printing. Early
decrees in 1485 and 1515 forbade the printing of Arabic, though
importation of books was allowed. Turkey's Christian andJewish com
munities printed in Hebrew, Latin and Armenian from the sixteenth
century, and Syrian Christians began sporadic printing in Arabic in
the eighteenth century.! In 1728, the Ottoman court initiated Mus
lim printing under government sponsorship, but no independent
Muslim presses were permitted until well into the nineteenth cen
tury. The press law of 1888 kept book printers and importers under
tight administrative control.

The initiative of 1728 was part of the Ottoman court's project to
emulate aspects of the France of Louis xv. A press was operated
from 1728 to 1745 under the management of Ibrahi"m Miiteferri~a.
It used imported French printing equipment with type cut and cast
in Istanbul to produce rather costly books for well-placed Ottoman

1 Oman 1989.

162 IAN PROUDFOOT

1iterati. Specifically excluded from the press were works on religion,
namely the Qur'an, tajsfr, badzth, fiqh and kaliim. Later, as part of a
renewed military and fiscal modernisation program, semi-official print
ing was revived at Istanbul in 1780. With a similar purpose, a gov
ernment press at Cairo was established at Bii1aq in 1821-22 by
Mul:Iammad 'All, who had watched Napoleon use imported printing
equipment disseminate administrative orders and proclamations in
Arabic and believed that the Bii1aq press would serve as an efficient
means of improving the army and agriculture.2

The repertoire of these government-controlled presses in Cairo and
Istanbul was rather restricted. The Ottoman ban on printing works
of religion had been waived in 1803 for the publication of the Turkish
catechism Risiila-i Birgewf, but the early diet of printed books over
whelmingly comprised technical manuals, dictionaries and grammars,
with a few collections of fatiiwii and works on dogma. Books on
religious topics, which enjoyed longer print runs, began to be adver
tised for sale in the Ottoman Government gazette after 1831.3 By
1850, about 650 editions of all kinds had appeared at Istanbul, while
Biilaq under Mul:Iammad 'All issued about 350 titles, of which about
half were technical and scientific manuals, many translated from
French.4

Marketing was primitive in this early period. There was but one
book depository for Egypt, at Biilaq, with "pyramids of unsold stock".
In 1831, an uncharitable French observer commented:

... Books on tactics and medicine may have their uses, but address
themselves to only a tiny number of readers. None of the others, with
few exceptions, have any market or any circulation. They are multi
plied by the press only to be stacked up in warehouses where it seems
they are condemned to an eternal oblivion. No-one buys them, no-one
reads them, because they do not accord with the needs of the pre
sent, nor with the spirit of the populace who require instruction and

2 Berkes 1969, Duverdier 1987, Albin 1988.
3 Baysal (1981:122) says afirman (not afotwa) authorised this; Berkes (1964:127)

says "the change seems to have come about gradually without fuss or a new
authorisation. "

4 See Hammer 1831:7.583-595, Baysal 1981, Bianchi 1843, 1859-63, Verdery
1971, Heyworth-Dunne 1940, Albin 1988. The later fame of the Biilaq press may
lead to an overestimate of its early scope and impact. Only after its disbandment
and relaunching in 1861 did it take up large scale printing of books on history,
language, literature and religion, in addition to technical works. Most of the Biilaq
editions of Arabic classics date from the last thirty years of the nineteenth century
(Crabbs 1984:20 I).

MASS PRODUCING HOURI'S MOLES 163

enlightenment. Even at first glance it is easy to see how it stands with
this printery, set up at such great cost, like so many other industries
imported from Europe with insufficient care taken to adapt them to
the country."

The most saleable works were apparently put through the Bulaq press
by private editors on their own account.

2. Muslim Printing in India

The picture in India is quite different.
The presence of the European press in India is very old, reaching

back to the Jesuit press in Goa in 1556. However, not much print
ing of significance took place, beyond some Christian mission print
ing in Madras, until about 17S0, when a fair number of presses began
operating in the Presidency capitals of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras.
In contrast to the Ottoman government, the English Company had an
ideological preference for independent presses, whether run by Euro
peans or Indians. Yet Muslim involvement in this typographic print
ing remained marginal. The printing of literary and historical works
in Persian in Calcutta (after 17S1) and Bombay (after IS IS) was under
taken on presses run by Europeans or Parsees respectively, with only
editorial participation by Muslims. The first Muslim-sponsored print
ing came with the inauguration IS19 of a Royal Press by the Nawwab
GhazI ai-DIn I:Iaydar of Oudh. From this press over the next dec
ade there issued several Persian works in praise of the Nawwab, and
two publications in Arabic: a Parljsurah (five suras of the Qur'an) and
the first three volumes of an Arabic dictionary, Taj al-lughat.6

Then, suddenly, everything changed. In IS24 the Indian Com
pany equipped each of its Presidencies with several of the recently
invented lithographic presses, which it judged would provide a ver
satile and cheap means of printing administrative documents. Four
of these presses were handed over to the Bombay School Book and
School Society, and immediately applied to the printing of text
books in Maratha, Gujarati and Hindustani (Urdu). In the first year,
Indian operators were trained and 17,000 books were produced.

!) Geiss 1907108:212.
6 Storey 1933, from Sprenger 1844.

164 IAN PROUDFOOT

Simultaneously, a history of Bengal, in Persian, was lithographed at
Benares.7 Over the next decade and a half, lithographic presses
mushroomed all across northern India. The great majority of the
new presses were Muslim owned and operated. They were private
presses, independent of government subsidy or control-which was
formally held at bay by the 1835 Press Act.8 Major centres of Mus
lim publishing emerged at Lucknow-Cawnpore, Agra, Delhi, Lahore
and Hyderabad (Deccan). Lucknow alone had more than a dozen
lithographic presses in 1848, all in Muslim hands. By that time the
presses of Lucknow-Cawnpore alone had published about 700 titles,
some in up to ten editions, mainly comprising student's books,
polemics, and religious tracts.9 And the pace continued to quicken.
By mid-century, Urdu was printed all over India, and practically
all the important towns in northern India had their own lithographic
printing presses. A contemporary observer estimated that there were
about 112 such presses in different parts of the country. Lithogra
phy had become a very lucrative trade. lo Indeed, so attractive was
lithography that the Royal Press of Oudh switched to the new
technique mid-way through the publication of its multi-volume Arabic
dictionary.

While the marketing of books was disorganised, the conjunction of
commercial drive and popular repertoire ensured strong demand. A
sales agent for !:la] !:Iar[a]main Sharlfain, the first Muslim printer
of Lucknow,

would venture off with thousands of books in a bullock cart, going as
far afield as Rawalpindi. In those days books were very rare, and a
great novelty. He would be received with pomp, and could sell at any
price he chose: usually Karima ma Muqiman for a few annas, Gulistan
or Bostan for 3 or 4- rupee per volume. Even so, supply could not
meet demand. After books had run out, it would be months before
another consignment could be arranged. I I

This sketch of Indian private enterprise in the market place is a far
cry from the contemporary account of the Egyptian official press at
Bulaq that was quoted earlier.

7 Caresajee 1958.
8 Govi 1977, Davis 1983.
9 Diehl 1973.

10 Haider 1981, Mohl 1853.
11 Sharar 1975:107.

MASS PRODUCING HOURI'S MOLES 165

3. 1he Influence rif the Indian Model

By mid-century, printing in Cairo and Istanbul was still a trickle be
sIde this Indian torrent. The Indian model, with its commitment to
lithography, proved influential. In Persia, after a brief flirtation with
government-sponsored typography in Tabriz in 1819 and in Tehran
in 1824, lithographic printing began in Tabriz 1835 and in Tehran
1844, and soon after in Isfahan and other cities. As in India, lithog
raphy spread quickly. By about 1860, any Persian town of conse
quence had at least one, and often several, lithographic presses. 12 As
Browne remarked,

One of the strangest things connected with the history of the art of
printing in Persia from the time of its introduction until the present
day is that notwithstanding the chronological priority of the introduc
tion of typography into Persia, it entirely went out of fashion in a
short while, and that for a long time (more than fifty years) the presses
of Persia confined themselves exclusively to lithography ... 13

In Southeast Asia, where Muslim printing began in 1848, the following.
half-century of Muslim printing was similarly almost wholly litho
graphic. In both cases, Indian-style lithographic printing was focused
from the outset on religious texts.

The government presses of Turkey and Egypt also employed
lithography, but in the European manner. It was used for maps,
illustrations, diagrams, formulae etc., a substitute for etching as an
adjunct to typography; it was also used to reproduce administrative
circulars, like the ]umiil al-Khidiw. When we do find books printed
by lithography, the presses belong to technical agencies. So when
the Dalii'il al-Khairat was lithographed in the hand of the celebrated
calligrapher Ra~m Efendf in 1857, it was printed on the lithographic
press of an Ottoman Engineers Regiment. By the 1850s lithographic
book printing had begun to gain ground in Istanbul particularly, but
it remained the poor cousin of typographic printing. 14

This began to change in the 1860s. The turmoil surrounding the
disbandment of the Bulaq press in 1861 made space for vigorous

-commercial printing for a popular religious and literary audience. A

12 Polak 1865:279, Walther 1990:230. Avery 1991:817-8 19, Fannayan 1968:145.
For Iraq, see Albin 1981, 1985:15.

13 Browne 1914:9.
14 Peron 1843, Geiss 1907/08, Hsu 1985, Walther 1990, Schlechta-Wssehrd 1853-

55, Baysal 1981.

166 IAN PROUDFOOT

handful of private presses had been operating in Egypt in the previ
ous decade, but private printing became significant as skilled person
nel who had previously worked at the Bulaq press found their way
into private printing. Private printeries using both typography and
lithography proliferated, and publishers-cum-bookshops began print
ing works in popular demand, or commissioning them from jobbing
printers. These were "private enterprise establishments, whose sole
motive was profit and which published fast turn-over, dubious qual
ity books, mostly on religion, popular reading and fiction."'5 These
speculatively printed books were supplied to the book merchants who
operated in the shadow of al-Azhar Mosque. They had previously
specialised in providing cheaply copied manuscripts, and now saw a
profitable alternative.

Muslim printing in the various centres of the Maghrib followed in
the wake of these Egyptian developments, and similarly employed a
combination of typography and lithography, usually under govern
ment supervision. ' 6

In short, the history of early Muslim book printing reveals two
separate initiations of printing, one in the Middle East, the other in
India. The government-sponsored typographic printing in the Middle
East is earlier, but had no influence on the rapid adoption of litho
graphic printing by Muslims in India. The two initiatives are further
distinguished by different initial repertoires, one in which religious
works are absent or marginal, and the other in which religious works
are central. The power of lithography in this first era of book print
ing is evident. Lithography held sway from the beginning in India,
Iraq, and Southeast Asia, displaced typography in Persia, and stimu
lated a great upsurge in the bulk and variety of printing in Turkey,
Egypt, and the Maghrib.

4. Preconditions for Printing

This unexpectedly complex history of printing initiatives has implica
tions for our understanding of the circumstances in which printing
was adopted by Muslims. The notion that Islam was resistant to print
is generally extrapolated from the Ottoman experience. The con-

I; Rizk 1978:555.
16 Safadi 1981 , Albin 1988, Raper 1982, Demeerseman 1953:363, 1954:2.

MASS PRODUCING HOURI'S MOLES 167

trasting experience of Indian Muslims, however, provokes the ques
tion of how generalisable this Ottoman experience was.

Explanations that rely upon the exercise of state power need to be
reconsidered. It is wholly credible that an authoritarian government
whose writ ran sufficiently wide for a prohibition to have effect might
well wish to avoid the immensely disruptive consequences of print
that could be observed on its doorstep in Europe. No Christian
government in Europe's print era ever enjoyed this option, so frag
mented was political authority in ChristendomY Nor, significantly,
did any government achieve more than fleeting control across the
Indian sub-continent before 1857. It is also wholly credible that the
Ottoman application of state power was shaped by its alliance with
a clerical magistracy. Watt l8 reflects a general opinion when he
characterises the higher grades of the Ottoman religious hierarchy as
a privileged aristocracy "more interested in maintaining their own
power than in promoting the welfare of the empire as a whole." He
adds: "This is exemplified by their opposition to the introduction of
printing." In fact the Ottoman evidence here is a little ambiguous:
the high religious authorities approved, supported and administered
Miiteferri~a's printing experiment. 19 The Ottoman integration of state
and clerical interests, though normative in its day, was far from
universally achieved in other societies in which Muslims pursued their
fates, as British India and the Dutch East Indies remind us.

Or was conservatism intrinsic to the organisation of Islamic tradi
tion itself, independent of state power?20 Robinson takes up this
question in his "Technology and Religious Change".21 He adapts
Graham's ideas of concurrent oral and written transmission,22 in which
Qur'anic recitation set the pattern for other dogmatic transmission,
and "writing and literacy have always danced attention on a supe
rior oral tradition." For Robinson the important dimension of this

17 Realpolitik is in play here: the Christian Dutch East India Company enforced
Ottoman-like restrictions on printing in Muslim Southeast Asia, where its writ ran
wide, while in Europe the Dutch enjoyed perhaps Europe's freest and most diverse
press. Europe's disunity undermines Duverdier's (1987:354) position on European
reluctance to provide printing technology to Muslims.

18 1988:34.
19 See KaIdy-Nagy 1974, Mardin 1962:217, Duverdier 1987:336. Alleged protests

by the scribes' guilds of Istanbul against the first experiments with printing are not
well attested. KaIdy-Nagy 1974:204-205.

20 Bulliet 1987, Safadi 1981 etc.
21 1993.
22 Graham 1987.

168 IAN PROUDFOOT

dualism is that "person to person transmission was at the heart of
the transmission of Islamic knowledge. Muslim scholars travelled the
world to receive in person the reliable transmission of knowledge."
The written word, unexpounded, is a veil that separates the student
from discovery of meaning. The principally valid transmission is from
teacher to pupil, recorded in the ijiiza awarded on completion of the
study. (The same path to knowledge prevailed in the mystical orders,
and among calligraphers.) Printing, by striking at person-to-person
transmission, "struck right at the heart of Islamic authority". Therein,
for Robinson, lies the explanation for Islam's conservatism toward
print. "No Muslim was likely to adopt it until he saw a good in
printing greater than the evil it might cause." This extreme situation
arose, Robinson argues, under Christian colonial rule, when "Islam
itself was at stake and print was a necessary weapon in defence of
the faith."23 In Robinson's view, this is why the first active involve
:nent in religious printing is evident among Muslims in India (and in
Russia).

However it is not clear that Islamic transmission was always so
conservative as Robinson's sketch suggests, nor that Muslim printing
is best understood as a response to any external threat. In the early
nineteenth century there were Hindu revival movements, like that of
Rammohan Roy, which responded to the Western challenge. They
were led by English-educated Hindus, a class that had no Muslim
counterpart until the later rise of Sayyid Al).mad Khan and the Aligarh
College group. Muslim printing was therefore not innovated by a
deracine elite, but- as Robinson concedes-exploited by active main
stream leaders concerned to reform and intensify Muslim belief The
notion that it was the European challenge which broke a conserva
tive Islamic mould in India may underrate the dynamics of the Indian
Muslim cultural environment.

Indeed, Levtzion and Voll identify vernacularisation as a major
theme in their survey of Islamic renewal and reform in the eight
eenth century in those societies with significant non-Muslim popula
tions or residues, including India.24 The push for vernacularisation
involved experimenting with new paths of transmission. Reformist
'ulamii' and sufis who had long been challenging the old Perso
Islamic ways had begun to transmit knowledge in regional languages.

23 Robinson 1993:237.
24 Levtzion and VoU 1987.

MASS PRODUCING HOURI'S MOLES 169

In the eighteenth century, sufi ideas were spread through rural areas
by means of mystical poems in the vernacular. "Urdu ... became
the recipient not just of many translations of the Quran and the
Hadiths but also of dozens of classics of Islamic scholarship from al
Ghazali to Ibn Khaldun. Sufis followed suit, translating more and
more of their ma!foziit and maktubiit from Persian into Urdu so that
the example of the saints could reach fresh generations .... This shift
away from the old imperial language coincided with the introduction
of the lithographic printing press."25 The nineteenth-century rise of
the press in India parallels the transformation of Hindustani into the
new written vernaculars Urdu and Hindi.26 The adoption of printing
thus coincides with a great upsurge in vernacularisation, internal
reform, and revival. Indeed, it is exceedingly difficult to disaggregate
these concurrent developments. An example used by Robinson illus
trates the point. Sayyid AJ:tmad Barelvl's followers were active users
of the press to promote their reformist ideas, notably through litho
graphic editions of Sirii! al-Mustaq'lm, complied by Sayyid AJ:tmad first
in Persian, but soon translated and published in both Persian and
Urdu, and Taqwiyyat al-/miin composed and printed directly in Urdu.
Undoubtedly the press was critical in the momentum of this group,
but the fact remains that Sayyid AJ:tmad had compiled Sirii! al-Mustaq'im
in 181927- at a time when the only Muslim printing in India was
undertaken on the Royal Press at Oudh-and so could hardly have
written it for the press.

So, at the time when print was adopted there were already long
standing forces for vernacularisation, and active reformist and reviv
alist groups who had shown an interest in cultivating new modes of
transmission, and who indeed took enthusiastically to print. . . but
only in the early nineteenth century. The precise timing of the adop
tion of printing by Indian Muslims seems not to be wholly explained
by the ideological climate. A more mundane fact cannot be over
looked: that is, that a new printing technology had just become avail
able. It can be shown, I believe, that lithography has qualities that
could explain its attractiveness to Indian Muslims who had not pre
viously taken up typographic printing.

25 Robinson 1991:124.
26 Brass 1974: 186.
27 Metcalf 1982:56.

170 IAN PROUDFOOT

5. Qyalities if Two Printing Technologies

Typographic printing and lithography are quite different technical
processes. Both are means of achieving multiple reproduction of text,
and carry the immense cultural and social implications which flow
from that. However, the two processes have significantly different
implications on the aesthetic and commercial level.

Moveable type printing has been invented twice, probably inde
pendently, once in China in the eleventh century, and again in
Germany in the fifteenth. The idea is a simple extension of wood
block printing which profits from the fact that the script to be re
produced is made up of independent items arranged in a line of
uniform height or width. These were characteristics of both Chi
nese and European writing systems. Moveable type did not flourish
in China but did so in Europe for reasons of economy. The major
capital investment in printing using moveable type is the stock of
interchangeable character types. Moveable type printing proved un
economic for the morphemic Chinese writing system which required
thousands of types. The European languages, which have alphabetic
writing systems operating on the phonemic level, require about the
number of characters provided on a standard typewriter.

In the Middle East early wood-block printing of Qur'anic verses
and other religious formulae several centuries before Gutenberg,28
did not develop into typography. An easy transition to moveable type
was barred by the nature of the Arabic script. The Arabic writing
system, though operating on the phonemic level, is neither alpha
betic nor based on the linear arrangement of independent items. Its
letter forms vary according to position, and in the scribal hand it
abounds with non-linear ligatures and kerning. A reasonable approxi
mation of the scribal hand might be achieved in moveable type, but
only with ingenuity and at considerable cost. At the time of Turkey's
script reform in 1928, a single-font printer's case for printing Turk
ish in upper and lower case Roman script required 99 types. For
printing Turkish in Arabic script, 645 types were needed, and that
after ignoring many ligatures. 29 A modest press would require at least

28 Oman 1989:795, Bulliet 1987.
29 Duda 1935:241-242, with illustration. Hammam (1951:158) records that in about

1950 the standard Bulaq press font had 465 letters, while private presses got by
with 365, though with reduced aesthetic effect. Hourani 1982:38, cf. Ellis 1955: 11-12.

MASS PRODUCING HOURI'S MOLES 171

a couple of type sizes, if not a couple of styles-each requmng a
font of similar size. Thus the same economic barrier that crippled
early Chinese typography was also a hurdle, set not quite so high, to
Arabic typography.

In fact the initial demands confronting Arabic typography were
more stringent than this suggests. They can be understood, perhaps,
by recalling the transitional forms of early printing in Europe. In
reality, European manuscript writing was not a purely linear arrange
ment of independent items. The prevalent Gothic manuscript hand
was semi-cursive, and included a number of conventional abbrevia
tions marked by diacritics, a few alternative medial and final letter
forms, and many ligatures. Gutenberg and other early printers took
as their brief the closest possible reproduction of manuscript forms.
To achieve this, they cast many additional types, making the tech
nology considerably more costly and expensive. Gutenberg's font
comprised about twice as many types as became the standard later. 30

The cost was, in the beginning, a price that had to be paid if print
was to satisfy the book reading and buying public. Over the first
hundred years moveable type printing became increasingly alpha
betised, and thereby more efficiently adapted to typography. In Gothic
print, scribal abbreviations fell into disuse and ligatures were reduced
in number. More radically, the Roman and Italic types (whose discrete
letter forms better suited typography) began to displace the scribes'
Gothic script. But it took about a hundred years until it was no
longer necessary to disguise a book as a manuscript. 3

I From this time,
an increasing divergence between Europe's printed and handwritten
scripts occurred.

No such initial concessions were made in Arabic typography. This
is not surprising, since all the early typographic presses, in Europe,
the Middle East and India, depended upon European technicians
already accustomed to a strongly alphabetised type script, who no
longer appreciated the need to make the same concessions to Arabic
readers that Gutenberg had made to his European customers. In
India and Southeast Asia the Christian missions were serious offenders.
Early Muslim experiments, like that of Miitefer~a or the early Bulaq
press were more sympathetic, but still depended upon European

30 Hirsch 1978.
31 Chappe\l 1970: to!.

172 JAN PROUDFOOT

technicians and faced constraints inherent in the technology.32 A serious
accommodation of manuscript reading would require a huge number
of types. The capital costs would be prohibitive and the task of the
tYPe composers extremely complex. As practised, typography did not
have the capacity to match the copyist's hand. The results appeared
consistendy ugly to readers used to manuscript styles. European-printed
Arabic texts were poorly regarded. In the early eighteenth century,
for instance, a Jesuit-printed copy of Ibn Sfna's al-Qg.nun f'i 'l-fibb
languished in an Istanbul bookshop, priced well below comparable
manuscripts.33 The problem was often conceived as one of poor type
design. Undoubtedly there was enough of this. In the seventeenth
century, Ibrahfm Efendf identified this as the reason for Muslim
rejection of books printed in Europe. Their many errors and poor
choice of characters were no better than the writing of African
Muslimsp4 But whether the type fonts were cast in Europe, India or
the Middle East they evoked negative reactions. The problem lay
deeper. Typographic print was less dense than readers were accus
tomed to, while the lines of print themselves comprised dark, stilted,
uniform imprints, not the subtly varied strokes and styles of the
manuscript. 35 When eventually in 1906 the Biilaq press commissioned
new fonts designed by a committee of calligraphers,36 satisfaction with
the outcome reflected not only improvements in letter forms and
typesetting techniques, but also nearly a century of habituation to a
new style of representing text.

Lithography altogether lacked the mechanical rigidities of type. Its
complete flexibility in reproducing graphic forms made it an illustra
tor's medium in the West. This was critically important for its success
in the Islamic world, for it meant lithography was capable of repro
ducing calligraphy, and achieved immense popularity for that reason.
A book printed by lithography was essentially a manuscript repro
duced. Lithography could accurately convey the grace and fluidity of

32 The mISSIOnaries, always prescriptive, kept their fonts small by imposing
alphabetic principles on to Arabic writing, equating one letter with one type element
and allowing only for the canonical initial, medial and final forms. For reproductions
of mission printing, see Gallop 1990. Miiteferri~'s type was aesthetically ahead of
its contemporaries (Duda 1935). On Billaq, Albin 1988:342.

33 Roper 1988:51.
34 Demeerseman 1954:41.
35 Medhurst 1829, Roper 1988:43, 125 and 264, Oman 1989:803, Weil 1907:52,

Baysal 1981 :122.
36 Hammam 1951.

MASS PRODUCING HOURI'S MOLES 173

a good manuscript, in all respects except the use of colour-and
that too was achieved sometimes by overprinting, by hand rubrica
tion, or by gilt stamping. Lithography could reproduce the nine
scripts, as requiredY By contrast, typeset printing offered a travesty
of scribal form.

In case this argument seems too squeamish about aesthetic prefer
ences, or is thought to imply an innate conservatism in Islamic atti
tudes, consider the uses of lithography in the West. When Senefelder
discovered lithography, his first thought was that it could be used to
reproduce musical notation. 38 Interestingly, musical notation, though
linear in principle, is rather like Arabic script in requiring complex
ligatures. Musical notation had never been reproduced successfully
by moveable type, and at the end of the eighteenth century was
most commonly etched. Lithography provided a practical alterna
tive, and in the later form of photolithography became the tech
nique of choice for printing music. 39 By contrast, lithography was
never used in Europe for extensive reproduction of written text. After
three and a half centuries of typography, the European eye had
become habituated to the typographic style of public text, which had
become markedly different from the handwriting used for private
text. Lithography would reproduce handwriting, and was therefore
deemed unsuitable for printing books. The results looked amateurish
and untidy.40 This conviction blinded European missionaries to the
potential of lithography as a cheap and adaptable means of spread
ing their message. Lithography was considered for Arabic printing
by the Malta mission in 1827, but rejected because the perfect stand
ard of calligraphy required was unobtainable, "and less than per
fect will not do".41 The alternative of neat and tidy but clumsy type
was considered more perfect. In Batavia, the missionary-printer
Medhurst acknowledged the advantages of lithography- its flexibil
ity, its ease of operation, its cheapness-and yet was concerned over
the "irregular appearance of a book thus printed" and the fact [!]

37 See Diehl 1973:123, Demeerseman 1953:354 and 378, Dewall 1857:194, Bianchi
1859-63:§103, Walther 1990:23l.

38 Senefelder 1819: 13.
39 Satisfactory results with typography became possible only during the nineteenth

century with the development of "mosaic" type which abandoned the linear principle,
required very large fonts, and involved very complex typesetting; see Poole & Krummel
1980; Humphries & Smith 1970:26-29 and 34-36.

40 C( Twyman 1990:119-125.
41 Roper 1988: 125.

174 IAN PROUDFOOT

that lithography could not readily be combined with European let
ters. Knowing however that his native audience rejected the only
Arabic type font available to him, Medhurst used lithography to
reproduce an extremely regular stiff Arabic script that imitated an
Arabic type font of his own design.42 A comparable sensitivity to
graphic conventions is at work on both sides, with opposite results:
Muslim objections to an alphabetised Arabic typography because it
did not resemble the handwritten manuscript, and Christian rejec
tion of lithography for book printing precisely because it did resemble
handwritten script.

6. The Special Place if Calligraphy

Typography's shortcomings become more marked when the wider
literate landscape is considered. Books and other written materials
demand varying degrees of aesthetic attention. At the lower end, on
a utilitarian level, were the staples of the book trade, the products of
professional scribes. Where there was an established market for books
scholarly works and literature in Arabic and local languages might
be copied by a professional scribe, the warriiq or kiitib. A steady, clear
hand was adequate. In such cases the demands placed upon print
reproduction were not so onerous. Indeed, it was here that typo
graphic print was allowed to make its first inroads, under MiiteferriJ.<.a,
and the later government-run presses of Istanbul and Cairo. Never
theless, even here, the graphic flexibility of lithography better suited
the tastes of the early market place. The preface to a Lucknow lit
erary lithograph of 1843 made this telling comparison with its typo
graphic predecessor:

The story was published in Calcutta and in other places more than
once. But it was never brought out with such beauty and elegance as
in this print which simply charms the readers. . . The print is lovely
beyond praise: the title page is in white letters, so different from earlier
editions. The popular stories are printed in bold letters looking like a
garden with beds of flowers here and there. 43

Lithography, not typography, could rival the scribal product-at, of
course, a fraction of the price.

42 Medhurst 1829, 1838:573. Similarly, the Singapore missionary, Keasberry, who
experimented with lithography to produce multi-coloured books and magazines in
the Arabic script, never used it for Roman script.

H Diehl 1973:123-124.

MASS PRODUCING HOURI'S MOLES 175

Also in this utilitarian domain lay scholarly texts. Such texts might
be copied professionally or compiled by disciples of a teacher under
whom the text was read and verified.44 Again clarity rather than
stylishness was uppermost. However the typical mode of instruction
proceeded by commentary on an earlier master's text, and this is
given fonn in the scribal conventions of the scholarly manuscript.
The result could be a tangled skein of text on the scholar's page:
text, commentary, supercommentary, or marginal or interlinear glosses,
or charts and diagrams, in script of different sizes and emphasis.
Lithography could reproduce all this as readily as plain text. For
typography it was a struggle. It could manage to convey these func
tionally critical hierarchies and interconnections only rather clumsily
through parentheses and margin alia. In time, typographic printing
would offer compensating advantages by adopting new organising
conventions, including paragraphing and punctuation, but its initial
deficiencies were certainly a handicap.

Moving up the scale of social prestige and religious potency, we
find the higher realms of writing in the hands of the calligrapher
(khat!ii!). The calligrapher was as much an artist as a scribe. Few
books were actually copied by calligraphers. In fact, the Qur'an was
the only full manuscript usually calligraphed, and even then usually
only the first few pages would be fully decorated and illuminated.
Indeed a good calligrapher might regard it as beneath his dignity to
copy a whole manuscript, other than the Qur'an, for high standards
could not be maintained throughout.45 Calligraphers generally dis
played their skills, and earned a living, by writing prayers, selections
of poetry, and religious icons: the basmalah, the names of Allah, invo
cations, and above all Qur'anic verses and extracts believed to have
special potency. A fine piece of this kind could serve as an amulet
or, put on display, fill the house of its owner with blessing.46 Such
items of calligraphic art were not only the main sources of the cal
ligraphers' income, but also-and this must be stressed- the most

44 Pedersen 1984: ch. 3.
45 Sharar 1975:103- 105. Sharar is amusing on this point. He relates (106) the

following story, with rather fetching snobbery: "When Haji Harmain Sharifain
inaugurated a printing press [probably the first private press in Lucknow], after
much exhortation he got Mir Bandey Ali to agree to write out Panj Sura, five sub
sections of the Qur'an. Mir Bandey Ali put in an immense amount of work and
took many days to accomplish the task. When he took it the Haji and had a last
look at it in his presence, something about it displeased him and instead of handing
it over to him, he tore it up and said, 'I can't do it.'"

46 Benjamin 1887:290, Schimmel 1984:35.

176 IAN PROUDFOOT

popular uses of the written word. This terrain lay well beyond the
reach of typography, for no mechanical technique could emulate its
subtle strokes and the intricate interlacing of graphic forms . Lithog
raphy, as an illustrator's medium, eould do so.

Resistance to any typographic perversion of calligraphy was rein
forced by a sense of calligraphy's contribution to Islamic cultural
self-identity. The high standing of calligraphy, and its elaborate
development, is peculiar to Islam. This is not just an argument that
the calligrapher's writing has an aesthetic and spiritual dimension.
As in Europe or China, so in Islam, skill in calligraphy was a fitting
attribute of the scholar, calligraphy and medicine being the two
vocational studies worthy of culama'. But in Islam the position of cal
ligraphy was extraordinarily elevated, surpassing even the scholarly
cult of calligraphic brushwork in China. In Hitti's words, "The art
of calligraphy, which drew its prestige from its object to perpetuate
the word of God, and enjoyed the approval of the Koran (68: I,
96:4) ... became the most highly praised art."47 The strictures placed
upon representations of the human form, and a preference for avoiding
naturalistic depictions of any kind, promoted calligraphy to the su
preme visual art. As a seventeenth century Indian Muslim noted, "If
someone, whether he can read or not, sees good writing, he likes to
enjoy the sight of it."48 As a hallmark of high culture, and an aris
tocratic recreation, calligraphy has played a role analogous to paint
ing in the post-Renaissance West. For Ibn Khaldun, calligraphy was
"a noble craft, since it is one of the special qualities of man by which
he distinguishes himself from the animals ... The quality of writing
in a town corresponds to the social organisation, civilisation, and
competition for luxuries (among its inhabitants)."49 The very authen
ticating symbol of authority, the equivalent of a European coat of
arms, was the {ughra, an elaborately wrought monogram of a ruler's
name. The practice and collection of fine calligraphy became an
indulgence of the aristocratic aesthete. In such circles, a page of fine
calligraphy might be worth an Arab horse.

As the deep rationale for calligraphy was embellishment of the
Qur'an, so the Qur'an was calligraphy's most fit subject. For the
people of the Book, the Qur'an was honoured above all through

47 Hitti 1960:423.
48 Schimmel 1984:33.
49 Rosenthal 19672: §5.29.

MASS PRODUCING HOURI'S MOLES 177

embellishment and ornamentation of its vocal perfonnance accord
ing to the canons of tajwfd. But as Graham has pointed out, the
Muslim tradition has been both the most oral and the most elabo
rately chirographic. "Muslim veneration of the written Qur'an exem
plar, or mU{i~af, and delight in the elaborately calligraphed qur'anic
word have been prominent parts of the highly oral Islamic milieu."50

This intimate association of calligraphy with the revealed Word
and its role as the supreme visual art have inspired poetic and mys
tical imagery. Islamic poets could interpret everything as a book, and
see writing everywhere. As Schimmel (1984) reminds us, a poetic
trope was to compare the face of the beloved to a flawlessly written
copy of the Qur'an, mirroring the calli graphic conceits that made
images of animals and men from prayers or verses of the Qur'an.
The dots of a famous calligrapher were transformed into moles on
the cheeks of the houris in Paradise. The same intimacies excited
sufi thinkers, who drew analogies from the creative processes of cal
ligraphy; for instance, the relation of the Hand and the pen. Deep
meditations in this vein, which allude to an abstraction of calligraphic
theory to express the undifferentiated eternity, have been brought to
our attention by Johns in his study of the Daqii'iq al-lfuruf of cAbd
al-Ra'Uf of SingkelY

Calligraphy was thus, at once, the most popular and the most
prestigious mode of formal writing in Islamic culture, the embodi
ment of high culture, and the physical vehicle of the text of the Holy
Book. This aesthetic citadel resisted typography, but opened its gates
to lithography.

7. A Muslim Technology

Lithography not only met the aesthetic demands of calligraphy, but
also seemed to preserve its cultural and ritual functions. When
Miiteferri~a raised his ten points in favour of printing, the ninth was
that "the making of books in Arabic or in non-Arabic languages is
blessed when it is done by hands of Islam. When printing is done by
infidels there will be no blessing in it." This was repeated by the

50 Graham 1987:89 and 158.
51 Johns 1955b:68-69 and 72.

178 IAN PROUDFOOT

great sufi Mul)ammad I:Iaqqf's tract in praise of printing 1839.52 The
desire to keep religious literature, within the fold is partly explained
by the belief that merit accrued from the copying of the Qur'an,
l)adnh and poems on the Prophet. 53 Conversely, the Qur'an can only
be touched or recited by those in a state of ritual purity. The text of
Sura 56:79, to this effect, is commonly displayed on the frontpage of
manuscript and printed copies of the Qur'an alike. The copying
of the Qur'anic text therefore requires the calligrapher to renew his
wut!u' time and time again. Herein lies a source of concern with
printing: the fear that the process of printing will defile the name of
God or the word of God by exposing it to some source of impurity.
In Egypt in the 1830s the belief prevailed that it was forbidden to
print the Qur'an or let it pass into the hands of a Christian.54 The
notions of printing and falling under Christian control are closely
linked. Typography was after all a Western invention, and had been
actively used by European and Syrian Christians to print in Arabic.
The complexity of the processes and the specialised skills they re
quired ensured that when government-sponsored printing began in
the Middle East, the press equipment was imported from Europe,
and European supervisors or operators were employed. Miiteferri~a
was himself a Hungarian seminarian who converted to Islam after
being enslaved as a prisoner of war. His press was acquired in Paris.
To operate it, he hired the Jewish foreman of a Hebrew printing
shop in Istanbul, and brought several French compositors from Paris.
The Bulaq press was the successor of Napoleon's official press, re
equipped with Italian presses, advice and training, employing Italian
printers, and run by a Lebanese Christian. 55

As if to reinforce the impression that typography was intrinsically
a Christian technology, it was actively promoted by Protestant mis
sionaries not only as the supremely effective tool of Christian prose
lytising, but also as an emblem of Western scientific progress.56 The

52 Abdulrazak 1990:92.
53 The benefits of copying the text of the Qur'an are naturally the greatest:

calligraphers are destined for paradise because of this work, and the pious among
them would retain the wood of the pens they had used to copy the Qur'an to use
as kindling to heat the water used for their funeral ablutions. Ink washed off written
fragments of Qur'anic text has healing powers (Schimmei 1984:86, 58 and 84).

54 Lane 1836:283, Demeerseman 1954:59.
55 Abdulrazak 1990.
56 Once, amusingly, by the Singapore missionary Keasberry in a lithographed

edition (1843). Again the complexity of the process is relevant, for typographic printing

MASS PRODUCING HOURI'S MOLES 179

assoCIatlOn of government presses in Istanbul and Cairo with pro
grams of military, administrative, and fiscal modernisation along
Western lines hardly dispelled this perception. That is why, perhaps,
after the Bulaq press had already been in operation for a decade,
Lane could record that he was "acquainted with a bookseller here
who has long been desirous of printing some books which he feels
sure wo~ld bring him considerable profit, but cannot overcome his
scruples as to the lawfulness of doing SO."57

Lithography suffered from none of these associations. This cheap,
accessible, and simple technology could be transparently under Muslim
control.

Its simplicity was stunning. In 1806 its inventor, Senefelder, launched
lithography by reproducing a note written by the crown prince of
Bavaria in court before his very eyes. 58 Not fifty years later, when
the first lithographic press was set up in Sumatra, its owner, Mul)am
mad AzharI, repeated the novelty for the visiting Dutch Assistant
Resident, extemporising a poem of welcome and printing it on the
spot. 59 This new technique required only the simplest of materials:
grease, lampblack, water, paper, and fine limestone. Within a year or
so of the first arrival of lithography in India, all requirements ex
cept paper were readily available locally. Lithographic ink was locally
made, stones finer than those of Bavaria were found near Madras,
and later in Sindh. Only European printing paper had to be relied
upon until 1862.60 Later in Cairo a distinctive locally-produced yel
low paper gained popularity for printing copies of the Qur'an and
other religious works, perhaps as an indication that European paper
was not involved.61 Nor did skilled operators have to be imported for
lithographic presses. The prime skill needed to produce good lithog
raphy is precisely the skill of the copyist or calligrapher. Indeed, the
transfer of skills was so direct that in India local scribal mannerisms
were carried across into lithographic imprints.62

was the first mass-production technology involving a high degree of craft specialisation,
and thus an outstanding instance of the division of labour, which since Adam Smith's
day had been recognised in the West as the foundation of European economic strength.

57 Lane 1836:283.
58 Senefelder 1819:65.
59 Dewall 1857:194.
60 Caresajee 1958:98, Butt 1988: 156.
61 Cf. the remark of the Turkish calligrapher-historian Mustalpmzade that neither

the Qur'an nor a ~ad!th should be written on firangf paper (Schimmel 1984:8 1).
62 Diehl 1973:120 and 126; Ahmad 1985:142 and 146.

180 IAN PROUDFOOT

Lithography thus acted as a direct extension of the manuscript
tradition. This was important for those who scrupled over the need
to reproduce the Qur'an in writing by the pen, given the Qur'an's
own references to the pen as an instrument conveying divine instruc
tion to mankind (68: I, 96:4). Indeed, the care lavished upon litho
graphed Qur'an texts tended to blur further the boundary between
manual copying and lithographic printing when the customary embel
lishments of coloured frames and gilt verse markers were added by
hand.

The simplicity and flexibility of lithography made possible printing
that was patently Muslim in style and process. It resolved aesthetic
and ritual concerns over the reproduction of calligraphy, and spe
cifically of the text of the Qur'an. It provided a credible means of
reproducing the written form of the Holy Book, and all the associ
ated items of popular calligraphy- the basmalah, the names of Allah,
invocations, verses and extracts of special potency.

And it was just such material that had a ready-made mass market.
Lithography flourished supplying it. Popular calligraphy, along with
illustrations of the Ka'ba and Shl'ite portraits of 'All, I:Iusain, and
Fatimah were being printed in Istanbul at least as early as 1851.
(The printing of such ephemera, unfortunately, goes largely unre
corded.) They became a popular purchase for pilgrims, being sold in
great numbers at Mecca.63 Better attested are early printings of the
Qur'an. The Qur'an or excerpts from it were regularly among the
first books to be printed by private Muslim lithographers. The first
Arabic language printing in Persia 1828 was a Qur'an, lithographed
in the hand of a famous calligrapher. As we have seen, the first
private press in Lucknow, too, commissioned a Qur'an selection again
from an esteemed calligrapher. And in Southeast Asia, the second
item of Muslim printing after a mawlid text recited to honour the
birth of the Prophet, was again a Qur'an.64

The reason, besides piety, was profit. There was a vast unmet
demand for copies of the Qur'an. Learning to recite the Qur'an was
the first stage in any Muslim child's education, and traditionally stu
dents were unlikely to have a copy of the Qur'an to -read from.
They learned lines written by their teacher across the top of their
slates, or worked from written fragments of the text made by the

63 Demeerseman 1953:360.
64 Browne 1914:8, Sharar 1975:106, Kaptein 1993, Dewall 1857.

MASS PRODUCING HOURI'S MOLES 181

teacher or senior pupils. Supply of printed copies of the Qur)an for
personal and educational use became a staple of the Muslim printing
industry, with Bombay and Cairo eventually emerging as the major
suppliers. In the early days of printing, profits could be substantial.
Though lithographed copies of the Qur)an had to be carefully pre
pared high-quality editions, they could command good prices because
a hand-copied Qur)an was very costly for the same reason. The Agra
Qur)an of 1850, in Arabic and Urdu, made its publisher a fortune
at Rs 5 per copy. 55

Where Muslims lived under colonial rule alongside significant non
Muslim populations, lithography took on a distinctly Muslim hue. As
European printing was typographic, and most non-Muslim vernacu
lar printing followed the European model, consistent use of lithogra
phy was a mark of Muslim culture. This pattern is strongly evident
in both India and Southeast Asia.55

With this understanding of the printing technologies available and
how they were applied, it seems less useful than ever to generalise
about Islamic conservatism. The inadequacy of the technology of typo
graphy, especially in the alphabetised form in which it was accessible
to Muslims, must be accepted as a significant factor in the long delay
in the Muslim adoption of printing. When typographic printing was
taken up by the Ottoman government in the face of growing Euro
pean power, its ineptness and complexity, its Christian odour, and
government direction of its uses all restricted its currency and scope.
Consequently typographic printing remained marginal to the Muslim
tradition and was making only slow headway when lithography burst
upon the scene. However, once an appropriate technology for repro
ducing Arabic script became available, it was adopted rapidly. Lithog
raphy was launched in Europe only during the years 1806-1817,
and reached India-as we have seen-in 1824. In that very year the
first Muslim lithographic press was established. Twenty-five years later,
the new technology was widely used in India and Persia, making
headway in Turkey, Egypt, and the Maghrib, and about to arrive in
Southeast Asia. Let us not forget either, that this new technology
was not only speedily adopted, but was also raised to unprecedented
levels of technical excellence in its application to book printingY

65 Ahmad 1976:137.
66 Proudfoot 1986: 108.
67 E.g. Sharar 1975:108.

182 IAN PROUDFOOT

Thus for most of the Muslim world, lithography provided the whole
answer to printed book production. Only in the Middle East and the
Maghrib did it flourish alongside a continuing use of typography,
mainly by government presses, and here, Demeerseman argues,68
lithography facilitated the wider acceptance of the principle of print
ing, and hence typographic printing as well. Thus, in different contexts
across the Muslim world, lithography ushered in the print revolution.

8. J;Wzy has Lithography been Neglected?

If lithography was as important in early Muslim book pnntmg as
this survey suggests, then why has it continued to be overlooked?
The reasons for this continuing blind spot lie both in the subsequent
history of Muslim printing and in certain scholarly attitudes.

In South Asia, lithography has fully held its ground. To this day
in India and Pakistan, lithography, or comparable means of repro
ducing handwritten script, remain the common technique for printing
not only Muslim books of all kinds, but newspapers and magazines
as well. Outside the sub-continent there has been a rationalisation of
printing techniques: typography has largely captured the old field of
the copyist and the new applications of print that have no precedent
in the manuscript culture; lithography continues to serve in the field
of calligrapher.

By the end of the nineteenth century periodicals and newspapers
had become the leading print medium. The economics of this new
genre required speedy production of large print runs, and this favoured
typography. Commercial newspaper reading and government-printed
school texts began to create a new literacy in typography free from
manuscript antecedents. Also in the latter part of the nineteenth
century, the Ottoman government's typographic presses became major
printers of religious treatises in Arabic and the vernaculars. The
prestige of books printed in Istanbul and above all in Mecca (after
1883) gave credibility to typography.69 Meanwhile, in a development
paralleling the early European experience of pririt, the graphic pov
erty of typography, which had at first made it a poor substitute for
the manuscript style, was coming to be seen as having the virtue of

68 Demeerseman 1954:45.
69 Proudfoot 1993:41.

MASS PRODUCING HOURI'S MOLES 183

greater clarity. The advance of typography was noticed by Browne
in Persia. In the passage quoted earlier he remarked upon the dis
placement of early typography by lithography. He then went on to
point out that after fifty years of lithography, "typography again
became current and popular" at the turn of the century. An analo
gous change took place in Southeast Asia, at about the same time,
with lithography claiming a slowly dwindling audience.7o

On the other hand, in the realm of the calligrapher, and espe
cially in the printing of the Qur>an, lithography gained ground and
held it. When the Ottoman government allowed the printing of the
Qur>an with Turkish commentary for the first time in 1865, it was
done with typography. But the same text was re-issued lithographi
cally in 1879 and thereafter. Analogously in Cairo, early typographic
editions of the Qur>an from 1864 were succeeded in 1889 by litho
graphed editions. With few exceptions, the Qur>an has ever since
been printed using lithography or allied techniques.

These later developments have overshadowed the early days of
printing. The familiarity of the periodical press, and the obvious
importance of its impacts, make it too easy to overlook the ways and
needs of earlier days, and forget that print was not at first used in
this way at all.

Until very recently scholarship has done little to remove this blind
spot. 71 Antiquarian bibliography, with its technical interests, and com
munications history, with its sociological interests, have found little
to say to one another. This mismatch has not been mitigated by some
prevalent perceptions of Muslim societies.

One is the tendency to base generalisations about Islam on a rather
abstract and idealised version of Middle East realities. This may lead
to misrepresentations. As we have seen, the history of early printing
in the Middle East is not common to the societies in which a majority
of Muslims lived. An antidote is to take a view closer to the ground
in one place or another away from Istanbul, Mecca and Cairo. This
is what makes Demeerseman's contribution to the history of Muslim
printing so enriching. By using his local knowledge of Tunis, he was
able to avoid some Orientalist ideal-types.

70 Farrnayan 1968: 145, Walther 1990:236, Proudfoot 1993:57.
71 Recent doctoral studies have begun to mend the rift. Roper (1988) and

Abdulrazak (1990) should be mentioned.

184 IAN PROUDFOOT

Running deeper is another generalisation. It is the attitude described
in the opening paragraph of this essay: namely, a rather too-ready
willingness to characterise Islamic societies as intrinsically conserva
tlve, or at best reactive. One can avoid the need to explain a great
deal by relying on this conviction. The history of lithography in Muslim
hands suggests that there may often be more to be said.

* * * * *

Although I have been a student of Professor Johns and later his junior
colleague, regretfully I have never had the opportunity to study
Islam under him. Nevertheless, in the field of printing history--which
must be tangential even to his wide-ranging interests-I have found
my way lit by beacons which he has tended. These are his convic
tions that there are insights to be gained by "observing Islam" away
from Mecca and Cairo; that a powerful source of understanding lies
in the sensitive juxtaposition of Christian and Muslim experiences;
and that at the heart of Muslim consciousness is the multi-faceted
beauty of the Qur'an. For these lights, I am grateful.

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