Infidels_ A History of the Conflict Between Christendom and Islam - Andrew Wheatcroft [173]
The essence of the Ottoman Empire was control, but policy on how best to exercise this was always in a state of flux. In theory the sultan’s government controlled everything; in practice, in distant provinces, that power might be completely illusory.28 Licensed printing, under strict conditions, with the chief religious authority of the empire as head of the editorial board, was an attempt to allow development and at the same time maintain control.29 Many European governments, notably those in Catholic countries, also constantly adapted and adjusted their systems to achieve the maximum level of protection against undesirable (heretical, politically sensitive, lewd, and pornographic) material. Not, however, with uniform success.30 Governments in the West would have preferred to keep a rein on the printed word rather than allow its headlong, unfettered development. The history of the post-Reformation period contains countless examples of their attempts to tame it through censorship, persecution, or the scaffold.31
Perhaps if printers had been allowed to produce religious and legal books in the Ottoman Empire, the industry there might have grown more rapidly. But that is not certain, given the fragility of any market for books and the lack of a system for distribution. It has been estimated that in the century between the foundation of Müteferrika’s press and the death of the great reforming sultan Mahmud II, in 1839, no more than 439 titles were published in Ottoman Turkish.32 Production increased dramatically during the nineteenth century, but ultimately no more than 20,000 titles were published before 1928, when a new, Roman alphabet was adopted by the Turkish Republic. The same tardy development of the market for books affected all areas of the Ottoman domain in Europe, and indeed the Slav and Hellenic communities on its fringes.33
Müteferrika’s first titles had been strange hybrids. They imitated the binding and appearance of the Islamic manuscript tradition, but unlike most Muslim books, some of them were illustrated. The second publication, an account translated from a Jesuit’s text about a bloody revolt in Afghanistan, had engravings, and the third, a history of the West Indies and a collection of fables, was fully illustrated. One of the stories had a picture of a tree that bore women as its fruit, who fell to the ground as they ripened, shouting “wak wak.” According to Abbé Giambattista Toderini, who published his huge history of Turkish literature and music in 1787, these figures became so popular that they were copied and displayed in official festivals, as the spectators shouted “wak wak.” Yet despite this suggestion of public interest, it is impossible to consider the venture successful. One thousand copies was an average print run and the volumes were expensive.
It was not Gutenberg’s type but Alois Senefelder’s invention of lithography in 1798 that made possible a mass market for the printed word in Arabic script.34 Letterpress had improved as new Arabic fonts were produced. A large printing works was set up by Mehmed Ali Pasha, the ruler of Egypt, at Bulaq in the suburbs of Cairo in 1815.35 Other printers were established in Constantinople, and on the Asian shore at Uskudar (Scutari). But the basic problems of Arabic typesetting had not altered. It was only with lithography that the limitations inherent in Gutenberg’s type vanished. With lithographic printing, instead of laboriously assembling type, a calligrapher’s handwritten text could be printed exactly as written. Illustrations could be drawn on transfer sheets or