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The Printing Press, Islam, and Europe

In Islam

Robert Fulford wrote:

The West came to believe that an idea might have value on its own, whatever its origins. So Europe could absorb and use whatever Islam created. Islam, however, viewed the inventions of the West with suspicion. The classic case was the printing press, which Islam vigorously resisted. In 1485, a decree by the Ottoman sultan, Beyazid II, banned this new invention, on the grounds that it would be sacrilegious to use the Arabic language in mechanical equipment.

The Koran and Arabic were so closely entwined that the language itself demanded pious treatment, which it wasn't likely to get from printers. Furthermore, printing threatened Islamic calligraphers, who became its powerful enemies. Jewish publishers could operate in Turkey only so long as they did not use Arabic. Printing in Arabic was illegal until the first half of the 18th century, and even then it grew slowly. When Napoleon arrived in Egypt in 1798, Cairo had no presses. By then, European thinkers had been educating one another through books for more than two centuries. (source)

In Europe

Ideafinder wrote:

Thus, intellectual life soon was no longer the exclusive domain of church and court, and literacy became a necessity of urban existence. The printing press stoked intellectual fires at the end of the Middle Ages, helping usher in an era of enlightenment. This great cultural rebirth was inspired by widespread access to and appreciation for classical art and literature, and these translated into a renewed passion for artistic expression. Without the development of the printing press, the Renaissance may never have happened. Without inexpensive printing to make books available to a large portion of society, the son of John Shakespeare, a minor government official in rural England in the mid-1500s, may never have been inspired to write what are now recognized as some of history's greatest plays. What civilization gained from Gutenberg's invention is incalculable (source)

Kind Regards, Farside

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