Why did the Islamic World Reject the Printing Press | Al Muqaddimah 

so what happened to ancient Egyptian culture when the Phoenicians introduced the alphabet, also happened to the Muslims when Europeans invented the printing press. both ancient Egyptians and Muslims rejected the new technologies to "preserve their culture" and the result was disastrous.

The moral of the story is #1. "Preserving your culture" when taken too far will harm and not help it. #2. Cultural appropriation isn't always a bad thing. Cultures do it all the time and it sniffles innovation if you don't adopt things from other countries. The Muslim world could have immediately made use of the printing press but their desire to preserve "their culture" did them more harm than good. Better late than never though I guess.

RU-vid algorithm needs to show this channel some love. Other than Wikipedia there's no free online source for learing Islamic histroy that even comes close to this level of quality.

Nonsense. There is huge demand for Prince of Persia. Ubisoft just happens to be the Timur of game companies.

"They didn't accept it because it didn't solve any problem." What the Ottomans did was not just "not accepting". It was banned. If they were so worried about correct reading of religious text they could ban printing only for them.

If anyone has demand for the tradition of Shrek is Love, Shrek is Life, I know all 13 parts by heart

This was a video I didn't know I wanted. Well done!

Missing a reason, unless I’m mistaken, the fragmented political landscape of Europe at the time prevented the suppression of the printing press by religious authorities in Europe as opposed to the relative political unity in the Islamic world allowed for its suppression

The reason might sound very stupid : writing a copy of the Quran was an act of devotion in itself and printing it would have meant producing a spurious, soulless final result. The value of any book resided as much in its handcraft as in its content. Actually there was no clear prohibition against printing per se apart from a few fatwas that judged the use of the printing press to be of bad taste. For about the same reason traditional poets in the West are not great fans of computers to find inspiration. Another problem was the Arabic script itself to which wooden or metal fonts is especially maladapted, to the point that handbooks to learn Arabic in 18th century France and England were cheaper to write over by hand for the Arabic part. Only the invention of lithography made printing seductive to users of Arabic.

Looking forward to watch this. I watched a lecture of Yasir Qadhi about this topic and it was very eye opening. Thanks for this video!

Some traditions are hindrance but sometimes, they are good source of information, especially when it comes to comparing stuffs. So like Thanos said, this should have been perfectly balanced as all things should be.

The downfall of most civilizations is due to their unwillingness to change in the face of changing times and emergence of disruptive technologies. Mostly because of entrenched interests that want to preserve their power and status at the expense of the nation.

This is a fascinating look into an important subject while understanding the social, economic, and political circumstances around that subject. It is clear you did a lot of work to make this! Nice work.

A few additional supplamentary comments to the this wonderful video 1)Ottomans had some trouble with Jesuits and shut down their printing press in 1550s (propaganda writings was the reason if I recall correctly) 2)Kitab Salat al-sawai was the first book printed in Arabic in 1514. It was a horologion commissioned by the Pope Julius III in the Italian city Fano. 3)Maronite Christians in the Ottoman Lebanon started using it 1584s and published their first Arabic book (Kitab al Mazamir - Psalms) in 1610 at the Monastery of Qozhaya (Monastery of Saint Anthony). This was the first Printing Press in the Lebanon and the Middle East (says wiki) 4)Voivoide of Wallachia Constantine Brancoveanu (well that was very surprising for me too) gifted Arabic printing press to the Patriarch of Antioch Athanasius Dabbas III who was travelling around for funds and it was established in Aleppo in 1706 (first Printing Press of Syria) He already mentioned Napoleon... Sadly I dont know about Iraq to complete the Middle East line-up.

"there was simply no problem to be solved by the printing press" how about the convenience and availability of knowledge to all

Those who once revolutionised the use of paper for record keeping and archiving, and transported those methods into Europe to go on and reject what was perhaps the greatest invention of the medieval ages. What a tragedy.

The 'calligrapher's lobby'. Thanks for teaching me a new phrase today! Mütteferrika clearly thought there was a problem that could be solved by the printing press (extending the longevity of human knowledge). I wonder how quickly printing would have been adopted in the Muslim world if the calligrapher's lobby had been less powerful? Great video, on a really interesting question!

Great video as always ! Thanks for the quality content bro ! ✌🏻

My 2 cents FWIW: The lack of secular books available via the printing press is one of the reasons the Islamic world got colonized in the first place. And Timur ruins everything

15:17 : the islamic world didn't _reject_ the printing press, no no, they just didn't _want_ it. So those girls didn't actually _reject_ me, they just didn't feel I was of any use, great ! 😁

This video goes into a lot of details. The fact is that it was a collosal mistake on the part of Muslims to have rejected the printing press. May be if they'd chosen to go along, the Renaissance would have happened in the east and the west simultaneously. It was not just about printing the religious works, it was about the literature and books in general. The west got ahead in publishing fiction as well with the press and creation of fiction has had a tremendous impact on the civilization.

I started to follow you first when you had 10k followers, and I never regretted and will never regret

The general vibe of this vid is apologetic to one of the most devastating decisions that led to the decline of the Ottoman empire and the Muslim Ummah.

Surprisingly interesting

It's surprising that the Muslim world wasn't exposed to the printing press via China, with the silk road and the geographical proximity.

Visit my Patreon to support the channel by pledging a dollar or more: www.patreon.com/AlMuqaddimahYT Become a member on RU-vid: ru-vid.com/show-UCf0O2efB4K66UUaT7QJPVNAjoin Sorry, this week's video is a bit late. I was down with fever. Back now. ;) Sources are in the description if you wanna read further.

In my opinion as a Westerner, not adopting the printing press was a grave error for Islam's scientific world. For centuries Arabs, Turks and Persians held technological advantages over Europe, and often some of that technology was based in knowledge from India and China. So while Muslims were keen to adopt the science and technology of nonbelievers to the East, they spurned an extremely important piece of technology from the nonbelievers of the West. Maybe it was because of the more adversarial nature that the Ottomans had with Europeans as opposed to the Chinese? Not sure. In any case, it seems they missed out on harnessing an important advancement.

As a certified diagnosed Islamophobe (by my "medical" Dr. Zakir Nail), I must say that my position is still the same. The Islamic pride and fear of the printing press, for whatever reason, was still self-destructive. In Judaism, we had a problem with reliance on oral traditions during the Tannaic period. Fortunately, we grew out of it and realized that commitment to writing and dissemination was better than the primitive methods. The Internet is great, you just need to do more fact checking due to the low monetary risk of producing misinformation. The best societies are those that have all three modes, oral, written, and the web.

I was literally astonished when I saw your video..cuz for the first time maybe I actually found what I needed (when I searched the question) so easily...Thx dude

Thanks for this awesome video. It actually answered many of the questions I had.

What an amazing video on such an interesting topic. Thank you very much

*why did Ottomans Remember, there were more Muslims outside the Ottoman Empire then inside it.

you just asked and answered a question i never knew i would be fascinated by

Why do some commentators say this video is "apologetic"`? It is rather _analytic_, and that makes it worth to watch. It lets us having a look on the many circumstances and developments. On the contrary, one could regard the negative comments about the "worst decision in Islamic history" as "accusative". It is too easy to condemn a past history from hindsight, even if many people run into that trap, and even I did when I was younger, just because You happen to be born into a book based culture. The insight, how important listening to recitations is for other cultures, is the most valuable part of this video. And we have the same today: many people listen to audiobooks rather than reading them anymore.

Another thing to note was how difficult typemakers found carving Arabic type to be. The earliest Arabic printers actually used the Syriac alphabet to print Arabic, as the character were easier to make work within the format of type. You can even find books printed by early Arabic typographers and… you can very much tell why they stuck with Syriac for a little while

Found this video really interesting and informative 👏👏

Fantastic video, very interesting!

Thank you for such an informative vid. It's a subject that has always intrigued me as l have long been fascinated by the beauty of Islamic calligraphy and geometric design. Cheers from Sunny Scotland.

One of the main differences between Christianity and Islam is the difference between the Christian and Muslim attitude toward their holy book. I am a devout Christian and if you burn a Bible in front of me I will not be happy, but I will not. do any violence to the burner. You can easily see evidence of Muslims attacking someone burning or desecrating a copy of the Koran.

A lot of assumptions in this video, "he didnt ban it because of this or because of that" how do you know? Did you know the sultan personally? The printing press was the reason and cause of so much knowledge being spread out which caused new technologies and invention being made leading to the modern era. The sultan banned it and the penalty was death if you were caught with one. This video seems more like an apologist trying to find a reason why the ottomans decided to shut themselves out of enlightenment. The printing press reached places like Hawaii and South America before it reached the center of the world the ottoman empire nearly 300 years later. And also we have the printing press now and it never caused nearly as many problems as this video suggests. There is no excuse for what they did. Everyone in the world knew that in the 18th and 19th century the ottomans were way behind technologically in every department. Just 50 years after the printing press was invented, europe distributed 10 million books, comprising nearly 40 thousand titles. The early years of printing was a time of astounding productivity. Meanwhile nothing happened on the ottomans side, the ottomans spend their budget mostly on warfare all the time instead of spending money on its people so they could advance and flourish. The ottoman empire was a millitary empire. It is not a coincidence then, that the same places were the ottomans used to rule are today behind the rest of the world. Rather than try and find excuses be real and impartial and tell it like it is, the ottoman rulers truly fucked up.

Fun fact: Theodore Bibliander was originally named "Buchmann". This name comes actually from "Buchen" (beech tree) but in "Buch-" it's a homonym of the german word for "Book". He translated that meaning into greek, making him "book man" in greek, due to his profession.

great video as always

As long Muslim were the primary place for writing books. With books Muslim were the source of knowledge and technology. When the Islamic golden age ended by Mongols there was a dark ages across the world. Printing press in 1400s was direct cause of increased technology in Europe by allowing the culture to use more of its talented population. It allowed the European to dominate the Muslim which continues to this day. By the time it was adopted in Muslim world it was 400 years later. The decision by Sultan and religious leaders was clearly wrong

Great video, I never even knew about this topic!

This is a question that is often overlooked. Thank you for this video. Would you consider doing one on the Ottoman Expedition to the Aceh Sultanate ?

This seems a bit to apologetic for my taste. It is by many considered one of the worst discussions ever made, and set the ottomans back a lot.

The main argument of this video makes no sense. "- They didnt use the printing press because they are averted to technology or something like that. It was: a. To avoid difusion of knowledge. b. Tradition. c. Political lobby." So... what the hack does the author think that aversion to the technology by a society is?

Ottoman statesman and reformer Mehmet Tahir Münif Pasha once wrote: “It is especially erroneous for certain ignoramuses to say that science corrupts faith. Only irrational friends of religion dare to make such insults....Some simple-minded people, just because of this perverse idea...prefer to remain in ignorance and, always having a distrustful view towards science, disapprove those attempting to study science. Atheism is imputed to Socrates and Hippocrates, who were known among the ancient philosophers for their excessive intelligence and sagacity. Since they were, much more than anybody else, cognizant of the perfection of the power and majesty of the exalted Creator, and of his wisdom and mystery revealed in every minute particle of the universe, it cannot be doubted that they were more complete in their faith than their contemporaries”

Isn't this amazing that Ahmed the Third was the one who built the Sadabad palace and operated the Tulip Age of ottomans and also was the first sultan to allow a novelty to his realm!

Fantastic work!

True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read; and in so living as to make the world happier and better for our living in it.

One other reason is the way of education by early scholar. As you mentioned that Qur'an is meant to be heard, not read. Early scholars recited the Qur'an and his deciples will memorise it and make a personal notes and return to him the next day and recite what he listened the day before. Theacher will pointed out what was incorrect. This is also happened with Quranic interpretation or tafsir. You also memtioned that Bukhari did a great deal of travelling. Travel with him was a mule loaded with his notes which now known as 'Shahih Bukhari'. He wrote from what he heard from other scholar.

it's a new thing. there's people who think using printing will be some kind of violation in Islamic tradition. there's scribes who dont want to lose their job. there's people who wants to see what kind of effect it will do in Europe first.(printing press played a role in 30 years war) changes will always find it opposition and i think it's just honest way of life. when new things come up dont immediately jump and adopt it, be cautious. who cares what other people will say about us, we need to study it before giving it to our people. dont accept something just to appease others.

One other thing; Islamic tradition revolved not only on the Quran, but also the Hadith, which, given the lack of standardization in authenticity , necessitated the dependence on Sheikhs and Mawlas for interpretation. One must also remember that at the time the edict was passed, Sufi Orders were very dominant, and did not see the same issues as it did with the Catholic Church, of which, part of its demise was attributed to its overbearing nature on politics and society. This constant interference lead to a rise in a number of kingdoms openly becoming hostile to the Catholic Church, as its grip on the populace became weaker due to corruption. The Orthodox Christian world did not see a similar issue as their decentralized nature in a similar vein to Sunni Islam, allowed for some semblance of diversity in opinion, so long as they were in keeping with the doctrine of the sect. Basically, the printing press was merely a straw in the camels back when it comes to its destabilising nature to the Catholic Realm. Europe was already primed towards Reformation by the end of the beginning of the Renaissance.

It was invented in china centuries before, the europeans only improve it. And probably the earliest printing machine in europe brought by muslim merchant. Europe improved and popularized the printing machine, just like gunpowder & firearms.

I always found this fascinating great video and hope to see more

I suppose the internet was abit like the printing press 500yrs ago, it's disruptive for the establishment as people are by passing them and sharing information, ideas and knowledge directly

man i really love ur content

The reasons given for why the Islamic world initially rejected printing were just as true in Europe. However the technical issues with the arabic language were formidable barriers. It may be that there was little demand for expensive hand written books in the Muslim world, but demand tends to rise as the price falls. While it is tempting to blame colonialism, as long as one's problems are someone else's fault, there is little hope of improvement.

I would rather to have this channel getting the subtitles of arabic language because it is kind of arab-muslim kind-of subjects channel Also to chinese as examples Keep up the great up brother 💚

Fascinating, I've never thought about it.

Absolutely brilliant! When I’d start earning money I will definitely contribute to the channel!

*sees title *imagine how they are going to print Arabic.. Yeah.. Kinda hard imo

Great content! 🇲🇾

When thy were in power, there was no need for disruptive technology, once the lost the power, there was a need for disruptive technology, pretty simple

I just found it interesting that ottoman empire, started as one of the most technologically-advanced civilization during its early days, ended up became a technologically backward country during its late stage.

Interstingly there were printing presses working inside the Ottoman Empire since the early 16th century. But they were owned by Christians and Jews, and printed books in Armenian, Greek and Hebrew.

So pity to believe in Islamic tradition. They will always afraid of something new.

Loved that time line above your video.... Good Job ! " your DISCORD members are very funny !!

Well researched and put together. Keep up the good work.

The problem with large Caliphates is that you are dependent on the Caliph making the right decision.

Islam was at the height of technological advancement before the sack of Baghdad. First University and Hospital was made in Muslim countries and are still operational to this day. First Aviation was invented in the Emirate of Cordoba, Successful removal of kidney stones and many cures were made for diseases of eyes and etc. After the sack of Baghdad, I don't know but many Muslims then started to let go and the period of dark ages began the same after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Muslims in Modern times are again starting to take interest in technology.

Haven't watched it yet but if I had to guess it's "something something to take our jobs" "something something the tech is inherently immoral somehow" as always Will check and see if I'm right later

Brilliant , informed and enlightening. Thank you so much.

The press also made printing of maps very profitable. This facilitated the explorers, and voyages of settlers to the New World. I am sure printed maps also helped in expanding trade and power of European states in the Indian Ocean.

beautifull channel

"the printing press was not rejected by the muslim world" *Proceeds to explain how it was rejected by the muslim world*

Fascinating, insightful content. Thank you!

Can you cover the Bashmurian Revolts please? It seems to be an overlooked period of Egyptian history around the 8th century. Oddly enough one of the few identified quranic palimpsests (a text overwriting another) was recycled from a Coptic bible dating to this period, which was a very tumultuous time for the region.

I come from will known family of scalers in religious and Arabic language with books more than a thousand years old. The Ottomans Simply made it illegal to open schools for Arabs in the land that they fully controlled even using force to close schools and scalers had only two choices either move to modern day turkey or die in jails. We were protected by the tribes of Yaman because we're apart of prophet Mohammad (PBUH) lineage so we were lucky. That is the reason why Arab and Muslims lost their knowledge. For about 700 years the Ottomans ruled only in last 100 years of their rule they built a couple of schools that taught in turkish for the nonArab elite and non-Muslims.

Did you check out Shaykh Yasir Qadhi's lecture "The Printing Press and the Fall of the Muslim Ummah" on this very topic? It's interesting, more comprehensive and expands upon what you said in this video.

When I saw the title, I wondered why would the Muslims renounce such a useful tool. I just couldn't understand... Until I knew the context. I don't think I'd take the same choice, but then again hindsight has advantages.

It is funny but to this day, books that do have vowels written in them have a ton of mistakes and misprints in the ME. My Arabic teacher in Egypt would collect the mistakes and send them to the publishers, but the printing houses said it was more expensive than it was worth to fix next editions.

Here is a harsh constructive criticism which i hope can help: The repetitive comments and emphasis on "Muslims simply didn't need the printing press" are baseless claims, or to say it better "these are just your claims". There is need to refer to written documentation about how the printing was viewed throughout the 4 centuries: is there written documentation to refer to? get that and show it to the audience, this is what the audience needs o hear, not the "biased" opinion that "they didn't need the printing press"! Apart from that i like the video editing quality and the calm tone. Please enrich it with strict accuracy and note clearly to the audience whenever you are stating "your opinion" or a certain "modern opinion". In terms of whether this video answers the "why" i find that it completely failed to do so. Hope you can have a better more accurate future version of it. Thank You and please keep this work, it's useful.

Never knew this happened. Glad to know about it though!

Aurangzeb was a great ruler,in his period the gdp of India was the best gdp of the world, Britishers (Catholic Christian) try to overcome but they do not dare to enter in India during the period of aurangzeb.even Mongols try so many time to conquer arunachal n tibbet Assam but fail in front of aurangzeb

That's amazing. Thumbs up and subscribed 👍

Another great video

i never knew they rejected it and when i found out by the title of this video i was shocked if you were born during the islamic golden age you probably become a famous historian or scholar

With the emphasis on recitation was audio recordings seen a useful tool for teaching and memorizing the Quran?

loved this video!!!

Oh Timur.. He has such a way with words

The sultan could have made it illegal to print Qoran only and not any other books , then West would not have exploited the Middle East and subjugated it.

Interesting perspective, the Quran being exact word of God not actually as dissimilar to the Bible as mentioned. Especially for Luther and the protestant reformation , for them sole sciptua ( the concept that all teaching must come from the the word of God rather than men) was so important that the bible must be reproduced and studied everywhere, to them the "word of God was alive and exerts power" so that couldn't be soulless even if not handwritten as the spirt was in the word themselves not who wrote or said it. It should also be noted that the Latin alphabet while not as fluid as Arabic was far more calligraphic before the printing press. So it was really the printing press actually made letter far more blocky rather than they worked particularly well for the printing press. But maybe that's is because Europe is far more divided so they were more used to letters being changed by new word and languages than Arabic speakers were.

welp, the one reason is the arabic letter itself. it's much hassle to press printing an article in arabic letter. you must crafting a whole sentence to a block so that you can print it to a paper. another is for the sake of education. writting manually (calligraphic style) have it's merit. it train your diligence & precision aside as memory training.

Which software you use Really amazing

having your Khalifs or kings write the Koran, by hand, is a cool way to promote literacy in your nobles for sure. that's a cool detail in the video. thanks for your time.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one

I know One thing, Hassan Nisar probably hates the guy who made it so.

Your channel is really good