Printing in the
Medieval Islamic Underworld

RICHARD W BULLIET

In 1894 the Orientalist Josef Karabacek discovered several
Arabic amulets printed on paper in the Archduke Rainer
Collection of medieval papyri in Vienna. Several years ago I
identified a similar printed amulet in the David Eugene Smith
Collection in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library. During the
intervening ninety-or-so years a few additional printed amulets
have turned up in various European and Egyptian libraries, as well
as one tiny example on parchment at the University of Penn¬
sylvania; but few specimens had been adequately published, and
the scholarly literature on medieval Arabic printing amounted to
fewer than thirty pages. The scholars who had given their fleeting
attention to the materials, Karabacek, Adolf Grohmann, and
Giorgio Levi della Vida, have determined the following: Judging
from paleography and the eighth-century date of the introduction
of paper into the Islamic world, Arabic block printing must have
begun in the ninth or tenth century; it apparently persisted into,
but probably not beyond, the fourteenth century, disappearing
even from memory by the beginning of the eighteenth century,
when the first printing press was established in Istanbul; and no
descriptions of, or even references to, printing were known in any
medieval Islamic texts.

As for the extant specimens of medieval Arabic printing, most
were amulets, that is, long, thin strips of paper bearing quotations
from the Koran, lists ofthe names of God, and other religious texts
designed to ward off evil or bring good luck. They were intended
to be rolled and enclosed in metal cylinders worn on chains around
the neck. The Columbia specimen fits this description. Although
provenance was sometimes unclear, it was assumed that all
specimens came from Egypt, for some were excavated there and
others were found in papyrus collections.