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Post by Otto Kretschmer on May 30, 2024 14:12:34 GMT
What if the printing press had been invented in Baghdad around 800 AD?
The Arabs already had knowledge of paper at the time. The addition of the printing press would undoubtedly cause an even greater boom in literacy with the Islamic Golden Age being much more dramatic than it was OTL.
But what else would change?
Would there be some equivalent of the Protestant Reformation in the Muslim world given that the religious literature could now be distributed much more widely?
Would the Islamic Golden Age still wither or would it lead to something greater? Perhaps an earlier analogue to the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment?
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Post by Otto Kretschmer on Jun 1, 2024 8:06:29 GMT
Nobody?  |
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simon darkshade
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Post by simon darkshade on Jun 1, 2024 8:20:55 GMT
The Arabs had knowledge of paper and papermaking, but their heartland of the Middle East was lacking in one particular resource around this period - trees. By contrast, late Medieval Europe was built around wood, and then had access to the vast resources of North American forests.
So, an Arabian printing press would have *some* results, but I wouldn't go so far as to ascribing it the ability to create a reformation (particularly relatively soon after the establishment of the Moslem religion) or really kicking off on the same level.
As to science and some form of spreading enlightenment, that would certainly be possible. There were social, cultural and economic aspects of the world of the Arab Golden Age that militate against a simple/direct transposition of events and trends that happened in 1400s and 1500s Christian Europe; some of these are explored in the last episode of Michael Wood's 1991 documentary series 'Legacy - The Origins of Civilisation' , entitled 'The Barbarian West'.
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Post by Otto Kretschmer on Jun 1, 2024 8:35:35 GMT
I mean, paper already caused an explosion of scientific output in the Islamic world so a combo of paper and the printing press should cause an even greater explosion, shouldn't it?
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simon darkshade
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Post by simon darkshade on Jun 1, 2024 9:11:42 GMT
It isn’t simply a matter of “Add printing press = Profit”, among the other issues raised, in some detail, in my initial response.
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575
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Post by 575 on Jun 1, 2024 9:57:38 GMT
I mean, paper already caused an explosion of scientific output in the Islamic world so a combo of paper and the printing press should cause an even greater explosion, shouldn't it? Have a look here scroll down page to the next episode and get the history of the use of the printing press for printing the Koran. Though do start at the first episode to get the broad picture.  |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jun 1, 2024 9:58:09 GMT
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Post by Max Sinister on Jun 1, 2024 18:45:34 GMT
This PoD has been used (in a similar way) In GURPS Alternate Earths book 2, in the Caliph TL.
A possible problem besides the lack of paper (wouldn't matter that much in the beginning, first books in Western Europe also were quite expensive): The guilds of scribes in the Ottoman Empire were very powerful and wouldn't have liked the new competition. Also, calligraphy is esteemed very much in the area. They may not have liked how the results of printing Arab letters with this would have looked like.
Furthermore, "The [Arab] script is written from right to left in a cursive style, in which most of the letters are written in slightly different forms according to whether they stand alone or are joined to a following or preceding letter". So it'd be a bit more complicated to build than a printing press for the Latin alphabet.
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575
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Post by 575 on Jun 1, 2024 20:05:00 GMT
Regarding paper the Muslims control the papyrusproduction.. you could print on such.. european books were expensive because they were printed on vellum - hugely manpower and time consuming..
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Post by American hist on Jun 2, 2024 4:21:10 GMT
It would have certainly helped the Islamic golden age and I wonder what would the effects of it be . I am thinking about it earlier industrial revolution however neither is Long nor medieval Europe truly have capitalism. The number one book printed from the printing press would be the Quran and not the Bible .
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Post by Otto Kretschmer on Jun 2, 2024 5:20:45 GMT
It would have certainly helped the Islamic golden age and I wonder what would the effects of it be . I am thinking about it earlier industrial revolution however neither is Long nor medieval Europe truly have capitalism. The number one book printed from the printing press would be the Quran and not the Bible . In Europe the effects were dramatic - the price of books fell from one book costing as much as a house to costing a single teacher's salary. We're talking of a 100 times decrease in price if not more. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jun 2, 2024 11:48:40 GMT
It would have certainly helped the Islamic golden age and I wonder what would the effects of it be . I am thinking about it earlier industrial revolution however neither is Long nor medieval Europe truly have capitalism. The number one book printed from the printing press would be the Quran and not the Bible . In Europe the effects were dramatic - the price of books fell from one book costing as much as a house to costing a single teacher's salary. We're talking of a 100 times decrease in price if not more.
The other big impact was probably it effectively broke both the power of the church in virtually monopolizing education and the creation of books and since many printers published in their native language undermined Latin as the standard tongue for such works, possibly helping with the strengthening of national identities based on language.
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