Kemal Beydilli, Two İbrahims: Müteferrika and His Successor – Off The Founders of The Ottoman Printing Press

Abstract

The Ottoman Turks started using the printing press technology for the first time in 1727, thanks to the efforts of İbrahim Müteferrika, a Hungarian convert to Islam. If the history of printing is examined, readers can observe that the wood- block printing in China’s Tang Dynasty had been prevalent as early as the 8th cen- tury. Over all, Muslims had good relations with Chinese during the Tang Dynasty as they borrowed papermaking technique from them but not the printing tool. Later on, the Ottomans also were not interested in it although they had contacts with China since their early days. In Germany, around 1440, goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, and there were several points of interac- tions between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. However, the Ottoman Muslims were not interested in this new innovation for a long time, although non-Muslim subjects of their Empire had shown interest early on. As well-known, Gutenberg’s important innovation was the development of hand-molded metal printing mat- rices, thus producing a movable type–based printing system which enabled large number of books, pamphlets and other materials to be printed.