The First Ottoman printing press, authorized in 1727, was a tightly controlled exception to a long-standing prohibition on Muslim printing in Arabic. Its small output and the continued dominance of hand-copying show that permission to use a new technology did not amount to institutional openness: the press was monitored in ways that protected religious and political authority from the disruptive spread of ideas.

Prohibition and Permission

Movable-type printing had spread through much of Europe after Johannes Gutenberg introduced his press in Mainz in 1445. In the Ottoman Empire, however, Sultan Bayezid II issued an edict in 1485 expressly forbidding Muslims from printing in Arabic. Sultan Selim I reinforced the rule in 1515. The first press was not permitted in Ottoman lands until 1727, more than two centuries after the initial ban.

That permission came through a decree by Sultan Ahmed III, which allowed İbrahim Müteferrika to establish a press. The decree described the Western technique as something that would be unveiled like a bride, but the metaphor of welcome was qualified by close supervision. Rather than authorize printing without restriction, the state allowed it on terms that kept its products subject to review.

Oversight and Limited Output

The decree placed proofreading in the hands of three religious and legal scholars, the Kadis of Istanbul, Selaniki, and Galata, together with a religious scholar from the Kasim Paşa Mevlevihane. The stated aim was to ensure that printed books were free of errors. In practice, this arrangement made the new press answerable to an appointed panel before its books could circulate.

Müteferrika’s press began operating in 1729. By the time he stopped working in 1743, it had printed only seventeen books. His family tried to continue the work, but managed to produce just seven more before abandoning the effort in 1797. The limited record makes the distinction between introducing a technology and allowing it to transform society especially clear: the press existed, but its reach remained narrow.

Print, Literacy, and Authority

Printing continued to lag across the Ottoman Empire. In Egypt, the first press was established in 1798 by Frenchmen accompanying Napoleon Bonaparte’s abortive attempt to capture the country. Well into the second half of the nineteenth century, books in the Ottoman Empire were still produced primarily by scribes copying existing texts by hand. In the early eighteenth century, Istanbul was reputed to have eighty thousand scribes, an indication of how extensive the older system remained.

The book connects this resistance to the political effects of literacy and access to knowledge. In 1800, it estimates that only 2 to 3 percent of Ottoman citizens were literate, compared with 60 percent of adult men and 40 percent of adult women in England. It attributes the contrast not simply to the availability of a machine but to the institutions governing its use. Books could make new economic ideas more accessible, weaken the control of those who held knowledge through oral transmission, and allow ideas that challenged the political and social order to spread. The sultans and religious establishment feared that creative disruption; restricting printing helped protect the existing balance of power.