Waiting for Mteferrika Glimpses on Ottoman Print Culture [Hardcover]

This book is a study of the first Ottoman/Muslim printer Ibrahim M?teferrika and his printing activity in the first half of the eighteenth century. By reviewing the existing views in narratives dating from the fifteenth through the nineteenth century and modern scholarly works, most of them quite critically discussing the relatively late introduction of Ottoman Turkish/Muslim printing, the book argues that the delay was mainly due to the lack of an appropriate printer who would be capable and eager enough to set a printing house and whom the Ottoman authority could trust. By focusing on M?teferrikas western-formed mindset the book detects the influence of his printing enterprise upon the transition from scribal tradition to print culture.

The book sheds lighton different aspects of the emergence of the first Ottoman printing press. Italso opens multiple questions related to both the historical event ofM?teferrikas endeavour, and to modern historiographical attitude not only towardsprinting in the context of the Ottoman Empire, but also to questions of declineand comparison to developments in European public sphere. In that context, onefurther question can be posed: while comparisons with late medieval/earlymodern European experience with print is valid, is it possible to extend themto other non-European societies, such as the premodern China or India? Whatwould be the meaning of the Ottoman experiment with print then? This bookis recommended for scholars and students wishing to know more about the 18thcentury material and technological developments and the effect that M?teferrikasprinting project had on the centuries to come. Dzenita Karic,darulfunun ilahiyatVol. 30, No. 1

Orlin Sabev is Associate Professor at the Institute of Balkan Studies with Centre for Thracology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Sofia). He has published six books and over a hundred articles in Bulgarian, Turkish, and English on various topics in the field of Ottoman eduló