Although the Chinese seem initially to have considered paper as a type of textile and used it for wrapping, they came to appreciate its qualities as a medium on which to write and draw by the first century of the Common Era. The Chinese traditionally credit a certain Cai Lun with "inventing" paper in 105 CE, but this only means that paper was used for writing around this time. Chinese Buddhists soon carried paper and papermaking throughout east, south, and Central Asia as they searched for and transmitted Buddhist texts. When they conquered Central Asia in the seventh century, Muslim Arabs encountered paper and quickly adopted it, carrying papermaking west across Asia and North Africa. By the year 1000 it was being made as far west as al-Andalus, the area of the Iberian peninsula under Muslim control. European Christians first encountered paper either there or in the Arab lands of North Africa and the Levant, where they were increasing led by trade and religion. By the thirteenth century Italians were making paper more efficiently and cheaply at Fabriano and other cities, and the era of Arab-Islamic papermaking in the Mediterranean region began to decline towards extinction, such that the long and important history of paper in the Islamic lands is known only to scholars. One word, however, reminds us of our debt to Arab-Islamic papermakers: the word "ream," which refers to a pack of 500 (formerly 480) sheets of paper, comes from the Arabic word rizma meaning "bundle." It is often said that Chinese prisoners of war, captured at the Battle of Talas in Central Asia in 751, brought knowledge of papermaking to the Arabs, but that story—just like the one about Cai Lun—should also be treated skeptically. Merchants, missionaries, and bureaucrats in Central Asia had used paper for centuries, and it must have been manufactured there long before Arab armies arrived. The prisoner story, which an Arab author first recounted some four centuries after the supposed event, was a way of saying that paper and papermaking came ultimately from China. In contrast to papermakers in humid, southeast China who made their paper from bast fibers taken from the inner bark of woody shrubs, papermakers in arid Central Asia learned to make paper from refuse materials containing cellulose, such as rags and old sacks and ropes, as well as from such plant fibers as hemp, flax, and cotton. Papermakers in the Islamic lands consequently learned to use both new and recycled fibers to make their paper. When Europeans eventually learned about making paper, they thought it could be made only from linen (and cotton) rags. It was only in the eighteenth century that European papermakers, faced with a shortage of suitable rags, began experimenting with other sources of fiber. They discovered that cellulose, which was only identified in the nineteenth century, could be extracted from wood, although they did not initially realize that the chemicals and processes used to extract the cellulose produced poor paper. Before Muslims wrote on paper, they used papyrus and parchment, the two common writing materials of the Mediterranean lands and the Near East. The papyrus plant grew best in Egypt, and from about 3000 BCE, sheets and rolls made from papyrus centuries. Eventually even there paper became the norm along with the vertical (portrait) format. Although most old Arabic manuscripts have been trimmed at their edges, their size and proportions give an indication of the types of moulds papermakers used. In the age before printing there was no point making larger sheets that would have to be cut to size or folded more than once. The Egyptian historian al-Qalqashandi (d. 1418) enumerated nine sizes of paper, of which the largest was full-sized Baghdadi, measuring approximately 27 x 40 inches (70 x 100 cm), half-Baghdadi (20 x 27 inches (50 x 70 cm), etc. While these sizes conform roughly to those of some extant manuscripts, no moulds have survived from the medieval Arab world, so a reconstruction of the papermaker's methods relies heavily on informed guesswork. One unusually large manuscript of the Qur'an was produced at Samarkand circa 1400 on sheets measuring 5 x 7 feet (2.2 x 1.5 meters), approximately eight times larger than the full-Baghdadi sheet. Each sheet (see fig. 5) has seven lines of majestic script, suggesting that there were originally some 1,600 leaves. None of the leaves, which are unusually thick, has any text on the back, possibly because the surface was too rough for calligraphy. One may imagine that the size of the project precluded using a traditional dipping mould, which would have been too large and heavy to handle. Most likely papermakers used floating moulds in which the just-formed sheets dried, leaving one surface unsuitable for calligraphy. Only a very few texts from the period actually describe papermaking. The eleventh-century North African prince Mu izz ibn Badis wrote a treatise on the book arts in which he instructs the reader to make paper from white flax, which is soaked in water, pounded in a mortar, and made into sheets on moulds "made from straw used for baskets, and nails, and the walls are collapsible…. \[The pulp\] is spread with the hand flat in the mold so that it will not be thick in one place and thin in another. When it is evened out, it is \[allowed through the development of systems of paper-based notation that included drawings, stencils, and architectural plans. Muslims were not the only ones to take advantage of the new medium, for the earliest surviving book on "Arab" paper is actually a manuscript of the Doctrina Patrum, the teachings of the Church Fathers, written in Greek at Damascus in Syria around 800 and now in the Vatican (Gr. 2200). The oldest dated book in Arabic on paper is a copy of Abu ‘Ubayd's Gharib al-hadith, an account of unusual terms in the sayings of the Prophet, copied in 866 and now in the Netherlands (Leiden University Library, Or. 298; see fig. 2). The paper is brown, full of inclusions, and rather brittle, with a tendency to delaminate at the edges. This has led some scholars to suppose that the pages were pasted up from two thin sheets. In truth, the sheets were sized with starch and burnished with a hard, smooth stone, a typical treatment in the Islamic lands which strengthens and smoothes the surface but weakens the internal cohesion of the sheet; eventual fraying at the edges gives the appearance of delamination. By the tenth century, calligraphers in Iran began to copy the Qur'an on paper. One copy done by Ali ibn Sadan al-Razi, who came from near modern Tehran, in 971–2, is on portrait-format pages that measured approximately 10 x 7 inches; another copy was written at Isfahan in 993 on brownish pages about twice as large but in landscape format (approximately 9.5 x 14 inches before trimming; see fig. 3). The vertical format, however, would become increasingly popular, although a square format continued to be used in the western Islamic lands of North Africa and Spain. The celebrated copy of the Qur'an made by the noted calligrapher ‘Ali ibn al-Bawwab in 999-1000 at Baghdad, and now in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, is on "mellow brown" pages measuring about 7 x 5.5 inches (see fig. 4). By the eleventh century, virtually all copies of the Qur'an were done on paper, except in North Africa and al-Andalus, where parchment continued to be used for some were exported throughout the Mediterranean region. Parchment, which was made from the skin of animals that had been soaked in lime, scraped, and dried under tension, could be made virtually anywhere; it was more expensive than papyrus because it involved killing an animal. Parchment was typically used in the lands to the east of the Mediterranean, especially by the ancient Hebrews, who copied their Torah on parchment scrolls. In the first centuries after Christ, Christians preferred the codex format for copying their scriptures, which they did on parchment as it could withstand the repeated folding a codex format implied. In the seventh century when Muslims began copying their scriptures—God's revelation to the Prophet Muhammad which is known as the Qur'an (or Koran)—they used codices made of parchment sheets, usually in landscape (horizontal) format, while they used papyrus sheets for other purposes, such as decrees, documents, correspondence, and accounts. As the size of the Muslim empire—and bureaucracy—burgeoned, particularly after the Abbasid dynasty came to power in Iraq in 750, the need for writing materials increased. Paper was poised to fill that need, and within a few decades paper is reported to have been made at Baghdad, the new Abbasid capital. Although calligraphers continued for several centuries to copy manuscripts of the Qur'an on parchment, writers began to use paper for all other types of writing and the production of papyrus ceased. Over the course of the ninth century there was an explosion of writing in Arabic, as writers used the new material to compose books on myriad subjects from astronomy (see fig. 1) to zoology, and theology to cookery. The introduction of paper to the Islamic lands had an effect comparable to the introduction of printing with moveable type in fifteenth-century Europe. Paper propelled a burst of intellectual creativity and broadened literacy unlike anything the world had ever seen. In subsequent centuries, as paper became cheaper and more widely available in the Muslim lands, it also encouraged the transformation of traditional arts to partly\] dry properly in its mold. When the desired \[result\] is attained, it is adjusted on a flat tablet. Then it is bound to a wall and straightened with the hand. It is left until it is dry, when it separates and falls off."1 A thirteenth-century Yemeni text instructs the papermaker to use the bast fiber of the fig tree, which is repeatedly soaked, fermented, dried, and beaten. The papermaker then "dips the mold into the vat and covers it with a certain amount of pulp until it is level and all the sides of the sheet are even, according to the thickness he desires. When the sheet of paper is leveled in the mold, he has at his side a flat wooden board the same size as the mold… \[which he covers\] with a white cloth. And whenever he forms a sheet in the mold, he turns the mold on its face, the side which contains the sheet, and rubs it several times with the side of the palm of this hand until the sheet falls off the mold and rests on the cloth-covered board.2 These two texts reveal that some papermakers used bast fibers and floating moulds, and others did not. Close inspection of surviving examples shows that papermakers used rags and dipping moulds as well. Ibn Badis explains that his mould had removable deckle sticks, but there is no reason to believe that all moulds were like his. Careful examination of the chain lines visible on some medieval Islamic papers suggests that the screens were made of oiled vegetal fiber since they tended to sag over time, unlike the wires later used in Italy. On some papers no mould marks are visible at all. Furthermore, there seems to have been enormous regional variation in the number and arrangement of the chain lines, which could be single, double, or triple and alternate in various ways. Paper made in the Iberian peninsula often shows a series of parallel diagonal lines known as zig-zags, whose origin and purpose are unknown, but which may have been intended to resemble the marks made by parchmenters' scrapers. One may conclude that no single type of "Arab" or "Islamic" paper exists; papermakers in the Arab and Islamic lands used a variety of techniques at different times. Perhaps the greatest difficulty in studying "Islamic" paper, in contrast to European papers, is that they were never watermarked, as the technique was only invented at Fabriano in Italy in the midthirteenth century. Once formed and dried, the sheet of paper was sized, usually with wheat or rice starch but sometimes with egg white and alum, and burnished on a smooth surface with a hard stone to give it an even finish that would allow the calligrapher's reed pen to glide across the surface and prevent the ink from bleeding through to the other side. Ink for use on paper was normally made from lampblack bound with a medium such as gum arabic. Early calligraphers working on parchment had used ferro-tannic inks, in which iron salts turn black when exposed to the tannic acid in oak galls. Sometimes the ferro-tannic inks were combined with carbon inks for use on paper. These tannic inks tended to bleed—or even eat— through the paper and/or create faint haloes around the calligraphy (see fig. 3 which shows the tannic staining through the paper). Major improvements in papermaking techniques seem to have occurred by the thirteenth century, particularly in Iran and the eastern Islamic lands, for some sheets became noticeably whiter and finer in quality, and larger in size. These improvements are particularly apparent on manuscripts associated with the patronage of the new Mongol rulers of Iran in such cities as Baghdad and Tabriz. It is very tempting to understand it as a product of renewed contact with Chinese papermakers in the wake of the pax mongolica, which opened up most of Asia to the easy back-and-forth flow of men and ideas. The finest papers, such as that used for a manuscript of the Qur'an penned in 1307 by the noted calligrapher Ahmad ibn al-Suhrawardi (see fig. 6), are flawlessly smooth and snowy white, then burnished to perfection, allowing the calligrapher's pen, which he charged with jet-black ink, to flow effortlessly across the page. The arts of the book flourished in Iran and the east from the fourteenth century to the seventeenth, as rulers of the Ilkhanid (Mongol), Timurid, Turkoman, Safavid, and Uzbek courts commissioned splendid manuscripts of the Qur'an, as well as of literary and poetic works written in Persian for their personal libraries. Written on extremely fine, strong, and white papers, these secular manuscripts were often embellished with illustrations of episodes in the text as well as with decorative geometric and vegetal illumination on title pages and between sections of text done in opaque watercolors often with the addition of silver and gold highlights. On the finest manuscripts, such as a two-volume copy of the Shahnama, or "Book of Kings" copied for the Safavid shah Tahmasp in the 1520s and 1530s with over 250 illustrations, the calligraphy and paintings were mounted onto large and beautiful framing sheets of paper that had been liberally flecked with gold (see fig. 7). The taste for magnificent manuscripts spread from Iran to Egypt, where many of the Mamluk sultans (1260–1517) commissioned large and splendidly illuminated copies of the Qur'an for the charitable foundations they established in Cairo, and to the Ottoman Empire and India, which began to emerge as centers of book production at this time. Curiously, the Byzantines of Constantinople do not seem to have manufactured paper although they certainly learned of it through their early and extensive contacts with the Arabs. After the Latin conquest of Constantinople in the thirteenth century, European paper was used increasingly in the city, but it never seems to have been made there until after the Ottoman conquest in 1453. From that time, Istanbul—as the city came to be known—became a major center of book production and collection, and to this day the libraries of Istanbul at Topkapı Palace Museum and other institutions remain major repositories of Islamic manuscripts from all over the Muslim world. Although the Persians had probably first discovered the technique of decoratively marbling paper, the art of ebru (Persian abri, "watered") flourished in the Ottoman Empire, where it was used for mounting drawings and calligraphies and from where it ultimately passed to Europe. Although Buddhists had undoubtedly brought paper from China to India when they went there in search of Buddhist texts, paper seems not to have been manufactured in India until the fourteenth century, after a permanent Muslim presence had been established in northern India. The Indians' reluctance to adopt paper was probably due to the easy availability of palm leaves, which were widely used as a support for writing. Muslim traders who settled on the coast of Gujerat in the eleventh century had to send to Egypt for their supplies of paper. The spread of Islam in India, along with the need to have copies of the Qur'an as well as religious and scientific texts, not to mention copies of Persian poetical works, spurred the increased production of books on paper in the fifteenth century. During the sixteenth century, the Mughal emperors (who ruled from 1524 through1856) brought a taste for Persianate
(who ruled from 1524 through1856) brought a taste for Persianate book culture to the courts of northern India. Paper began to be
book culture to the courts of northern India. Paper began to be produced in great quantity and quality, such that by the eighteenth
produced in great quantity and quality, such that by the eighteenth century, paper from Dawlatabad was exported to Iran, where local
century, paper from Dawlatabad was exported to Iran, where local production had declined in the face of imports from Europe and
production had declined in the face of imports from Europe and eventually from Russia.
eventually from Russia. Europeans had begun producing paper in the Middle Ages,
Europeans had begun producing paper in the Middle Ages, and Italian production at such centers as Fabriano was so successful
and Italian production at such centers as Fabriano was so successful that merchants began to export paper to Middle Eastern
that merchants began to export paper to Middle Eastern markets, often below the cost of production. Early European paper,
markets, often below the cost of production. Early European paper, which was made to compete on its home turf with stiff parchment,
which was made to compete on its home turf with stiff parchment, was sized with glue or gelatin to provide a hard surface resistant
was sized with glue or gelatin to provide a hard surface resistant to the scratching of quill pens. Muslims normally used reed pens,
to the scratching of quill pens. Muslims normally used reed pens, and some Arab authors complained of the poor quality of European
and some Arab authors complained of the poor quality of European imports. Nevertheless, the efficiencies of European production
imports. Nevertheless, the efficiencies of European production quickly sounded the death knell of papermaking in most of the
quickly sounded the death knell of papermaking in most of the Islamic lands. By the early fifteenth century, a jurisconsult in western
Islamic lands. By the early fifteenth century, a jurisconsult in western Algeria had to write a long legal opinion on the permissibility
Algeria had to write a long legal opinion on the permissibility of copying the Qur'an on European paper watermarked with objectionable
of copying the Qur'an on European paper watermarked with objectionable symbols, such as crosses or depictions of animals and
symbols, such as crosses or depictions of animals and people. Faced with the inevitable, he wrote that just as the Qur'an
people. Faced with the inevitable, he wrote that just as the Qur'an had superseded all previous revelations, writing God's word on a
had superseded all previous revelations, writing God's word on a sheet of watermarked paper replaced falsehood with truth (see fig. 8).
sheet of watermarked paper replaced falsehood with truth (see fig. 8). The long and vibrant tradition of Arab-Islamic papermaking
The long and vibrant tradition of Arab-Islamic papermaking ultimately fell prey to the development of a more "technicalistic"
ultimately fell prey to the development of a more "technicalistic" attitude in Europe, particularly in the period after 1500, in which
attitude in Europe, particularly in the period after 1500, in which technical precision was expected to bring about impersonal efficiency
technical precision was expected to bring about impersonal efficiency in a variety of human endeavors including the production of
in a variety of human endeavors including the production of paper and ultimately books. The efficiency and scale of European
paper and ultimately books. The efficiency and scale of European paper production, which spread from southern Europe to northern
paper production, which spread from southern Europe to northern Europe and eventually throughout the world, is quite another story,
Europe and eventually throughout the world, is quite another story, but our eternal debt to the Muslim papermakers of the Middle
but our eternal debt to the Muslim papermakers of the Middle Ages remains clear.
Ages remains clear.
note to readers Examples of early Arab and Islamic papers can be found in many museums and libraries in the United States, including Chicago,
museums and libraries in the United States, including Chicago, IL: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago; Cambridge,
IL: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Libraries and the Harvard Art Museums;
MA: Harvard University Libraries and the Harvard Art Museums; Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York:
Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Morgan Library & Museum;
the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Morgan Library & Museum; and Washington, DC: The Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian
and Washington, DC: The Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution.
Institution.

futher reading

Jonathan M. Bloom. Paper before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
Paper in the Islamic World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. Adam Gacek. "On the Making of Local Paper. A Thirteenth Century
Adam Gacek. "On the Making of Local Paper. A Thirteenth Century Yemeni Recipe." Revue des mondes musulmanes et de la Méditerranée
Yemeni Recipe." Revue des mondes musulmanes et de la Méditerranée 99–100 (2002): 79–93.
99–100 (2002): 79–93. Leor Halevi. "Christian Impurity versus Economic Necessity: A
Leor Halevi. "Christian Impurity versus Economic Necessity: A Fifteenth-Century Fatwa on European Paper." Speculum 83 (2008):
Fifteenth-Century Fatwa on European Paper." Speculum 83 (2008): 917–945.
917–945. Martin Levey. Mediaeval Arabic Bookmaking and its Relation to Early
Martin Levey. Mediaeval Arabic Bookmaking and its Relation to Early Chemistry and Pharmacology. Philadelphia: Transactions of the
Chemistry and Pharmacology. Philadelphia: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s., vol. 52, pt. 4. Philadelphia:
American Philosophical Society, n.s., vol. 52, pt. 4. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1962.
American Philosophical Society, 1962. Helen Loveday. Islamic Paper, a Study of the Ancient Craft. London,
Helen Loveday. Islamic Paper, a Study of the Ancient Craft. London, The Don Baker Memorial Fund. Distributed by Archetype Publications,
The Don Baker Memorial Fund. Distributed by Archetype Publications, 2001.
2001. Neeta Premchand. Off the Deckle Edge: A Papermaking Journey
Neeta Premchand. Off the Deckle Edge: A Papermaking Journey through India. Bombay: The Ankur Project, 1995.
through India. Bombay: The Ankur Project, 1995. Alexandra Soteriou. Gift of Conquerors: Hand Papermaking in India.
Alexandra Soteriou. Gift of Conquerors: Hand Papermaking in India. Middletown, NJ: Grantha Corporation, 1999.
Middletown, NJ: Grantha Corporation, 1999. ___________
___________ notes
notes 1. Martin Levy, "Mediaeval Arabic Bookmaking and its Relation to Early Chemistry
1. Martin Levy, "Mediaeval Arabic Bookmaking and its Relation to Early Chemistry and Pharmacology," Transactions of the American Philosophical Society,
and Pharmacology," Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s., vol. 52, pt. 4 (September 1962), 39–40.
n.s., vol. 52, pt. 4 (September 1962), 39–40. 2. Adam Gacek, "On the Making of Local Paper. A Thirteenth Century Yemeni
2. Adam Gacek, "On the Making of Local Paper. A Thirteenth Century Yemeni Recipe," Revue des mondes musulmanes et de la Méditerranée 99–100 (2002):
Recipe," Revue des mondes musulmanes et de la Méditerranée 99–100 (2002): 85–91.
85–91. Folio (

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