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At
one remote point in the evolution of our
ancestors, there came the need to find
ways of making communication and of
recording information more efficient and
durable. Ever since, mankind experimented
and improved the skills to achieve this.
Initial developments for imprinting
symbols on a surface included the use of
waxed boards, leaves, bronze, silk, and
clay tablets. The big leap, however, came
with the invention, and consequently, the
popularization of paper. This allowed
people to record and spread exact
information in great quantities quickly
and inexpensively. Ultimately, we could
argue that
paper enabled human civilization to
evolve.
But how and when was paper invented? What
historical circumstances allowed the white
sheet to spread around the globe? And who
were the people initially responsible for
making the material the popular medium of
today?
One clue providing a partial answer to the
above is hidden in the etymology of the
English word ream. The term ream refers to
a bundle of twenty quires, or 500 sheets,
of paper. Ream is ultimately derived from
the Arabic word “rizmah.” It
translates as a bale or a bundle. The word
made its way to the English tongue through
the Spanish “resma,” and then the Old
French “rayme.” As this word’s
history suggests, paper owes a great deal
to the rise of Arab civilization. To
obtain a complete view of the long road of
paper however, we first need to go back a
little further.
Invention
and Early History of Paper
It is believed that in the year 104 or 105
AD, paper was born by the efforts of a
Chinese court official. The name of this
man was Ts'ai Lun. According to ancient
records, the Empress of China appointed
him to create a new, less expensive
material for making books. Ts’ai Lun’s
labors took over nine years, at the end of
which he came up with the first ever sheet
of paper.
About six centuries later, in 751 A.D. the
Chinese army attacked the Arabs in the
famous battle of Talas near Samarkand. The
Chinese failed to defeat the Arabs who
managed to capture some of the retreating
invaders. Among the captives were a number
of papermakers. In exchange for their
freedom, they passed on the knowledge of
paper making to the locals. Seeing the
potential value of paper, the Arabs soon
made Samarkand the hub of papermaking.
Shortly afterwards, paper became an
indispensable commodity. Paper mills
multiplied from the end of the 8th
century. Baghdad became another focal
point for papermaking and stationery. The
famous writer and paper dealer Ahmed ibn
Abi Tahir (819-890) had located his
business at the Souq al-Warraqin (the
Stationers' Market) - a Baghdad main
street with over one hundred paper stores
and book outlets.
The spread of the use of paper in ninth
century Arabia thus helped Arab spiritual
intellectuals gather and preserve on paper
the “ Hadith”, or traditions of
Prophet Mohammed. The “Hadith” had
previously only been preserved through
oral communication. Another very important
development that the use of paper
facilitated was in the field of
mathematics, and more precisely in the
science of algebra. During the period in
which paper was being made available
across the Arab region, the Hindu system
of reckoning with decimal place-value
numerals was entering westward areas.
Mohammed ibn Musa Al Khwarizmi (780-850
AD), the renowned Arab mathematician (see
Al Shindagah issue 48, “Arab Algebra and
Mathematics”), composed the first book
of Hindu reckoning. It introduced what
today is known as "Arabic
numerals", and algebraic calculation,
which could be done using paper.
Previously to this development, people had
no choice but to perform calculations only
mentally. They had to enter midway results
either on a dust-board or by positioning
their fingers in a certain way, known as
finger-reckoning.
Today,
the oldest existing sample of Arab paper
from this period is preserved in the
Vatican Library. The manuscript that was
written on it contains a mainly religious
text, which was inscribed in Damascus,
Syria, at the turn of the 9th century.
Today, the oldest existing sample of Arab
paper from this period is preserved in the
Vatican Library. The manuscript that was
written on it contains a mainly religious
text, which was inscribed in Damascus,
Syria, at the turn of the 9th century. The
sacred quality of the text denotes the
significance of paper at that time
Apart from contributing for the
preservation and the spread of texts of
faith, paper in the late 9th century
served various cultural functions in
Arabia. Paper allowed for new literary
styles to develop and spread in the form
of books. Entertainment works such as The
Thousand and One Nights, (see Al Shindagah
issue 47, “1001 Arabian Nights”) were
produced and made popular - even to the
present day. Indicative of this are early
remnants such as one sheet of paper found
in Egypt. It is now preserved in the
collection of Oriental Institute in
Chicago. It comprises of the title and the
introduction of earliest surviving copy of
the famous Thousand and One Nights.
The earliest known surviving book written
in Arabic on paper is Kitab Gharib al-Hadith,
or The Book of Linguistic Difficulties in
the Traditions of the Prophet, - a
grammatical composition written in
November or December of 866. It was
written by Abu 'Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam
and is now kept in the Leiden University
Library. The paper material of the book is
dark brown, opaque, and stiff. It is
strong, and of medium thickness. Finds
such as the ones described above show that
paper was important in the Islamic culture
for secular and theological manuscripts at
least from the ninth century - much
earlier that it reached Europe and the
West.
By the end of the following centenary, at
about 985, paper was recognised as one of
Egypt's major products. Upon visiting
Egypt a few decades later, a Persian
explorer, Nasir-i Khusraw, tells that in
the bazaars of Fustat - Old Cairo -
shopkeepers and merchants gave free paper
bags to buyers to carry their purchases.
Interestingly, at the same early period,
the used paper material was being recycled
as this was cheaper that making new paper.
After it was established in Egypt, the
making of paper continued spreading
westward into the North African Arab
lands. Prince al-Mu'izz ibn Badis, who
ruled the territory of present day Tunisia
and eastern Algeria from 1016 to 1062,
included a section of papermaking in one
of his books “The Support of Scribe”.
Other sections of the book deal with the
sizing of paper with equal quantities of
chalk and starch, or with rice starch, and
dyeing paper different colors. By the end
of the 10th century, paper had completely
taken the place of parchment and papyrus
in the Arab world. The Arab historian 'Abd
al-Malik al-Tha'alibi of the 11th century
wrote that paper’s “value was
universally recognized and people
everywhere used it." Papermaking had
now spread to Baghdad, to Damascus and
Cairo, and to other vital Arab towns in
Morocco, Tunisia and elsewhere.
Introduction
of Paper from Arabia to Europe
It took nearly half a millennium from
Samarkand before Europeans found out about
papermaking. The Moorish Muslim conquest
of Spain brought paper-making into Europe.
The first paper mill in Europe was built
by the Arabs in 1056 in Xativa, Spain.
Paper also penetrated Christian Europe in
the late 11th century through Italian
ports that had trading connections with
the Arabs. Paper in Italy began to be used
first in Sicily, where the Normans
observed the Arab practice, and then
spread it northwards. Later, in 1276,
paper was introduced in Fabriano, Italy.
It reached Germany in about 1390.
Naturally, from this period on, paper
became popular quickly throughout the
whole of Europe and then into the New
World.
Nowadays, paper is an indispensable part
of our everyday reality. Among many other
activities, we could not possibly have
printing, media, and entertainment without
it. Worldwide, there are over a billion
magazine publications, around 2 billion
books, and an estimated 25 billion
newspapers. They are all possible to make
because of paper. The list is endless, but
it is just enough to consider paper board
games, paper toys, and all the theatre and
cinema tickets. For less obvious examples,
even your television set and other
electronic devices around the house
contain paper. And, as in the remote past
in the bazaars of Cairo, most of
everything produced needs to be packaged.
Paper packaging helps the global industry
by making possible the transportation of
fragile items, for example. From the
shipping of bottles, to drinking glasses,
to costly home theatre systems -
everything is protected by paper. In fact,
the largest amount of paper usage around
the world is corrugated paperboard. It is
used to transport ninety five percent of
all produced items because of its main
advantages - being much less heavy and
easier to recycle than the crates made of
wood, which were used in the past.
Furthermore, can we just imagine education
and business activity to be conducted
without the help of paper? Apart from
using it daily to record information on,
paper serves us as money in the form of
bank notes and checks, passports, birth,
marriage, and divorce documents, and
virtually any of the certificates on which
we depend. And, paper usage doesn’t end
with this. Paper is employed in the making
of our own homes as a part of decoration
and sometimes even as a formational
ingredient. It is used for insulation, for
example, or in gypsum and acoustical
boards, for wallpapers, flooring, and
shingles. It is also used for support in
masking tape and in sandpaper.
With all the possible uses of paper, since
its earliest days we have made the white
sheet a dear necessity. And, to use a
popular business phrase, supply has hardly
met demand. At about the beginning of the
last century, started the mass production
of paper. It was produced inexpensively
and quickly. Hand made paper therefore
started disappearing progressively.
Publications of all types grew at
astonishing rates. Paper started being
used in education institutions such as
schools and universities. After this
evolution of mass produced paper, we can
easily fall into the trap of forgetting
about the worth of paper. And can one
blame himself, because, at present there
are over a thousand types of paper
throughout the world. As a concluding
observation, paper would not have been
with us today if there was no Smarkand and
if the Arabs with the papermaking skills
they acquired and enhanced did not realize
the potential of paper. The spreading and
popularization of paper and papermaking
proficiency in the Arab lands during the
period between the eighth and the fourteen
centuries was responsible for immense
advancements in varied fields. From
algebra and mathematics, to astronomy and
architecture, to commerce and the arts,
paper enabled the formation of a different
course of history, as we know it. Its
results are being well felt to the present
day.
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