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Arab Booksellers and Bookshops in the Age of Printing, 1850–1914

2010; Routledge; Volume: 37; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13530191003661146

1469-3542

Ami Ayalon,

African history and culture analysis

Abstract The emergence of massive printing in the Arab Middle East in the nineteenth century entailed a multiple set of changes. As well as the production of written texts in unprecedented quantities and the rise of a big reading public, that historic shift also gave birth to a range of diffusion channels-from bookshops to public libraries and from newspaper agents to reading clubs-which carried the printed works to their audiences. This article examines a small section of this scene: the growth, spreading and changing characteristics of book dealerships and bookshops in the Arab Ottoman provinces during the formative half-century prior to World War I. Exploring this mechanism casts light on the nature and pace of printing assimilation in the region, projecting it as a rather dramatic makeover. Acknowledgements Research for this study was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 473/05), which the author acknowledges with gratitude. The author is also grateful to the two anonymous British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies reviewers for their most helpful comments. Notes 1 Yusuf Asaf and Qaysar Nasr, Dalil Misr li-‘Amay 1889–1890 (Cairo, 1889), p. 228. Slightly different advertisements by Hindiyya appeared in Ibrahim ‘Abd al-Masih, Dalil Wadi al-Nil li-‘Amay 1891, 1892 (Cairo, 1892), inside back cover, and in al-Ahram, 20 April 1889, p. 3. 2 For a survey of the scholarship on this and related issues, see Geoffrey Roper, ‘The Printing Press and Change in the Arab World’, in Sabrina Alcron Baron et al. (eds), Agent of Change; Print Culture Studies After Elizabeth Eisenstein (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007), pp. 251–267. A recent explanation is Metin Kunt, ‘Reading Elite, Elite Reading,’ paper presented at the Second International Symposium on the History of Printing and Publishing in the Languages and Countries of the Middle East, Paris, 2–4 November 2005. 3 For printing under Muhammad ‘Ali, see Jamal al-Din al-Shayyal, Ta'rikh al-Tarjama wa-l-Haraka al-Thaqafiyya fi Misr fi ‘Ahd Muhammad ‘Ali (Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaqafa al-Diniyya, 2000); ‘Ayida Ibrahim Nusayr, Harakat Nashr al-Kutub fi Misr fi al-Qarn al-Tasi‘ ‘Ashar (Cairo: al-Hay'a al-Misriyya al-‘Amma li-l-Kitab, 1994), pp. 54–62, 89–93, 179–198 and 243–259. 4 According to Nusayr, Harakat Nashr, pp. 53–98, over 10,000 titles were printed in Egypt by 1900 in over seven million copies. For Lebanon, Luis Shaykhu offered a partial list of 1516 titles for the period up to 1900 in his Ta'rikh Fann al-Tiba‘a fi al-Mashriq (Beirut: Dar al-Mashriq, 1995), pp. 43–149. Shaykhu, however, chose to exclude hundreds of works that he deemed ‘useless’, and seems to have been unaware of numerous others. See Ami Ayalon, ‘Private Publishing in the Nah a’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 40 (2008), pp. 561–577. 5 Muhammad ‘Izzat Darwaza, Mudhakkirat 1305–1404/1887–1984, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami, 1993), p. 160, referring to his childhood around 1900. 6 See, for example, Etan Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work: Ibn āwūs and his Library (Leiden: Brill, 1992), especially pp. 71ff. 7 Filib di Tarrazi, Khaza'in al-Kutub al-‘Arabiyya fi al-Khafiqayn, Vol. 3 (Beirut: Wizarat al-Tarbiyya al-Wataniyya wa-l-Funun al-Jamila, 1948), pp. 909–917. 8 For some examples of such accounts, see Edward W. Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (Cairo: Livres de France, 1978), p. 210; John Bowring, Report on the Commercial Statistics of Syria (New York: Arno Press, 1973 [reprint of the 1840 edition]), p. 106; Charles Warren, Underground Jerusalem (London: Richard Bentley, 1876), pp. 491–492; and Nelly Hanna, In Praise of Books (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2003), p. 93. For similar accounts of the Istanbul book trade prior to and in the early nineteenth century, see Ömer Faruk Yilmaz, Tarih Boyunca Sahhāflık ve İstanbul Sahhāflar Çarşısı (Istanbul: Sahhaflar Derneği, 2005), especially pp. 11–31 and 71–89. 9 Lane, Manners, p. 210. 10 Nusayr, Harakat Nashr, pp. 465–470. 11 Hadiqat al-Akhbar, 15 December 1859, p. 4. For more examples, see: Hadiqat al-Akhbar, 29 December 1859, p. 4; 22 March 1860, p. 3; 20 April 1865, p. 2; and 29 February 1866, p. 4; al-Ahram, 11 May 1877, p. 4; and Lisan al-Hal, 18 May 1878, p. 4. 12 For example, Hadiqat al-Akhbar, 15 March 1860, p. 3; 22 March 1860, pp. 3–4; 19 January 1865, p. 4; 20 April 1865, p. 3; and 8 February 1866, p. 3. 13 For example, Hadiqat al-Akhbar., 13 November 1865, p. 4. 14 For example, Hadiqat al-Akhbar., 8 September 1859, p. 4; 31 December 1859, p. 3; 15 March 1860, p. 3; 26 February 1868, p. 3; 13 November 1863, p. 4; and 20 April 1865, p. 3; al-Najah, 29 May 1871, p. 604; al-Ahram, 4 November 1876, p. 4; and al-Watan, 12 November 1881, p. 1; and 21 April 1883, p. 6. 15 Hadiqat al-Akhbar, 8 September 1859, p. 4. 16 For these examples, see Hadiqat al-Akhbar, 29 November 1859, p. 4; 15 March 1860, p. 3; and 20 April 1865, p. 3. Similarly, ibid., 15 March 1860, p. 4; 10 January 1865, p. 3; and 8 February 1866, p. 3. In Tunis a shop was called anūt and customers were similarly referred, for example, to ‘the anūt of the bookseller (kutubī) Sayyid Muhammad al-Sa‘idi, attached to the door of the great Zaytuna mosque on the cemetery side’; al-Ra'id al-Tunisi, 5 April 1865, p. 4. Similarly, al-Ra'id al-Tunisi, 22 June 1860, p. 1; and 12 April 1872, p. 4. For similar references in Istanbul, see al-Jawa'ib, 3 September 1868, p. 4. We also hear of a few merchants with alien names, apparently foreign residents who sought to profit from the rising interest in the new commodity: Fischel Rosenzweig, a bookbinder who now offered to import books on demand; Edouard du Marc ‘the Frenchman’, a stationer-cum-bookseller; and the somewhat more ambitious monsieur Charles Béziès—all three in Beirut. See, for example, Hadiqat al-Akhbar, 7 August 1858, p. 4; 28 January 1859, p. 3; 15 December 1859, p. 3; 21 May 1867, p. 3; and 19 January 1865, p. 3. 17 Hadiqat al-Akhbar, 15 March 1860, p. 4. 18 Sometimes the title appears in addition to a three-barrel name—for example, ‘Muhammad (effendi) Khalifa al-Tarabishi’—which makes this last appellation more probably the men's occupation. For these examples, see Hadiqat al-Akhbar, 13 November 1863, p. 4; al-Jawa'ib, 3 September 1868, p. 4; and 8 March 1870, p. 4; al-Watan, 12 November 1881, p. 1; and 21 April 1883, p. 4; al-Janna, 30 April 1884, p. 4; and Misr al-Fatat, 5 January 1909, p. 2. 19 For some early examples, see Hadiqat al-Akhbar, 7 August 1858, p. 4; 30 October 1858, p. 4; 15 March 1860, p. 3; and 29 February 1866, p. 4; al-Jinan, 1 May 1873, inner front cover; Thamarat al-Funun, 20 June 1876, p. 4; and 5 September 1881, p. 1; Lisan al-Hal, 15 October 1879, p. 4; and 4 August 1890, p. 4; and al-Muqtataf, December 1882, p. 143; and March 1883, p. 223. 20 For example, al-Janna, 3 September 1881, p. 4; al-Muqtataf, January 1886, p. 254; Lisan al-Hal, 14 August 1890, p. 4; al-Hilal, December 1892, p. 189; al-Ahram, 12 August 1895, p. 2; Thamarat al-Funun, 1 June 1896, p. 1; al-Ra'id al-Misri, 26 November 1897, p. 1071; and al-Zahir, 21 September 1904, p. 3. 21 The term appears neither in Edward Lane's Arabic–English Lexicon (London: Williams & Norgate, 1863–1893) nor in A. Biberstein-Kazimirski's Dictionnaire arabe-français (Cairo: Impr. Egyptiènne, 1875). R. Dozy's Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes (Leiden: Brill, 1881), relying on mid-nineteenth century dictionaries, defines maktaba as ‘cabinet d'étude, bibliothèque, librairie’. In Butrus al-Bustani's Muhit al-Muhit (1871), the term appears in the sense of ‘location for placing books’ (mawa’ wa’ al-kutub). 22 For early appearances of maktaba as a name for bookshop, see: in Beirut: al-Jinan, 29 February 1876, inner and outer back cover; Lisan al-Hal, 4 May 1878, p. 4; and 15 October 1879, p. 4; al-Muqtataf, March 1879, inner back cover; May 1880, inner front cover; August 1882, p. 87; and May 1883, p. 280; Thamarat al-Funun, 5 July 1882, p. 4; and 2 June 1884, p. 1. In Cairo: al-Muqtataf, January 1886, p. 254; and August 1886, p. 703; and Asaf and Nasr, Dalil Misr, pp. 189 and 228. 23 Numerous books from the last third of the nineteenth century carried the name of a maktaba as publisher. For some early examples, see: Muhammad Haqi Nazli, Khazinat al-Asrar Jalilat al-Adhkar (Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Tijariyya al-Kubra, 1286 [1869]); Ahmad Buni, Shams al-Ma‘arif al-Kubra (Cairo: Maktabat ‘Abd al-Rahman Muhammad, 1291 [1874]); al-Tariqa al-Wahida ila al-Bayyina al-Rajiha (Damascus: al-Maktaba al-Salafiyya, 1299 [1882]); and Muhammad Khalil al-Muradi, Silk al-Durar fi A‘yan al-Qarn al-Thani ‘Ashar (Cairo: Maktabat al-‘Arabi, 1291–1301 [1874-1883]). For the beginnings of Arab publishing, see Ayalon, ‘Private Publishing’. 24 Al-Muqtataf, February 1880, back cover. For similar examples, see: Hadiqat al-Akhbar, 28 January 1859, p. 3; 3 December 1859, p. 3; and 21 May 1867, p. 3; Lisan al-Hal, 4 May 1878, p. 4; 3 May 1901, p. 1; al-Muqtataf, March 1885, p. 383; Thamarat al-Funun, 5 July 1882, p. 4; al-Manar (Beirut), 1 October 1898, p. 23; and al-‘Irfan, Vol. 2 (1910–11), last page. 25 Lisan al-Hal, 16 December 1913, p. 4. Similarly, a shop (maall) in Jaffa carried newpapers as well as ‘English tea of the best brands’; Filastin, 29 January 1913, p. 4. 26 Al-Mu'ayyad, 15 February 1900, p. 4. Similarly, Thamarat al-Funun, 23 September 1895, p. 4—references to pharmacies in Beirut. 27 For example, Joseph Shaylor, The Fascination of Books (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1912), p. 136 (reference to nineteenth-century and twentieth century England); and John A. Wiseman, ‘Silent Companions: the Dissemination of Books and Periodicals in Nineteenth Century Ontario’, Publishing History, 12 (1982), pp. 18–19. 28 See, for example, Ami Ayalon, Reading Palestine: Printing and Literacy 1900–1948 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004), pp. 83ff, for twentieth-century Palestine. 29 See the examples of Fathallah Tajir and Amin Hindiyya cited above. For similar shops, see: Ibrahim Sadir's al-Maktaba al-‘Umumiyya in Beirut—Sulayman Jawish, al-Tuhfa al-Saniyya fi Ta'rikh al-Qustantiniyya (Beirut: Maktabat Ibrahim Sadir, 1887), shop announcement on last page; al-Maktaba al-Jami‘a of Khalil and Amin al-Khuri in Beirut—al-Hilal, 1 July 1894, inner back cover; Jurji Zaydan's Maktabat al-Hilal in Cairo—al-Hilal, 1 October 1896, pp. 119–120; ‘Abduh Yani's al-Maktaba al-Suriyya in Beirut—al-Manar (Beirut), 1 October 1898, p. 23; and ‘Abdallah al-Rifa‘i's al-Maktaba al-Rifa‘iyya in Tripoli—Hikmat Sharif, Sa‘adat al-Ma‘ad (Tripoli: al-Maktaba al-Rifa‘iyya, n.d.), p. 24, shop announcement. 30 For example, Ibrahim Sadir's al-Maktaba al-‘Umumiyya (see previous note); al-Maktaba al-Misriyya, Qa'imat al-Kutub al-Mawjuda fi al-Maktaba al-Misriyya bi-Misr (Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Misriyya, 1887); al-Maktaba al-Sharqiyya of Ibrahim Effendi Faris—Asaf and Nasr, Dalil, pp. 228–229; al-Maktaba al-Jami‘a of Khalil and Amin al-Khuri in Beirut—al-Hilal, 15 August 1894, inner back cover; Maktabat al-Hilal—al-Hilal, 1 April 1897, p. 595; and Dar al-Kutub al-‘Arabiyya—al-Umma (Damascus), 29 February 1910, p. 4. 31 See, for example, adverts for Nakhla Qalfaz's al-Maktaba al-Suriyya in Beirut—al-Muqtataf, May 1880, inner front cover; and al-Maktaba al-Sharqiyya of Ibrahim Effendi Faris—Asaf and Nasr, Dalil, pp. 228–229. The agent networks that newspapers spread across the region and beyond, and the many functions these agents fulfilled, seem to be important aspects of the ‘awakening’ yet to be systematically explored. During the last quarter of the century their number in the region reached many hundreds. 32 Al-Hilal, 15 February 1900, p. 318. 33 Notice in Lisan al-Hal, 3 May 1901, p. 3. Its owners were Nakhla Qalfaz (previously owner of al-Maktaba al-Suriyya; see note 34) and Salim Maydani. A shop that offered book-borrowing arrangements in turn-of-the-century Nablus is mentioned in Darwaza, Mudhakkirat, p. 160. 34 In the last page of that book, Sadir announces a wholesale arrangement and advises his customers to order a catalogue of the shop's local and imported books, elegantly entitled al-Rawda al-Bahiyya fi Asma’ Kutub al-Maktaba al-‘Umumiyya. 35 Al-Hilal, 1 March 1897, p. 517. For further discussion of this phenomenon and more examples, see Ayalon, ‘Private Publishing’. 36 Al-Hilal, 1 October 1896, pp. 119–120; 1 January 1897, p. 400; 1 March 1897, p. 488; and 1 April 1897, p. 595. 37 Al-Hilal., 1 November 1897, p. 186; 15 January 1899, p. 248; 1 October 1901, p. 32; 15 February 1902, p. 324; and 1 May 1906, p. 504. 38 Filib di Tarrazi, Ta’rikh al-Sihafa al-‘Arabiyya (Beirut: al-Matba‘a al-Adabiyya, 1913, 1914), Vol. 2, p. 8; and Vol. 3, p. 58. Zand's maktaba published a work by Nasif al-Yaziji to which Zand appended a qaīda he himself composed in praise of the book; Fakihat al-Nudama’ fi Murasalat al-Udaba’ (Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Misriyya, 1889). He also published at least two other books of his own authorship in the early 1890s. 39 al-Maktaba al-Misriyya, Qa'imat al-Kutub. 40 Asaf and Nasr, Dalil Misr, p. 189. I found no reference to the shop in al-Ahram of that time and in several other Egyptian newspapers. Another possibility is that Zand advertised his business mostly or solely in his own journal, al-Mahrusa, which was not available to me. 41 See Ayalon, ‘Private Publishing’. 42 A notable instance appears in the table's last section (‘Other Towns in the Region’), where Jaffa has more booksellers than any town prior to 1908. This reflects the availability of a source listing bequest records of men from there who had ‘engaged in bookselling’, but not necessarily Jaffa's primacy over other places in that respect; see Muhammad al-Tarawna, Qada Yafa fi al-‘Ahd al-‘Uthmani (Amman: Wizarat al-Thaqafa, 2000), p. 498. After 1908, when a lively periodical press emerged throughout the region, such distortions became fewer. 43 A[bdul] L[atif] Tibawi, American Interests in Syria 1800–1901 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), pp. 69–71. Tibawi traced some 1600 copies of printed works ordered from Egypt by educated people in Aleppo, Damascus, Ladhiqiyya, Tripoli, Jaffa and Gaza. 44 For example, Hadiqat al-Akhbar, 29 February 1866, p. 4. 45 For example, al-Jawa'ib, 21 April 1868, p. 1; and 7 March 1877, p. 4; al-Muqtataf, February 1880, back cover; al-Ahram, 23 June 1881, p. 4; and al-Maktaba al-Misriyya, Qa'imat al-Kutub, passim. 46 Hadiqat al-Akhbar, 8 May 1859, p. 4; al-Ra'id al-Tunisi, 29 Ramadan 1280 [1863], p. 3; and al-Jawa'ib, 20 October 1868, p. 4; and 7 March 1877, p. 4. 47 al-Jawa'ib, 21 April 1868, p. 1. 48 Fasl al-Khitab aw Taflis Iblis (a response to Qasim Amin's Tahrir al-Mar'a); Lisan al-Hal, 15 April 1901, p. 1. 49 Al-Jam‘iyya al-Suriyya li-l-‘Ulum wa-l-Funun 1847–1852 (Beirut: Dar al-Hamra’, 1990), pp. 17–19; and Jurji Zaydan, Ta'rikh Adab al-Lugha al-‘Arabiyya, Vol. 4 (Cairo: al-Hay'a al-Misriyya al-‘Amma li-l-Kitab, 1957), pp. 428ff. 50 For example, Lisan al-Hal, 7 October 1901, p. 4. 51 For further discussion of these aspects, see Ami Ayalon, ‘Modern Texts and Their Readers in Late Ottoman Palestine’, Middle Eastern Studies, 38 (October 2002), pp. 17–40. 52 Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), pp. 43ff. 53 See, for example, Muhammad Rafiq Tamimi and Muhammad Bahjat, Wilayat Bayrut, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Matba‘at al-Iqbal, 1335 [1917]), pp. 98–100; and Sami al-Sulh, Mudhakkirat Sami Bey al-Sulh 1890–1960, Vol. 1 (Beirut: Maktabat al-Fikr al-‘Arabi, 1960), pp. 13–14. 54 Taha Husayn, al-Ayyam, Vol. 1 (Cairo: Dar al-Ma‘arif, 1960), pp. 97–100. 55 In turn-of-the-century Egypt, one qurush would suffice to feed an adult for one day. A millieme equalled one-tenth of a qurush. 56 Sayyid Qutb, Tifl min al-Qarya, Hayat Sayyid Qutb bi-Qalamihi (Beirut: Dar al-Hikma, 196?), pp. 118–122. There are more illuminating details on the culture of books and reading habits in the village later on in the chapter. I am grateful to Liran Yadgar for alerting me to this text.