Early Arabic Printing in the East – serie

Arabic printing began in Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Levant through the association of the scholar and printer Antim the Iberian, later a metropolitan of Wallachia, and Athanasios III Dabbās, twice patriarch of Antioch, when the latter, as metropolitan of Aleppo, was sojourning in Bucharest. This partnership resulted in the first Greek and Arabic editions of the Book of the Divine Liturgies (Snagov, 1701) and the Horologion (Bucharest, 1702). With the tools and expertise that he acquired in Wallachia, Dabbās established in Aleppo in 1705 the first Arabic-type press in the Ottoman Empire. After the Church of Antioch divided into separate Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic Patriarchates in 1724, a new press was opened for Arabic-speaking Greek Catholics by ʻAbdallāh Zāḫir in Ḫinšāra (Ḍūr al-Šuwayr), Lebanon. Likewise, in 1752-1753, a press active at the Church of Saint George in Beirut printed Orthodox books that preserved elements of the Aleppo editions and were reprinted for decades. This book tells the story of the first Arabic-type presses in the Ottoman Empire which provided church books to the Arabic-speaking Christians, irrespective of their confession, through the efforts of ecclesiastical leaders such as the patriarchs Silvester of Antioch and Sofronios II of Constantinople and financial support from East European rulers like prince Constantin Brâncoveanu and hetman Ivan Mazepa.“Fedorov offers a solidly evidence-based analysis with appropriate caveats. […] The close analysis of documents from at-risk collections, not least including archives and special collections held in Syria and Ukraine, adds additional significance to the documentation of primary materials and emphasis on the internationalism and interconnected nature of print heritage that enabled to their production. [...] these books offer new contexts for understanding what print is for and what books can do. [...] They herald a thrilling moment for the expansion of book historical scholarship in ways that redefine the historical record while also offering fuller, more appropriate contexts interpreting it. In doing so, they themselves are bringing about that revolutionary change in book culture.” (Elizabeth Savage, review in: The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 119, nr. 4, 519-522)

In 1724, Sylvester, a native of the island of Cyprus, was elected Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the East. For more than four decades, he endeavored to preserve the legacy of one of the earliest Christian Churches in the Levant. He faced major challenges because of the ever changing balance of power between the Latin Church and its missionaries, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the French and English interests in the Levant, and the central and local Ottoman authorities. In his efforts to provide church books for the Arab Orthodox Christians, Sylvester was helped by rulers of the Romanian Principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia. He printed a number of books in Jassy and Bucharest and opened an Arabic press in Beirut. Alongside his patriarchal duties, Sylvester was also an accomplished icon painter. His works, in the Post-Byzantine Greek style of the 18th century, are preserved in Syrian and Lebanese churches, as well as elsewhere. Their study reveals just another aspect of his complex activity. The book presents for the first time in English the biography and achievements of Sylvester of Antioch, based on a wide range of contemporary Greek, Arabic and Romanian historical sources.

This catalog provides descriptive records of 54 Arabic books printed in Eastern Europe and the Arabic-speaking communities in the Ottoman East during the 18th century. It offers a thorough overview of the connections established through printing between the Romanian principalities and Arabic-speaking Christians in the eastern Mediterranean during this period. The catalog emphasizes the social progress that the printing culture brought to the Near East, to which Romanians made a significant contribution. The catalog also addresses the historical context of these connections and the printing activities of several prominent political and ecclesiastical figures. The books presented here are pivotal to the cultural history of the Ottoman East. They have been particularly significant in the context of conserving Byzantine-based Christianity in Arabic-speaking provinces in the region. Additionally, these books contributed to the standardization of Arabic liturgical texts and greatly influenced Christian Arabic literature. This catalog will be of interest to historians of the Arabic printed book, researchers of Arab Christian communities under Ottoman rule, as well as librarians and antiquarians because it will enable them to accurately identify and describe the 18th-century Arabic editions in their collections.

This first volume of Collected Works of the ERC Project TYPARABIC focuses on the history of printing during the 18th century in the Ottoman Empire and the Romanian Principalities among diverse linguistic and confessional communities. Although "most roads lead to Istanbul," the many pathways of early modern Ottoman printing also connected authors, readers and printers from Central and South-Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the Levant. The papers included in this volume are grouped in three sections. The first focuses on the first Turkish-language press in the Ottoman capital, examining the personality and background of its founder, İbrahim Müteferrika, the legal issues it faced, and its context within the multilingual Istanbul printing world. The second section brings together studies of printing and readership in Central and South-East Europe in Romanian, Greek and Arabic. The final section is made up of studies of the Arabic liturgical and biblical texts that were the main focus of Patriarch Athanasios III Dabbās’ efforts in the Romanian Principalities and Aleppo. This volume will be of interest to scholars of the history of printing, Ottoman social history, Christian Arabic literature and Eastern Orthodox liturgy.

This volume is devoted to the wide range of themes explored by the TYPARABIC project team. It includes essays on the religious and scholarly life of the Arabic-speaking Christians in Ottoman Syria and Lebanon in the 18th century, the efforts of Catholic and Protestant missions to distribute theological and liturgical books among Arab Christians, and collections of Oriental printed books in Western Europe, the Romanian Principalities, Georgia, and Ottoman Syria and Lebanon. It examines the transfer of artistic elements from Western to Eastern European presses and between Arab book printing centers, as well as the establishment of the first Arabic press in Aleppo in the early 1700s and the beginnings of the Khinshara press (Mount Lebanon). The volume concludes with a section on the promotion of printing in the Romanian Principalities during the reign of the Phanariot princes.“[…] these books offer new contexts for understanding what print is for and what books can do. [...] They herald a thrilling moment for the expansion of book historical scholarship in ways that redefine the historical record while also offering fuller, more appropriate contexts interpreting it. In doing so, they themselves are bringing about that revolutionary change in book culture.” (Elizabeth Savage, review in: The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 119, nr. 4, 519-522)

The Arabic-language and Arabic-type presses established in Eastern Europe and the Middle East beginning in the early 18th century produced a number of books for the needs of Arabic-speaking Christians living in the Ottoman provinces. These books included liturgical texts, homilies, didactic treatises, and dogmatic teachings and were often accompanied by complementary prefaces and editor’s final remarks. In some cases, these texts are the main source of information on the circumstances of the beginning of Arabic printing for the Christians of the Middle East.This volume presents new editions of these Arabic prefaces together with English translations and commentary. The corpus includes Christian Arabic books printed throughout the 18th century in Wallachia (Snagov and Bucharest), Moldavia (Iași), Aleppo, Beirut, and the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Khenchara (Dhur al-Shuwayr, Mount Lebanon).Studying the features of these books makes it possible to trace the process of their editorial activity, the evolution of book design, the influence of European Baroque and also Classical Arabic literature, and the language particularities of the Christian Arabic in the 18th century Greater Syria.

This volume contains the proceedings of the fourth TYPARABIC Conference, held in Venice between May 27–29, 2025, together with a selection of additional studies on the religious and intellectual history of Arabic-speaking communities in the Ottoman Levant, that resulted from earlier team conferences. It documents a significant moment of scholarly exchange while offering a varied contribution to the study of Arabic print culture and Church history.The conference papers concentrate on the Italian connection in the development of Arabic printing in 18th-century Europe and the Near East. They analyze the technical, commercial, and ecclesiastical networks that linked Italian printing centers – above all Venice – with Levantine and Eastern European presses, emphasizing the circulation of type, texts, and craftsmen. The additional contributions expand the thematic scope of the volume by addressing theological debates and cultural interactions within Arabic-speaking Christianity. Through focused case studies, they place Eastern Christians within the wider Ottoman and Mediterranean contexts, highlighting patterns of exchange, adaptation, and intellectual continuity. Taken together, the essays provide a coherent and methodologically rigorous account of the dialogue between print, theology, and cross-cultural connections in the 18th-century Ottoman Levant.

This book provides an overview of the activity and the output of the first Turkish press in the Ottoman Empire. Known as the Müteferrika Press, it was founded in Istanbul and was operated most actively from 1726 until 1747 when its founder Ibrahim Müteferrika passed away, though there were some printing efforts before this period and they continued after his death. This volume retells the foundation story and activity of this press, focusing on its publications that were printed in Turkish but in Arabic script. These publications are discussed in terms of publication objectives, authors, contents, format and graphic layout, print run, sales, and later reprints and translations into European languages. The book also includes images of the opening and colophon pages of all 17 publications, as well as images of all the engravings, geographical maps and charts included in them or printed separately. This information will be of particular use to scholars of the history of printing and Arabic typography, as well as to librarians, collectors, and curators who need to identify and catalogue surviving Müteferrika publications (books, maps and charts).