Miri Eliav-Feldon writes in her book The Printing Revolution that in her estimation the gap between the development of the Muslim world and the West is due, among other things, to a decree of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from about 500 years ago that forbade printing in Arabic
Avi Blizovsky
In her book "The Printing Revolution" published by the Broadcasting University of Gali Tshal, Miri Eliav Peldon writes: "In the second half of the fifteenth century,
The Muslim world showed great willingness to absorb technological inventions developed by the Christian infidels, such as cannons and rifles. But when rumors began to arrive about the machine capable of duplicating hundreds of copies of a text written in metal letters with the wave of a hand, an unequivocal decision was made to ban its use for the purpose of printing Arabic letters. In 1485, the Ottoman sultan Beyazid II issued a decree strictly prohibiting the writing of Arabic letters using machines. And since it was a fairly centralized empire, where the religious sages had enormous influence, the prohibition was maintained throughout the Muslim world.... It was only in 1727 that the first permission was given for the establishment of an Arab printing house in the Ottoman Empire, but under close centralized supervision, which did not allow the printing of religious books. In fact, only from the middle of the nineteenth century, when the demand for modernization intensified, did printing come into use in the Muslim world in the European format."
And Eliav-Feldon continues and states that this decision of Sultan Bayazid II is in her eyes one of the most fateful decisions in history. All the transformations accelerated by printing in Europe will not happen at all, or will happen at a very slow pace in the Arab Muslim world. As we know, Arabic does not have printed letters, the rate of growth in literacy was infinitely slower than in Europe, and at the beginning of the twentieth century the majority of the population was still illiterate; The gaps between the spoken language and the written language grew deeper and deeper... I don't know if my colleagues who deal with the history of the Islamic countries would agree with my statement, but I think that the decision to ban the introduction of printing in Arabic is one of the most important explanations for the fact that the Islamic world found itself from the early modern period onward to be significantly behind and in attitudes Weakness compared to the growing dynamism of Western culture.
By the way Eliav-Feldon, a similar debate was also among the Jews for whom Hebrew letters were sacred, regardless of what was written in them. In the end, at the end of the 15th century, the opinion of those who claimed that it was the pattern that would bring about the fulfillment of the prophecy of Jesus: "For the earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" (9:XNUMX) and their voice prevailed.
My personal opinion is that the revolution also made education possible, and this is probably also the reason why the ultra-Orthodox oppose the Internet and some of the important rabbis of some of their sects have issued halachic rulings calling not to connect to the Internet.
The strictest of them stated that the internet is not allowed even for a living.
By the way, one of the countries where there is an absolute ban punishable by death to connect to the Internet is Afghanistan. Unlike other countries where access providers are tightly controlled, in Afghanistan there are simply no access providers. If only they had the same power that the Taliban have in Afghanistan, i.e. the direct and not the indirect rule as it exists today, it is clear that we would have cut ourselves off from the world, for all the economic implications involved.
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