Paper comes to Baghdad, 794–795

Paper comes to Baghdad

Under Harun al-Rashid paper began to be made in Baghdad, and the Abbasid chanceries turned from papyrus and parchment to the cheaper material, on which writing could not easily be erased; the first workshops are usually dated to 794–795. From Baghdad paper spread across the Islamic world and, centuries later, to Europe, and its abundance underlay the flowering of Arabic books in the following centuries.

Date

between 794 and 795exact date unknown: an interval is given

Place

Baghdadtoday: Baghdad, Iraq · Middle East and Egypt

Participants

Harun al-Rashid, Al-Fadl ibn Yahya al-Barmaki, Abbasid Caliphate

Threads

Middle East and Egypt (6th–10th c.)

Also known as

Paper in Baghdad; Baghdad paper mill; Suq al-Warraqin; Бумага в Багдаде; Бумажная мельница в Багдаде; Сук аль-Варракин

Paper, invented in Han China, had long been used along the Silk Road: paper documents were found at Mount Mug near Panjakent, the refuge of a Sogdian ruler who fled the Arabs in 722–723. The 11th-century writer al-Tha'alibi tells that Chinese prisoners taken by Ziyad ibn Salih after the battle of Talas in 751 taught the craft to the people of Samarkand, which became famous for its paper. Modern historians such as Jonathan Bloom consider the story unlikely to be factual: paper was known in Central Asia decades earlier, and the Chinese captive Du Huan, who listed weavers, painters and goldsmiths among the prisoners, mentions no papermakers.

By the reign of Harun al-Rashid enough paper was available in Baghdad for officials to keep records on it instead of papyrus and parchment. The 14th-century historian Ibn Khaldun credits the Barmakid al-Fadl ibn Yahya with introducing its manufacture when parchment ran short; other accounts name his brother Ja'far. Paper absorbed ink, so documents written on it were harder to alter than those on papyrus or parchment. The first paper workshops in Baghdad are dated to 794–795; they were probably worked by hand or by animals — whether water power was used is debated — and they made paper from rags and other waste fibres, not from the bark used in China.

Papermaking and the paper trade soon became significant businesses in Baghdad: in the 9th century the Stationers’ Market (Suq al-Warraqin), where the writer and paper dealer Ahmad ibn Abi Tahir kept shop, was a street lined with more than a hundred shops of paper and book sellers. From Iraq and Syria the craft spread to Egypt, where paper had entirely supplanted papyrus by the late 10th century, and on to the Maghreb and al-Andalus; the first recorded paper mill in the Iberian Peninsula, at Xàtiva, dates from 1056, and from there paper reached Christian Europe. The abundance of paper made possible the extraordinary growth of Arabic writing — scholarship, translations and literature — from the 9th century onwards.

Connections

Related events

Cai Lun presents papermaking to the Han court105 · East Asiapapermaking, credited by tradition to Cai Lun at the Han court in 105, reached the Islamic world through Central Asia

Battle of TalasJuly 751 · Central and Northern Asiaa later tradition, recorded by al-Tha’alibi, credits Chinese prisoners taken at Talas with bringing paper-making to Samarkand; historians such as Jonathan Bloom doubt it

Reign of Harun al-Rashidbetween 14 September and 17 September 786 – 24 March 809 · Middle East and Egyptpaper spread through the Abbasid bureaucracy under Harun and his Barmakid viziers

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Paper comes to Baghdad

Connections

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Meanwhile in the world

Western and Central Europe

Eastern Europe

Balkans and Anatolia

Central and Northern Asia

East Asia

Southeast Asia and Oceania

North America

Latin America

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Sources