More Michael the Syrian

A crisp sunny morning, a free afternoon at home, and an email arrives telling me that volume 2 of Michael the Syrian is available for collection at my local library.  Sometimes it all just comes together.  I wonder how much of it I can scan today?

UPDATE: (Early Afternoon) I’d forgotten how HEAVY the volumes are.  The physical labour in picking  them up, turning the page, placing it on the scanner, turning it round, etc, it pretty exhausting.  The paper is yellow-ish, which makes for speckling when scanned.  70 pages so far, tho.  The speckling seems to affect the margins most.

It’s an interesting question, whether to trim the margins or not.  Why bulk out the file with speckled white-space? 

UPDATE: (3pm) 123 pages. Groan.  One page had a bit of foxing, which came out as black splotches in black/white scanning.  So I did that page in colour.

UPDATE: (5pm) I’m aiming for 200 pages.  On page 190 at the moment, although I had to stop when the plumber arrived.  Then I can have dinner!  Somewhere in the reign of Justinian at the moment; I saw the name Belisarius a moment ago.

Share

Isidore the pastor

Isidore of Pelusium is still writing to those seeking his advice.  The first is an erudite bishop, who would like to be seen as a philosopher.

1219 (=IV.174) TO MARINOS, BISHOP

I find that the definition that the illustrious Job gives of wisdom and knowledge is a happy one: “To worship God is wisdom; to keep far away from evil is knowledge”; because, in truth, the supreme wisdom is a right conception of God, and the divine knowledge is a perfect way of life: the first has a right opinion of the divine, the second keeps far away from evil; the one uses words to speak about God, we estimate the other by its acts. So if one who loves God and is loved by him is at the same time wise and erudite, he has both the virtue of contemplation and the one of action, one as a soul, the other as a body; how can we look like exceptional philosophers if we neglect to live as well as possible and apply ourselves only to speaking well?

Pierre Evieux points out that the last sentence is an echo of the advice of Socrates, in Plato’s Gorgias

Another correspondent considering Christianity is plainly having difficulty with the cult of the martyrs.  The Roman cry of Vae victis – “stuff the losers” – ran all the way through paganism.  How can losing be anything but shameful? 

1220 (=V.5) TO DOMITIUS, COUNT

Defeat, my very wise friend, is not death in combat; it is to be afraid of the enemy and to throw down your shield: but he whose body lets him down when he tries to show bravery, the rule is that his name is inscribed on the trophy; likewise we see the athletes killed during the fight honoured by the organizers of these combats more than those who did not encounter the same fate. So if this is so, why do think you that, for the martyrs, death is a defeat, instead of seeing in it a reason to celebrate them all the more? Because the end of that combat is not to keep the body alive – which lived only for the torturers and which they put to death – but to not diminish the glory of virtue.

Evieux notes that when gladiatorial games began, a trophy was awarded, inscribed with the names of the gods, especially Zeus; but in a later era, the trophy of victory was inscribed with the names of those killed in the process.

Meanwhile the worldly advantages of a late Roman episcopate continued to have an evil effect on the worse sort of lesser clergy.

221 (V.6) TO PALLADIUS, DEACON

If neither the greatness of the episcopate, nor a conduct which in no way deserves it, nor the word of the apostle who defines what a bishop must be, nor the incorruptible tribunal which will pronounce an undeniable verdict, nor anything else draws aside you from the madness which transports you with a foolish desire and makes you hope to buy this dignity, least let yourself be persuaded by the pagans.

It is told that Pittacus received the government of the Mitylenians, and when he had overcome Phrynon, the chief of Rhegion, in single combat he wanted to return this power to them. When they did not agree to receive it, he forced them to. He did not want to be a tyrant, but an ordinary person.

So if one who by risking his life personally had acquired power, voluntarily laid it down — he was removed from danger, he was discharged from tyranny, and that because he had no account to return to anyone — you who are not even in law a simple taxpayer, so it is said, take on a burden with high responsibility, called to return multiple accounts, higher than any human dignity, a burden which you should not accept even if it were offered to you; well! look at what you dream of buying, not only without hiding, but to glorify yourself! Who then will not reproach such an audacity?

 Even the sub-deacons were worrying away at Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics, V, X, 2-3). “If what is fair and what is just are equal, prefer to be fair.  What causes the problem is that being fair can be against the law; it’s like watering down justice.”  Isidore replies:

1222 (=V.7) TO PALLADIUS, SUB-DEACON

It would be right that a fair man should adopt an attitude more human than the man of a too strict justice. Because it is more fitting for him to show himself human, than for the man of justice.

Which sidesteps the problem rather, while endorsing Aristotle’s precept.  A problem familiar to every confessor, and to every self-help group, follows:

1223 (=V.8) TO ALPHIUS, SUB-DEACON

Better not to be caught by vice; if we are caught, it is to better know that we are caught and quickly to become ourselves again, like after getting drunk. Because he who is caught but does not think of being caught, his sickness is incurable.

Education is the concern of everyone who finds himself a parent.  The school curriculum remained based on the pagan classics as late as 1453.  But the tension between the Christian family and the needs of a worldly education remain even today.  Isidore highlights the key point:

1224 (=V.9) TO AMMONIUS, SCHOLASTICUS

Those who when their children are still very small in the first place sow a notion of excellence and divine providence, in the second place a sense of virtue, these, because they are not only parents but also excellent teachers, will obtain divine rewards. While those who implanted polytheism and vice in them, since they sacrificed their children to the demons, will receive the reward which they deserve.

Share

UK government seeks to kill net neutrality in EU

Another state attack on information access here.  Amusingly the unnamed bureacrat trying to close off free access used a definition swiped from Wikipedia in the proposal.  Thanks to slash.dot for info.

Share

The EU doesn’t get the internet, it seems

The US Google Books and Archive.org are free.  The EU equivalent charges readers money.  That tells us everything we need to know about the EU.

How many of us were aware that there *was* an EU official alternative?  few, I imagine.  But today I learned about it: Books2EBooks.  It’s a glossy site, paid for by levies on taxpayers who didn’t get a vote on it (like all EU projects).  The site is full of guff about how wonderful, wonderful the internet is.  Get books from EU libraries, it boasts!  Only in the small print is buried the fact that, yes, you have to BUY them from the site.  How really, really FUNNY!

Most of the libraries are German, and their holdings were paid for by the taxpayer.  This is more evidence that the Germans really don’t get the internet.  Or — to be fair — that officialdom in Germany doesn’t get it. 

We all know that the internet is about free access to information.  US libraries are cooperating to make their holdings accessible freely online.  Individuals like myself donate our time to creating archives of material. 

But here, ten years after the web started, these greedy bureaucrats stir their hulking hog-like bodies, swollen with tax dollars exacted from the helpless for necessary services and diverted to themselves.  They look at Archive.org, which is free, and see only a chance to make a bit of money for themselves by selling copies of out-of-copyright books in their holdings.  Do they hate people?  Or are they merely greedy?

Isn’t the EU contemptible?  Let’s thank our lucky stars we don’t live in Germany.

Share

Arabic texts online in Arabic

A notice from BYZANS-L:

On 09/03/2009, Alexander Hourany wrote:

Here are some websites that contain free online versions of old Arabic  sources like the history of al-Tabari and many others. Although some of them contain typing errors, they are very usefull in textual search.
 
al-Meshkat library site:
 http://www.almeshkat.net/books/index.php
 
Yasoob al-Din library: http://www.yasoob.com/
 
al-Mostafa library: http://www.al-mostafa.com/

Now all we need is someone who knows Arabic to look at these and tell us what is there!

Share

Arabic manuscripts in the British Library on micro-fiche

I learned today that all the Arabic manuscripts in the British Library were filmed and placed on micro-fiche.  Apparently an Arab princeling paid for it, but great news.  Less good news is that the set is available from IDC, offline, at the usual inflated prices (ca. $180,000).  Remarkable really, considering that their investment is nil.  They seem to have fiches of other collections too, such as SOAS. 

I’ve never had much luck getting access to IDC microfiches.  Does anyone know of a copy, somewhere that one could get copies of particular manuscripts in some usable form?

Share

Printing banned by Islam?

Was there a ban on printing in Islam? I saw the following claim online here:

Printing was banned by Islamic authorities because they believed the Koran would be dishonoured by appearing out of a machine. As a result, Arabs did not acquire printing presses until the 18th century.

UPDATE: Geoff Carter in the comments has been tracking it down.  There is some substance to this.  The urls given refer to an article by Muhsin Mahdi, From the manuscript age to the age of printed books, in The Book in the Islamic World, ed. G.N.Atiyeh, State University of New York Press (1995), pp.1-16.  This is not a study, as far as I can see, but rather a series of questions.  So we still haven’t reached bottom of this one.

UPDATE 2: Searching Google books, I found this link, J.G.Taylor, Indonesia, Yale (2004), p.68 in support:

Although the printing press reached Muslim lands from Europe in 1492, Muslim kings banned setting Arabic into type until the early nineteenth century.

No footnotes, tho.   A little light comes from the Quarterly Review, p.475:

An attempt of the same kind had been made by Achmet III., so early as the year 1727: the oulemas gave their consent, but it was rendered nugatory, by excepting the Koran, for a reason, as Mr. Walsh observes, ‘ characteristic of the people—they said it would be an act of impiety if the word of God should be squeezed and pressed together; but the true cause was, that great numbers of themselves earned a considerable income by transcribing those books, which would be at once destroyed, if suffered to be printed.’ As Turks read nothing else but the Koran, the printing-office was soon discontinued. Its renewal by Selim had no better success; it languished and declined on the death of its patron, ‘ who fell a victim to the rage of the Janissaries, for attempting to innovate upon their ancient and venerable ignorance.’

This tends to suggest that any ban originated with the Ottomans, and, as with so much in that miserable state, under a pretence of piety sought to financially benefit certain individuals.  Once the Koran began to be printed, Karpat remarks in The politicization of Islam, p. 231, entrepreneurs quickly issued defective Korans as fast as possible, for profit.

However I have just seen a reference to a specific ban on the Koran in 1727.

In Chambers Edinburgh Journal p. 44, (1848) I find the following:

The Sultan Bajazet II. issued a decree in 1483 forbidding the use of printed books by the Turks, under penalty of death. This decree was afterwards confirmed by his son Selim I. in 1515, and implicitly obeyed by the Mohammedans, with equal ignorance and fanaticism, until the eighteenth century, when, in the reign of Achmet III., Seid-Effendi, who had accompanied his father, the ambassador, to the court of Louis XV. in 1720, was so much struck with the advantages of printing, that he determined his own country should participate in them. For the attainment of this object he employed the services of a Hungarian renegade, who was subsequently surnamed Basmadjy—’ the Printer.’ A memorial was drawn up, by means of which the grand vizier, Ibrahim Pacha, an enlightened protector of literature, obtained a favourable edict from the sultan. But fearful of wounding the religious scruples of his subjects, and of alarming the numerous class of copyists, Achmet forbade the printing of the Koran, the oral laws of the Prophet, the commentaries on these works, and books on jurisprudence—leaving to the industry of the printers philosophical, medical, astronomical, geographical, historical, and other scientific works. The renegade was placed at the head of the new establishment, but the national character was against him ; and notwithstanding his activity, at the time of his death, which happened in 1746, he had not been able to print more than sixteen works. The first was a Turkish and Arabic dictionary, 2 vols. folio, of which the impression was completed in 1729; the price was fixed at thirty- five piastres, by order of the sultan. In the following year a Turkish grammar appeared, a copy of which, with each leaf of a different colour, is still in existence.

Again, no references.

UPDATE: (12th May 2009)

A most interesting paper by John-Paul Ghobrial addresses the lack of proper references for this story. I have written to the author asking for some more details.

The sources given for the ban in this paper are two:

Nicolas de Nicolay, The navigations, peregrinations and voyages, made into Turkie by Nicholas Nicholay Daulphinois, Lord of Arfeuile. conteining sundry singularities which the author hath there seene and observed;devided into foure books, with threescore figures, naturally set forth as well of men as women, according to the diversitie of nations., T. Washington trans. (London, 1585). p.130.

…Maranes [Marranos] of late banished and driven out of Spaine & Portugale, who to the great detriment and damage of the Christianitie, have taught the Turkes diverse inventions, craftes and engines of warre, as to make artillerie, harquebuses, gunnepouder, shot, and other munitions: they have also there set up printing, not before seene in those countries, by the which in faire characters they put in light divers bookes in divers languages, as Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, and the Hebrewe toungue, being to them natural, but are not permitted to print the Turkie or Arabian tongue.’

The other is “Busbecq”in 1560.   This turns out to be The Life and Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq By Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq, tr. Charles Thornton Forster, Francis Henry Blackburne Daniell. Published by C. K. Paul, 1881.  Volume 1  is online here, and on p. 255 we find this text:

No nation in the world has shown greater readiness than the Turks to avail themselves of the useful inventions of foreigners, as is proved by their employment of cannons and mortars, and many other things invented by Christians. They cannot, however, be induced as yet to use printing, or to establish public clocks, because they think that the Scriptures, that is, their sacred books – would no longer be scriptures if they were printed, and that, if public clocks were introduced, the authority of their muezzins and their ancient rites would be thereby impaired.

John-Paul Ghobrial suggests that the first reference refers not to a general ban on printing, but to restrictions on dhimmis (=you and me) in an Islamic state doing so in the language of the ruling Moslems. But of course that may or may not be so.

UPDATE: (31st October 2018): A kind commenter (below) has drawn my attention to a relevant article.  It is Kathryn A Schwartz, “Did Ottoman Sultans Ban Print?” in: Book History 20 (2017) p.1-39.  This article really consists of a literature search, trying to find the origins of the claim.  Few will have access to this, so I will summarise what she found.

1. The firmans of Bayezid II and Selim I, which created the ban on printing

She tells us that no such firmans have reached us.  Unfortunately it is unclear whether this lack is significant – do we have that many firmans from that period?  But she has found what she believes to be the source for the claim that these two Sultans banned printing:

It appears that the first person to publish this assertion was the French Franciscan priest and cosmographer Andre Thevet (1502–90).

Thevet wrote about the firmans in the second volume of his eight volume work entitled The True Portraits and Lives of Illustrious Greek, Latin, and Pagan Men. [88] Printed from Paris in 1584, the book comprised chapters on distinguished historical figures. In Thevet’s chapter on “Jean Guttemberg, Inventor of Printing,”[89] he compared the invention and adoption of printing in Europe to the absence of the technology in the East: What I know for sure is that the Greeks, Armenians, Mingrelians (Mingrelias), Abyssinians, Turks, Persians, Moors, Arabs & Tartars do not write their books except by hand. [And] that among the others, the Turks are constrained by the ordinance (ordinance) of Baiazeth, second in name, their Emperor [i.e., Bayezid II], published in the year fourteen hundred eighty-three, carrying the prohibitions (defenses), on the pain of death to not consume (de n’user) printed books, which was the ordinance confirmed by Selim, first of name [i.e., Selim I], his son, [in] the year one thousand five-hundred fifteen.

88. André Thevet, Les vrais pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres, Grecz, Latins, et payens, recueilliz de leurs tableaux, livres, medalles antiques, et modernes (Paris: Par la vefue I. Keruert et Guillaume Chaudiere, 1584), Vol. 2, 515 verso.  [Both vols are on Google Books: Vol.1; Vol.2]

Here it is:

Thevet, therefore, is writing in 1580.  Selim’s firman was in 1515, Bayezid II’s after 1492. Schwartz points out various problems with Thevet’s testimony, and attempts to suggest that in general he is not a reliable witness.

2.  Statement by Marsigli that no ban existed as such

She continues:

Moreover, other early modern European reports contradicted Thevet’s claim. Count Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli (1658–1730), for example, challenged the notion that the sultans banned printing. Marsigli had first-hand dealings with the Ottomans for twenty years from the 1680s. He travelled in the empire, battled against it in service to the Habsburgs, and lived amongst Ottoman janissaries as a prisoner of war.96

In Marsigli’s book on the Ottoman military, he refuted the notion of the Ottoman printing ban: “The Turks, it is true, do not print their books at all. But this is not, as is commonly believed, because they are prohibited to print, or because their books are unworthy of printing.”97

Marsigli’s statement ought to carry significant credibility due to his fluency in the Ottoman language and his abiding bibliophila. He amassed more than six hundred oriental manuscripts during his travels.98 And beyond that, Marsigli was himself a printer who worked with Medici oriental typefaces at the press that he established in Bologna.99

The reference is: Luigi Ferdinando Marsili, L’Etat militaire de l’empire ottoman, ses progrès et sa décadence, 1732.  Vol. 1, p.40.  Italian with French translation.  This too is online here.  The full paragraph is:

Les Turc ne sont point à la verité imprimer leurs ouvrages mais ce n’est pas comme on le croit communement parceque l’Imprimerie leur est défendue ou que leurs ouvrages ne méritent pas l’impression. Ils ne veulent pas empêcher tant de Copistes au nombre de quatre-vingt dix mille lorsque j étais à Constantinople de gagne leur vie ; & c’est ce que les Turcs ont dit eux-mêmes aux Chrétien & aux juifs qui vouloient introduire l’imprimerie dans l’Empire pour en faire leur profit.

The Turks indeed never print their works, but this is not, as is believed commonly, because printing is banned or because their works are not worth printing.  They do not wish to prevent so many copyists, to the number of 86,000 when I was at Constantinople, from earning a living; and it is this that the Turks have said themselves to Christians and to Jews who wished to introduce printing into the empire to make a profit.

3.  The first extant firman – Murad III

She writes:

Murad (r. 1574–95) issued the earliest extant firman concerning print in 1588. It survives at the back of the 1594 Arabic edition of Euclid’s Elements published by the Medici Oriental Press in Rome.42 The firman asserted the rights of two European merchants to their trade of “valuable printed books and pamphlets in Arabic” within the empire.43 It ordered that the traders were to henceforth be left unmolested by those who “are opening up their shipments by force, and with little or no payment at all are taking their wares and interfering with their trade.”

  1. Euclid, Euclidis Elementorum geometricorum libri tredecim (Rome: In typographia Medicea, 1594), verso of last page.

43. Christopher M. Murphy, trans., “Appendix: Ottoman Imperial Documents Relating to the History of Books and Printing,” in The Book in the Islamic World: The Written Word and Communication in the Middle East, ed. George N. Atiyeh (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 283.

Let’s have that firman, in Murphy’s translation.  It was issued in October 1588:

A COPY OF A DECREE ISSUED BY HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY THE PADISHAH MURAD HAN

Be it hereby known to all governors, sea captains, judges, and other officials stationed in the Imperial domain that two European merchants by the name of Anton and Orasyu [Horatio] Bandini, being bearers of Imperial permission to conduct trade, are buying and selling and doing business by importing certain goods and valuable printed books and pamphlets in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. Some persons are opening up their shipments by force, and with little or no payment at all are taking their wares and interfering with their trade. It is therefore directed that the said merchants and their agents and employees be allowed to carry on their business in safety and that their merchandise be not seized, and that whosoever disobeys this decree of mine be reported immediately. It is also ordered that their books and goods be purchased in return for the payment of the correct price and that there should no longer be any complaints in this matter. Written in Constantinople on the first of Zilhicce in the year of the Hijrah 996.

4.  The second extant firman – Ahmed III

This is the firman that allowed a Hungarian renegade who called himself Ibrahim Muteferrika – his original name is unknown – to print secular texts.  Schwartz writes:

Ahmed’s 1727 firman endowed a permit to print to the aforementioned Muteferrika, a Unitarian convert to Islam who reached prominence in the imperial court. As the Medici Press did with their firman from Murad, Muteferrika printed this firman in the first book that he reproduced, the 1729 Ottoman-Arabic dictionary Kitab-ı Lugat-ı Vankulu….

47. For the full English translations of “Vesiletu’t-Tiba‘a” and the Imperial firman granted to Muteferrika by Ahmed III, refer to Murphy, “Appendix,” 284–92. For their reproductions, along with the endorsements, or taqaz , of the text, refer to Gdoura, Debut de l’imprimerie Arabe, 276–80.

Apparently the book starts with a lengthy essay explaining why printing is a good idea; the firman drew upon it.  The firman, issued in 1727, is rather long: again let’s have Murphy’s translation of it.

AS IT BECOMES NECESSARY IT WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED

(A COPY OF THE IMPERIAL RESCRIPT, A COPY OF THE NOBLE IMPERIAL ORDER)

This exalted royal order is given to that pinnacle of illustrious persons and notables, the official of the Grand Vezir, Sait, and to that educated select servant of the Palace, Ibrahim, may his nobility increase. It is known that upon the establishment of the rising sun of the religion of Muhammad and that with the brightness of the dawn of Ahmed’s religious community, may God bless him, and it is understood that since that time the enlightened and meritorious masters of religion, God bless them, wrote books and tracts of science and knowledge in order to protect and conserve the verses of the Koran, the traditions of the Prophet, and the entirety of knowledge. And these words served to maintain the good order of the people, and make known the laws of religion and state, and the organization of the state and community. Editing books and writings and collecting eloquent collections of poetry, they progressed and wrote histories and accounts and worked for the preservation and defense of knowledge and works of culture, facilitating and disseminating sciences and arts. People knowledgeable in Arabic and Persian profited from their explaining and teaching, and organizing the regulations for each of the particular sciences and disciplines. This being proper, in order that they would possess eternal happiness in this world and the next and gain a good reward, they did not cease writing valuable and knowledgeable books and tracts. However, with the passing of days and with the years going by as the Chingizids, created chaotic disturbances and Hulagu rose to power, and with resplendent Andalusia in the hands of the Europeans, and with the convulsions of wars, killing, and destruction, most literary works have disappeared with their authors. Therefore, today in the Muslim lands the dictionaries of Cevheri and Van Kulu in the Arabic language, and books of history and, copies of scientific works which were burned are rare. Also, people did not give proper care and attention, and lacked concern about copying, so works were not carefully copied. These rare books are an inspiration to students of the arts and sciences and to seekers of knowledge.

Among the technical processes, printing is like coining money and impressing paper with a signet ring. Books produced by printing cause several thousand volumes to be produced from a single volume, all of which are accurate copies. With little effort there is great return, making this a desirable activity to pursue. By virtue of your having composed a learned tract about, and having expertise in, the various above-mentioned activities, you will see to the necessities and expenditures without loss of time, so that on a fortunate day this Western technique will be unveiled like a bride and will not again be hidden. It will be a reason for Muslims to say prayers for you and praise you to the end of time. Excepting books of religious law, Koranic exegesis, the traditions of the Prophet, and theology, you asked the Padishah’s permission in the aforementioned tract to print dictionaries, history books, medical books, astronomy and geography books, travelogues, and books about logic. The aforementioned tract was referred to that very learned religious scholar, that most meritoriously pious mariner on the stormy sea of religious questions, that wellspring of the river of legal opinions, that wearer of the garment of piety, the Seyh-ul-Islam and learned jurisconsult, Mevlana Abdullah, may Almighty God increase his goodness. The question was asked: Zeyd claiming expertise in the science of printing, illuminating, and producing copies of the letters and words of dictionaries, logic, philosophy, and astronomy texts, and like works, thus being able to produce exact copies of these books, is there not permission in the Holy Law for this good work? The one who is an expert at printing seeks a legal opinion because producing an accurate edition of a work in a short time, with no errors and many copies, results in there being an increased number of books, which is a benefit to the community. The answer is: Being able to produce this great benefit, this person receives permission with the condition that several educated persons be appointed as proof readers. Great benefit will come from the order based on that legal opinion, allowing for the exception of the religious subjects mentioned in the tract written with the pearl pen of wisdom. This legal opinion is well prepared and it stands out in a vast ocean as exemplary in the Seyh’s career. What falls from his pen in the form of authoritative opinion is an overflowing garden, a basin of sweet water, a river which waters the desert with springs. The Imperial permission becomes proper on account of this well-explained authoritative declaration, this perfectly eloquent and noble opinion. Copies will be printed of dictionaries, and books about logic, astronomy and similar subjects, and so that the printed books will be free from printing mistakes, the wise, respected and meritorious religious scholar specializing in Islamic Law, the excellent Kazi of lstanbul, Mevlana Ishak, and Selaniki’s Kazi, Mevlana Sahib, and Ghalata’s Kazi, Mevlana Asad, may their merits be increased, and from the illustrious religious orders, the pillar of the righteous religious scholars, the Seyh of the Kasim Pasha Mevlevihane, Mevlana Musa, may his wisdom and knowledge increase, will oversee the proofreading. With the actual setting up of the press, the above-mentioned books in history, astronomy, geography, logic and so forth, after they pass the review of the learned scholars, shall become numerous. However, you will take special care to see that the copies remain free from error and depend on the noble learned men for this. Ordered in the middle of Zulka’de in the year 1139 in Istanbul the protected.

The remainder of the article is dedicated to the references to the ban in European writers; and ends with a curious statement that, whether or not there ever was a ban, the important thing is to remove from the question the opinions of contemporaneous westerners.

What do we make of this?  It comes down to a few statements.

  • We don’t have copies of the firmans of Beyazit II (1493?)and Selim I(1515), nor any real evidence for their existence.  But we don’t know whether our lack of knowledge is significant.
  • We have a statement by Thevet (1584) that such a ban was brought in.  But Thevet may not be reliable.
  • We have a firman by Murad (1588) allowing a foreign merchant to sell printed books.  But this doesn’t really bear upon the question.
  • We have the statement by Marsigli (1680) that no legal ban existed but that printing simply did not happen because there were thousands of people earning a living by copying books.
  • We have a firman by Ahmed in 1727, permitting the printing of books other than those connected to Islam.  The terms of the firman, and the long book before it, make clear that no printing had ever taken place, as far as the authors knew.

This is all useful data.  This data seems to make quite clear that printing was not allowed to take place before 1727, despite the repeated importunity of foreigners who could see the opportunity to make a fortune.

Whether the ban was effectuated by a firman by Beyazit II and Selim I – and a firman only lasted for the reign of the Sultan – or by some other extra-legal process – is perhaps a technical detail.  The point is that there was plainly a ban in practical effect.

Share

A few more letters of Isidore of Pelusium

Isidore seems to be an unrecognised spiritual classic.  The more of his letters I read, the more clear this seems to me, and the more obvious the need for a good plain English translation, with enough footnotes to make it possible to follow the intertwined threads. 

Today I got the first volume of the Sources Chrétiennes edition from an inter-library loan.   What a relief to have clearly printed Greek!  Interestingly the editor, Pierre Evieux, says that he intends to release a monograph on the manuscripts, and that this is “far advanced.”  I don’t think he did, so wonder where the draft text is.

Anyway, here are a few more letters.  Enjoy!  I give the manuscript letter number first, then the Migne book/letter no.

1214 (V.1) TO ANTIOCHUS.

The indispositions of the body originate from excess. Indeed, when its elements exceed their own limits and are suddenly put out of order, then there is illness, and a painful death. But the same goes for the soul. If we precipitately pass from a balanced life into a disordered one, we end up swollen with pride and reduced to slavery: the first hateful and the other risible. By mixing these opposite evils, arrogance with adulation, we earn hatred and we make others laugh. But if we prune whatever excess there is in things we try, we will be as humble when necessary, we will ascend without risk of falling. Such is indeed our philosophy, which links modesty and grandeur in a single choice: modesty in not rising by stepping on others; greatness, while allowing no-one to flatter us.

Antiochus is a scholasticus, evidently a man on the rise in society. 

Rotten bishops and their side-kicks are a perennial problem, as is getting other bishops in the same area to do anything about them.  The three bishops that follow held sees in the area of Pelusium.  Zosimus and co were clergmen in the diocese of Pelusium, whose bishop Eusebius was a rotter.  Isidore, like any honest man, could be impatient.

1215 (V.2) TO HERMOGENES, LAMPETIUS, AND LEONTIUS, BISHOPS.

If indeed, like Zosimus, Eustathius and Maron, people who don’t have a shred of honesty, who never bother about the facts, or listen to the advice of others, but find themselves thrown into a perdition recognized by everyone, it is superfluous, according to you, to discuss what it is necessary to do, then you should indeed ask God in your prayers to tell you quickly how to draw them out of the abyss of vice; because, apparently, that is God’s business.

Meanwhile Isidore was writing to others. In his letter to Paul, an important pagan in the district, who received several letters, he alludes to Homer (n. 1: Iliad IV,350; XIII,729; Odyssey 8,167):

1216 (V.3) TO PAUL

If riches, beauty, strength, glory, power, everything we find beautiful, are soon consumed and dissipate like smoke, who is insane enough to put his self-satisfaction and his pride in just one of these advantages, when we see that he who has them all at the same time being stripped and deprived of them, sometimes even of his life, in any case at his death? If someone doesn’t have them all — in fact, it’s impossible to have all of them together at the same time! (1) — how will he avoid being laughed at if he prides himself on shadows, dreams and vague illusions?

The priest Athanasius obviously wondered why human beings are not blessed with being all-knowing.  Isidore merely imagines what effect such a ‘blessing’ would have on people like you and I:

1217 (IV.82) TO ATHANASIUS

Personally, I find wise the things that you you claim are absurd. If everything in life was obvious, where would be the use of our intelligence? There would be no chance to seek things out. If nothing were unknown, then we would be completely lost: there would be nothing to discover. In reality from what is obvious we reason in a certain way to that which is not. And if what is not obvious still escapes us, we then gain thereby in lowering our self-satisfaction.

Simple pastoral advice is also part of the letters:

1218 (V.4) TO ZOSIMUS, PRIEST

It is necessary, my dear chap, to persuade your listeners by facts that the kingdom of heaven exists, and then to get those who listen to want it. However listeners let themselves be persuaded when they see their teacher acting in a way worthy of the kingdom. But if he philosophizes on the kingdom, while acting in a manner which deserves punishment, as you have done, how can he persuade his listeners? He acts like a man trying to persuade people to desire something which he has previously persuaded them does not exist!

Share

Bergstrasser’s edition and German translation of Hunain ibn Ishaq, on translations of Galen

Greek science was translated into Arabic in the 10th century, mostly by Nestorian Christians such as Hunain ibn Ishaq.  The Moslem Caliphs of that period were the Abbassids, who came from Persia, and so knew the Nestorians as their “home” Christians.  With their access to the Greek medical tradition, including the works of the 2nd century doctor Galen, they were consequently in demand as doctors.  Of course being the personal physician of an oriental despot is not without risk, and Hunain himself was imprisoned, invited to act as a poisoner, and had his library confiscated. 

But with all this, he managed to translate most of the vast output of Galen from Greek into Arabic.  He also wrote a letter to one of his patrons, discussing this process.  This is a very valuable guide to how Greek literature made it into Arabic.

A manuscript of the work was discovered at in the library of Greek texts at Agia Sophia and was printed by G. Bergstrasser, with a German translation, in 1925.  Today I received a copy of the book by InterLibrary Loan, and I have scanned and uploaded the book to Archive.org, here.  I have also added a Word document of the German text, also a .txt file and a .htm file.

An English translation and critical edition by John Lamoreaux is ready for publication.  This is based on better manuscripts than Bergstrasser had.  For this we shall have to wait.  But if you can’t wait, and have some German, then you now can access Bergstrasser.

Bergstrasser himself vanished while climbing in the Alps in 1933, so his book is out of copyright in Germany, the EU and the UK.  The US copyright status is unknown to me.

Share

The March 2009 Bloodsucker award winner — the Bibliothèque Nationale Français

In early January I ordered images from the Bibliothèque Nationale Français of a manuscript of the unpublished 13th century Arabic Christian historian, al-Makin.  Today I received a CDROM containing two PDF’s.   The PDF’s were simply scans of a low-grade black-and-white microfilm, of about the same quality as a Google books scan.  One was 40Mb, the other 10Mb.  Together they totalled 640 images.  I also received my credit card bill; these two files cost me $400.

My feelings may be imagined.  At such prices, obtaining several manuscripts is impossible.  And… for that obscene price, could they not have photographed the things in colour?  The black and white images, of course, don’t scale.  The rubrics are lost in the text.  Quite how I print these things I do not know.

Oh yes.  Want a copy?  Well, they sent me a legal notice saying I can’t give you one.  You have to pay them again, if you want to see them.  These, remember, are publicly owned manuscripts!

This is disgusting.  So, with all these reasons in m ind, I award the Bibliothèque Nationale Français the second Bloodsucker award

I will award it, ad hoc, to institutions in receipt of state funding which in order to make money violate their primary directive; to make books available and promote learning.

Well done, chaps.  May you all rot in the hell reserved for those who knowingly obstruct the progress of learning.

My previous award was to the John Rylands Library in 2008, also for making it impossibly expensive to obtain a usable copy of a manuscript of al-Makin.

Postscript: I have now discovered that the photographs are of two-page spreads.  Most of the images have a large black band down the centre of the opening, wide enough to obscure the text on the inner margins.  Guess what?  Being black on white, this means that the ends of the words are all unreadable.  And this, for $400.  I have been forced to write back and point this out.  I may have to involve VISA, to recover money for substandard merchandise.  What’s the betting that they simply try to get me to pay yet more money?

UPDATE 6th March 2009: No reply from the BNF.  I’ve now written again and threatened (politely) to go to VISA for a refund.

Share