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Of
all things that make our lives enjoyable and
comfortable, there are only few more important than
paper!
How ignorant the world would
have been without the daily newspapers and books, and
how much we would have missed if we had been unable to
write to one another. And how could the daily business
of our lives be conducted without the use of paper?
Today, life is
different from what it was a few hundred years ago
because of the discoveries, and useful things invented
by scientists. However, if the scientists had not
recorded their findings on paper, the world would have
been poorer in knowledge. If our histories had not been
printed in books and stocked in libraries, we would have
been completely ignorant of what life was like in the
days of our forefathers. We would not have had the
pleasure of reading about the achievments of great men,
their history, and their struggles against tyranny,
oppression and injustice. We would have been unable to
appreciate the fruits of liberty that we all now enjoy.
Most of our
homes would have looked bare and disappointing without
the help of bright wallpapers to adorn their walls. Even
today, despite the promise of computer manufacturers to
provide us with “paperless offices,” we all use paper
more than ever before for communication, wrapping,
filtering, construction and hundreds of other purposes.
From papyrus to
parchment to paper – the story of how people have
written their words is a fascinating one. The first
known writings were done on stones, ivory, and on bark
of trees. In ancient Babylonia, an immense commerce was
carried out in which all transactions that were
happening were recorded by indenting characters on clay
bricks, and baked later to preserve a record for future
reference. However, the filing of these clay tablets
proved a difficult task, as they were large, weighty and
occupied a lot of space.
The ancient
Egyptians discovered the use of papyrus as a writing
material around the year 5000 BC, from the papyrus
plant, which grew in large numbers along the banks in
delta of the River Nile. They took the reed of the
papyrus plant and split it into thin strips, which were
laid flat with their edges touching one another. Another
layer was placed at right angles over the first and
pounded together, and then smoothened with stone to give
a coarse, but serviceable writing surface. Thousands of
ancient manuscripts made from papyrus have been
preserved to this day in Egypt, which gives us much of
our knowledge about their ancient culture.
Papyrus became
the principal writing material in Egypt, and later the
Egyptians started exporting it to the different centers
of civilization across the world. However, the Europeans
did not discover the use of papyrus as a writing
material until the year 200 BC. They used animal skins
for their writing, which they called parchment. In order
to make a parchment, the hair and wool on the skin of
the animal was first removed, later soaked in lime to
clean its surface thoroughly, and then smoothened by
chalk. Parchments were expensive to make, but they had
several advantages over papyrus. They could be folded up
without cracking, unlike papyrus, which had to be rolled
up as a scroll, making it easier to handle for an
ordinary reader, and they could be used for writing on
both sides without wasting any space.
However, if we
had to depend on parchment to record our thoughts and
write our storybooks, then we should have been content
only with a very few, as the making of parchment was an
elaborate and a time consuming affair. Parchments would
have been thicker and heavier to handle and would have
occupied a huge space, and we would have needed large
bookshelves and strong bookcases to hold even a small
library.
The first real
paper – the material we write on today – was invented in
China about the year 100 CE. It was a sheet composed of
fibers “felted” together from an assortment of strange
ingredients, which included mulberry and bamboo fibers,
fishnets and rags. The inventor of paper was a Chinese
official named Ts’ai Lun who first perfected the art of
making paper in the year 105 CE. The Emperor Ho Ti was
so pleased with his invention that he made him a rich
and an important man in his court. Unfortunately, his
success made the inventor arrogant, and he became
involved in a dangerous intrigue. It is said that he
committed suicide by drinking poison rather than be
shamed by pubic exposure. The Chinese jealously guarded
the process of making paper for nearly six hundred
years, even though their merchants were exporting it to
the countries in the Far East, and carried it with them
for trade along the Silk Route.
With the advent
of Islam, the Arab armies were soon extending their rule
into the heartlands of Central Asia under the command of
Qutaybah ibn Muslim. Crossing the River Oxus in 711 CE,
they captured the legendary caravan cities of Bukhara,
Samarkand and other strong holds along the Silk Route in
the present day Uzbekistan. Pushing further east, the
Arab armies occupied the fertile Ferghana valley in the
year 713 CE. Their Central Asian conquests soon put them
on a collision course with the Chinese and thirty-nine
years later, they were at war with them.
The Battle of
Talas, which took place in the year 751 CE, between the
two superpowers lasted for five days, and their armies
met in combat near Dzhambul, in the present day
Kazakhstan, in a battle to decide which of superpowers –
Muslim or Chinese – would dominate Central Asia. During
the first four days of the battle, neither side managed
to win a conclusive victory over the other. On the fifth
day, the mounted bowmen of Qarluq Turks, who had earlier
entered into a secret alliance with the Arab military
commander Ziyad ibn Salih joined the Muslim armies and
attacked the Chinese armies from the rear, so the
decisive victory was won. The Chinese army fled the
battlefield leaving the Arabs to rule Central Asia for
the next two hundred years.
This battle was
both, a historical and political landmark in the world’s
history. It had far-reaching technological consequences
too; for a few technological developments have left a
significant impact on the history of civilization after
the discovery of paper by the Arabs. The Arabs have
captured a number of Chinese prisoners of war and they
soon found out that among the prisoners were two, who
knew the art of making paper. The prisoners were
promised freedom if they taught the Arabs the
papermaking techniques. After learning the art of paper
making, the Arabs lost no time in improvising on making
paper – they were the first to make paper from linen –
and built the first paper industry in Samarkand and
Baghdad in the year 793 CE.
The spread of
paper and its manufacturing skills in the Islamic world
between the period of 8th and 14th centuries spurred an
extraordinary burst of literary creativity in different
fields of knowledge such as natural sciences,
literature, mathematics, Islamic theology, commerce and
arts. Calligraphers used paper for the first time to
write down the Holy Qur’an and the Traditions of Prophet
Muhammad (pbuh). New types of literature, such as
cookbooks and Arabian Nights were copied by hand on
paper and sold to readers in the form of books. It is
recorded that the City of Baghdad had a Stationer’s
Market (Suq al-Warraqain) with more than a hundred shops
that sold paper and books. Famous scholars of these days
would frequent the Suq to purchase and rent books kept
in their stock.
During the reign
of Caliph Harun-al-Rashid, (786-809) paper was widely
being used by government official for keeping records.
The early caliphs maintained huge libraries and they
were further enlarged by Caliph Ma’amun (813-833), the
son of Harun al-Rashid, who employed scholars and
scribes in his Bayt al-Hikmah (House of Wisdom) to
translate Greek texts – written on parchment and papyrus
– into Arabic on sheets of paper and had them bound into
books.
Later, the Arabs
carried the knowledge of papermaking with them into all
the major cities of North Africa and Spain. The
Palestinian Geographer, Al-Muqaddasi records that paper
had replaced papyrus as a writing material in Cairo by
the year 985-986 CE, and the Persian traveler
Nasir-i-Khusraw (1035-1042) records that the use of
paper had become so widespread in Egypt that the grocers
and dealers used it to wrap the goods sold to the
customers. By the end of the 12th century, the City of
Fez in Morocco had four hundred paper mills operating in
it. At the same time, papermaking industry was active
in Jativa in Muslim Spain and from there the Arabs took
the knowledge of paper manufacturing into Sicily. The
fourteenth century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun writes
that the art of papermaking in the Arab world had
reached “a considerable degree of excellence.”
According to
legend, France learnt the art of papermaking from Jean
Montogolfier who was taken prisoner by Muslims during
the Second Crusade and returned after serving his
captivity working in a Damascus paper mill. The Italians
improved upon the Arab technique, by developing the use
of waterpower and wire mesh while making paper. The
Arabs were now exporting paper to Europe and passed on
the knowledge of making paper to Germany in 1389. Ulmann
Stromer hired the help of skilled papermakers from Italy
and established a paper mill, which was run on two
waterwheels. From Germany, the knowledge of papermaking
spread into rest of Europe. At the end of 16th century,
paper began to be manufactured in Britain. Then, it was
made by hand, and it was very expensive.
Paper
manufacturing received a big boost after Johann
Guttenberg invented the first practical mechanical
printing press in 1455. Within the next fifty years,
thousands of books were being printed all over Europe,
and the demand for paper increased. By degrees, machines
for printing and making paper improved. The Arabs had
some knowledge of printing, which they had learnt from
the Chinese, but the idea of printing books was not
entertained until the eighteenth century. The Arabs
preferred the fluid handwriting of the calligrapher to
the printed word. Nevertheless, the first printing
presses were established in Aleppo and Istanbul in the
18th century with the help of Europeans. In this way,
knowledge first written on paper in Arab lands traveled
a full circle to reach its original abode from where it
had all started!
By the middle of
18th century, it was discovered that wood pulp could be
used to manufacture an excellent quality of paper, and
wood pulp came from trees – an endless supplier of raw
material. Today, the United States leads the world in
paper production turning out millions of tons of paper
every year. The other major producers are Japan, Canada,
and Russia. Handmade paper from Finland is the most
expensive paper in the world today and a single sheet of
paper can cost as high as eighty dollars!
The Arabs not only had
the most significant contribution in giving paper to the
world, but also the word ‘paper’ – derived from papyrus
– that was added to the English dictionary for the first
time in the fourteenth century. The word ‘ream’ in the
English language, which is used to count paper, came
from the old French ‘rayme,’ which in turn was taken
from Spanish ‘resma,’ which originally comes from the
Arabic word ‘rizmah’ meaning a bale or a bundle.
So, the next
time we sit on our breakfast table reading the morning
newspaper over a cup of coffee, we should remember that
had it not been for the Arabs, the morning news with its
horror stories could have been delivered to us on
parchments made from animal skin!
And, you might
not have relished the thought of reading a newspaper if
you were living in Peru, for the early Indians of Peru
made their parchments from human skin! |
