İbrahim Müteferrika -- a statue in the Sahaflar Çarşısı

To my surprise, this is not the visage of a bygone sultan, but instead, it is a bust of İbrahim Müteferrika. Born in 1674 in Kolozsvar, which is in present-day Romania, he came from an ethnic Hungarian Protestant family. While he was studying theology as a young man, he was brought to İstanbul by the Turks, possibly as a slave. It was here that he continued to study, and eventually he converted to Islam. Over time, in recognition of his abilities, he became a müteferrika, or messenger for the viziers. Adept in several languages, he often attended meetings with foreign government representatives in the role of translator.

During the Tulip Era, under the rule of Sultan Ahmed III, İbrahim’s skills were highly valued. He was known as a publisher, printer, courier, diplomat, astronomer, historian, Islamic scholar and sociologist. In addition to all of those interests, he is best remembered as the first Muslim to establish a printing press facility with movable type. Although printing presses with movable type, which originated in China, had been in use in Europe for quite some time, this was an innovative, and somewhat controversial, development in the Muslim world.

Up until the 18th century, many Muslim scholars felt that printing should be a forbidden act. They felt that any book dealing with religion was something holy, and as such, deserved to be created over time, using traditional calligraphy and bookbinding techniques. They feared that if religious books were readily available, this would harm Islamic learning and might even prevent students from memorizing important religious texts. Another objection to the printing press from Islamic scholars was that it might be disrespectful to God to have a machine that printed out references to the Supreme Being.

In spite of these objections, in 1726, İbrahim submitted a report on the advantages of this new system of printing to the grand vizier, Nevşehirli Damat İbrahim Paşa, and the grand mufti (Islamic scholar) and top members of the clergy at the time. He also submitted a report to Sultan Ahmed III, and he finally received permission from the Ottoman caliph to print secular and scientific books. In 1729, he established the first printing press facilities in the Islamic world in İstanbul. Initially, he published books on non-religious subjects, including politics, military strategy, magnetism, geography and astronomy.

Among the works that he published was Katip Çelebi’s world atlas, “Cihannüma.” Çelebi was one of the most prolific writers of non-religious books in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century. In the appendix of “Cihannüma,” İbrahim discussed in great detail the Copernican theory of astronomy, including the latest scientific arguments for and against it. He is thought to have been the first scholar to introduce the concept of heliocentrism, or the theory that the sun is stationary and is the center of the universe, to Ottoman readers.

İbrahim was concerned about what he perceived as the backwardness in the administration of the Ottoman Empire. In 1731, he wrote and published a book about this, titled “Usul al-Hikam fi Nizam al-Umam.” In the book, he described the governmental and military systems in place in Europe, and he outlined the reasons that he felt it was imperative that the Ottoman Empire adopt some of the same military strategies and scientific knowledge in order to survive. Some of his warnings were heeded and the Ottoman state did begin to modernize in order to compete on military, as well as commercial fronts, with the West while preserving its Islamic identity.

İbrahim’s contributions to the Ottoman Empire reached far beyond introducing the first printing press to the empire. However, it is fitting that this man of vision is honored with a statue in the center of İstanbul’s book bazaar.