خلاصة:
One of the most important events that had an unparalleled and lasting impact on the cultural movements of Muslims was their acquaintance with paper and the papermaking industry during the middle years of the second century AH. In many recent studies, it has been claimed that the establishment of the papermaking industry in Baghdad and the production of Baghdadi paper coincided with the first few decades of the city's birth. Based on these studies, which rely on reports from relatively late sources, a few years after paper was made in Samarkand (around 179 AH), paper production in Baghdad began by order of Fadl ibn Yahya al-Barmaki, the minister of Harun al-Rashid (r. 170-193). In the present article, by arguing the relative lateness of the sources cited in this type of research and by mentioning evidence such as the monopoly of paper production in China and Samarkand, as well as Baghdad's reliance on paper imports from these lands until the sixth century AH, it has been shown that the antiquity of Baghdadi paper does not extend beyond the seventh century, when Yaqut al-Hamawi reported its existence in Baghdad.
ملخص الجهاز:
Based on these studies, which rely on reports from relatively late sources, a few years after the manufacture of paper in Samarkand (around 179 AH), paper production in Baghdad began by order of Fadl ibn Yahya al-Barmaki, the minister of Harun al-Rashid (r.
In the following article, by arguing the relative lateness of the sources cited in this group of studies and also by mentioning evidence such as the monopoly of paper production in China and Samarkand, as well as Baghdad's reliance on paper imports from these lands until the sixth Hijri century, it is shown that the antiquity of the existence of Baghdadi paper does not extend beyond the seventh century, when Yaqut al-Hamawi reported its existence in Baghdad.
13 In some of these researches, the existence of a paper-making factory in Baghdad in the second Hijri century is explicitly stated,14 and the honor of establishing this industry in the newly founded city of Baghdad is attributed to Fadl ibn Yahya al-Barmaki, the minister of Harun al-Rashid.
Some researchers have also spoken of paper manufacturing in Baghdad without mentioning any source,21 or with inaccuracy in quoting the Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun, they have considered his father, Yahya, instead of Fadl, as the founder of paper-making workshops in Baghdad,22 and despite the consensus of original sources on the beginning of paper-making after the Battle of Taras, they have attributed this event to the conquest of Samarkand, which took place around the year 85 AH.
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