Hereditas Antikvárium

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12. Könyvárverés

Istanbul, 1756-1757. (Hijri 1170.) Ibrahim Müteferrika. (4)+372 fol(s)., 430 fol(s). Several leaves with red-framed and content-highlighting underlined text.
The printer, Ibrahim Müteferrika (his name means „courtier”), was born in Kolozsvár in 1674. He was captured by the Turks at a young age and converted to Islam. He got to Istanbul, where – with the help of his education and excellent knowledge of the Turkish language – he worked at the court of Sultan Ahmed III. He proudly claimed his Hungarian origin, and he also managed to build Hungarian relations because he was appointed as an interpreter for Rákóczi by the Ottoman Porte. He held this position until the death of the prince (who, in one of his letters, recommended his „faithful interpreter” to the goodwill of the grand vizier). Müteferrika had already considered founding a printing house at that time since book printing was quite familiar to him, as several printing houses were already operating in Kolozsvár before he left the city. In Turkey, however, most Islamic religious scholars considered book printing sacrilegious, they believed that printing instead of manuscript copying would lead to the deterioration of thinking. Although in the course of history, neither the sultan nor the religious leaders issued a decree prohibiting printing, after the closure of a Hebrew workshop that operated between 1504 and 1521 (and occasional attempts by some non-Muslim communities), printing disappeared from Turkish soil for centuries. To restart it – 300 years after Gutenberg –, it was still necessary to overcome the suspicion of the clergy and the resistance of the book-copying guilds (whose number was around fifteen thousand in Istanbul at this time). With the support of the Grand Vizier, Nevşehirli Damat Ibrahim Pasha, and his other high-ranking patron, Mehmet Sait Efendi, Müteferrika managed to obtain a firman of the sultan and a fatwa of Abdullah Efendi, the Shaykh al-Islām (the Grand Mufti, who was the highest ranking in the hierarchy of the ulama), which declared that book printing was not contrary to the principles of Islam and could therefore be supported. However, the document prohibited printing works with religious content to appease the book copyists, thus inadvertently serving the development of science and culture. On 14 December 1727, Müteferrika founded the first printing house in Turkey to produce books in the Turkish language. It exclusively published secular – mainly historical, geographical, and scientific – works. Until his death in 1745, 17 books (in 24 volumes) were produced in his press, most of them in no more than 500 copies, which is why each is considered a great rarity. As he procured the printing equipment with the sultan’s support, the books were also the property of the treasury – the sultan’s firman determined their price (he received grant revenues to cover his costs). The first book, the 1,500-page Arabic-Turkish dictionary, commonly known as Vankuli, was on the market in January 1729 (for one-tenth of the price of an average manuscript copy). After Müteferrika’s death – except for this work – until the beginning of the 19th century, book printing in Turkey was suspended.
Our item is the second edition of the famous, first (1729) Turkish-Arabic dictionary. The religious scholar and writer, Mehmet Efendi (widely known as “Vankulu” because his ancestors originated from Van) translated the medieval lexicographer, al-Jawhari’s Arabic-Persian dictionary into Turkish. Although Mehmet Efendi had several – translated and original – works, these two volumes had brought him fame, and it became known as Vankulu Lügati – that is, Vankulu Dictionary. The work is of outstanding importance in many ways. On the one hand, this was the first Müteferrika print and also the first publication in Arabic letters. On the other hand, this edition is the only one that left the workshop between the death of the founder (1745) and the restart of the printing business. As far as we know, the only copy preserved in a Hungarian public collection is at the library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (from the bequest of Ármin Vámbéry).
Ottoman-style leather binding. This type of binding, unlike the European, contains two additional elements: “sertab” and “miklep”. The previous was intended to protect the side of the leaves, and the latter served as a bookmark (the miklep is attached to the back cover by the sertab). The centre of the front and back covers is decorated with the impression of a floral ornamented arabesque style blind stamp. Imprints of linear and tendril-woven lines frame the edges of the leather cover. The book title and volume number in Ottoman Turkish are printed on the lower edges. With tears on some leaves (in one place, the text is also affected).