Book production

In the past, people were concerned with scholarly writings and official records.

• These were copied, bound, and corrected with the help of a transmission technique and with accuracy.

This is because the ruling dynasty was important, along with the things that depend on sedentary culture.

All of that has disappeared with:

• the disappearance of the dynasties and
• the decrease of civilization.

In Islam, it had previously reached tremendous proportions in the ‘Iraq and in Spain.

All of it depends on:

• civilization
• the extent of the ruling dynasties, and
• the demand existing in the dynasties for it.

Thus, scholarly works and writings were:

• numerous in the past
• copied and bound

People wanted to transmit them always and everywhere. Book production, thus, began.

Book producers copy, correct, and bind books and writings. This industry was restricted to the cities of a large civilization.

Originally, these were written on parchment especially prepared from animal skins:

• copies of scholarly works
• government correspondence
• letters of enfeoffment
• diplomas

These were done by craftsmen because:

• there was great prosperity at the beginning of Islam
• the works that were written were few

Government documents and diplomas were few. This is why the early Muslims restricted themselves to writing on parchment.

The production of books and writings then developed greatly.

• Government documents and diplomas increased in number.

There was not enough parchment for them. That is why alFadl b. Yahya suggested the manufacture of paper.

• Thus, paper was used for government documents and diplomas.

Afterwards, people used paper in sheets for government and scholarly writings, and the manufacture of paper reached a considerable degree of excellence.

Scholars and government people became concerned with accuracy. This was done through a chain of transmitters leading back to their writers and authors.

• Statements are thus led back to those who made them
• Decisions (in legal questions, fatwa) are led back to the persons who decided on them

Wherever the correctness of a text is not established by a chain of transmitters going back to the author, the statement or decision in question cannot properly be ascribed to its alleged author.

This has been the procedure of scholars and experts in all matters of religious knowledge in all times, races, and regions.

• The transmitted traditions were the ones that passed this restricted process.

The main fruit of the craft that transmits traditions is the knowledge of which traditions:

• are “sound” and “good”
• which “go back in an uninterrupted chain of transmitters to the Prophet” (musnad)
• which have a chain of transmitters that:
  • “skips the first transmitter on the authority of Muhammad” (mursal)
  • “stops with one of the men of the second generation” (magtu)
  • “stops with one of the men around Muhammad” (mawquf)

These stops and skips are to distinguish such traditions from spurious ones.

This is no longer a subject of investigation.

The cream of it has been churned in the principal collections of traditions that have been generally accepted by all Muslims.

The only purpose of analyzing the process of transmission and occupation is to establish a correct text of:

• the principal traditions
• books on jurisprudence used for legal decisions
• other writings and scholarly works.

It also establishes the uninterrupted connection with their respective authors, so that transmission on their authority is sound.

Both in the East and in Spain, this method has been the tried and true path. We find that the copies made in (former) times in those regions are the most exact, well done, and correct.

People everywhere at this time possess old copies attesting to the perfection previously reached in this respect.

The inhabitants of the various regions have handed them down (and preserved) them to the present, and they do not like to part with them.

Presently, this method has altogether disappeared in the Maghrib and among Maghribis. This is because the craft of writing, accuracy, and the transmission technique were cut off there as the result of the destruction of:

• the Maghrib civilization
• the basic Maghrib desert attitude.

The principal collections and writings were copied in Bedouin script by Berber students in such a bad handwriting and with so much corruption and so many clerical errors that they cannot be understood.

• They remain incomprehensible to those who examine them critically.
• Only very rarely are they of any use.

This situation has caused disintegration in the field of legal decisions (fatwa).

Most statements ascribed to the school authorities are not orally transmitted but are taken from the writings as they are found there.

• This has also affected the attempts of some religious leaders to write books.

They:

• know little of the technical side of authorship
• lack the crafts necessary for realizing the purposes of authorship.

Some slight remnant of this institution has remained in Spain.

• It is about to disappear.

Religious scholarship has almost completely stopped in the Maghrib.

People say that the craft of transmission technique still exists in the East.

• The sciences and crafts are in demand there.
• It is easy there to find the correct text of writings.

However, the script for good copying surviving there is that of the non-Arabs, and found in their manuscripts.

The copying of books has deteriorated in Egypt as it has in the Maghrib, and even more so.