20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

182 Geoffrey RoperEuropean or local Christian communities and confined their activities tothem, rather than moving at large in Muslim society. 45The second channel was the embassies, consulates and tradingestablishments of European powers in the cities of the Ottoman empire.These also acted as agents for missionary publications, especially theFrench, for Catholic books, and the English and Dutch, for Protestantones. The French embassy in Istanbul and consulates in the Levant playeda particularly important role by virtue of their rights as protectors ofChristians after 1614. Inevitably political rivalries between the powerscame into play, as in the case of the Protestant Bibles suppressed by theOttoman authorities in 1628 at the instigation of the French ambassador.In general, the local churches welcomed printed literature, and evencommissioned some of it. 46 But whereas the Maronites and Greek Catholicsaccepted only books from the Propaganda at Rome and other Catholicpresses, and sometimes sought to destroy imports of Protestant origin, theGreek Orthodox, until they had their own presses, regarded the Protestant,or at least the Anglican, presses as a useful alternative to Papal control ofpublishing.The second question which arises is: – what effect did they have onArab culture and society? This is much too big a question to try to answerin the space available here. Moreover, not enough research has been doneby scholars to enable a satisfactory answer to be given. However, it ispossible to indicate, very briefly and very tentatively, one or two possiblelines of inquiry.Broadly speaking, Arab literate culture remained a scribal culture untilthe 19 th century. The Muslim majority in the Arab countries used onlymanuscript books to transmit their texts, although Turkish Muslims didstart a press in Istanbul in the 18 th century. Nearly all the Arabic bookssupplied from Europe reached only the Christian minority, and, as we haveseen, were of a specifically Christian nature. So their effects were confinedto that minority; but the important and disproportionate role of ChristianArabs in the print-based Arab awakening (the Nahḍa) in the 19 th centurymay perhaps owe something to their earlier initiation into the use of printedbooks.It is perhaps worth looking especially at the role of the printed Psaltersin school education: the availability of multiple standard printed copiesmay have engendered a different, and perhaps more productive approachto the teaching and learning of the Arabic script and language, spreading45Balagna, 1984: 133.46Walbiner, 2008.