Seadet-i Ebediyye - Endless Bliss Second Fascicle

they are insidious enemies pretending to be friends. But those
poor people who have little religious knowledge or who have not
learned religious knowledge in their homes will be caught in these
base people’s traps and drift into perdition.
By saying, “As printhouses were built and books were printed
in Europe, our block-headed people who wore turbans and grew
beards said that it was sinful to build printhouses because they
were the inventions of disbelievers, and they prevented them.
They caused us to remain behind for years. Islam, the laws of the
desert, caused great harm to the Turks,” they try to educate school
children so as to be irreligious and faithless. They imbue them with
hostility against Islam. Being unable to attack Islam through
knowledge, science and morality, they fable such base lies and
poison young brains. Like all their other slanders, it is obvious that
these words of theirs are also lies. By ‘block-headed’ they mean
’Abdullah Bey from Yenishehir, who was the fifty-seventh
Ottoman Shaikh-ul-Islâm, the greatest representative of Islamic
savants. Let us see how he answered the question concerning
building a printhouse and printing books: When a Hungarian
Muslim wanted to build a printhouse, the Shaikh-ul-Islâm was
asked: “If a person who claims to know the art of printing books
well says that he can make the letters and words of the books of
auxiliary branches of knowledge, such as, lexicography, logic,
astronomy, physics and the like in moulds and print them on
pieces of paper, thus obtaining their copies, will Islam allow the
person to print books in this manner?” The Shaikh-ul-Islâm,
’Abdullah Bey, answered: “A person who knows the art of
printing books well makes the letters and words of a book in
moulds and prints them on pieces of paper, thus obtaining
numerous copies of the book in a short time. In this way he
develops a cheaper way of printing books. Since it is useful work,
Islam allows a person to do this work. A few people who know the
branch of knowledge written in the book should proof-read the
book first. If the book is printed after putting in the corrections it
will be a beautiful piece of work.” The answer is written in the
book Bahjat-ul-fatâwâ, in the chapter Hazar wa lebs. It reveals
how highly Islam values knowledge and science. The press and its
machines were invented in 851 [1447 A.D.] and in 1192 [1778
A.D.] respectively. Paper was invented in 130 [747 A.D.].
The book entitled Tenqîh-ul-kalâm fî-’aqâid-i ahl-i Islâm,
which was printed in Istanbul in 1330 A.H., by ’Abdullatîf
Harputî, one of the men of religion educated during the time of
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