Ibrahim Muteferrika

Ibrahim Müteferrika (Turkish: İbrahim Müteferrika; 1674–1745) was a

Hungarian-born Ottoman diplomat, polymath, publisher, printer, courtier,
economist, man of letters, astronomer, historian, historiographer, Islamic scholar and
theologian, sociologist,[1] and the first Muslim to run a printing press with movable
Arabic type.[2]

Contents Sultan Ahmed III receives French

Early life ambassador Vicomte d'Andrezel at
Topkapı Palace.
Diplomatic Service
Printing Press
Legacy
Books published by Muteferrika
Own works
See also
References
Sources
External links

Early life
Ibrahim Muteferrika was born in Kolozsvár (present-day Cluj-Napoca, Romania). He was an ethnic Hungarian Unitarian who
converted to Islam.[2][3] His original Hungarian language name is however unknown.[2]

Diplomatic Service
At a young age, Ibrahim Muteferrika entered the Ottoman diplomatic services. He took an
active part in the negotiations with Austria and Russia. Ibrahim Muteferrika was an active "Why do the Christian nations,
which were so weak in the
figure in promoting the Ottoman-French alliance (1737–1739) against Austria and Russia.
past compared with Muslim
Ibrahim Muteferrika was also acclaimed for his role in the Ottoman-Swedish action against nations begin to dominate so
Russia. During his services as a diplomat he is known to have befriended many influential many lands in modern times
personalities includingOsman Aga of Temesvar, a fellow diplomat of Transylvanian origins and even defeat the once
and former prisoner of war imprisoned inAustria.[5]
victorious Ottoman
armies?"..."Because they have
laws and rules invented by
It was during his years as a diplomat that he took a keen interest in collecting books that
reason"
helped him understand the ongoing Renaissance, the emergence of Protestant movements in Ibrahim Muteferrika,
Europe, and the rise of powerfulcolonial empires in Europe. Rational basis for the Politics
of Nations (1731)[4]
Printing Press
 His volumes, printed in Istanbul and using custom-made fonts, are occasionally
referred to as "Turkish incunabula".[2][6] Muteferrika, whose last name derived from
his employment as a Müteferrika, head of the household, under Sultan Ahmed III
and during the Tulip Era, was also a geographer, astronomer, and philosopher.[2]

This map of the Indian Ocean and
the China Sea was engraved in 1728
by the Hungarian-born Ottoman
polymath and publisher Ibrahim
Muteferrika; it is one of a series that
illustrated Katip Çelebi’s Cihannuma
(Universal Geography), the first
printed book of maps and drawings
to appear in the Muslim World.
regard, he is considered one of the first people to properly introduceheliocentrism to the Ottoman readers.[7]
Following a 1726 report on the efficiency of the new system, which he drafted and
presented simultaneously to Grand Vizier Nevşehirli Damat İbrahim Pasha, the
Grand Mufti, and the clergy, and a later request submitted to Sultan Ahmed III, he
received permission to publish non-religious books (despite opposition from some
calligraphers and religious leaders).[2] Muteferrika's press published its first book in
1729, and, by 1743, issued 17 works in 23 volumes (each having between 500 and
1,000 copies).[2][6] The first book ever published by Muteferrika is "Vankulu
Lügati", a 2-volume Arabic-Turkish dictionary.
Among the works published by Müteferrika were historical and generically scientific
works, as well as Katip Çelebi's world atlas Cihannüma (loosely translated as: The
Mirror of the World or the World Seer).[2] In a digression that he added to his
printing, Müteferrika discussed the Heliocentrism of astronomy in detail, with
references to relatively up-to-date scientific arguments for and against it. In this

After 1742, however, Ibrahim Muteferrika's printing activities were discontinued and an attempt by the British diplomat James Mario
Matra, motivated by the exorbitant prices for manuscript books, to reestablish a press in Istanbul was aborted in 1779.[8] In his
account, Matra refers to the strong opposition of the scribes which Müteferrika's enterprise had to face earlier:

A Press had been set up here about sixty years ago in the turbulent reign of Ahmed III but those who maintained
themselves by copying of Books, apprehending with reason that their trade would be totally ruined, were so loud in
their clamours as to alarm the Seraglio, and as they were supported by a seditious Corps of Janissary, the Sultan
apprehending what really did after happen, that as he mounted the throne by one insurrection, he might be tumbled
from it by another, gave way to their complaints, and suppressed the Press, before anything better than the Quran,
Sunnah, and some trifling books ofMathematics had been struck off.[8]

Legacy
Muteferrika died in Istanbul.

A statue of Muteferrika can be found in the Sahaflar Çarşısı adjacent to theGrand Bazaar in Istanbul.[9]

Books published by Muteferrika

A total of 17 titles have been published by Muteferrika at his own press during his lifetime :

1. Kitab-ı Lügat-ı Vankulu (Sihah El-Cevheri), 2 volumes, 1729

2. Tuhfet-ül Kibar fi Esfar el-Bihar, 1729
3. Tarih-i Seyyah, 1729
4. Tarih-i Hind-i Garbi, 1730
5. Tarih-i Timur Gürgan, 1730
6. Tarih-I Mısr-i Kadim ve Mısr-i Cedid, 1730
7. Gülşen-i Hülefa, 1730
8. Grammaire Turque, 1730
9. Usul el-Hikem fi Nizam el-Ümem, 1732
10. Fiyuzat-ı Mıknatısiye, 1732
11. Cihan-nüma, 1732
12. Takvim el-Tevarih, 1733
13. Kitab-ı Tarih-i Naima, 2 volumes, 1734
14. Tarih-i Raşid, 3 volumes, 1735
15. Tarih-i Çelebizade, 1741
16. Ahval-i Gazavat der Diyar-ı Bosna, 1741
17. Kitab-ı Lisan el-Acem el Müsemma bi-Ferheng-i Şuuri
, 2 volumes, 1742
(Most of the copies of the book Tarih-i Çelebizade have been bound into the third and last volume of Tarih-i Raşid and sold together
with it and thus have erroneously led several sources to believe a total of 16 items have been published.)

Own works
Risâle Islâmiyye (available inmanuscript form) (published by [Esed Cosan] in 1993)

See also
Great Divergence
Printing

References
1. Vefa Erginbas (2005), Forerunner Of The Ottoman Enlightenment: Ibrahim Muteferrika and His Intellectual
Landscape, p. 1 & 46-47,Sabancı University.
2. Presentation of Katip Çelebi,Kitâb-i Cihân-nümâ li-Kâtib Çelebi(http://vitrine.library.uu.nl/wwwroot/en/texts/Rarqu54.
htm) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20090505024753/http://vitrine.library .uu.nl/wwwroot/en/texts/Rarqu54.ht
m) 2009-05-05 at the Wayback Machine., at the Utrecht University Library
3. Alastair Hamilton, Maurits H. van den Boogert, Bart W
esterweel, The Republic of Letters and the Levant, Brill
Publishers, Leiden & Boston, 2005, p.266.ISBN 90-04-14761-6
4. "The 6 killer apps of prosperity"(http://www.ted.com/talks/niall_ferguson_the_6_killer_apps_of_prosperity.html).
Ted.com. 11 August 2017. Retrieved 11 August 2017.
5. "Ibrahim Muteferrika - Ottoman diplomat"(http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/280934/Ibrahim-Muteferrika).
Britannica.com. Retrieved 11 August 2017.
6. William J. Watson, "Ibrahim Muteferrika and Turkish Incunabula", in Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol.
88, No. 3 (1968), p. 435.
7. İ. Kalaycıoğulları, Y. Unat, Kopernik Kuramının Türkiye'deki Yansımaları ("Reflections of Copernican Theory in
Turkey"), presented at the XIVth National Astronomy Congress, September 2004,Kayseri, Turkey
8. Clogg 1979, p. 67
9. İbrahim Müteferrika -- a statue in the Sahaflar Çarşısı(http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-198224-ibrahim-m
uteferrika-a-statue-in-the-sahaflar-carsisi.html)Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20100114031759/http://www.to
dayszaman.com/tz-web/news-198224-ibrahim-muteferrika-a-statue-in-the-sahaflar-carsisi.html) 2010-01-14 at the
Wayback Machine. Today's Zaman, 12 January 2010

Sources
Clogg, Richard (1979), "An Attempt to Revive T urkish Printing in Istanbul in 1779",International Journal of Middle
East Studies, 10 (1): 67–70, doi:10.1017/s0020743800053320
Watson, William J. (1968), "İbrāhīm Müteferriḳa and Turkish Incunabula", Journal of the American Oriental Society,
88 (3): 435–441, doi:10.2307/596868

External links
Early Ottoman Printing: The Müteferrika Press(in English)
 Image of Ibrahim Muteferrika

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