hidden,” Müteferrika’ s printing was going to be closely monitored. The decree stated:
so that the printed books will be free from printing mistakes, the wise, respected and meritorious religious scholars specializing in Islamic Law, the excellent Kadi of Istanbul, Mevlana İshak, and Selaniki’ s Kadi, Mevlana Sahib, and Galata’ s Kadi, Mevlana Asad, may their merits be increased, and from the illustrious religious orders, the pillar of the righteous religious scholars, the Sheykh of the Kasim Paşa Mevlevihane, Mevlana Musa, may his wisdom and knowledge increase, will oversee the proofreading.
Müteferrika was allowed to set up a printing press, but whatever he printed had to be vetted by a panel of three religious and legal scholars, the Kadis. Maybe the wisdom and knowledge of the Kadis, like everybody else’ s, would have increased much faster had the printing press been more readily available. But that was not to be, even after Müteferrika was given permission to set up his press.
Not surprisingly Müteferrika printed few books in the end, only seventeen between 1729, when the press began to operate, and 1743, when he stopped working. His family tried to continue the tradition, but they managed to print only another seven books by the time they finally gave up in 1797. Outside of the core of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey, printing lagged even further behind. In Egypt, for instance, the first printing press was set up only in 1798, by Frenchmen who were part of the abortive attempt by Napoleon Bonaparte to capture the country. Until well into the second half of the nineteenth century, book production in the Ottoman Empire was still primarily undertaken by scribes hand-copying existing books. In the early eighteenth century, there were reputed to be eighty thousand such scribes active in Istanbul.
This opposition to the printing press had the obvious consequences for literacy, education, and economic success. In 1800 probably only 2 to 3 percent of the citizens of the Ottoman Empire were literate, compared with 60