This isn't the post I promised (that's still to come). But I just couldn't resist sharing this gem of an anecdote, which comes from a ninth-century discussion of book-lovers at the caliphal court:
Al-Fath ibn Khaqan used to attend the audiences of [the caliph] al-Mutawakkil and whenever he needed to excuse himself, he would take a book out of his sleeve or boot and begin to read it while still in the presence of al-Mutawakkil and until he would return to him, and even in the latrine itself.
Yes, even in Baghdad* in the 850s did bibliophiles sneak away to read on the loo!
[* or possibly in Samarra, the new caliphal capital just to the north that was occupied by the court for a while in this period]
The quotation comes from Shawkat M. Toorawa's marvellous Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur and Arabic Writerly Culture: a ninth-century bookman in Baghdad (Routledge, 2005), which I started reading for thesis purposes and have been thoroughly drawn into. Sadly, it's priced for the academic library market rather than the interested lay reader, or else I would highly recommend it to readers of this blog. It's a wonderful study of the explosion of literary production and bibliophilia in early medieval Islamic culture, seen through the career of the titular Ibn Abi Tahir.
Technological developments like the introduction of paper in the 750s (which made books cheaper to produce, and to produce in large quantities), coupled with the expansion and elaboration of caliphal and provincial administration during the eighth century (and thus the need for a vast, highly-literate secretarial class, and the accessible information for them to work from), combined to create a substantial audience for books, a substantial pool of potential writers, and the means of widely distributing knowledge and literary forms of many different types.
Islamic scholarly culture never lost its strong tradition of oral and aural learning, and authentification of information through its connection with authoritative (and, preferably, long dead) teachers. A proper jurist still, routinely, had the Qur'an memorised by the age of eight, for example (or seven, if they were precocious), poets continued to perform aloud, and for generations history was still not infrequently written with an isnad (chain of transmitters: "X told me, on the authority of Y, who heard Z say...") in every other paragraph. The reliability and learning of the person conveying the information, rather than the simple fact of it existing on the page (where its provenance may not be apparent), was where its authority lay.
But books were embraced on an astonishing scale: al-Ya'qubi, who died at the start of the tenth century, tells us that Baghdad's bookselling quarter contained some 100 shops. These shops were places where copyists produced books for sale, but also where scholars - whether professionals or simply enthusiasts - could go to read and to discuss. (And argue; if there's one thing medieval Muslim writers loved to do, it was disagree at eloquent length...). At the same time, the increasing acceptance of books as a means of transmission led to a great expansion in the types and manner of these discussions, and the growth of a learning-for-learning's-sake culture known broadly as adab: encompassing not just traditional disciplines like law and scriptural exegesis (and their poor cousin history), but also geography, ethnography, folklore, medicine, biography, philosophy, literary criticism, and much more.
A fascinating snapshot of one of history's most vibrant cultural periods. Just a pity (especially given the topic) that it isn't more accessible!
~~Nic