¹ Inaugural lecture given on 4 March 1992 at the Royal Holloway and Bedford New College as Professor of the History of South Asia in the University of London. I am particularly grateful to my colleague, Rosalind Thomas, for allowing me to read the typescript of her forthcoming book, Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1992 forthcoming). She has enabled me to see the pitfalls of this subject and to embark upon it with greater ease than I had the right to expect.

² The printing from moveable type was done by Pi Sheng in China during the years AD 1041–49. Because of the vast number of characters required in Chinese, the invention was not widely adopted. Gutenberg's invention was made without knowledge of the Chinese discovery.

³ McLuhan, Marshall, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (Routledge & Kegan Paul: London, 1962);Google ScholarSteiner, George, Language and Silence (Faber & Faber: London, 1967);Google Scholar much work has also been done on the subtler effects of print on consciousness by Ong, Walter J., The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History (Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 1967);Google ScholarRhetoric, Romance and Technology: Studies in the Interaction of Expression and Culture (Cornell University Press: Ithaca, 1971);Google ScholarOrality and Literacy; The Technologizing of the Word (Methuen: London, 1982);Google Scholar ‘Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought’in Baumann, G. (ed), The Written Word: Literacy in Transition (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1986).Google Scholar

⁴ Bacon, Fancis, Novum Organum, Aphorism 129 inGoogle ScholarBacon, FrancisAdvancement of Learning and Novum Organum (The Colonial Press: New York, 1899), p. 366.Google Scholar

⁵ Eisenstein, Elizabeth L., The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communication and Cultural Transformation in Early-Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1979), vols I and II.Google Scholar

⁶ Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 366–7.

⁷ Kaplan, Mehmet, Tevfik Fikret ve siiri (Turkiye Yayinevi: Istanbul, 1946), p. 19Google Scholar cited in Mardin, SerifReligion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The Case of Bediuzza man Said Nursi (State University of New York Press: Albany, 1989), p. 120.Google Scholar

⁸ Robinson, Francis, Separatism among Indian Muslims: The Politics of the United Provinces' Muslims 1860–1923 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1974), pp. 77–8Google Scholar

⁹ Carter, Thomas F. ‘Islam as a Barrier to Printing’, The Moslem World, 1943, XXXIII, pp. 21316;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPedersen, J.The Arabic Book trans. French, G., ed. Hillenbrand, R. (Princeton University Press: Princeton, N. J., 1984), pp. 131–41;CrossRefGoogle ScholarFischer, Michael M. J. and Abedi, Mehdi, Debating Muslims: Cultural Dialogues in Postmodernity and Tradition (Universty of Wisconsin Press: Madison, 1989), pp. 93–4.Google Scholar

¹⁰ An outstanding analysis of the essential orality of the Quran is to be found in Graham, William A., Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1987), pp. 79–115.Google Scholar

¹¹ Constance Padwick, E., Muslim Devotions: A Study of Prayer-Manuals in Common Use (SPCK: London, 1961), p. 119.Google Scholar

¹² Graham, , Beyond the Written Word, pp. 96–7.Google Scholar

¹³ Khaldun, Ibn, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. Rosenthal, Franz, ed. Dawood, N. J., (Princeton University Press: Princeton, N. J., 1967), p. 421.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Pedersen, , The Arabic Book, pp. 20–36.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Idem.; Mitchell, Timothy, Colonizing Egypt (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1988), pp. 128–60.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Khaldun, Ibn, The Muqaddimah, p. 431.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Ibid., pp. 431–3; Mitchell, Colonizing Egypt, pp. 150–4.

¹⁸ An ijaza given by al-Mutarriz to his pupil Abu Ja'far al-Tabari, the great historian and commentator on the Quran, Pedersen, , The Arabic Book, p. 36.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Ibid., p. 35;

Mitchell, , Colonizing Egypt, pp. 150–4;Google ScholarNasr, Sayyed Hossein, ‘Oral Transmission and the Book in Islamic Education: The Spoken and the Written Word’, Journal of Islamic Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 01 1992, pp. 1–14.Google Scholar

²⁰ This statement appears in a trenchant exposition of how teachers should be venerated, Von Grunebaum, E. E. and Abel, T. M. (trans. and eds), Az- Zarnuji: Ta'lim al Muta'llim-Tariq at-Ta'allum: Instruction of the Student: the Method of Learning (The Iranian Institute and School of Asiatic studies, New York, 1947), p. 32.Google Scholar

²¹ Statement by Maulana Abdul Bari, the leading Firangi Mahali scholar of the early twentieth century in Qidwai, Altaf al-Rahman, Qiyam-i Nizam-i Ta'lim (Lucknow, 1924), p. 86.Google Scholar

²² These arguments are developed in relation to Islam and printing. Nevertheless, it is recognized that the widespread printing of books was also not adopted in the Hindu, Chinese and Japanese worlds until the nineteenth century. In these areas too there were cultural and political barriers to the adoption of printing. In Hinduism, for instance, ‘the oral word has remained the only fully acceptable and authoritative form for sacred texts for over two, possibly over two and one-half, millennia after the implementation of writing’. Graham, , Beyond the Written Word, p. 68.Google Scholar

²³ For a discussion of the style and content of the first Urdu newspaper published by a Firangi Mahali, Maulvi Muhammad Yaqub, see Iqbal Husain, ‘Lucknow between the Annexation and the Mutiny’, unpublished paper, Department of History, Aligarh Muslim University, which analyses Tilism-i Lakhnaw, which came out in 1856 and 1857.

²⁴ Karnamah was the second of Maulvi Muhammad Yaqub's papers and appeared for three decades from the 1860s. Thomas Holloway manufactured patent medicines and pioneered the intensive use of newspaper advertising for the marketing of products. He used part of his fortune to found the Royal Holloway College, University of London. Bingham, Caroline, The Histoy of the Royal Holloway College 1886–1986 (Constable: London, 1987).Google Scholar

²⁵ Metcalf, Barbara D., Islamic Rivival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900 (Princeton University Press: Princeton N.J., 1982), pp. 198–215.Google Scholar

²⁶ Ibid., pp. 203–10;

see a series of articles on the translation of the Quran into Tamil, Telegu, Kannada and Gujarati in Christian Troll, W. (ed.), Islam in India: Studies and Commentaries, vol. I, (Vikas: New Delhi, 1982), pp. 135–67Google Scholar

and on the translation of the Quran into Malayalam in Ibid., vol. II, (Vikas: New Delhi, 1985), pp. 229–36.

²⁷ Metcalf, , Islamic Revival, pp. 205–6.Google Scholar

²⁸ Metcalf, Barbara D., Perfecting Women: Maulana Ashraf ‘Ali Thanawi's Bihishti Zewar: A Partial Translation with Commentary (University of California Press: Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1990), p. 376. This advice comes in the first of three essays with which Thanawi ends his book. It is entitled ‘On acquiring further knowledge and the names of Worthwhile and harmful books’ and lists worthwhile and, perhaps unwisely, harmful books.Google Scholar

²⁹ Metcalf, , Islamic Revival, pp. 46–260.Google Scholar

³⁰ Robinson, , Separatism, pp. 186.Google Scholar

³¹ The early uniform of Aligarh College included the wearing of a Turkish fez. Abdul Halim Sharar tells how in the late nineteenth century the ulama of Firangi Mahal, and also Shibli Nomani, were beginning to adopt the styles of Syria and Egypt. At the same time Shia ulama were following Persian fashions. Sharar, Abdul Halim, Lucknow: The Last Phase of an Oriental Culture, trans. and ed. by Harcourt, E. S. and Fakhir, Hussain, (Paul Elek: London, 1975), p. 176.Google Scholar

³² From Iqbal's, Rumuz-i-Bekhudi or ‘The Mysteries of Selflessness’, in de Bary, W. Theodore (ed.), Sources of Indian Tradition (Columbia University Press: New York, 1958), p. 756.Google Scholar

³³ Speech of Shibli to the Nadwat-ul-Ulama in 1894. Ikram, S. M., Modern Muslim India and the Birth of Pakistan (1858–1951) (Sh. Muhammad Ashraf: Lahore, 1965), pp. 139–40.Google Scholar

³⁴ See Robinson, , Separatism, pp. 284–6.Google Scholar

³⁵ Ibid., pp. 289–356;

Minault, Gail, The Khilafat Movement: Religious Symbols and Political Mobilization in India (Columbia University Press: New York, 1982).Google Scholar

³⁶ See, for instance, Ahmed, Akbar S., Discovering Islam: Making Sense of Muslim History and Society (Routledge & Kegan Paul: London, 1988).Google Scholar

³⁷ Walter, H. A., The Ahmadiyya Movement (Humphrey Milford: London, 1918);Google ScholarFriedmann, Yohannan, Prophecy Continuous: Aspects of Ahmadi Religious Thought and its Medieval Background (Uniersity of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1989);Google Scholar and Robinson, Francis, ‘Ahmad and the Ahmadiyya’, History Today, vol. 40, 06 1990, pp. 42–7.Google Scholar

³⁸ Troll, Christian W., Sayyid Ahmad Khan: A Reinterpretation of Muslim Theology (Vikas: New Delhi, 1978), pp. 105–70.Google Scholar

³⁹ Troll emphasizes that Saiyid Ahmad's insistence that the word of God and the work of God could not be in conflict echoes the line taken by the Archdeacon of Calcutta of the time, John Pratt, in his Scrioture and Science not at Variance, which was first published in 1856. Saiyid Ahmad frequently refers to Pratt's book in his commentary on the Bible. Troll, , Sayyid Ahmad Khan, p. 155.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Emmanuel Sivan, the historian of jihad in the later Middle Ages, tells us how he was drawn to study the Muslim Brotherhood and its more recent offshoots in Egypt and elsewhere by discovering large quantities of newly published medieval Islamic texts, in particular the works of Ibn Taimiya and Ibn Kathir, in bookshops in East Jerusalem and in Cairo: ‘these books, smelling of fresh print, were quickly snatched off the bookstalls by people in all walks of life, but especially by youngsters in modern garb. … I noticed that the introductions and commentaries thereof … [made[ an evident effort … to reflect upon the meaning these texts could have for a modern and totally different historical situation.’ Sivan, Emmanuel, Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics (Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 1985), p. ix–x.Google Scholar For the Nurcular, see Mardin, , Religion and Social Change.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Mardin, , Religion and Social Change, pp. 181–2.Google Scholar

⁴² Ibid., p. 4.

⁴³ Sweeney, Amin, A Full Hearing: Orality and Literacy in the Malay World, (University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987), pp. 267–302.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Metcalf, Barbara D., ‘Meandering Madrasas: Education, Itinerancy and the Tablighi Jama'at’, paper delivered to the workshop on the purposes of education and information, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 12 1991.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Much has been made in recent years of the role played by radio cassettes of Ayatollah Khomeini's sermons in the making of the Iranian revolution. See Chelkowski, Peter, ‘Popular Entertainment, Media and Social Change in Twentieth-Century Iran’ in Avery, Peter et al. (eds), The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 7, p. 814Google Scholar and

Avery Peter, ‘Printing, the Press and Literature in Modern Iran’ in ibid., p. 829.

Less dramatic, however, but rather more important in a general sense is the way in which electronic media are coming to serve regular habits of piety, whether it be the morning reading of the Quran on the wireless, Graham, , Beyond the Written Word, p. 104, or the home use of video-cassettes of leading Middle Eastern preachers in France.Google ScholarReeber, Michel, ‘A Study of Muslim Preaching in France’, Islam and Christian Muslim Relations, vol. 2, no. 2, 12 1991, pp. 275–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar