Paper making demonstration. Meros (Heritage) Paper Mill, Konighil, Samarkand, Uzbekistan/Alamy
The Golden Age of Islam, a period of remarkable scientific, cultural, and intellectual achievements, would never have been possible without high-quality and accessible writing material. However, there was one significant challenge—China, the birthplace of paper, was too far from the centers of the Arab-Muslim world to ensure a steady supply. So how did the Muslims acquire paper, and how did they make it their own?
In 751, near the city of Talas (on what is now the border between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan), there raged a battle between the armies of the Arab Caliphate and the Turkic Karluks on one side and the Tang Chinese army on the other. This struggle for control over Central Asia resulted in the Arab-Turkic forces defeating the Chinese army, and some researchers believe this victory halted China's westward expansion and determined the region's civilizational alignment with Islam. However, there are those who viewed the Battle of Talas as a mere border skirmish with limited historical significance.
Talas river. Mountains of Kyrgyzstan/Alamy
One important outcome of this battle is believed to be the introduction of paper from China to the Arab-Muslim world. Paper had been invented in China centuries before this battle, but it was little-known in the Caliphate. Instead, people used Egyptian and Sicilian papyrus, made from reed and used for documents, or parchment, made from specially treated animal hides and used for books.
The oldest surviving book on paper, the Phi Yü Ching, is printed on 'liu-ho' paper from Liu-ho, northern Chiangsu. Made from six materials. 250 AD. Tsien Tsuen-Hsun, Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Part 1, C.U.P. 1985. Calligraphy Museum, Tokyo/Wikimedia Commons
After the Battle of Talas, Arab forces captured a group of Chinese artisans and sent them to Samarkand to set up the empire’s first paper factory. This is how Samarkand paper, known as kagaz, came into existence. Subsequently, this word, which is believed to have been borrowed from Sogdian, came to be used in all Turkic and Iranian languages, as well as in Urdu and Hindi.
From Samarkand, the use of kagaz began to spread throughout the Caliphate in the eighth century and gradually displaced papyrus. By the mid-ninth century, only two small towns in Lower Egypt still processed reed into writing material, and by the tenth century, the industry had vanished altogether. The spread of paper across the Arab Caliphate contributed to the Golden Age of Islam, which took place from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries and was a period of cultural flourishing in the Arab-Muslim world.
For a long time, Samarkand remained the largest center of paper production in the Caliphate. In one of his letters, the great mathematician Al-Khwarizmi (circa 783–circa 850) jokingly remarked to a friend who hadn’t written for a while that the friend must live very far from Samarkand, where paper was too expensive for him. Paper was also produced in Mawarannahr (the Arabic name for Transoxiana), Damascus, Tiberias in Palestine, and Tripoli in Syria. In 794, Ja’far Barmaki built the first paper factory in Baghdad, an event that transformed the city into a hub of intellectual activity, with its many bookstores and a dedicated street in the business district where both books and paper were bought and sold, earning Baghdad a reputation as a center of learning and culture.
This painting demonstrates different stages of manufacturing the Oriental Paper. 19th century/Alamy
The secret of kagaz lay in its unique production method, using old rags and cotton. This approach had two major advantages: first, it significantly reduced the cost of production, and second, it made it far more convenient and practical to use. Its affordability transformed kagaz into a product for mass rather than elite consumption. As a result, paper was not reserved for only high-ranking officials but was also available to poor poets, judges, public scribes, and ordinary merchants.
From the ninth century, all government offices in the Caliphate switched from using papyrus to paper, providing a massive advantage in administrative organization. Officials and agencies could now communicate quickly, and the postal service became crucial, linking the empire’s vast, scattered territories to the capital and to one another. Even a short disruption in postal services would result in piles of undelivered letters, which contemporaries saw as a worrying sign of political instability.
Paper making demonstration. Meros (Heritage) Paper Mill, Konighil, Samarkand, Uzbekistan/Wikimedia Commons
Recent archeological findings have suggested that cities in eastern Turkestan, such as Turfan, Khotan, and Dunhuang, were already producing paper by the third century. These cities had close trade ties with Central Asia west of the Tian Shan Mountains, facilitated by Sogdian trade houses. Merchants quickly recognized the value of this new invention and learned the details of its production to replicate it at home.
However, once they began producing their own paper, Central Asians significantly improved the final product. Early Chinese paper, made from mulberry or bamboo fibers or a combination of the two, was rigid and brittle. Central Asians immediately realized that their own long-fibered cotton could produce stronger and more flexible paper than the Chinese product. This innovation in paper production not only made it more durable but also more accessible, helping to spread the use of paper throughout Central Asia and beyond. Thus, paper soon became an essential tool for intellectual and commercial exchange, paving the way for the flourishing of culture and trade in the region.