Printing press with Arabic type

Printing in Arabic was introduced in Lebanon by Christian monks. The first printing works were created in 1726 at the Monastery of Mar Yuhanna Al-Shuwayr (Saint John the Baptist) at Khunshara, a mountain village of Matn in Lebanon. It was apparently the second in the region after the printing works at Alep, created around 1706 at the instigation of the Greek-Orthodox patriarch of Antioch. Behind the times as compared to Europe, the Ottoman had forbidden printing works on their territory in the fifteenth century for fear that spelling or other errors would be made in the copies of the Quran, only authorizing the Jewish, Armenian and Greek communities to print, and only in their language. This interdiction was lifted in 1726 for non-religious publications, and a first book was printed in Istanbul in 1728.

The first book in Arabic type printed at the Monastery of Mar Yuhanna was printed in 1733-34. It was the Kitâb mizân al-zamân (book of balance of time) by J. E. Nieremberg, translated into Arabic by Jesuit Father Fromage and the deacon ‘Abd Allah Zakhir. The latter, from Alep, had apparently founded the printing works and ensured its operation until his death in 1748. It seems that ‘Abd Allah Zakhir designed certain tools, ordered from the carpenters and blacksmiths of Alep, and that he had made others on site. Volney, who visited this printing works during his travels to Lebanon in 1784, left us a description of it. He described Zakhir as having "had the courage to form the three-fold project of writing, casting and printing". However, another theory favours the European origin of the printing works, based on a letter written by Father Fromage to a French merchant in Saida, in which he informs him of the assembly of various parts of the printing works. This could indicate that the printing works came partially or entirely from abroad, and especially Romania, like the printing works of Alep. Zakhir's press is still at the monastery, exhibited in a space fitted out as a museum.

It is also important to note that it was the printing works of Saint Anthony at Qozhaya in the valley of Qannoubine, in northern Lebanon, that produced in 1585 the first book printed outside of Europe: the book of Psalms in Syriac and Arabic transliterated in Syriac characters, today disappeared, but described in the catalogue of the Medicis Library in Florence. A second psalter, published in 1610, is still conserved at the monastery of Qozhaya. No more of these works were produced, because they were the fruit of individual initiatives using mobile presses brought from Europe and foreign typographers. Thus, all traces or memory of the press of Qozhaya seems to have vanished quite quickly. Syriac, language of worship of the Maronite community, continued however to be used despite the domination of dialectal Arabic. The printing works of the Monastery of Mar Yuhanna and the subsequent printing works in the region contributed to reinforcing the hold of Arabic as the language for the transmission of knowledge in Christian circles.