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(a.), printing. 1. In the Arab World The Arabic verb ṭabaʿa , in the sense of printing a book, is a neologism probably inspired by the Italian or the French. This meaning is already attested in the ¶ Dictionnaire français-arabe of Bocthor (1829): “printing”, “the art of printing” is ṭibāʿa or ṣināʿāt al-ṭabʿ , while “printing-house”, “printing-press” is maṭbaʿa or dār al-ṭibāʿa . It is the art of printing, in the context of the three technical processes that it comprises, xylography or wood-block printing (the discovery of which dates back to remote antiqu…

4. Persia. During the century and a half of its existence, the Iranian press has experienced several periods of expansion and contraction. From 1851 to 1880 the press had only a limited audience, as it was meant only for civil servants. In all, some seven newspapers ( rūznāma-hā ) were published. From 1880 to 1906, the press began publishing for all Persians, although few could afford a newspaper. By the end of the century almost forty newspapers and journals had been published. From 1906 to 1925 the number of newspapers…

, Ustād (a., pls. ustād̲h̲ūn , asātid̲h̲a ), a term used from early Islamic times onwards to denote a person eminent and skilful in his profession. The word is clearly non-Arabic in origin, as was early recognised, see al-D̲j̲awālīḳī, al-Muʿarrab , ed. A.M. S̲h̲ākir, Cairo 1361/1942, 25; Lane, Lexicon , 56c). In fact, the word is Iranian, Pahlavi awestād “master (craftsman)”, see D.N. McKenzie, A concise Pahlavi dictionary, London 1971, 14 (also occurring in Manichaean MP as ʾwystʾd ). Through its usage in the Muslim West, it may have given Spanish Vd. = Usted , tho…

(a.), pl. aṣnāf , a term denoting “profession” (synonyms ḥirfa , pl. ḥiraf , and kār , pl. kārāt ), and not “corporation”. 1. In the Arab world. In Cairo, in the Ottoman period, ṣinf is not used in this sense, except by the Turkish traveller Ewliyā Čelebi, in his renowned description of professional corporations ( Seyāḥat-nāme , x, 358-86). There is no word in Arabic specifically denoting the professional corporation: texts frequently use the word ṭāʾifa , pl. ṭawāʾif , which has the much more general connotation of “group”, “community”. It is only in the expression arbāb al-ḥiraf wa ’l-ṣan…