Baghdadi Paper in the Early Centuries of Islam; Reviewing an Idea

One of the most important events that had an everlasting and unprecedented impact on Muslim cultural quests was their gaining access to paper and paper industry since the middle years of the second century AH. In many recent studies, it has been claimed that the development of paper industry in Baghdad and the production of Baghdadi paper happened within the first few decades after the construction of the city. According to those researches which are based on the reports of relatively recent sources, some years after paper production in Samarqand (about 179 AH), production of paper in Baghdad began by the order of al-Faḍl b. Yaḥyā al-Barmakī, the vizier of Harun al-Rashid (R. 170-193 AH). Because of the recency of the references that was used in the aforementioned studies and also the exclusiveness of paper manufacturing in China and Samarqand as well as the reliance of Baghdad on the imported paper from those lands until the sixth century AH, the present article shows that the birth of Baghdadi paper occurred no earlier than the time that Yaqut al-​​Hamavi speaks of it, which is the seventh century AH.