American Arabic Type

Beginning in the 1820s, two presses earned renown for Arabic book printing: the Bulaaq Press, established in the Cairo neighborhood of the same name in 1822,⁷¹ and also the English Church Missionary Society’s press on Malta, which began printing Arabic books in 1825/26.⁷² To meet the growing demand for Arabic books for mission schools and other missionary activity, the ABCFM opened the Mat-baʿat al-Amrikan (American Mission Press) in Beirut in 1834.⁷³ At first, the press occupied the ground floor of the three-story building (popularly known as “Burj Bird”) that had been built by the missionary Isaac Bird and served as the mission’s headquarters.⁷⁴

Smith was aware of the Arab reading public’s high expectations, and that the missionaries’ Arabic-language publications to this point did not correspond to the accustomed aesthetics of older calligraphic manuscripts. At this time, not even European centers for Arabic book printing (Paris, Leiden, London, and Leipzig) had developed a satisfactory standard typeface.⁷⁵ This state of affairs, as well as

66 Smith to Anderson (Beirut, June 17, 1851): ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 5 (199).

67 Badr, “Mission to ‘Nominal Christians,’” 133–46, 162.

68 Smith to Paxton (Smyrna, January 24, 1837): ABC 16.5.1. (174).

69 Anderson to Smith (June 14, 1837): ABC 2.1.1., Vol. 01 (HHL).

70 “Obituary Notice”: ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 5 (227).

71 Glaß, Malta, Beirut, Leipzig and Beirut Again, 13.

72 Ibid., 10.

73 Ibid., 14: The press was sometimes called the al-Matba‘a al-Amrikiyya (American Press). With the opening of the new press, the American mission relocated all Arabic book printing to Bei-rut. See Tibawi, “The American Missionaries in Beirut,” 174.

74 PBCFM, Centennial of the American Press, 4.

75 MH 40 (1844), in: ROS 3, 387: “There is a good font at Paris, understood to have been made under the direction of the celebrated Arabic scholar, De Sacy; another, perhaps equally good,

Smith’s desire to operate independently of the English mission presses on Malta, encouraged him to develop a new typeface for the American press in Beirut.⁷⁶ The Arabic typeface produced by the Englishman Richard Watts, which was used by the English missions on Malta, had been available to the Americans since 1828/29.⁷⁷ However, it was not used by the American press on Malta, and it was used by the American Mission Press in Beirut only in 1836, two years after its opening. At first, there was no skilled printer available with a good command of Arabic. There were no punches for small letters, used for margin notes and quotations, and likewise no large letters.⁷⁸ Smith regarded the letters from London as highly deficient.⁷⁹ To develop a few typeface, the director of the Beirut press sought inspiration in the Arabic manuscripts, calligraphies, and printed works that were familiar to the educated reading public. In 1829, Smith visited the Syrian monastery Mar Yuhanna al-Shweir, home to one of the region’s few printing presses,⁸⁰ and he was highly impressed by its typeface: “Certainly the form of the letter is far superior to that of any other which I have seen. The types are cast in the convent after the model of a distinguished Arabic penman.”⁸¹

In 1835, the newly hired printer George Badger traveled to various presses in the area in order to acquire punches and matrices for preparing new molds.⁸² The letters that he then produced, together with Watts’s typeface, were to be used as a stopgap until a more satisfactory, original typeface could be created. In 1836, Eli Smith traveled on behalf of the press to sites such as Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, Jerusalem, and Istanbul, in order to meet with scribes and collect manuscripts.

Plans to use these manuscripts for developing a new style of text were dashed when Smith’s ship wrecked off the coast of Smyrna (today: Izmir), and all of the docu-ments were lost.⁸³ He returned to Istanbul, in order to collect two hundred new writ-ing samples. Homan Hallock,⁸⁴ the American mission’s typographer who resided in Smyrna, was eventually able to cut punches according to Smith’s specifications.

exists in London; while Germany has two, both of them very good, one prepared at the expense of the Prussian government, for the Prussian universities, and the other from the celebrated foundry of Tauchnitz in Leipzig. But none of these are satisfactory to the Arabs themselves, who are fastidious in their taste, and great admirers of fine manuscripts. Not more satisfactory to them are the fonts used in their own printing offices at Constantinople and Cairo.”

76 Glaß, Malta, Beirut, Leipzig and Beirut Again, 19.

77 Ibid., 12.

78 Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 71; Roper, “The Beginnings of Arabic Printing by the ABCFM,” 54.

79 Smith to Anderson (July 13, 1835): ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 1 (89). Even the Church Missionary Society, which used Watts’ typeface, was dissatisfied with the “foreign appearance” of the Ar-abic letters. In 1838, the society began to develop its own typeface. See Glaß, Malta, Beirut, Leipzig and Beirut Again, 12.

80 Atiyeh, “The Book in the Modern Arab World,” 237: The press was established by ʿAbdallah Zakhir in 1723.

81 MH 25 (1829), in: ROS 2, 158.

82 Roper, “The Beginnings of Arabic Printing by the ABCFM,” 59.

83 Glaß, Malta, Beirut, Leipzig and Beirut Again, 20; Stoddard, “The Rev. Eli Smith,” 214.

84 Hallock later followed Smith to Beirut, assisting him with the press for a short time. See MH 29 (1833), in: ROS 2, 353.

Professor Edward Robinson, who traveled with Smith through Palestine and Syria in 1838 (see below), went to Germany to continue his work on the topography of Palestine. Robinson introduced Smith to the German Orientalists Emil Rödiger, Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer, and August Tholuck, as well as to the printer and publisher Karl Tauchnitz, who lived in Leipzig.⁸⁵ Once preparations were complete for Smith’s own travel to Germany, he visited the prominent Orientalists and also Tauchnitz, who cut new punches and then cast the type into matrices.⁸⁶ The result was the font known as American Arabic Type.⁸⁷ Smith sent a first example to his friend and colleague in Syria, Tannus al-Haddad. Al-Haddad responded with his assessment in April 1839: “In regard to the Arabic letters, we have found the speci-men [printing] thereof which you sent for our consideration rather deficient: the length and thickness of letters are not in the right proportion … .”⁸⁸

It is not known whether the typeface was reworked after al-Haddad’s assess-ment. It is clear, however, that American Arabic Type came to Beirut only in 1841.

Despite everything, the press did not operate as effectively as Smith would have liked. A suitable printer and many skilled employees were still needed. Homan Hal-lock, who had helped to produce the typeface, was stationed in Smyrna and did not want to leave.⁸⁹ George P. Badger, who proved to be very competent and conscien-tious, remained in Beirut for only one year.⁹⁰ Only in 1841 did the Beirut press find a printer, the Briton George Hurter, to take on the work that had been interrupted over and over.⁹¹ Between 1835 and 1842, only twenty-nine works were printed in Beirut. In addition to Biblical and religious texts, these included three primers, two grammar books, and one book on medicine.⁹²

Despite these obstacles, the American typeface earned renown beyond the bor-ders of Syria, all the way to Alexandria and even Bombay. George Hurter and the missionary Whiting explained that the new lettering was not only “more beautiful than the old”; it was also well suited for schools and instruction in writing because of its similarity to calligraphy.⁹³

85 Robinson to Smith (November 14, 1838): ABC 60 (63), (HHL); see also Emil Rödiger’s letters to Smith from 1838: ABC 60 (65), (HHL).

86 MH 40 (1848), in: ROS 3, 387; Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 1, 55; Glaß and Roper,

“Arabischer Buch- und Zeitungsdruck,” 191. A favorable price quote also contributed to the Americans’ decision to produce the typeface in Germany. See G. B. Whiting and G. Hurter,

“Report of Works Printed at the Missionary Press in Beirut” (1844): ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 1 (28).

87 Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 1, 55.

88 Tannus al-Haddad to Smith (April 13, 1839), cited in: Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 86.

89 After the typeface was complete, Hallock traveled to the United States, where he used the same matrices to cut and cast Arabic letters for the American Board. The letters were made smaller than those in Beirut. See Rufus Anderson and John Pickering (June 16, 1843): ABC 1.1., Vol. 18, 132 (HHL).

90 Roper, “The Beginnings of Arabic Printing by the ABCFM,” 58–59.

91 MH 37 (1841), in: ROS 3, 308–9.

92 Roper, “The Beginnings of Arabic Printing by the ABCFM,” 58–59.

93 Whiting and Hurter, “Report of Works Printed at the Missionary Press in Beirut” (1844): ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 1 (28).

By the 1850s, the American Mission Press had become a leader in the tech-nology of book printing.⁹⁴ In a letter to Rufus Anderson from December 26, 1853, Smith reported that natives establishing a new press in Beirut had even asked for his help in acquiring machines; they also asked to borrow the Americans’ matrices for casting type.⁹⁵

Not only the Maʿarif and Adabiyya presses, but also the Muslim-led Funun press, benefited from the missionaries’ technological advances and the transfer of technical knowledge from West to East,⁹⁶ as the Arabist daGmar Glaß and the his-torian Geoffrey roPer have shown.

A glance through various Christian periodicals from this time suggests that readers must have been very familiar with American Arabic Type.⁹⁷ Jessup stated confidently that “the type of the Beirut Press is becoming more and more widely regarded as the best Arabic type in the world.”⁹⁸ Even Arabists in Europe expressed interest in the Americans’ type, deeming it the best created thus far.⁹⁹ By the mid-1850s, Smith had completed all of the desired improvements at the American Mis-sion Press. Additional sets of characters were molded; “different sizes and … new characters … permit a wider variety of publications.”¹⁰⁰ The addition of steam-en-gine technology in 1854 allowed the presses to operate more efficiently.¹⁰¹

With the development of faster printing technology at the end of the nineteenth century, simpler setting techniques and less elaborate characters were in demand;

“the ornamental ligatures are more and more being laid aside.”¹⁰² American Arabic Type eventually fell out of fashion.