Islamic Bindings & Bookmaking: A Catalogue of an Exhibition in the Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago, May 18–August 18, 1981

From the multiplication of the pre-eminent Book of Islam an organization mushroomed for the production and marketing of books throughout the Islamic world. It did not appear like a jinn out of the sands of the Arabian desert. Many of its practices and certain elements in its organization had been inherited from the Christians, Manichaeans, and Jews. But the widespread traditions about the life and sayings of Muhammad and his companions were contagious and early on extended to great quantities of books of scientific research in history and geography and to a literature filled with poetry and tales of adventure.