In the first decades of the nineteenth century, British Calcutta stood as one of the most important cities in the world for the editing, printing, and selling of Arabic books. Before the famous Bulaq Press in Cairo was established in 1820, from 1801–19, European Orientalists and Indian munshis (scribes and clerks) and maulvis (Arabic, mawlanas), alongside one Yemeni scholar, had already printed 22 Arabic titles in movable type—many for the first time—at Fort William College in Calcutta (alongside 18 in Persian and 24 in Sanskrit).1 By 1831, a published “List of Oriental Works for Sale at the Government Education Depository, near the Hindu College, Potoldanga, Calcutta,” advertised 27 Arabic, 31 Sanskrit, 36 English, 16 Hindi and Urdu, 30 Persian, and 29 Bengali books.2 Far from a marginal undertaking, Arabic books represented a sizeable proportion of printing in Bengal at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

在 19 世纪的前几十年，英属加尔各答是世界上最重要的阿拉伯语书籍编辑、印刷和销售城市之一。在 1820 年开罗著名的 Bulaq Press 成立之前，从 1801 年到 19 年，欧洲东方学家和印度munshi s（抄写员和文员）和maulvi s（阿拉伯语，mawlana s）与一位也门学者一起，已经在活字印刷——很多是第一次——在加尔各答的威廉堡学院（还有 18 种波斯文和 24 种梵文）。1个到 1831 年，在加尔各答 Potoldanga 印度教学院附近的政府教育收藏处出版了一份“待售东方作品清单”，其中刊登了 27 本阿拉伯语、31 本梵语、36 本英语、16 本印地语和乌尔都语、30 本波斯语和 29 本孟加拉语书籍的广告. 2在 19 世纪初，阿拉伯语书籍在孟加拉印刷业中占据了相当大的比例，这远非边缘事业。