Deadly Utility: Indo-Persian Scissors

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

For a quick insight into Ottoman Arabian and Persian calligraphy equipment see http://calligraphyqalam.com/process/tools.html

We seldom hear of paper and its role in Islamic Caligraphy... I noted Quote" Paper making technologies are believed to have been introduced to the Islamic world through Turkish and Chinese papermakers captured at the Battle of Talas in 751. Instead of using bark from the mulberry tree, however, papermakers in the Islamic world resorted to pressing linen rags (Johannes Pedersen, The Arabic Book, trans. Geoffrey French, [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984], 60-64). Unlike parchment (cured sheep or goat skin), paper could be made cheaply and in industrial quantities particularly after 794, when the first paper mill was established in Baghdad (Jonathan Bloom, Paper Before Print: the History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001], 29 and 48). Also see Helen Loveday, Islamic Paper: A Study of the Ancient Craft (London: Archetype Publications, 2001)"Unquote.