Turkish printing-man who was born in Hungary of today. He was a son of a protestant Hungarian family and during his theology education he was taken as prisoner by Turks and brought to İstanbul where he became muslim. He worked as a messanger (=müteferrika) in various Ottoman State offices delivering messages from ministers to the related authorities and having the knowledge of foreign languages, he was present during the state negotiations with foreign diplomatic teams. He was given to the service of Hungarian Prince F. Rackowicz for some time.
Since he learned printing procedures and matters in Hungary during his education, he was determined to open up a printing-house and he established a printing-house in 1719 and 1720. But because of the opposition of fanatic muslims, the house was permitted to be opened for printing non-religious matters at the beginning. The most important matter printed in this printing-house was 'The Dictionary of Vankulu' along with 16 important works and some maps. İbrahim's printing-house is the first Muslim Turkish printing-house in history. There were other printing-houses in Turkey opened up by non-muslims before, though.
: 14 January 2004 / 16:35 GMT |
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