Islamic Papermaking Workshop Industry

Timeline

1. c. 750–900Samarkand · UzbekistanDuring the Abbasid period papermaking spread in from Central Asia; Samarkand became an early important papermaking center, with craftsmen mastering pulping, sheet-forming, and calendering processes, and paper quality improving rapidly.
2. 900–1100Baghdad · IraqBaghdad, Damascus, Fez, and other cities successively established papermaking workshops, forming an inter-city division of labor; paper became the common medium for madrasa copying, administrative documents, and commercial contracts.
3. 1100–1220Samarkand · UzbekistanBetween about 1211 and 1220, Central Asian papermaking workshops such as those in Samarkand remained active in supplying paper, supporting local scholarship and trade documents. After the Mongols captured Samarkand in 1220, many workshops were destroyed and the industrial landscape changed dramatically.