Egyptian state printing served military aims and was suppressed outside that project.

Evidence

The contrast between the critical and sometimes hostile response among Muslim scholars to the introduction of an Arabic printing press and the efficient and advanced techniques of the French military scholars is sometimes taken to exemplify the history of Egypt’s relationship with the modern West. It took the Napoleonic occupation to introduce to the Middle East the first Arabic press, and the absence of printing over the preceding centuries has often been cited as evidence of the backwardness and isolation of the Arab world that the French occupation was to shatter. After the departure of the French soldiers the Egyptian government did manage to set up its own press. But this was essentially a part of the country’s new military equipment; the bulk of what was printed in the first half of the century was for purposes of military instruction. The few individuals who tried to extend the use of the press outside the military project subsequently found themselves removed from office and in some cases exiled. By the 1850s, when Egypt had been forced to abandon its military ambitions, the press had fallen into disrepair, and in 1861 it was formally shut down. Printing was started up again by the government under Isma`il, and by the time of the nationalist uprising there was an active periodical press. But the government attempted to suppress whatever publication it did not control, and establishment scholars like Marsafi spoke out against the press, blaming the political crisis in part on the wanton spread of printing. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 424

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to my interest in how governments deploy communication technology in service of state projects, echoing the Foley/nationalist radio material and ‘modern weapons and the colonial state’ thread.
• ADDENDUM: Relevant to tree-as-infrastructure framework: control of a technology’s permitted uses by a centralizing state, though more about print than trees.