You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
alternatehistory.com
From Karl Schaeffer's article "Medieval Arabic Block Printing: State of the Field":
Most important is the recognition that certain mediæval Arab societies had adopted or developed a technology that allowed them to create multiple copies of written texts and, to a lesser extent, images of architectural structures and animals. Block-printed texts are most frequently found on amulets, many contained within decorative borders, which are also block printed. Both text and representations of structures feature prominently on the pilgrimage certificates.
Why, then, did printing not flourish as in China or Europe? (I'm unconvinced by the argument that Arabic writing was overly complex, given that by the 1830s, Japan -- with its kanji and two coexisting syllabaries -- was printing as many books as France in the 1780s.