#islamic bookbinding

Islamic Bookbinding Workshop 

I have just returned to Singapore after a week in the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur for a workshop in Islamic Bookbinding with Dr Karin Scheper. Dr Karin is the leading conservator specialising in Islamic books and completed her PhD research in the structures and techniques in manuscripts that were made in the Islamic world.

It was an amazing week, meeting book conservators from Australia, Japan, Malaysia and the Netherlands, as well as my home country, Singapore. Needless to say, I am the only bookbinder there. I am happy that I was able to go for this workshop, made possible by the generous sponsorship of my life partner, Louis. He felt that I was losing my “fire” and drive and needed to be learning again. I travelled up with a good friend and paper conservator, Mariko and even shared a very lovely apartment just 15 minutes walk away from the museum. 

We tried our hand at making a model of one of the most typical Islamic bindings, making endbands, paring leather (very slowly with a scalpel, I did not want to risk losing my leather paring knives at the customs) and finally putting our book together using beautiful Ebru marbled papers by Dr Karin’s friend or using our own made during a Ebru marbling workshop held on Wednesday by The Craft Crowd. 

I would not dare say I am good at Islamic binding but I now know how the structure is built the most basic way, the misconceptions of what the Western bookbinders see of it and the large possibilities and inspiration for my work in design binding in the future. I have already amazing ideas for a book that is waiting for a design binding and I see myself doing some amazing exploration. 

“The intelligent ones will understand this (that is the set of instructions) with simple directions.

For others loud shouting will be necessary.

Another group will need cursing, but not the stick.

A stick will be necessary for the last group.”

I took an Islamic Bookbinding course with Yasmeen Khan near Washington D.C. at the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center. It was fantastic! And quite busy! :) Here's a bit about what we learned in class:

My teacher explained that the term Islamic Bookbinding is used in the same way one might use the term Western or European Bookbinding. It is a general way to categorize books whose style originated in the Middle East. With Western Bookbinding, the focus is on the internal structure. They were meant to be structural sound things and the design elements were secondary. The style is very exacting. With Islamic Bookbinding, the focus is more on the design elements. Precision was not so important for a couple reasons. Binders of that day did not have the heavy machinery and complex tools we use today for bookbinding. Also, the idea is that only God is perfect, so nothing we make can be. The specific type we learned in the class was used by Moroccan publishers back in the day for its simplicity in structure (the books had to be sewn quickly). These books opened from the opposite direction that books are opened in the west, but I have oriented mine in the western sense so I can use it to write in. The triangular flap is traditionally held folded back to aid the reader in reading. I was able to learn some gold-foil hot tooling and create a simple design on the spine and cover. Yasmeen also had a large stamp that was cold-pressed into the center of both covers.