Literacy and the ‘great divide’ in the Islamic world, 1300–1800

Abstract The study proposes an approach to the history of literacy in the Islamic world that uses a flexible and gradated definition of literacy. It goes on to propose some factors that lay behind the acquisition of certain forms of literacy and of the way that they were put into practical use. Among these factors were the religious factor, which had consequences on a broad region; commercial conditions, which were an impetus to make use of the written word; and the development of a legal culture.