What If Banning Books Was Never the Only Option?

Author : Wan Mohd Aimran Wan Mohd Kamil | 26th March 2025

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In an age where information spreads at the speed of a click, the idea of banning books can feel like a battle against the wind. With social media, PDFs, and online forums, ideas—whether we agree with them or not—refuse to be contained. Yet, some still cling to the belief that controlling access to books is the best way to preserve social order. But what if history offers another perspective? What if, instead of restricting knowledge, the wiser approach is to empower people to engage with it critically and thoughtfully?

Nearly 300 years ago, a man named Ibrahim Muteferrika faced a similar dilemma. The Ottoman Empire was at a crossroads, debating whether or not to embrace the printing press. While handwritten manuscripts had long been the norm, Europe had been printing books en masse for nearly three centuries, accelerating the spread of knowledge. The Ottomans, meanwhile, hesitated. Some feared that printing would diminish the sacredness of books, others worried about potential errors in religious texts. Against this backdrop, Muteferrika wrote On the Usefulness of Printing, a treatise arguing that books should be multiplied, not restricted.

His argument? That printing was not a threat, but an opportunity.

Books Should Be for Everyone, Not Just the Elite

One of Muteferrika’s strongest points was that printed books would make knowledge more accessible. He wrote, “When a book is printed, there are several thousand exactly identical copies, and printing is a means of producing many clear, excellent, perfect books in a short time.” Handwritten manuscripts were expensive and slow to produce, meaning that only the wealthiest or most privileged scholars could afford them. Printing, he argued, would change this.

With cheaper books, both rich and poor students could acquire an education. “Books will become inexpensive, and students both rich and poor can obtain books and acquire a proper education in the desirable sciences and diplomas in religious studies.” In other words, banning books—or restricting access to them—would only deepen the divide between those who have knowledge and those who do not.

Books Build Nations

Muteferrika didn’t just see printing as a tool for personal education; he saw it as a means of strengthening the empire. “Spreading throughout the Ottoman domains, the books of noble and desired sciences will become numerous in the cities and towns, and the libraries will become full of books.” He believed that more books meant a more literate and informed society, and that this, in turn, would lead to a more stable and organized nation.

Today, as we debate the role of books in shaping our communities, it’s worth asking: Are we using knowledge as a foundation for strength, or are we restricting it out of fear?

Learning How to Think, Not What to Think

One of the most compelling arguments Muteferrika made was about accuracy. He pointed out that handwritten books were prone to errors, and that comparing multiple manuscripts to find the correct version was time-consuming. “Students of the sciences, in studying and examining such books, are safe from mistakes and are secure from wasting time, because for teaching and learning, accurate texts are a necessity.” With printing, books would be clearer, better organized, and easier to reference.

This raises a crucial question for us today: Should our focus be on banning books, or on equipping people with the ability to analyze and critique what they read? In an age where misinformation spreads rapidly online, we are facing a much larger problem than the availability of a few controversial books. The real challenge is not what people read, but whether they have the skills to think critically about it.

What Would Muteferrika Say About Social Media and AI?

If printing was the great technological shift of Muteferrika’s time, what is ours? The answer is clear: the internet, social media, and artificial intelligence. Today, information is not only printed—it is generated, manipulated, and amplified by algorithms. If Muteferrika worried about handwritten errors, what would he say about AI-generated misinformation? If he saw printing as a tool for empowering people, would he see social media the same way?

This is where his treatise still speaks to us. The debate over books is part of a much longer conversation about knowledge and technology. The real question is not whether we should allow people to read certain books, but how we should engage with knowledge in the digital age.

Muteferrika believed that multiplying books would lead to a more informed and stronger society. Perhaps the lesson for us today is that multiplying access to information isn’t enough—we must also cultivate the skills to navigate it wisely.

The Future Is Not About Book Bans—It’s About Intelligent Engagement

Book bans might have made sense in an era when knowledge was scarce and could be controlled. But today, when information floods our screens at all hours, bans feel like a Quixotic quest—tilting at windmills while the real challenge goes unaddressed. The issue is not whether people have access to books, but whether they have the ability to engage with them thoughtfully.

Muteferrika’s message was not simply about printing—it was about confidence. Confidence in the ability of individuals to learn, to reason, and to seek knowledge. Confidence that the strength of a society comes not from restricting ideas, but from confronting them. Confidence that the right response to the overwhelming tide of information is not fear, but wisdom.

So instead of asking whether a book should be banned, perhaps we should be asking: How do we teach people to read critically? How do we empower young adults to make their own decisions about what to read, rather than blindly following the attitudes of past generations? How do we ensure that, in a world of mass information, we remain thoughtful and discerning?

The answer, as Muteferrika saw it, is not less access to books. It is more. And better. And smarter.