Antonella Ghersetti Alex Metcalfe. THE BOOK IN FACT AND FICTION IN PRE-MODERN ARABIC LITERATURE. , Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, 2012.

As Johannes Pedersen stated in his seminal work: 'in scarcely any other culture did literary life play such a role as in Islam Speedy dissemination of books, their transmission, authentication, production, reproduction and exchange testify to an enormous activity in the Arab- Islamic world. The result of these intellectual undertakings was great indeed: many Arabic scholars of the pre-modern period are famous for their prodigious output, which biographical sources reckoned in terms of pages, physical volumes and titles. According to Ibn al-Nadim, the fourth/tenth century-scholar al-Marzubānī wrote over 38,000 pages! Books in both their concrete and intellectual sense were frequently a topic of discussion. Declarations of passionate love for books are quite common in Arabic literature, alongside literary representations of a passion for written materials - even verging on pathological attachment The image of the personified book is also often found in the sources: it can be a trusted friend or might reveal itself as a generous teacher, always ready to inform and encourage conversation among people living in different times and places.