Cedid Atlas

Although manuscripts and hand-drawn maps were widely available, the Cedid Atlas could only be published in 1803 by Müderris Abdurrahman Efendi in a style based on European sources.

Although manuscripts and hand-drawn maps were widely available throughout the Muslim world, the massive printing of books started only in 1729 by Ibrahim Muteferrika and the Cedid Atlas could only be published in 1803 by Müderris Abdurrahman Efendi in a style based on European sources.

The atlas was new in terms of cartographical knowledge and well suited to the new system which tried to introduce new institutions into the Ottoman Empire while trying to replace existing ones with contemporary counterparts from the West.

It was an effort to catch up with technical, military, economic, and administrative achievements of the West against which the Ottoman Empire was losing grounds since the 17th century.

For these schools, governmental units, and the wholly re-organized army reformed according to the European practice, a new understanding and applications of geography of the standards of the West were necessary and the Cedid Atlas was translated and printed for this purpose.

However, during the "Alemdar Vakası", an uprising of the janissaries in Constantinople during November 15–18, 1808,[11] a fire at the warehouse of the press destroyed an unknown (unaccounted) number of the copies reserved for sale.