This paper examines the emergence of musical literacy in the Arabic context during the early Abbasid period (mid-8th to early 11th century). The earliest theoretical writings on music in Arabic appeared in the late 8th century during the so-called “Arabic book revolution,” a period that witnessed a dramatic increase in the production of books due to a diversity of factors, including the adoption of paper as a writing medium. The transition from a predominantly oral culture with listening at its center to an increasingly textual, book-based, and writerly one, broadly defines the period stretching from the late 7th to 10th century. Historians and scholars of Arabic literature have increasingly paid attention to the momentous turn to book writing in the late 8th century, studying how the forms of knowledge transmission were altered in contrasting ways across disciplinary boundaries, following multiple paths and paces in a non-linear transition to literacy (Gruendler 2020, Hirschler 2012, Schoeler 2007). While the import of this phenomenon for music is indisputable, its impact on the discipline has yet to be considered. In this paper, I argue that the large-scale adoption of the book format and the development of new systems of knowledge transmission created the framework for a literate approach to music. By surveying the notation proposals put forth by theorists such as al-Kindī, al-Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā, and Ibn Zayla, I interrogate the possibilities afforded by the written medium and the new avenues it opened for engaging with theoretical texts. In light of a handful of passages in theoretical writings, as well as anecdotal material on performers active at the caliphal court of Baghdad, I also entertain the possibility that musical notation was employed outside theoretical sources, even if its existence was limited to occasional use within small circles. The paper offers a compelling counter-narrative for the advent of music writing in the West, which took place in Carolingian Europe roughly at the same time, and thus contributes to the global turn in the historical study of music.