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A guild (or gild) is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest guilds were formed as confraternities of workers. In pre-industrial cities, craftsmen tended to form associations based on their trades, confraternities of textile workers, masons, carpenters, carvers, glassworkers, each of whom controlled secrets of traditionally imparted technology, the "arts" or "mysteries" of their crafts. Usually the founders were free independent master craftsmen. During the Indian Gupta-period (AD 300 - 600) Indian craftmen's associations, which may have had archaic antecedents, were known as shreni. ia and Benin, separate guilds developed for professional dancers, mask carvers, and musicians associated with egungun ancestral masquerade performances often regarded as the predecessor to the traveling Alarinjo theatre.[1] Guild also can be seen in tantra. like †eambisaya. Islamic civilization extended the notion of guilds to the artisan as well — most notably to the warraqeen, or "those who work with paper." Early Muslims were heavily engaged in translating and absorbing all ilm ("knowledge") from all other known civilizations as far east as China. Critically analyzing, accepting, rejecting, improving and codifying knowledge from other cultures became a key activity, and a knowledge industry as presently understood began to evolve. By the beginning of the 9th century, paper had become the standard medium of written communication, and most warraqeen were engaged in paper-making, book-selling, and taking the dictation of authors, to whom they were obliged to pay royalties on works, and who had final discretion on the contents.[2] The standard means of presentation of a new work was its public dictation in a mosque or madrassah in front of many scholars and students, and a high degree of professional respect was required to ensure that other warraqeen did not simply make and sell copies, or that authors did not lose faith in the warraqeen or this system of publication. Thus the organization of the warraqeen was in effect an early guild.
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