In a recent article, I explored a popular myth about the destruction of pre-Islamic Persian books and knowledge during the great Arab conquests, based on an improbable story that can be found in certain extremely late Arabic sources. There is however another, similar myth, which is perhaps better known than the first: that it was also the Arabs who destroyed the Great Library of Alexandria, during their conquest of Egypt (soon after 634 CE). Like the first story, the second is a favourite for Islamophobes, who invoke it as proof that Muslims are barbarians who will destroy civilisation, etc.
The earliest version of this story is only a brief reference in ʿAbd al-Latīf b. Yūsuf al-Baḡdādī (d. 629/1231)’s al-ʾIfādah wa-al-Iʿtibār, in which he states: “And in it [i.e., Alexandria] there was the library (ḵizānat al-kutub) that ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ burned (ʾaḥraqa-hā) with the authorisation (bi-ʾiḏn) of ʿUmar.”[1]
A more detailed narrative is given in the Taʾrīḵ al-Ḥukamāʾ of ʿAlī b. Yūsuf al-Qifṭī (d. 646/1248), who recounts an exchange between ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ, the leader of the Arab conquest of Egypt, and John the Grammarian, a local scholar, concerning the history of the Great Library. At a certain point in the narrative, the following is reached:
ʿAmr came to desire that which John had recounted and was impressed by it, and he said: “It is not possible for me to issue a command thereon, except after seeking the authorisation (istiʾiḏān) of the Commander of the Believers, ʿUmar b. al-Ḵaṭṭāb.” Then he wrote to ʿUmar, informing him of the speech of John that we [just] recounted and seeking his advice on what he should do therewith. Then ʿUmar’s [response] letter (kitāb) arrived, stating thereon: “As for the books (al-kutub) that you mentioned: if there is therein something that agrees with the Book of God, then [it is already] in the Book of God [and it can be] dispensed with (fa-fī kitāb allāh ʿan-hu ḡinan); and if there is therein something that disagrees with the Book of God, then there is no need for it (fa-lā ḥājah ʾilay-hā); so proceed with their destruction (fa-taqaddam bi-ʾiʿdāma-hā).” Thus, ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ gave the order for their dispersal (tafriqati-hā) amongst the bathhouses (ḥammāmāt) of Alexandria and for their burning in the furnaces thereof (ʾiḥrāqi-hā fī mawāqidi-hā).[2]
As it happens, this story has been analysed and written about repeatedly by Orientalists for centuries, and overwhelmingly, the same conclusion has been reached: the story is a myth. I have benefited particularly from the following three summaries of this scholarship and the relevant argumentation:
- Bernard Lewis, ‘The Vanished Library’, The New York Review (27th/September/1990): https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1990/09/27/the-vanished-library-2/
- Qassem Abdou Qassem, ‘The Arab Story of the Destruction of the Ancient Library of Alexandria’, in Mostafa el-Abbadi & Omnia Mounir Fathallah (eds.), What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria? (Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2008), 207-211.
- Bernard Lewis, ‘The Arab Destruction of the Library of Alexandria: Anatomy of a Myth’, in Mostafa el-Abbadi & Omnia Mounir Fathallah (eds.), What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria? (Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2008), 213-217.
The problems with this Alexandrian story are numerous – what follows is a summary thereof, based on the aforementioned works.
Firstly, the story is super-late, first appearing nearly six centuries after the events it purports to describe. The story is set around 641 CE, but the earliest references are ʿAbd al-Latīf al-Baḡdādī (reporting on his visit to Egypt in 1203 CE), and Ibn al-Qifṭī (writing in 1227 CE). This is a problem because stories and historical memory grow, mutate, and distort over time – and half a millennium is ample time for such processes to have occurred!
Secondly, many (if not most) books at that time were written on vellum, which does not burn. The mode of destruction reported for the library’s books thus immediately seems implausible.
Thirdly, we would expect such a major event to be mentioned in the numerous earlier Arabic, non-Arabic, Muslim, and non-Muslim chronicles that have come down to us—but none do. This silence is unexpected, and thus, evidence against the historicity of the event.
Fourthly, the story suspiciously first shows up very soon after Saladin (d. 1193 CE) broke up and sold off the great Fatimid Isma’ili libraries in Cairo, in the work of two admirers of Saladin (ʿAbd al-Latīf and Ibn al-Qifṭī). This is consistent with the story’s having been concocted as a rationalisation for Saladin’s actions, defending his dismantling of libraries by appealing to the (imagined) precedent of the great ʿUmar, who was even more severe in his handling of an Egyptian library. (In other words, the story is implying: if ʿUmar could burn a library, then, a fortiori, Saladin could merely dismantle and sell one off! Really, Saladan didn’t go far enough! And so on.)
Fifthly, the Great Library of Alexandria, and even its notable Daughter Library in the Serapeum, had already been destroyed and dispersed (respectively) under the pagan and Christian Romans (respectively). For more on this point, see the following excellent podcast discussion with Tim O’Neill:
In addition to all of this, Ibn al-Qifṭī’s version in particular is extra-legendary, for three reasons. Firstly, it features John the Grammarian, who actually lived a century earlier. Secondly, it depicts the books being burned in order to heat 4,000 bathhouses for 6 months, which would have required an absurd number of books (14 million, by one estimate!). Thirdly, it paraphrases the distinctive reasoning of ʿUmar found in the earlier Persian version of the story, discussed in my previous article. In other words, the Alexandrian legend drew upon the Persian legend, making it legendary squared. This gives it a “folkloric character”,[3] as Lewis put it: tropes and formulae are being reused, or are floating between stories.
Whether ʿAbd al-Latīf was the first to invent the story (which Ibn al-Qifṭī elaborated), or whether it came into circulation a little earlier (such that both he and Ibn al-Qifṭī drew upon it independently), is hard to say. Lewis prefers something more akin to the second scenario: “It is unlikely that the story was fabricated from the whole cloth at this time. More probably, those who used it adopted and adapted folkloric material current at the time.”[4]
Either way, the story is definitely legendary: ʿAmr and ʿUmar certainly did not burn down the Great Library of Alexandria.
* * *
For the original Twitter thread upon which this article is based, see:
https://twitter.com/IslamicOrigins/status/1367927868316073984?s=20
[1] ʿAbd al-Latīf b. Yūsuf al-Baḡdādī, al-ʾIfādah wa-al-Iʿtibār fī al-ʾUmūr al-Mušāhdah wa-al-Ḥawādiṯ al-Muʿāyanah bi-ʾArḍ Miṣr (Cairo, Egypt: Maṭbaʿat Wādī al-Nīl, 1286 AH), p. 28.
[2] ʿAlī b. Yūsuf al-Qifṭī (ed. Julius Lippert), Taʾrīḫ al-Ḥukamāʾ (Leipzig, Germany: Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1903), p. 355.
[3] Bernard Lewis, ‘The Vanished Library’, The New York Review (27th/September/1990): https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1990/09/27/the-vanished-library-2/
[4] Bernard Lewis, ‘The Arab Destruction of the Library of Alexandria: Anatomy of a Myth’, in Mostafa el-Abbadi & Omnia Mounir Fathallah (eds.), What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria? (Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2008), 217.