rej@cornell.UUCP (04/19/84)
A week or two ago there was an argument (OK, "discussion") about whether Christianity had helped the world or not. The following was in the letters. >Does this include the "saving" by fire of the great Library of Alexandria? > >Just this one act of Christian vandalism might be accounted responsible >for setting civilization back several hundred years. When I read this I thought, "Boy, is he going to get flamed for making such an inaccurate statement!" I thought everyone knew that the library of Alexandria was burned by Moslems. However, nobody has complained publicly, so I guess some of you are not as up on history as you claim to be! The history of the library of Alexandria is not completely clear. It was started by one of the Ptolemies (sp?) and grew over a period of centuries. It was not really one library, but a collection of libraries, though there was one building which could be called "The Library", if you want to get really picky. During the heyday of Alexandria there were many, many scholars, and every temple had a library. At its peak, the official, government run library had on the order of 700,000 volumes, though many were duplicates. The librarians tried to get a copy of everything that was written by anyone who had any pretensions to being a scholar, so it was the most complete collection in the world. The start of the decline of the library is often put at the time of Julius Ceasor. When he came to Egypt Cleopatra wined and dined him, and gave him lots of presents, including several thousand of the very best volumes from the library. (She, being a Ptolemy, owned the library. He considered himself to be a scholar.) Julius was also involved in a war in Alexandria in which he burned a fleet in the harbor, a number of houses along the harbor, and is reputed to have burned the library. This last is almost certainly not true. At most, he may have (accidentally) burned one of the subsidiary libraries. In the following centuries Alexandria passed from one conqueror to the next. Most didn't care much about books, although some carried off volumes for their private collections. In 391 there was some mob action by Christians against pagans in which the mob invaded a pagan temple (the Serapeum) and destroyed the idols and religious paraphenalia. Some historians (such as Gibbon) claim that this mob action resulted in the destruction of the library, a claim which has no more basis than the claim that Caeser did it. While the Serapeum library was second only to the main one, there is not even any evidence that the library was near the temple, and in any case, the temple was not too badly damaged, because it became a church a short while later. Mob action was the rule, rather than the exception in Alexandria, as in many other cities. Undoubtedly the civil deterioration of Alexandria was mirrored by a lack of support for the main library and of learning in general. Alexandria lost its importance as Constantinople became more important, and it lost trade and wealth as a consequence. The final destruction of the library was accomplished by 'Amr ibn al'As (or something like that, everyone seems to spell it differently). It was probably not an accident. Moslem and Christian historians all picture it as a deliberate act. There are many stories, most of which are exagerated. A common one is that 'Amr was approached by one of the leaders of the newly conquored city who asked him if he (as the new government) would continue to support the library. 'Amr asked his boss, who said "If the books agree with the Book of Allah, we can dispense with them. If they contain anything against what is in the Book of Allah, there is no need for them." 'Amr then proceeded to use the scrolls in the library to heat water in the public baths. I checked up on my memory (and got a few extra facts) by looking at The Alexandrian Library, by Parsons. Probably many histories of Egypt would also discuss the fate of the library. This was definitely a low point in the history of Islam, from the point of view of a scholar. Later Muslims deplored this act. As we all know, much of the Greek classics were obtained from the Muslims by the Europeans during the Renaissance. Muslims not only passed on Greek inventions such as geometry, but invented algebra, and made many advances in other areas, such as medicine. While Europe was overcome by barbarians (and intolerant religion) the Arab world kept much of the old knowledge alive, and provided a place for people, such as the Jews, who did not fit in to the European scene. It is easy to forget, now that Europe is much more advanced and more tolerant, that things were once very different. An act by one person should not be cause to denounce a religion (or country, or ...). Even if it had been Christians that had burned the Alexandrian library, it would not be reason to denounce Christianity. It must be shown that such an action is a natural result of the religion. Let me make one more comment, while I am on the subject. While a belief that Christians burned the Alexandrian library might have been caused by confusion, it might also have been caused by Gibbon. Since he is so popular (no, not the one who wrote "Stalking the Wild Asparagus", the one who wrote "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire") many people have been influenced by his prejudices. The particular prejudice that surficed this time is his animosity towards Christians. It often causes him to make mistakes. Please forgive my grammer. It is late. Ralph Johnson {decvax,ihnp4, ...}!cornell!rej (uucp) REJ@CRNLCS (BITNET) rej@cornell (ARPAnet)
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (04/20/84)
Ralph Johnson says that the great library of Alexandria was destroyed
book by book, by a Moslem Caliph. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says
otherwise. According to the encyclopaedia, the bibliography of the
library was preserved until Byzantine times (doesn't say how it was
destroyed). As for the library itself:
"It may have been damaged when Caesar besieged Alexandria in 47 BC but
it was not destroyed then as some early legends relate. The end of the
main library came in the civil war that occurred under Aurelian in
the late 3rd century; the "daughter library" was destroyed by the
Christians, AD 391."
Perhaps Johnson was referring to the bibliography. But the library
(at least what remained, which was a substantial segment of the original)
was destroyed as a matter of policy (much like the notions Johnson
attributes to the Caliph) by the Christians.) As a matter of interest
Carl Sagan made a dramatic point of this, depicting the great female
mathematician and philosopher who was looking after the library (whose
name I have forgotten) as being torn limb from limb by the Christian
mob because of her heresy -- seeking knowledge.
--
Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmtgtaylor@cornell.UUCP (04/23/84)
The problem here is that famous local Dr. Sagan draws much of his research from good old Gibbon. I don't know the gentleperson from here at Cornell who originally posted the article, but I suspect that he found out about the history he quotes the same way I did. When you're in a place like this, you can be suitably dazzled by a bit of scholarly eloquence, and then call up your friend who's a specialist in Egyptian history and then spend some time rooting in the stacks. Takes the polish right off that stuff.... G(If it out-Herods Herod, pray you avoid it.)regory Taylor gtaylor@cornell