WHO DESTROYED THE ALEXANDIAN LIBRARY? 627 



under the name of History of the Dynasties, an edition of which in Arabic and 

 Latin was published at Oxford in 1663, edited by Pococke, in two quarto vol- 

 umes. It is in this abridgment we find the mention of the burning of the Alex- 

 andrian Library by the Arabs. Amru, the Arabian conqueror, after a siege of 

 fourteen months, succeeded in capturing Alexandria, a. d. 640. Omar was then 

 the Mohammedan Khalif (or Caliph), Amru being his principal general. The 

 following is a literal translation of the passage in Abulfaragius relative to the de- 

 struction of the Library: "John the Grammarian came to Amru, who was in 

 jjossession of Alexandria, and begged that he might be allowed to appropriate a 

 part of the booty. ' Which part do you wish for?' asked Amru. John replied, 

 'The books of philosophy which are in the treasury (library) of kings.' Amru 

 answered that he could not dispose of these without the permission of the Emir 

 Al-Moumenin Omar. He wrote to the Emir, who replied in these terms, ' As to 

 the books you speak of, if their contents are in conformity with the Book of God 

 [ihe Quran] we have no need of them; if, on the contrary, their contents are op- 

 jjosed to it, it is still leis desirable to preserve them, so I desire that they may be 

 destroyed.' Amru-Ben-Alas, in consequence ordered them to be distributed in 

 the various baths in Alexandria, to be burned in the stoves, and after six months 

 not a vestige of them remained." (See History of the Dynasties, Book ix, page 

 1 14, Oxford, 1663.) 



There are various excellent reasons for doubting the truth of this story. 

 First, the silence of earlier writers. Eutychius, patriarch of Alexandria in the 

 tenth century, in his Annaljs of Alexandria, tom. ii, pp. 316-319, has given a 

 detailed narrative of the capture of Alexandria by Amru, but not a word about 

 the burning of the library. Eutychius, who lived in Alexandria two hundred 

 years after its capture, never heard of the burning, while Abulfaragius, who lived 

 in Asia, six hundred years after, can give full details, even the very words of the 

 Khalif Omar! Elmacin, who wrote a History of the Saracens early in the twelfth 

 century, and a Christian writer, also narrates the capture of Alexandria, but says 

 nothing of the destruction of the library. {Historia Saracenica Gcorgii Elmacini, 

 4to, 1625, page 28). Murtadi, of Cairo, wrote in Arabic, in the thirteenth 

 century, a work on the "Wonders, etc. of Egypt," (French translation, Paris, 

 1666,) in which an account of the conquest of Egypt by Amru with Omar is given, 

 including the correspondence of Amru with Omar, but no mention is made of 

 the library-burning story. The best of all the Arabian chroniclers was Abulfeda 

 of the fourteenth century, who in his Annales Moslemici ad Annas Hgirce CCCVI, 

 published at Leipsic in 1754, gives full details of Omar's conquests, but omits all 

 reference to the library-burning; neither does he refer to it in his valuable work 

 on the Geography of Egypt. A few Mohammedan writers have repeated Abul- 

 faragius' story, as Mahirzi, Ibn Chalcdun, Hadschi Chalfa, etc., but their testi- 

 mony, being borrowed from Abulfaragius' work, has no weight. There seems, 

 however, to have been one Arabian writer who referred to this event before 

 Abulfaragius, and that is Abd-Ul-Latif (Abdollatiph), who wrote a valuable 

 work on the history, antiquities, and geography of Egypt a short time before 



