LEARNING AND ISLAM

~ 55 ~ knowledge. It has never been its aim to suppress or discourage it. Philip Hitti states in his book, History of the Arabs: The story that by the caliph’s order ‘Amr for six long months fed the numerous bath furnaces of the city with the volumes of the Alexandrian library is one of those tales that make good fiction but bad history. The great Ptolemaic library was burnt as early as 48 B.C. by Julius Caesar. A later one, referred to as the Daughter library, was destroyed about A.D. 389 as a result of an edict by the Emperor Theodosius. At the time of the Arab conquest, therefore, no library of importance existed in Alexandria and no contemporary writer ever brought the charge against ‘Arm or ‘Umar. ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, who died as late as A.H. 629 (1231 AD), seems to have been the first to relate the tale. Why he did it we do not know; however, his version was copied and amplified by later authors. 17 Islamic civilization is based on monotheism and, as such, is quite distinct from other ancient