Today is the anniversary of the founding of the Egyptian city of Alexandria, which is one of the greatest cities of the ancient world that was founded by Alexander the Great after the conquest of Egypt in 332 BC, and after the death of Alexander in Babylon in 323 BC, Egypt was the share of one of his aides, Ptolemy the First and in his reign founded The city to replace the ancient city of Memphis as the capital of Egypt.
Over the centuries, the Library of Alexandria was one of the largest and most important libraries in the ancient world, and its fire represents the largest losses of the ancient world, because when it burned with it nearly a million documents from all over the world and from different cultures including (Assyrian, Greek, Persia, Egypt, India and many more) Among the other powerful civilizations at that time, many thinkers and scholars, including mathematicians and poets from all civilizations, came to the library before the fire to study and exchange ideas, and the number of manuscripts in the library reached 700 thousand manuscripts, but scientists still do not agree on how to destroy Library, but in total there are three theories about the culprit in the burning of the Library of Alexandria:
The first theory is Julius Caesar
Perhaps one of the most interesting stories, from the accounts of the Roman writer according to several authors, the Library of Alexandria was accidentally destroyed by Julius Caesar during the siege of Alexandria in 48 BC, and the stories tell, when the enemy tried to destroy the fleet of Julius Caesar, Caesar was forced to fend off Danger using fire launchers, fire spread to shipyards and destroyed the great library.
However, this talk is doubtful, because the Alexandria Museum, which was directly next to the library, was unharmed as mentioned by the geographer "Strabo", and after about 30 years of the siege of Caesar to Alexandria "Strabo" does not mention anything about the Library of Alexandria itself, and it is likely that The library was still present during the Strabo period, or perhaps Strabo no longer needs to mention the library, and there is another possibility that the warehouses near the port were storing the manuscripts which were destroyed by the fire of Julius Caesar.
The second theory: Christians
The second possible offender are the Christians of the fourth century AD in 391 AD, when Emperor Theodosius issued a decree officially prohibiting pagan practices, and thus the Serapis temple in Alexandria was destroyed and converted into a Christian church, and it is believed that many documents were destroyed in this process.
However, there is no evidence of burning documents in the Library of Alexandria or in any library of any kind, and there are no ancient sources mentioning the destruction of any library during this specific time period, and therefore there is no evidence that Christians of the fourth century destroyed the Library of Alexandria.
The third theory .. Orientalist accusations against Muslims
In this context, a set of accusations emerged from the orientalist extremists to the Muslims who succeeded in conquering Egypt without victims and in the midst of a great welcome from the Egyptians who agreed with the new conquerors, and these orientalists are based on what John Gramaticus wrote (490-570), in the Middle Ages that The second adult caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab, according to his claim, instructed his ruler over Egypt at the time, Amr ibn al-As, to destroy all books and manuscripts that were incompatible with Islam.
These quotations and allegations sent to the orientalists ’extremes are completely contradictory to the tolerance with which Islam has been known since Amr Ibn Al-As’s conquest of Egypt. In the hands of Muslims.
Unfortunately, archaeologists were not able to contribute much to solving this mystery, as papyrus was rarely found in Alexandria perhaps because of the climatic condition, which is not favorable for preserving organic materials, secondly, the remains of the Alexandria Library itself were not discovered, due to the fact that Alexandria People still inhabit it to this day, and only rescue excavations by archaeologists are allowed.
The scholars and historians concluded that the library was likely not burned at all, rather there is a possibility that it was gradually abandoned over time, if the library was created to display Ptolemaic wealth, perhaps its decline might also be related to the decline of the economy, which led to the decline of the Ptolemaic era With the passage of time.
Thu, Apr. 9, 2020
