WE OUGHT TO REMEMBER THAT EGYPT WAS FOR SEVERAL CENTURIES A CHRISTIAN LAND, albeit one that also was also home to a thriving Jewish minority. In fact, Christian monasticism had its origin in Egypt, largely by merit of St. Anthony of the Desert. In the early Middle Ages, all indications were that Egypt would continue to play the role it had since the dawn of civilization: that of one of the world’s richest and most culturally vibrant countries. That prospect changed drastically in the year 639, when hordes of barbaric horsemen swept in from the sandy wastes of Arabia. This was the Moslem conquest, from which Egypt has yet to emerge. The Mohameddans’ newly invented religion filled them with fanatical zeal, and their material and cultural poverty made them deeply covetous of the fruits of a rich civilization, such as Egypt.
Right away, the invaders set about destroying Egyptian culture. By the imposition of heavy taxation, the jizya, on “infidel” holdouts, when not by the sword, the Mohameddans gradually caused the conversion of most of Egypt’s population. By the proclamation of their rough Arabic as the sole language of government and education, they destroyed the ancient Coptic tongue, the direct descendant of the language spoken by the pharaohs. By the enforcement of irrational Islamic strictures against art, they sterilized the creative impulses of the Egyptian people.
These acts, however, were only par for the course in the unfortunate lands that fell under the Moslem yoke. Egypt witnessed a truly monstrous act of cultural vandalism, the deliberate burning of what was then the world’s richest depository of knowledge, the Great Library of Alexandria. When the Moslem conqueror of Egypt, Amr Ibn al Aas wrote Omar, the Caliph (leader) of all Moslems, what to do regarding the contents of the Library the latter replied with what is arguably the most ignorant statement ever made: “Burn them, for if those books are in agreement with the Koran, we have no need of them; and if they are opposed to the Koran, we must destroy them.”
It is rather hard for someone living in the Information Age, in which knowledge is transmitted and multiplied at the speed of light, to quantify what an irreparable loss this was to the world. In an era when books had to be reproduced by hand, the Great Library of Alexandria had contained the only surviving copies of countless ancient books. It is impossible to determine how much this wanton destruction delayed the scientific progress of mankind, although it may well have been a number of centuries!
It must be pointed out, though, that recently it has become taboo, at least in fashionable academic circles to relate this bit of history. There is a number of baseless alternative theories as to how the Great Library was destroyed, involving sundry villains and all manner of freak accidents. Unfortunately for the Mohameddans and their politically correct acolytes, there are multiple Moslem sources, perhaps not all of them proud, confirming just what transpired: Amr Ibn al Aas gleefully torched the ancient world’s greatest collection of knowledge on the instructions of Omar, the Caliph, Commander of the Faithful.
If this were not enough, the case of the naysayers is further weakened by the well-known Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, who wrote about a similar act directed against Persian books. It is the irony of ironies that in the politically correct version of history, Moslems are credited with saving the knowledge of the ancients, but the bar is set so low for them that though having destroyed all they could, whatever smidgen escaped their attention is held out as irrefutable proof of their intellectual accomplishments.
Right away, the invaders set about destroying Egyptian culture. By the imposition of heavy taxation, the jizya, on “infidel” holdouts, when not by the sword, the Mohameddans gradually caused the conversion of most of Egypt’s population. By the proclamation of their rough Arabic as the sole language of government and education, they destroyed the ancient Coptic tongue, the direct descendant of the language spoken by the pharaohs. By the enforcement of irrational Islamic strictures against art, they sterilized the creative impulses of the Egyptian people.
These acts, however, were only par for the course in the unfortunate lands that fell under the Moslem yoke. Egypt witnessed a truly monstrous act of cultural vandalism, the deliberate burning of what was then the world’s richest depository of knowledge, the Great Library of Alexandria. When the Moslem conqueror of Egypt, Amr Ibn al Aas wrote Omar, the Caliph (leader) of all Moslems, what to do regarding the contents of the Library the latter replied with what is arguably the most ignorant statement ever made: “Burn them, for if those books are in agreement with the Koran, we have no need of them; and if they are opposed to the Koran, we must destroy them.”
It is rather hard for someone living in the Information Age, in which knowledge is transmitted and multiplied at the speed of light, to quantify what an irreparable loss this was to the world. In an era when books had to be reproduced by hand, the Great Library of Alexandria had contained the only surviving copies of countless ancient books. It is impossible to determine how much this wanton destruction delayed the scientific progress of mankind, although it may well have been a number of centuries!
It must be pointed out, though, that recently it has become taboo, at least in fashionable academic circles to relate this bit of history. There is a number of baseless alternative theories as to how the Great Library was destroyed, involving sundry villains and all manner of freak accidents. Unfortunately for the Mohameddans and their politically correct acolytes, there are multiple Moslem sources, perhaps not all of them proud, confirming just what transpired: Amr Ibn al Aas gleefully torched the ancient world’s greatest collection of knowledge on the instructions of Omar, the Caliph, Commander of the Faithful.
If this were not enough, the case of the naysayers is further weakened by the well-known Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, who wrote about a similar act directed against Persian books. It is the irony of ironies that in the politically correct version of history, Moslems are credited with saving the knowledge of the ancients, but the bar is set so low for them that though having destroyed all they could, whatever smidgen escaped their attention is held out as irrefutable proof of their intellectual accomplishments.
No comments:
Post a Comment