Book burners throughout history...the tragedy of knowledge
For political, ideological and religious reasons, history has witnessed many book burnings, which are calamities that generations remember and cannot be forgotten. Millions of books and knowledge were lost due to repressive regimes, wars and invasions, changes in political regimes and occupation, and they caused a huge cultural loss to humanity.
Book burners
A few months ago, some Iraqis threatened to burn the books of the Iraqi poet Saadi Youssef on Al-Mutanabi Street. It is strange that those who threatened to burn books are not terrorists and not "ISIS", but rather writers and intellectuals who decided to relive the scenes of book burning again in memory.
When the phrase "book burners" is mentioned, the story of the Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rushd springs to mind, who was accused by a number of scholars of Andalusia, and his hard-line opponents of infidelity and atheism, and as a result of these accusations he was exiled to Marrakesh and died there in 1198 AD, after his books and writings were burned.
The memory also recalls the tragedy of the scientific complex in Egypt, which was burned by unknown hands on 12/17/2011, and the fire destroyed most of the contents of the complex. The contents of the complex, numbering 200,000 documents, have not survived; It includes manuscripts, antique books, and rare maps, except for only about 25,000 books and documents, which have been representing the memory of Egypt since 1798, and it included one of the original copies of the book “Description of Egypt.”
Recently, ISIS burned the central library in northeastern Baquba in Iraq, in addition to burning another library containing 1,500 books, surpassing the knowledge destruction left by World War II. And in an early era of history, specifically in the era of the Chinese Qin Dynasty in 213 BC, all philosophical school books that contradicted the philosophy of the ruling Chinese empire were burned, and thousands of men of knowledge were buried alive because of their opinions, and others were forced to do hard work.
Terrorism and culture
In March 2007, Al-Mutanabbi Street was destroyed in Baghdad, and thus the commercial libraries on the street were destroyed and burned in a terrorist incident. Several years ago, humanity lost one of the richest and most beautiful libraries in Afghanistan, which contained 55,000 printed books, documents and rare manuscripts. It was burned down by the entire Taliban on August 12, 1998.
Great wars
In World War II, the Polish library was burned, and it was completely destroyed by bombing it, burning more than 14 million books and manuscripts.
Among the most famous libraries burned throughout history was the Library of Alexandria, the greatest library known in history, and it remained the largest library of its time, whose contents at that time reached 700 thousand volumes, including the works of Homer and the library of Aristotle, and in the year 48 BC he rose. Julius Caesar burned 101 ships that were on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in front of the Library of Alexandria, and the fire of burning ships spread to the Library of Alexandria and burned it.
Incinerators of Islamic culture
The Arab and Islamic civilization lost nearly ten million books, at least, from the second century AH - the eighth century AD - to the present day. This led to the loss of the fruits of the efforts of scholars, philosophers, doctors, thought, literature, jurisprudence and language, and there were many ways to eliminate books through looting, burning, burying or throwing them into the water.
Psychological and ideological factors
Writer Mansoor Muhammad Sarhan says in one of his articles in the Bahraini newspaper Al-Wasat that historical sources confirm the beginning of the loss of books in the Arab-Islamic world at the hands of hermits, as psychological factors played a role in some of them getting rid of their books. Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi burned his books himself because he did not obtain the appreciation and respect in his life that he had hoped for. Ahmed bin Abi Al-Jawari got rid of his books, which he used to acquire, by throwing them into the river water. And Amr bin Al-Alaa burned books that filled his house to the ceiling after his asceticism.
Among the private libraries that suffered calamities in the Islamic eras is the library of Bani Ammar in the tenth century AD, in Tripoli, Syria, at the hands of the Crusaders. Shushtari estimated in his book “A Brief of Islamic Culture” that its holdings amount to three million books. Among the private libraries that were burned at the hands of some Arab Muslim rulers at the time, Three libraries each contained more than ten thousand books: the Ibn Hazm Al-Andalusi Library, the Sabor Library, named after its founder, Abu Naseer Sabour, the minister of Baha al-Dawla al-Buwayhi, and the Abd al-Salam ibn Abd al-Qadir al-Baghdadi library, called al-Rukn.
Ibn Khaldun mentions that when Sultan Mahmud Al-Ghaznawi conquered Al-Rayy, and others in the year 420 AH, he killed Al-Batinah, exiled the Mu'tazila, burned the books of the philosophers and the Mu'tazilites, and extracted the books of early sciences and theology from the library of Al-Sahib bin Abbad and ordered them to be burned.
persecution
In the time of the Almohads, the authors who wrote on the science of doctrine and jurisprudence were persecuted, and their books were burned. In the sixth century AH, Al-Mansur Al-Mohad pledged not to leave any of the books of logic and wisdom remaining in his country, and he destroyed many of them by burning them with fire.
During their invasion of Baghdad, the Mongols destroyed the House of Wisdom library, which contained more than 300,000 books. They also destroyed 36 libraries in Baghdad containing hundreds of thousands of books, and all those books were thrown into the Tigris River. Will Durant described in his book "The Story of Civilization" the House of Wisdom library as a scientific complex, an astronomical observatory and a public library.
The German orientalist Sigrid Hunke mentioned in her book "The Arab Sun Shines on the West" that the "Dar Al-Ilm" library in Cairo, whose holdings are estimated at two million and two hundred thousand volumes, was burned.
The Arabs lost more than a million books in Andalusia when the Spaniards waged a fierce war against the Arabs, and burned books with the intention of destroying Arab and Islamic culture, and when the Ottomans wrested Egypt from the hands of the Mamluks, they looted, looted, destroyed, and burned libraries.
colonization
French colonialism contributed to the looting and burning of Arabic books. When the French campaign left Egypt in 1801 AD, many manuscripts were transported from Egypt. Alfred Butler, in his book "The Arab Conquest of Egypt," indicated that the French burned the library of the University of Algiers, which included half a million books.
Nazi book incinerators
In April 1933, the German city of Berlin witnessed one of the largest book burnings during the Nazi era. About 70,000 people gathered in a field in Berlin, and a group of students moved more than 20,000 books to be burned in front of everyone’s eyes. Among the books that were burned were a group of works Famous German writers such as Heinrich Mann, Erich Maria Remarquet, Joachim Ringelnatz, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Bertolt Brecht, Klaus Mann, Leon Wochtschwagner, and Kurt Tuchlowski.
severity
The book burning incident in Berlin was not the only one of its kind. On the same night, students in all German cities that have universities burned the works of writers whose works did not correspond to their ideologies.
These are examples of some great book burnings, but it should be noted that when researching topics related to the history of the destruction of books in history, we found that we needed an encyclopedia of writing, and the stories of burning books were endless, and burning libraries were without number, which means that the amount of civilization and knowledge that we lost was Great, so the historical question remains.. What danger did those books and libraries pose to human life?
Source: websites