Posted on 12/22/2008 8:37:30 PM PST by edcoil
While driving into the office this morning I heard the "expert" guest on Coast to Coast tell everyone not once but several times it was the terrible Christians that burned down the Library at Alexandria.
Sadly, facts do not matter or go challenged on that political show any longer. The fact is:
Amr bin Aas at the behest of the Second Caliph, Umar burned the Library in Alexandria.
Umar the Great or Omar the Great was a Muslim convert from the Banu Adi clan of the Quraysh tribe,[1] and a sahaba (righteous companion) of Muhammad. He became the second Caliph (634 – 644) following the death of Abu Bakr, and is thus regarded by Sunni Muslims as one of the Rashidun (four righteously guided Caliphs).
But how will we know when the aliens will arrive, how do we know where to look for Bigfoot, where else can we hear so much doom and gloom. From experts I mean of course.
Actually I heard it was Pastor Rick Warren and some of the Saddleback members, but only the aliens know for sure.
The Library of Alexandria was burned down or alleged to have been burned or destroyed several times.
Its even questionable whether it still existed as such in the Christian era.
Coast to Coast, not worth listening too any more.
Riley L. Martin (born May 9, 1946) is a self-described alien contactee, author, and radio host. Martin is the author of the book The Coming of Tan [1], which describes his life and his alleged abduction by aliens. He currently hosts The Riley Martin Show on the Sirius Satellite Radio channel Howard 101. He had another weekly radio show, The Official Riley Martin Radio Show, but he chose not to continue the show due to to financial issues.[2]
I get my news from Howard
Several historians told varying accounts of a Arab army led by Amr ibn al 'Aas sacking the city in 642 after the Byzantine army was defeated at the Battle of Heliopolis, and that the commander asked the caliph Umar what to do with the library. He gave the famous answer: "They will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous."
Apparently the holding in the library at the time were still quite substantial. It should be noted that the (Christian) Byzantine Empire had controlled Alexandria for centuries prior to the conquest by the Arabs.
Ping to investigate later
It seems to be the consensus that the Caliph Omar incident is apocryphal.
The murder of Hypatia in 415 AD by a Christian mob is reported in the Reader's Digest Book, "After Jesus: The Triumph of Christianity" page 256.
Well, there was a Hypatia, and she was murdered by a Christian mob, if one can call it that. This seems pretty much settled history with several sources.
On the other hand, there is no Library of Alexandria linked to the asassination story, and the date of the alleged Christian destruction, 391 AD, was 24 years prior to the murder, 415 AD. And Hypatia was a scholar at the Museon, a Platonic/Philosophical institution, so this apparently still existed at the time of the murder in spite of the events of 391.
The murder of Hypatia is not in doubt.
The Library, however, the status and fate of that is extremely speculative.
A quick search says something a little different:
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria
Ancient and modern sources identify four possible occasions for the destruction of the Library:
1. Julius Caesar’s Fire in The Alexandrian War, in 48 BC
2. The attack of Aurelian in the Third century AD;
3. The decree of Theophilus in 391 AD;
4. The Muslim conquest in 642 AD or thereafter.
With lots of details following (to long to post) but this part applies to this post:
“mr ibn al ‘Aas conquest in 642
Several historians told varying accounts of a Arab army led by Amr ibn al ‘Aas sacking the city in 642 after the Byzantine army was defeated at the Battle of Heliopolis, and that the commander asked the caliph Umar what to do with the library. He gave the famous answer: “They will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous.” The Arabs subsequently burned the books to heat bathwater for the soldiers.[19][20] It was also said that the Library’s collection was still substantial enough at this late date to provide six months’ worth of fuel for the baths.[21] However, this account has been dismissed by some as a legend.[17] While the first Western account of the supposed event was in Edward Pococke’s 1663 translation of History of the Dynasties, it was dismissed as a hoax or propaganda as early as 1713 by Fr. Eusèbe Renaudot. Over the centuries, numerous succeeding scholars have agreed with Fr. Renaudot’s conclusion, including Alfred J. Butler, Victor Chauvin, Paul Casanova and Eugenio Griffini.[17] More recently, in 1990, noted Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis argued that the original account is not true, but that it survived over time because it was a useful myth for the great Twelfth century Muslim leader Saladin, who found it necessary to break up the Fatimid caliphate’s collection of heretical Isma’ili texts in Cairo following his restoration of Sunnism to Egypt. Lewis proposes that the story of the caliph Umar’s support of a library’s destruction may have made Saladin’s actions seem more acceptable to his people.[22]”
Lots of other sites debunk the claim.
Also none of these references blame Christians for the burning.
noory is a frekin fool
Well, Umar had a history of book burning. He had all copies of the Koran that had bad things to say about Mohammed collected and burned, at least that is what I have read in a book I have on the history of Islam.
The Wiki article does explore the sources on the events of 391 AD, and that seems to be the basis for claims that the library was destroyed by Christians, as pagan temples were in fact desecrated at that time. But the linkage to libraries is tenuous in the extreme.
****It seems to be the consensus that the Caliph Omar incident is apocryphal.****
Fromt he movie THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALENCE...”When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
That is why they blame Christians instead of the moslems.
But from what I know of the politics of Alexandria VA, a few torched copies of "Heather Has Two Mommies" is no loss.
You know readers are leaders, that is why these idiots will never lead anything. They don’t have the Good Book, just a book written by a murdering pedophile who started this blood cult 1400 years ago.
My hand went for the off button when they said the christians burnt the Alexandria library
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