[TheAngryClam]

The Alexandrian library being destroyed by Muslims is a myth. If anyone destroyed the library, it was likely Caesar during the Alexandrine Wars, or the Christian Patriarch Theophilius in the late 4th Century.

These people (who, incidentally, are big on Christian apologetics, and in my opinion go a little soft on Theophilius- I didn't read through everything, but I believe they gloss over the fact that the pagan keepers of the Serapeum were flayed and burned by the Christian mob) summarize everything nicely.

[ffusco]

it is more likely that the muslims plundered the great libraries, following the grand tradition of their claims to have invented math and science.

Arafat once told Orianna Falacci that Palestinian culture was superior to the west because they invented (stole) math.

Barf.

[RobbyS]

Christian mobs are every bit as nasty as any others, but all revolutionaries tend to be intolerant. This explains the widespread iconaclasm among early Protestants and by the French Jacobins. The English reformation and the French Revolution were each characterized by widespread destruction of monasteries and other church properties and the redistribution of church wealth among certain favored persons.