Islam Creator of the Modern Age
1. Islam: Creator of the Modern Age
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knowledge. It has never been its aim to suppress or
discourage it.
Philip Hitti states in his book,
History of the Arabs:
The story that by the caliph’s order ‘Amr for
six long months fed the numerous bath
furnaces of the city with the volumes of the
Alexandrian library is one of those tales that
make good fiction but bad history. The great
Ptolemaic library was burnt as early as 48 B.C.
by Julius Caesar. A later one, referred to as the
Daughter library, was destroyed about A.D.
389 as a result of an edict by the Emperor
Theodosius. At the time of the Arab conquest,
therefore, no library of importance existed in
Alexandria and no contemporary writer ever
brought the charge against ‘Arm or ‘Umar.
‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, who died as late as
A.H. 629 (1231 AD), seems to have been the
first to relate the tale. Why he did it we do not
know; however, his version was copied and
amplified by later authors.
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Islamic civilization is based on monotheism and, as
such, is quite distinct from other ancient
