Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/475

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 453 by the visit and the seal of the conqueror. Amrou was inclined to jt^ratify the wish of the grammarian, but his rigid integrity refused to alienate the minutest object without the consent of the caliph ; and the well-known answer of Omar was inspired by the ignorance of a fanatic. " If these writings of the Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless and need not be preserved ; if they disagree, they are pernicious and ought to be destroyed." The sentence was executed with blind obedi- ence; the volumes of paper or parchment were distributed to the four thousand baths of the city ; and such was their incredible multitude that six months were barely sufficient for the con- sumption of this precious fuel. Since the Dynasties of Abul- phai-agius ^^^ have been given to the world in a Latin version, the tale has been repeatedly transcribed ; and every scholar, with pious indignation, has deplored tlie irreparable shipwreck of the learning, the arts, and the genius, of antiquity. For my own part, I am strongly tempted to deny both the fact and the consequences. The fact is indeed marvellous ; " Read and wonder!" says the historian himself; and the solitary report of a stranger who wrote at the end of six hundred years on the confines of Media is overbalanced by the silence of two annalists of a more early date, both Christians, both natives of Egypt, and the most ancient of whom, the patriarch Eutychius, has amply described the conquest of Alexandria. ^-^^ The rigid sen- tence of Omar is repugnant to the sound and orthodox precept of the Mahometan casuists ; they expressly declare that the re- ligious books of the Jews and Christians, which are acquired by the right of war, should never be committed to the flames ; and that the works of profane science, historians or poets, physi- cians or philosophers, may be lawfully applied to the use of the faithful. ^''^ A more destructive zeal may perhaps be attributed to the first successors of Mahomet ; yet in this instance the 136 Abulpharag. Dynast, p. 114, vers. Pocock. [The story is also given by another late authority, Abd al Latif.] Audi quid factum sit et niirare. It would be endless to enumerate the moderns who have wondered and believed, but I may distinguish with honour the rational scepticism of Renaudot (Hist. .Alex. Patriarch, p. 170) : historia. . . habet aliquid a.nt.a-Tor ut .Arabibus familiare est. [For Abulfaragius or Bar-Hebraeus, see .Appendix i.] i^'' This curious anecdote will be vainly sought in the annals of liutychius and the Saracenic history of Elmacin [and the histories of Tabari and Ibn Abd al Hakam who was resident in Egypt]. The silence of Abulfeda, Murtadi, and a crowd of Moslems is less conclusive from their ignorance of Christian literature. ^■'''See Reland, de Jure Militari Mohammedanorum, in his iiird volume of Dissertations, p. 37. The reason for not burning the religious books of the Jews or Christians is derived from the respect that is due to the na?ne of God-