You may add to the four issues of: Incident of difficulties of Quran, incident
about inquiring about future, incident of narrating traditional reports from Holy
Prophet (s.a.w.a.) and incident of writing Sunnah and traditional reports – the
issue of personal view and independent judgment (Ijtehaad) of Caliph regarding
books and authors.
A Muslim man came to the Caliph and said: When we conquered Madayan,
we got hold of a book, which contained wisdom of Fars and amazing statements.
Umar demanded his lash and began to strike that man. After that he recited the
verse:
نَحْنُ نَقُصُّ عَلَيْكَ أَحْسَنَ الْقَصَصِ
“We narrate to you the best of narratives.”1
And said: Woe upon you, have seen any narrative better than the narratives
of Quran? The previous nations were destroyed, due to the fact that they became involved in books of their scholars and priests and abandoned Taurat and Injeel,
till the knowledge contained in them disappeared.2
In Tarikh Mukhtasarud Dawl,3 printed in Oxania in 1663 A.D., it is narrated
from Abul Faraj Multi (d. 684 A.H.) that:
Yahya Gharama Teeqi was alive till the conquest of Alexandria at the hands
of Amr Aas and he came to Amr and the latter recognized the position of Yahya
and he accorded respect to him and he heard some philosophical issues from him,
about which Arabs were unaware and in his view these issues were very
important. He was greatly amazed, because he was a wise and broad minded
man. From this aspect he took up his employment and never left him.
After that once Yahya said to Amr: “You have conquered all provinces of
Alexandria and subjugated all groups and whatever is beneficial to you, I don’t
want to say anything about it. As for whatever is not beneficial for you, I am
more worthy for that.”
Amr asked: “What do you need?”
He replied: “Books of wisdom present in the treasure of regime.”
Amr said: “This is a matter, about which I cannot decide, without directions
of Umar bin Khattab.”
So he wrote about it to Umar and expressed the request of Yahya. Reply
came from Umar as follows:
“As for the books you mentioned, if they are in agreement with Quran, then
in presence of Quran we are needless of them and if they are opposed to Quran,
we have no need for them. So destroy them.”
Amr distributed them among public baths of Alexandria to be used as fuel to
heat water. For six months the public baths of Alexandria heated water by
burning these books. You may read about this bitter incident and be amazed.
In the History of Islamic Civilization,4 George Gordon has narrated the
complete statements of Multi and in the appendix, he says:
“All these statements of Multi are deleted from the printed edition of AlAbalii Yasueen, and we don’t know what was the reason for that.”
Abdul Latif Baghdadi (d. 629 A.H.) says in Al-Ifada wal Etebar: 5
“Also, regarding pillars of Sawari,6 I observed the relics in some of them
were whole and some were broken up and from that I concluded that this palace
once had pillars and that they bore the roof and there was a dome above the pillars. In my view this is the same hall, in which Aristotle and after him, his
students lectured. And this place is still the residence of the first teacher
(Aristotle), which Alexander constructed at the time of building Alexandria and
the treasure of kingdom, comprising of books and the great library of Alexandria,
which Amr Aas burnt up at the directions of Umar was situated in this house
only.”
This viewpoint of the Caliph was general and all books obtained from all
areas that Islam conquered, met the same fate. The author of Kashfuz Zunoon
says:7
“When Muslims conquered the cities of Fars and got access to books present
there, Saad bin Abi Waqqas wrote to Umar bin Khattab and inquired about them
and mentioned the difficulty of transferring them. Umar replied:
‘Throw all of them into the water. If there is guidance in them, Allah has
guided us to something better; and if they contain misguided things Allah has
made us needless of them.’
Following this command, they threw them into water or burnt them up; and
in this manner, the learning of the Iranians was lost.”
In his statements, he says regarding Muslims and their learning:8 “During
their conquests, whenever they came in possession of any book, they destroyed
it.”
Ibne Khaldun say in his Tarikh:9 “Learning was present in excess among
different communities. Learning, which we could not get access to were much
more than what has reached us. Where is the learning of Iran, which Umar
ordered to destroy at the time of the conquest?”
Allamah Amini says: It is not absolutely unlawful to study books of ancient
people, especially if they were academic, technological, moral, medical, space or
astronomy, mathematics, philosophy or books like that. More important than that:
if books are attributed to the like of Prophet Daniyal, provided their attribution is
correct and there is no distortion in it.
Yes, if they are from deviating books, which call to invalid beliefs and
abrogated religions or create doubts in the foundations of Islam, for simple
minded persons, who are unable to reply or refute them, studying them is not
lawful.
But for those, who are capable to reason and reply against them in order to
prove them wrong and their perusal takes them towards truth, reading them is the
highest obedience. Between the Quran, which contains the best of stories and
lessons and books mentioned above, which contained beneficial sciences and
wisdoms about manufacture and arts useful to human society, there is no kind of contradiction
Although points mentioned in Quran are very much full of meaning,
profound and stable than those mentioned in those books. But lack of
understanding the depth of meaning of the Holy Quran, in spite of presence of all
sciences of the world in Quran impelled him to keep people keep away from
sciences and he lashed those, who study those books; although this is not having
any kind of justification from the view point of Quran, Sunnah and general law of
Islam.
God knows that as result of destroying this treasure of knowledge in
Alexandria and erasing the progressive culture and technology of the Iranians
what loss is caused to the Muslims!
And this unique wealth of human knowledge neither has any relation to
guidance or deviation in such a way as the Caliph thought regarding books of
Iranians and if Muslims had benefited from knowledge of these books they would
definitely not have come to any loss.
Yes, this hateful act became the cause of retreat of knowledge, poverty in
the world and defamed the Arabs and Muslim in the world. Among the critics
some regarded this to be wildness and some ignorance. We leave the evaluation
of this act to perfect reasoning and correct logic.
Moreover, the Caliph could have chosen from them books, which were
beneficial for human society and then destroyed books of deviation and
polytheism. However, regretfully, he did not do that and history has recorded the
events as you heard.