Summary
Highlights
Dan Gibson claims that zealous Muslims, led by Caliph Omar, destroyed books, manuscripts, and libraries, including the Library of Alexandria, in the 7th century. He cites a letter from 640 A.D. and the Muslim writer Ibn al-Kifty as evidence.
The video highlights Dan Gibson's inconsistent historical methodology. He dismisses Bukhari's reliability because it was written 200 years after the events, yet he accepts Ibn al-Kifty's account, which was written more than 500 years after the alleged event, without any chain of transmission (Isnād).
The Britannica Encyclopedia, in an article titled 'The Fate of the Library of Alexandria', states that for over five centuries after the Arab conquest in 642 A.D., there was no mention of the burning of the library. It describes the story, which appeared in the 13th century, as a 12th-century fabrication.
Bernard Lewis, an American-British historian and critic of Islam, published a paper titled 'The Arab Destruction of the Library of Alexandria: Anatomy of a Myth'. Lewis states that modern research has shown the story to be completely unfounded, with no mention in early chronicles until the 13th century. He calls it a historical myth that has been rejected as false and absurd by European scholarship from the 18th century onwards.
The video concludes that there is a consensus among historians that the story of Muslims destroying the Library of Alexandria is a fabrication. It asserts that Dan Gibson, by presenting this as a historical fact, demonstrates himself to be a terrible historian, flying in the face of established historical facts.