The 11th Century Muslim World had the Best Libraries
Summary
- The golden age of the muslim world was in 8th - 13th centuries
Details
- This was shown by their library capacities: one school in Baghdad had 140,000 books. In cairo, one mosque library had 200,000 books, and by the 12th century a royal library in Cairo had 1.6 million books
- They were also interested in assimilating the knowlege of various cultures
- The University of Al Karaouine, Morocco, founded in 859 AD, is possibly the first university in teh world.
References
Quotes
A paper mill went up in Baghdad in 795. Within several hundred years, a preeminent theological school in the city had amassed a collection of some 140,000 books. Nothing in Europe could come close to that achievement. Meanwhile, in eleventh-century Cairo, one mosque library boasted a collection of 200,000 books, and just a century later a royal library in the same city housed eight times that number in a massive structure consisting of some forty rooms—1.6 million books. Nor was it just a few locales. Libraries worth bragging about were popping up all over Muslim-held territory, supported by heavy investment and endless reams of paper; to show just how deep the connection goes, we get the word ream from the Arabic word for bundle: rizmah.
Related
- Libraries will get you through times of no money - Ann Herbert
- A little learning is a dangerous thing - Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring - There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again - Alexander pope
- The Adventures of Ibn Battuta A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century - Ross E. Dunn and ibn battuta