One of the most popular claims made to show the level of wanton destruction of Baghdad after the Mongol siege in 1258 is that when the Mongols besieged the city, they sacked its libraries and destroyed books on science, philosophy, religion, and other subjects by throwing them into the Tigris river, such that it began to flow black with ink. Most often, the claim is quoted in attempts to frame the Mongol invasions as the cause of intellectual decline and the end of the “golden age” of Islamic civilization. This story, however, is an extreme exaggeration, not being attested to in any of the primary sources.

The story seems to have originated sometime in the early 15th century, becoming popular as later historians began to repeat it, possibly as Mamluk anti-Mongol propaganda. However, the early sources that we do have, from the 14th century, paint a rather different picture – one of many of the books in the libraries of Baghdad being saved and protected at the hands of the Shī’ī philosopher Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 1274). Unfortunately, this is not well known in popular contemporary histories, and stories of Mongol excesses, their barbarity, and their lack of enthusiasm for knowledge and science pervade.

Though I have not been able to pinpoint when the claim that the Mongols threw the books of the libraries of Baghdad into the Tigris became popular in western narratives on the Siege of Baghdad (1258), the earliest mention of the books being destroyed that I have found is in E.G. Browne’s A Literary History of Persia (1906). He describes the sacking of Baghdad, and when commenting on the level of destruction, says, “thousands of priceless books [were] utterly annihilated”. He does not, however, go into further detail.[1]

In more recent works, such as History of the Libraries of the Western World (1976) have an explicit reference to the incident, “So many books were thrown into the Tigris River, according to one writer, that they formed a bridge that would support a man on horseback.”[2] This is repeated in Lost Libraries (2004), where the unknown “one writer” from History of the Libraries of the Western World turned into a “contemporary eyewitness” that “reported that so many books were thrown into the Tigris that ‘they formed a bridge that would support men on horseback’.”[3] In popular contemporary books on Islamic history, such as Lost Islamic History (2014), the claim is repeated again. In a particularly disappointing chapter due to a sweeping overview and gross mischaracterisation, it is claimed that Baghdad’s House of Wisdom was razed and “Its books were dumped into the Tigris River, the ink from hundreds of years of scholarship turning the river black.”[4]

The Origin of the Claim

As for the source of this claim, the earliest explicit reference to books being thrown into the Tigris that I have found is Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406) in his Tarīkh, over 130 years after the siege of Baghdad. He writes:

“The books of knowledge in their libraries were thrown into the Tigris, in return for – according to them – what the Muslims did with the books of the Persians when they conquered their cities.”[5]

Whether the Muslim armies actually did destroy Persian libraries is of little importance. The problem with this is that as well as it being a very late source, there is no evidence the Mongols had interest in “taking revenge” on behalf of the Persians. As for other references, it seems that after Ibn Khaldun, sometime in the late 14th and early 15th century, the claim that the books were thrown into the river became widespread, and was repeated by a number of authors such as Ibn Taghrī Birdī (d. 1470),[6] and al-‘Iṣāmī (d. 1699).[7] al-Qalqashandī (d. 1418), mentions the destruction of the library, but says nothing about the books being thrown into the river.[8]

We can add to these later 14th and 15th century accounts the work attributed to famous Baghadadi historian Ibn al-Sā’ī (d. 1276), Mukhtaṣar Akhbār al-Khulafā’. The attribution of this work to Ibn al-Sā’ī is clearly a mistake.[9] The book ends after a short reference to dynasties that arose in the mid-14th century with the disintegration of the Ilkhanate after the death of Abū Sa’īd in 1335, well after the death of Ibn al-Sā’ī. It also contains an account of Hülegü’s conversion to Islam, which Ibn al-Sā’ī, who was appointed as the librarian of al-Mustanṣirriyah college under the Ilkhanids until 1273, would have known was false. As such, we can conclude that text was written at the earliest in the mid-14th century, if not later. Unlike the aforementioned historians, the anonymous author of this book does not mention books being thrown into the Tigris, but rather that, “It is said that the Mongols built horse-stables and troughs with the books of scholars, in place of bricks.”[10] The expression of doubt by saying, “it is said” makes the authorship of this passage by al-Sā’ī even more suspect. He was the librarian of the Niẓāmiyyah during al-Mu’taṣim’s reign and al-Mustanṣirriyah under the Ilkhanids, so he would have surely known of the fate of Baghdad’s books. As a result, this book cannot be taken as a contemporaneous account of what happened to the books.

What Actually Happened to The Books?

In trying to ascertain what happened to the books, it is important to note that some of the most important primary sources on Ilkhanate that describe the siege of Baghdad do not mention the books as all, such as Rashīd al-Dīn al-Hamadhānī (d. 1318), Bar Hebraeus (d. 1286) and the anonymous author of al-Ḥawādith al-Jāmi’a. These writers were scholars and men of knowledge in their own right, so they would have been concerned about the fate of the books, especially if they had actually been destroyed entirely. The fact that they do not mention them, however, is an indication that they were not destroyed, or at least that the claim is exaggerated.

There are, though, some early sources that do let us know what happened to the books – they were most likely preserved or moved to other libraries by Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 1274). The main libraries of Baghdad were still in use in the first half of the 14th century, Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī (d. 1349) describes the Niẓāmiyyah college as “the greatest of them all”, and al-Mustanṣiriyyah as “the most beautiful building in Baghdad.”, indicating too that the books and buildings were not entirely destroyed.[11]

There are also some primary sources that do give a clear indication of what happened. Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328), with all his animosity for the Mongols and the Shī’ā writes:

“When the Mongols captured Baghdad, al-Ṭūsī was an astrologer for Hülegü. He (al-Ṭūsī) took possession of the people’s books, the endowments, and land. And so, he destroyed the books of Islam, such as tafsīr (Qur’an exegesis), ḥadīth (Prophetic narrations), fiqh (jurisprudence), and raqā’iq (heart softeners) but took the books of medicine, astronomy, philosophy, and Arabic, for they were the great books in his estimation.”[12]

Ibn Taymiyyah is the first among the sources to mention that al-Ṭūsī took possession of the books, but here both sides are represented – some books were destroyed and some preserved. Whether al-Ṭūsī actually did destroy “the books of Islam” is open to question, this could be an exaggeration on Ibn Taymiyyah’s part to suit his polemic attack on philosophy and philosophers, and the Shi’a. Other historians do not mention al-Ṭūsī destroying any books. Among some 14th century historians, it appears that al-Ṭūsī moving the books to Marāgheh was well known. al-Ṣafadī (d. 1363) writes:

“Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī built a magnificent dome and observatory in Marāgheh, and he made in it a large, expansive library and filled it with books that were taken from Baghdad, Syria, and Upper Mesopotamia until there were over 400,000 volumes gathered there.”[13]

The same wording from al-Ṣafadī is repeated by al-Kutbī (d. 1363), who used al-Ṣafadī’s biographical dictionary as a source.[14] Ibn Kathīr (d. 1373), a student of Ibn Taymiyyah, also mentions al-Ṭūsī moving the books and endowments to Marāgheh, as well as describing the pay for the scholars and philosophers working in his observatory.[15] In the first half of the 15th century, at the same time the claim the books were thrown into the Tigris was circulating, al-Maqrīzī (d. 1442) also describes Hülegü building the observatory for al-Ṭūsī and the transfer of the books to it.[16]

al-Ṭūsī being given permission to transfer the books to Marāgheh also has a precedent in the Mongol conquests. Another example of a library being saved and its books transferred after a conquest is recorded by Atā’ Malik Juwaynī (d. 1283). After Hülegü besieged the Ismā’īlī castle in Alamut, Juwaynī writes that he suggested that “the valuable books ought not to be destroyed”, to which Hülegü agreed. Juwaynī says:

I went to examine the library, from which I extracted whatever I found in the way of copies of the Koran and [other] choice books after the manner of ‘He brought forth the living from the dead’. I likewise picked out the astronomical instruments such as kursīs armillary spheres, complete and partial astrolabes and other … that were there. As for the remaining books, which related to their heresy and error and were neither founded on tradition nor supported by reason, I burnt them all.[17]

There is no reason to doubt that the siege of Baghdad was similar – Juwaynī, appointed the governor of Baghdad after the siege, may have also been involved in preserving the books. If Juwaynī did have a hand in it, Ibn Taymiyyah’s claim that the “books of Islam” were destroyed is further cast into doubt. Juwaynī was a devout Sunni Muslim who would have objected to books of the same type that he had saved in Alamut being destroyed in Baghdad. The only books that Juwaynī says be burnt in Alamut were those that related specifically to Ismā’īlī theology and history.[18]

Conclusion

It should be clear now, that the claims of the books being thrown into the Tigris river were from later authors sometime in the 15th century. This claim is not reflected in earlier and more reliable sources, that either say nothing about the books or mention most of them being taken by al-Ṭūsī to the Marāgheh observatory, with a fraction of them being destroyed, and perhaps some even thrown into the river. It is also hoped that this short article also corrects some perceptions of the Mongols and their conquests. There is much to research and learn about the history of Mongol rule in Iran and its effects in the region. Rather than being a period of decline, and beyond the destruction wrought in the initial conquests, the establishment of the Ilkhanate led to a period of rich cross-cultural transmission, a flourishing of the arts, and further opened up trade routes between the Far East and the Muslim world.



[1] Edward G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia: From Firdawsī to Sa’dī (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1906), p. 463.

[2] Elmer D. Johnson and Michael H. Harris, History of the Libraries of the Western World, 3rd ed. (New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1976), p. 91.

[3] James Raven, ‘Introduction: The Resonances of Loss’, in Lost Libraries: The Destruction of Great Book Collections since Antiquity, ed. James Raven (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 11.

[4] Firas Alkhateeb, Lost Islamic History: Reclaiming Muslim Civilisation from the Past (UK: C. Hurst & Co., 2014), p. 108.

[5] Ibn Khaldūn, Tārīkh Ibn Khaldūn, ed. Khalīl Shaḥḥadāh (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 2000), p. 5:613.

[6] Ibn Taghrī Birdī, al-Nujūm al-Zāhirah fī Mulūk Miṣr wa ’l-Qāhirah (Egypt: Wizarāh al-Thaqāfah, 1963), p. 7:51.

[7] al-’Iṣāmī, Simṭ al-Nūjūm al-Awālī, (Beirut: Dār a-Kutub al-’Ilmiyyah, 1998), p. 3:519.

[8] al-Qalqashandī, al-Ṣubḥ al-A’shā’ (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyyah, 1922), p. 1:466.

[9] F. Rosenthal, ‘Ibn Al-Sāʿī’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition; Michal Biran, ‘The Islamisation of Hülegü: Imaginary Conversion in the Ilkhanate’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 26, no. 1–2 (January 2016), p. 82.

[10] Anonymous, Mukhtaṣar Akhbār al-Khulafā’ (Cairo, 1891), p. 127.

[11] Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī, The Geographical Part of the Nuzhat Al-Qulūb Composed by Hamd Allah Mustawfi of Qazwin in 740 (1340), trans. Guy Le Strange (Leiden: Brill, 1915), p. 42.

[12] Ibn Taymiyyah, Majmū’ al-Fatāwa (Dār al-Wafā’, 2005), p. 13:111.

[13] Khạlīl b. Aybak al-̣Safadī, Kitāb al-Wāfī bi’l-Wafayāt (Beirut: Dār Ihyā’ al-Turāth al-Islāmī, 2000), p. 1:147, #114.

[14] al-Kutbī, Fawāt al-Wafāyāt (Beirut: Dār al-Ṣādir, 1973), p. 3:247, #414.

[15] Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāyah wa ‘l-Hidāyah (Damascus: Dār Ibn Kathīr, 2010), pp. 15:341-2.

[16] al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk li Ma’rifah Duwal al-Mulūk (Beirut: Dār a-Kutub al-’Ilmiyyah, 1997), p. 1:510.

[17] ‘Atā Malik al-Juwaynī, Tārīkh-i Jahān-Gushā [Genghis Khan: The History of the World Conqueror], trans. J. A. Boyle (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), p. 719.

[18] al-Juwaynī, Tārīkh-i Jahān-Gushā, p. 666.