In 1090, a scholar named Hassan-i Sabbah pulled off one of the boldest moves in medieval history. He captured Alamut Castle — a fortress perched on a rock in the Alborz Mountains of northern Iran — without spilling a single drop of blood. Then he locked himself inside and barely left for the next thirty-four years. What did he do in there? He read. He collected. He built one of the greatest libraries the Islamic world had ever seen.
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Lost & Found·5/7·1′
The place
Alamut Castle
The Library That Burned for Seven Days
Four hundred thousand books, a fire that burned for seven days, and the knowledge lost forever
November-December 1256 CE (Mongol destruction of Alamut)Alamut Castle
Moral of the Story
“You can rebuild walls. You can restore kingdoms. But you can never un-burn a book. The greatest tragedy of Alamut isn't what was lost — it's that we'll never even know what was lost.”
Characters
N
Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (polymath who survived the destruction)H
Hulagu Khan (Mongol commander who ordered the destruction)A
Ata-Malik Juvayni (historian who burned the library)R
Rukn al-Din Khurshah (last lord of Alamut)H
Hassan-i Sabbah (founder who built the library)Source
Ata-Malik Juvayni, Tarikh-i Jahangushay (c.1260); Rashid al-Din Hamadani, Jami al-Tawarikh (c.1310); Farhad Daftary, The Isma'ilis: Their History and Doctrines (Cambridge, 2007); Peter Willey, Eagle's Nest: Ismaili Castles in Iran and Syria (I.B. Tauris, 2005); Encyclopaedia Iranica; Hamideh Chubak, Alamut archaeological reports (2004)