Libraries · a Light

Cordoba's caliph read the books before he shelved them

Al-Hakam II, who ruled Cordoba from 961 to 976, was a collector on a state scale. He sent agents to Baghdad, Cairo and Damascus with orders to buy or copy anything worth having, paid scribes in several cities to work for him, and according to the sources built a library whose catalogue alone ran to 44 volumes. The figure usually given for the collection is 400,000 volumes, which comes from later writers and may be generous, but no one disputes it was the largest in Europe. Marginal notes in his own hand survive in some manuscripts. After his death much of it was dispersed or burned during the civil wars that broke the caliphate apart.

Al-Hakam II · Cordoba, died 976 CE