In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore how Central Asia's libraries and book culture survived the Mongol invasions and shaped the region's intellectual life. They follow the story of the Samanid library in Bukhara, where Avicenna read Aristotle, and the Khwarezmian capital of Gurganj, where the scholar al-Biruni worked before the Mongols destroyed it in 1221. They discuss the fate of the great library of Nishapur, the role of Persian and Arabic manuscripts in preserving Greek science, and the library built by Ulugh Beg, the astronomer-king of Samarkand, in the 15th century. Along the way, they consider a key controversy: how much of the ancient world's learning was lost when the Mongols sacked these cities? They examine the evidence, including the account of Ibn al-Athir, and the work of scholars like Ibn Sina and al-Khwarizmi. The episode ends with a reflection on how the destruction of libraries—then and now—affects our collective memory.
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