The Last Almohad Caliph: Al-Rashid's Lost Library

When the Almohad Caliph al-Rashid retreated from Marrakesh in 1248, he left behind more than a city — he left a library of over 400,000 manuscripts, one of the largest intellectual treasures of the medieval world. This episode follows the caliph's flight, the siege of Marrakesh by the Merinid Berbers, and the fate of that library: scattered, burned, and rediscovered in fragments. We trace the journey of a single manuscript, the Kitab al-Ilm, from the Almohad capital to the Escorial library in Madrid, and examine what the dispersal of al-Rashid's books meant for the transmission of Greek, Arabic, and Andalusian knowledge to Europe. Along the way, we meet the vizier Ibn al-Abbar, who risked his life to smuggle codices out of the city, and consider how the fall of one dynasty can become the birth of another's scholarship. #Almohads #Al-Rashid #Marrakesh #Merinids #Kitab al-Ilm #Escorial #Ibn al-Abbar #Medieval Libraries #Manuscripts #Arabic Knowledge #Andalusian Science #Intellectual History #History #FexingoHistory #Podcast #Medieval Maghreb #Book History #Islamic Golden Age Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo