Note 239 — BOOK V.

Aboulfeda in his account justifies the Genoese for the massacre of the Mussulmans; the city being taken by assault, they did not exceed the usual rights of war. Another Arabian historian, Ebn-Abi-Tai, says that the Christians exhibited at the taking of Tripoli the same destructive fury as the Arabs had who burnt the library of Alexandria. The same historian speaks of the incredible number of three millions of volumes. We have preferred the version of Novaïry, who reduces the number of volumes to a hundred thousand. This author states that the library of Tripoli was founded by the cadi Aboutaleb Hasen, who had himself composed several works.