The fire that consumed Ibn al-Mulaqqin's library, about 803/1400

احتراق مكتبة ابن الملقن وكتبه، نحو ٨٠٣هـ

c. 1400 CE · c. 803 AH

Cairo

Ibn al-Mulaqqin's works approached three hundred titles, and he was a great collector of books; then, shortly before his death, most of them burned — among them his Sharh of al-Bukhari in twenty volumes and his Sharhs of the zawa'id of Muslim, Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi, al-Nasa'i and Ibn Majah, which were never found after him, along with a very great number of endowed and private precious volumes. Ibn Hajar addressed him after the burning in verse: 'Be not grieved, Siraj al-Din, that the tongues of fire have played with your books — you offered them to God, who accepted them, and fire is quick to an offering' ^{1 2}.