Borrowed Light
Al-Ma'mun, the Brother He Buried, and the House of Wisdom Built to Redeem a CaliphateBy Narin Hikma
Length9h 15m
About this audiobook
A caliph killed his brother. Then he spent twenty years buying books.
You know the feeling of carrying something you cannot fix, working because you must—knowing the building is not an apology, but building anyway.
In 813, Abdallah al-Ma'mun was handed his brother's severed head. He never spoke of it again. Instead, he sent men to buy Greek manuscripts, paid translators like generals, and funded the math that gave us the algorithm.
Borrowed Light is the narrative biography of the man who paid for the translation movement that carried ancient science into Arabic and Europe. It tells his story in full: from palace rivalries to the rationalist who tried to enforce certainty.
• Stand inside the siege of the richest city on earth
• Recognize the loneliness of building something good out of a debt you can never repay
This is for anyone carrying a weight they cannot put down, wondering if the work still counts.
He only got to keep the lamp lit.
Audiobook details
GenreBiography and Memoir, Spirituality and Religion
Length9 hrs 15 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateAug 15, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Epigraph
1311. Riding Back to a City He Broke
2Prologue
1412. The House Before the House
31. A Persian Mother's Son
1513. Sending for the World
42. The Boy Who Loved Words
1614. Hunayn's Hands
53. Harun's Bargain
1715. Al-Khwarizmi's Numbers
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64. Two Brothers, One Throne
1816. The Wedding at Wasit
75. The Death of Harun
1917. The Inquisition
86. The War Between Brothers
2018. The Weight of Being Right
97. The Siege
2119. The Second River
108. The Boat
2220. What Outlives a Caliph
119. A Caliph Who Could Not Go Home
23Epilogue
1210. The Dream
2421. Author's Note
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