Obituary: Mostafa el-Abbadi died on February 13th

“THE universe”, wrote Borges, “was called by some the library.” Mostafa El-Abbadi, foremost among Egyptian scholars of the Graeco-Roman world, was of the same opinion. His universe was the ancient Great Library of Alexandria, long since vanished, which had occupied his mind and heart since his student days.

As he told it, an elfin figure wreathed in smiles with the joy of it all, the original Bibliotheca Alexandrina had been inspired by the conquering expeditions of Alexander the Great, which had shown for the first time the diversity of mankind and the Earth; and had been funded by Ptolemy I, who wished it to contain “all the texts in the world that are worthy of study”. There had been half a million, maybe many more. Visitors to Alexandria were searched in case they had a book which was not in stock. Ptolemy III managed to acquire, by trickery, the originals of the plays of Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides. Mr Abbadi was sure the collection included books from Phoenecia, Buddhist texts from India, the Septuagint of the Hebrews and Mazdean writings from Persia.