The House of Wisdom: How Baghdad Became a Center of Learning
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No physical trace remains of this academy today, so we cannot be sure exactly where it was located or what it looked like. Some historians even argue against exaggerated claims about its scope and purpose and the role of Ma'mūn in setting it up. But whatever its function – and many of Baghdad's scholars may not have been based physically within it – there is no doubt that the House of Wisdom has acquired a mythical status symbolising this golden age, on a par with the Library of Alexandria, 1,000 years earlier.
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The institution he created to realise his dream epitomises more than anything else the blossoming of the scientific golden age. 1001 Inventions is an award-winning international science and cultural heritage organisation that raises awareness of the creative golden age of Arabic Science. The successful knowledge transfer and the creation of a centre of learning in Baghdad was echoed in many other cities across Muslim Civilisation. Other cities in the eastern provinces of the Muslim civilisation also established House of Science (Dar al-‘Ilm), or more accurately Houses of Knowledge, in the 9th and 10th centuries to emulate that of Baghdad. The legacy left by the scholars of the House of Wisdom and those who came after them in the golden age Muslim civilisation is huge.Unfortunately, thousands of the books that were collected and made in Baghdad were lost or destroyed in later centuries.
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Besides their translations of earlier works and their commentaries on them, scholars at the Bayt al-Ḥikma produced important original research. For example, the noted mathematician al-Khwarizmi worked in al-Maʾmun’s House of Wisdom and is famous for his contributions to the development of algebra. Institutionalized by al-Ma'mun, the academy encouraged the transcription of Greek philosophical and scientific efforts. Between May and September the average daily maximum temperature reaches the low 100s F (low 40s C), and the high may reach the low 120s F (high 40s C) at midday in July and August. Intense daytime heat is mitigated by low relative humidity (10 to 50 percent) and a temperature decline of 30 °F (17 °C) or more at night. In winter the average daytime temperature is in the mid-50s F (low 10s C), and the temperature occasionally drops below freezing.
Stagnation and invasions (10th–16th centuries)
The House of Wisdom is the subject of an active dispute over its functions and existence as a formal academy, an issue complicated by a lack of physical evidence following the collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate and a reliance on corroboration of literary sources to construct a narrative. The House of Wisdom came into being as a library, translation institute and academy of scholars from across the empire. Beginning as a project to protect knowledge, including philosophy, astronomy, science, mathematics and literature, it quickly became, and is still considered today, a symbol of the merging and expansion of intellectual traditions from across different cultures and nations. The library grew to become the flower of the Islamic Golden Age, a period between the 7th and 13th centuries of great intellectual growth and discovery in the Islamic world.
Eventually this compilation of different materials became so large that al-Ma’mun had to build an extension to the original building, turning it to a large academy which, then, came to be known as the House of Wisdom. It became one of the greatest centers of medieval wisdom and contributed greatly to the scientific movement which had started in the earlier centuries. Although scholarship and translation indeed flourished in 8th- and 9th-century Baghdad, and some of that activity took place in association with the library and its collection, there is little evidence that Bayt al-Hikmah was at the centre of any of these trends. The translation of Greek literature into Arabic—perhaps the most cited activity identified with Bayt al-Hikmah—took place elsewhere entirely, as did the work of Greco-Arabic translators such as Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq and Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Ṣabāḥ al-Kindī. Although it is unknown whether the miḥnah had any direct impact on Bayt al-Hikmah, mention of the library ends almost entirely after the death of al-Maʾmūn in 833.
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It was followed by another war from 2013 to 2017 and a low-level insurgency from 2017, which included suicide bombings in January 2018 and January 2021.[85] Priceless collection of artifacts in the National Museum of Iraq was looted by Iraqi citizens during the 2003 US-led invasion. Besides their translations of earlier works and their commentaries on them, scholars at the Bayt al-Hikma produced important original research. For example, the noted mathematician al-Khwarizmi worked in al-Ma’mun’s House of Wisdom and is famous for his contributions to the development of algebra. He was known as a mathematician and an astronomer in the House of Wisdom, and is also known for his book Kitab al-Jabr in which he develops a number of algorithms. The application of the word “algebra” to mathematics and the etymology of the word “algorithm” can be traced back to al-Khwarizmi — the actual concept of an algorithm dates back before the time of Euclid.
Having shown much potential, the brothers were enrolled in the library and translation center of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. They began translating ancient Greek into Arabic after quickly mastering the language, as well as paying large sums to obtain manuscripts from the Byzantine Empire for translation. Mohammad Musa might have been the first person in history to point to the universality of the laws of physics. In the 10th century, Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) performed several physical experiments, mainly in optics, achievements still celebrated today.
The original House of Wisdom was a shining center of knowledge, translation, and scholarship during the Golden Age of Islam. Tragically, during the 2003 war in Iraq, the Central Library in Baghdad, the House of Islamic Manuscripts (Dar Al-Makhtoutat Al-Islamiya) in Baghdad, and many other university and public libraries in Baghdad, Mosul and Basra were pillaged and burnt down. One must also mention that in some of the cities of the Eastern Provinces of the Islamic World, several “Houses of Science” (Dour Al-‘Ilm, singular Dar Al-‘Ilm), or more accurately “Houses of Knowledge”, were established in the 9th and 10th Centuries to emulate that of Dar Al-Hikma in Baghdad.
Tradition of Learning
Note that these works would later become standard textbooks of medicine during the Renaissance. With all other libraries in Baghdad, the House of Wisdom was destroyed by the army of Hulagu during the Siege of Baghdad. The books from Baghdad’s libraries were thrown into the Tigris River in such quantities that the river ran black with the ink from the books.
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Exactly 1,200 years after its foundation, I was born in Karradat Mariam, a Shia district of Baghdad with a large Christian community, a stone's throw away from today's Green Zone and a few miles south of the spot where one of Baghdad's most famous rulers was born in 786. Half Arab, half Persian, this enigmatic caliph was destined to become the greatest patron of science in the cavalcade of Islamic rulers, and the person responsible for initiating the world's most impressive period of scholarship and learning since Ancient Greece. Famous scholars from that period, such as the Banu Musa Brothers, Al-Khwarizmi and Al-Battani were attracted to the House of Wisdom where a variety of languages were spoken and written enabling the transfer of knowledge from foreign manuscripts in Persian, Syriac, Greek and other into Arabic. In Basra for example, the library held more than 15,000 books which included ancient works that were translated into Arabic.
Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥaq al-Kindī[40] was also another historical figure that worked at the House of Wisdom. Al-Kindī is the most famous for being the first person to introduce Aristotle's philosophy to the Arabic people. He fused Aristotle's philosophy with Islamic theology, which created an intellectual platform for philosophers and theologians to debate over 400 years. A fellow expert on Aristotle was Abū ʿUthmān al-Jāḥiẓ, who was born in Basra around 776 but he spent most of his life in Baghdad. Al-Ma’mun employed al-Jāḥiẓ as a personal tutor for his children, but he had to dismiss him because al-Jāḥiẓ was "Goggled-Eyed", i.e., he had wide, staring eyes which made him frightening to look at.
It became the seed from which sprouted all the subsequent achievements of this golden age of science, from Uzbekistan in the east to Spain in the west. But it is well established and uncontroversial that the much earlier academy in Alexandria was likewise more than just a library, for it not only brought together under one roof much of the world's accumulated knowledge, but acted as a magnet for many of the world's greatest thinkers and scholars. The patronage of the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, which provided travel, lodging and stipends to those men, is not so different from the government research grants that university academics worldwide receive today to carry out their research.
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